XSUB 808 Virtual Instrument VST Plugin Download XSUB 808 Virtual Instrument VST Plugin Virtual 808 Bass Module 36 POWERFUL 808 TUNED BASSES On-Board ADSR Controls Built-in Reverb Effect Modern Easy To Use Interface Windows & MAC OS Digital Download (133MB). 808 Sub VST Plugin Download – XSUB 808 EDITION 808 Sub VST Plugin Download - XSUB 808 EDITION This is a very powerful 808 sub-bass sounds for hip-hop/trap music producers. Get the powerful 808 bass. Top 28 Analog Synth VST Plugins.
Over a period of three decades, the 808 has become an important sound for hip hop, trap, and other electronic music genres. Not many sounds in modern-day music have had quite an impact like the 808.
With the birth of the internet, plugin manufacturers and sample creators have flooded the market with their products, making it difficult to find the perfect 808.
If you’ve been searching (and who hasn’t?) then look no further. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best 808 plugins available right now.
Let’s check them out.
Top 808 VST’s
1. Future Audio Workshop SubLab
We find that it’s much easier to use plugins when they have a single purpose, making it simpler for music creators to…create! That’s why we think that the SubLab from Future Audio Workshop is great. It lets you make just about any sub tone you can think of for almost any genre, but more specifically trap and hip hop.
Sublab is more or less a hybrid VST, consisting of both an analog synth and an X-sub synth layer, which can be routed to a kick drum fairly easily. The easy-to-use (and attractive) interface provides great feedback from the spectrogram and oscillator waveform. You can blend together, three different layers in the “mixing” section.
The plugin gives every musical “genius” the ability to play with multiple layers (synth and sample) to create massive sub tones without destroying the bottom end of your mix. If that isn’t enough, you can always add in some dirt with the compression and saturation modules.
Let’s be honest, no plugin is perfect, and SubLab is no exception. There are only 69 presets included, which might be limiting for some producers. On the flip side, it’s not too difficult to build new tones from scratch, making it beginner-friendly.
Pros
Generate sub tones without sacrificing the bottom end
The compression and saturation are very high quality
Three layers to play around with
Cons
sampler section has no visual feedback
Not velocity-sensitive
2. Niche Audio Planet 808
If you ever surf the web for samples, you’ve probably seen about a million different 808 kits out there. While that’s all good for modern music producers, many of the kits lack the necessary processing for when they are used in the context of full-on productions.
Niche Audio Plant 808 combats this by providing a number of different vibe-driven 808 kits for just about any music genre. Each of these 808 kits has been sampled, edited, and processed with care. While there are additional patches for a number of soft samplers, the Niche Audio Planet 808 is best used in Ableton Live or Maschine 2.
There are thirteen standard kits and two special kits included, as well as an array of low-end subs and percussion to add a bit of flair to the kits. Every kit has starter patterns to help get some ideas down right off the bat. Each one also comes with different pitches so that you can fit the samples with your music in any key.
Overall, this 808 VST is known for its authenticity. It is meticulously sculpted for Ableton Live and Maschine to make it a viable 808 asset for any kind of modern music producer.
Pros
Versatile pack of 808s
Meticulously sampled, edited, and organized
Comes set up for Ableton Live and Maschine
Cons
You lose many ease of use features in other DAWs
3. Wave Alchemy Revolution
Wave Alchemy says that their Revolution plugin is one of the most accurate virtual drum machine plugins available right now. Included in the VST are a number of classic machines like the OB-DX, 908, 606, 78, etc. but the 808s are what stands out.
In order to capture the original tone of each analog drum machine and every little nuance, Wave Alchemy injected thousands upon thousands of samples into the sound engine of the Revolution. The end result is the subtle differences that make analog so unique.
Each sound was captured through a balanced Radial JDI and a NEVE 1073 preamp, which resulted in sounds with a full frequency range response – think warm, punchy and dynamic! Another thing to note here is that each sound was also peak matched to help in the auditioning process.
A really cool feature is that you can load the different drum sounds into the 14 drum voice modules, effectively giving you a frankenstein kit of sorts. Use an 808 kick, a 909 hat, and an OB-DX snare. Get creative!
Pros
A lot of high quality samples to play around with
Comes with FX like reverb and saturation
The interface is nice to look at ?
Xsub Vst
Cons
Not as beginner-friendly as some of the other options
4. DopeSONIX Bass Engine 1
If you make hip hop beats and you’re looking for a HUGE all-around bass plugin, the Bas Engine 1 might be what you’ve been missing. DopeSONIX went to the trouble of studying the last 30 years of hip hop to get a good representation of every bass sound through each era. You’ll get everything from a classic 808 to a vinyl-style upright bass.
The plugin comes arranged with the sounds in order from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. In the 90’s collection, you can expect to see samples from machines like the MPC 60 MKII and SP-1200. Those were the days when bass lines were sampled from soul, jazz, and funk records.
By the time we hit the 2000’s, producers started getting their hands on hardware bass synths for more powerful bass tones. Some of the more popular samplers included the MPC 3000 and the ASR-10. Included in the Bass Engine 1 are 100 presets to give you those deep, dirty Y2K bass sounds.
Finally, you’ll get a collection of 808 and sub-bass sounds that we’re all taylored to modern trap, hip-hop, EDM, and dubstep. This is an absolutely impressive collection of hip-hop bass sounds combined with MIDI basslines, ADSR controls, and low CPU to boot.
Pros
Quality bass sounds organized through the decades
Interface is intuitive and easy to use
Very low CPU usage!
Cons
Not as many 808s as we were hoping (only 20)
5. Synsonic Instruments Synsonic BD-808
If you hate sifting through tons of different 808 sounds to find the right one, then the Synsonic BD-808 might be right for you – simplicity at its best! The BD-808 is incredibly useful for creating dope 808 bass lines with very little effort.
Unlike other plugins on our list, the BD-808 doesn’t use any 808 samples, instead it relies on detailed analysis of the old school bass drum circuits. Furthermore, it makes use of a MIDI control, allowing you to operate the plugin like a bass synthesizer, something you can’t do with an 808 sample.
Included are a few parameters to tweak your sounds to perfection.
Accent – emphasizes the attack
Tone – which controls the amount of click on the tone
Plus a few other standard controls, such as Level and Decay.
Besides those controls, there are some other sound manipulation possibilities, such as halftone tuning, fine tuning, extended decay, and MIDISync.
By our analysis, we feel like the DB-808 is one of the simplest 808 VST plugins around for anyone looking for quality 808 sounds. Also, the ultra low price means you won’t burn a hole in your wallet.
Pros
Ultra low cost
Simple to Operate
Additional controls for shaping your sound
Cons
Not as versatile as others on the list
Some users have commented that it can be a bit buggy
6. DopeSONIX Beat Machine 2
The Beat Machine 2 by DopeSONIX is an upgrade from the DopeSONIX Beat Machine 1 on our list, though this one is more of a drum machine than a bass synthesizer. It was designed for producers who need a wide variety of hip-hop drums for different production styles from different eras.
There are 600 different kits onboard that have been EQ’ed and mixed ahead of time so that they can be used in your productions right off the bat. The days of spending hours on end looking for the right kit pieces are long gone.
The cool thing about the DopeSONIX Beat Machine 2 is that these kits were arranged by era. The first 100 presets bring you the dusty, chopped kit pieces from 90s hip-hop. The second 100 presets are from the 2000s, giving you the new Boombap sounds of producers such as Havoc and Alchemist alongside the 808 driven styles of Lil Jon, the clean-cut sounds of Timbaland, and the new wave West Coast sounds of Dr. Dre. Lastly, you get the 808 and 909 inspired sounds from hood trap producers such as DJ Mustard and Lex Luger.
There are 600 high-quality drum kits, 1200+ samples, 300 stereo kits, 300 multi-out kits, and 50 drum patterns, all wrapped up in a flexible and low CPU plugin.
Pros
Hundreds of incredible drum kits
Sounds arranged by era
Low CPU usage
Cons
The sheer number of kit pieces can be overwhelming
7. D16 Group Nepheton
D16 Group is famous for their digital emulations of well-known, classic synths and drum machines. The Nepheton is a recreation of the famous 808 drum machine. Every sound that comes out of the unit is perfectly captured enabling you to import the original 808 sounds straight into your DAW.
The Nepheton uses hybrid sequencing, which should please both modern producers as well as the serious drum machine enthusiasts. Built in is a randomize feature allowing you to quickly dial-in some unique rhythms when the original 808 patterns start to get dull.
If you’re after a pure 808 emulation, the D16 Nepheton may be the best choice on our list.
Pros
Classic 808 emulation
Hybrid sequencing
Randomizer feature for interesting patterns
Cons
Modern producers may feel limited
8. Wave Alchemy Transistor Revolution MKII
For producers using Kontakt, the Transistor Revolution MKII is a perfect match. This plugin is a digital recreation of the iconic TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines from the 1980’s. Though this plugin has been around for quite some time, it has undergone some reason updates including a full re-script. Expect intuitive workflow and a beautiful interface.
The plugin comes equipped with a 16-track step sequencer, a 10-track mixer for individual drum processing, unified 808 and 909 instruments, reverb and delay defends, tape saturation, and volume and pan controls.
Thanks to the advanced sampling technology available in Kontakt, you can expect some 22,000 samples in this plugin for thick and fat sounds!
Carefully recorded with a Radial JDI and NEVE 1073 preamp, you can expect analog warmth and dynamics – top-notch analog sound at a relatively low price.
Pros
Premium quality analog sounds
Intuitive UI
Cons
CPU hog!
Get Down With the 808
If your goal is to create chest-thumping trap, hip-hop or EDM, you need to get your hands on some quality 808s.
Instead of sifting through thousands of samples trying to create a good drum kit, why not pick up one of the best 808 VST’s on our list and get back to what you love doing – making music?
Although we have all the tools we need to produce extremely clean and precise music without any unwanted artefacts there’s something about the imperfections of analog recording equipment that triggers certain emotions in us.
So if you want to produce lofi music it’s important to pick the right sounds and samples from the start. You could, for example, sample old vinyl records or buy an old drum machine. It would however be easier to just get your hands on a decent LoFi House or Hip Hop sample pack.
Once you have a selection of cool sounds & samples you can further refine your music to sound like it was recorded a few decades ago. Luckily there are plenty of cool lofi plugins available so you don’t have to actually own an old tape machine. Here are some of the best options:
Free LoFi Plugins
I want to start this list with a bunch of free lofi VSTs, because I know that a lot of producers are one a budget, especially when they’re still going to school (or music is their only income lol). That said, you don’t always have to spend money to get some quality software. The freeware in this list can easily compete with some of the paid stuff I’ll mention later on.
BVKER LoFi Rack
The “LoFi Rack” is a free Ableton Rack based on Live’s stock plugins. It comes with 8 macros allowing you to decrease the band width, add vinyl crackles, detune and distort the source sound. Unfortunately it’s only available for Ableton Live users, so if you’re using another DAW you have to pick some of the other options in this list. If you’re using Ableton however, hop on my newsletter and I’ll send you a free download link.
iZotope Vinyl
As the name suggests, iZotope’s “Vinyl” is a plugin emulating the characteristic imperfections of vinyl records. Since the freeware only comes with a handful of parameters it’s easy to use and setting it up won’t take much time. What I love the most is that you can adjust the year of your “recording”. A must have for every lofi producer if you ask me.
Spitfire Audio Labs
Labs is a free software instrument made by the London based sound design company Spitfire Audio. There are several extensions available, including pianos, brass, choirs and synths. Most of these instruments are rather unique and therefore a nice addition to the basic instruments libraries you probably already own. The cool part about Labs is that it comes with only a handful of parameters so you won’t spend 10 years trying to get everything perfect. The sound either fits your production or not.
Tritik Krush
Tritik’s Krush is an effect plugin with 3 different distortion types. A bitcrusher , a downsampler and an analog drive knob. It further comes with 2 filters and an LFO that can be used to modulate every parameter. It’s available for both Windows and Mac in VST, AU and AAX format so really everyone can get their hands on this.
HY-Lofi2
This one is a free bit quantizer, waveshaper & filter plugin made by Tadashi Suginomori from HY-Plugins. It’s meant to process “audio to give it a low fidelity sound”. Just like Krush it combines different distortion modes with high and low-pass filters. More precisely it has one drive knob and a quantizer, which can run in different modes and qualities.
Legowelt Ableton Racks
Legowelt is a dutch producer known for releasing samples from analog hardware units, but you’ll also find some Ableton Racks on his website, including the Smackos Tape Station, the Smackos Lemuria Vintage Sampler Simulator, the Smackos 808 Simulator and the Smackos Amiga 909.
Sound-Base Audio Retro Boy
The Retro Boy is a Windows only VST synth. It comes with one oscillator, 7 waveforms and controls for ADSR, vibrato and decimation, which makes it perfect for Chiptune or 8-bit music. Since there isn’t much processing going on, the synth is quite CPU-friendly.
Best LoFi Plugins
Although you can definitely do some cool stuff with the freeware I mentioned so far there are some paid options no lofi producer should miss out on. A lot of them do more or less the same thing so in the end it’s up to personal preference (and budget), which ones you should get. Luckily most of these plugins aren’t that expensive compared to some of the stuff by other brands.
XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color
Probably the most hyped plugin of this list is the R-c20 Retro Color by XLN Audio. It combines 6 different effect units, including noise, wobble, distort, digital, space and magnetic. Combining these options basically allows you to recreate any lofi characteristic you could possibly think of. If I could only pick one plugin of this list I’d probably go for this one, since it comes with the most features.
Baby Audio Super VHS
Considering that Baby Audio is a rather new plugin company, their products already gained quite much attention. Super VHS again combines multiple effects, including a distortion unit, a retro sounding VST reverb and detune knob labeled “drift”. All knobs sound surprisingly good and I really dig the design.
D16 Group Decimort 2
Decimort 2 is a bitcrusher on steroids. It offers two optional anti-alias filters, adjustable jitter, two quantization methods and controllable dithering. If you’re looking for a cool bitcrusher, this is definitely the one you should get your hands on. With less than 50 bucks it’s also pretty affordable.
AudioThing Vinyl Strip
The Vinyl Strip is just like RC-20 a multi-effect plugin consisting of 6 different modules: Distortion, Compressor, Bit Crusher, Tilt EQ, Vintage Reverb, and something they call Vinylizer. In contrast to most plugins mentioned in this list, you can change the signal flow simply via drag-n-drop. On their website is stated that you can activate your license without an internet connection, which is pretty cool if you still live in a cave ?
Devious Machines Texture
Texture is a plugin I just recently found out about watching Virtual Riot’s production workshop he did for Cymatics. It allows you to add noise to any kind of source sound. The cool part is that unlike similar effects you can even load your own noise samples and can adjust the exact frequency range, amount, ADSR and stuff like that.
Cableguys ShaperBox
When it comes to beat making, there’s one plugin every FL Studio user slaps on their melodies: Gross Beat (you’ll find plenty of memes about this). The problem is that it can’t be used in other DAWs (at least on Mac). This is where the Cableguys come into play. Their ShaperBox combines different effects that can all be modulated. The Time one is especially interesting for lofi producers, because it allows you to play back your melodies in halftime, add cool pitching effects and mix everything in with the dry signal.
Initial Audio Analog Pro
Analog Pro is once again a plugin meant to bring your digital audio tracks to live by simulating analog hardware. It comes with a variety of adjustable controls, including Noise Level, Noise Type, Impulse Type, Impulse Mix, Emphasis, Stereo, Lowcut, Highcut, Wow, Flutter and Amount. While I’m writing this the plugin is on sale for €26.10 (which is 64% off) so feel free to check out if this offer is still available.
Aberrant DSP SketchCassette
SketchCassette is a VST inspired by 4-track cassette recorders. It comes with most features the other plugins in this list have. Since it’s however available for only $20 it’s particularly interesting for producers on a tight budget.
Goodhertz Wow Control
Wow Control focuses on the weird and random modulations of analog playback devices. According to their website Goodhertz has carefully studied the essence of three different tape machines to make sure their plugin is the most comprehensive tape model they ever heard. I haven’t tried it out to be honest, but there are some videos about it on YouTube so feel free to check them out if you’d like to learn more about it.
PSPaudioware VintageWarmer2
Xsub 808 Virtual Instrument Vst Plugins
The PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool simulating the saturation of analog compression / limiting. It comes with classic compression controls, such as knee or release time, and since it can run in multiband mode you can further control the individual bands a bit. In contrast to most usual compressors it comes with a big drive knob. Since it also comes with a mix knob you can drive the compression / saturation quite hard and mix it in just a bit to make your drums or vocals or whatever a bit fatter.
Wavesfactory Cassette
According to Wavesfactory’s website “Cassette is an audio plugin that imparts the unique character and sonic imprint of an often maligned recording medium”. You can also get your hands on their free Cassette Transport plugin, which “simulates the sound of tape speeding up and slowing down”. Or with other words: it’s a pretty cool tape stop plugin.
Psychic Modulation EchoMelt
Echomelt is “designed for adding character, texture and warmth to your sounds”. It doesn’t look that stunning, but it comes with an echo and chorus unit, which sets it apart from the other options in this list.
Aphex Vintage Exciter
The Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter by Waves is modeled on a tube-powered hardware unit. It allows you to increase high frequencies without raising the level too much.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are plenty of lofi plugins available that make your productions sound like they were recorded with a toaster (or something like that). The free offers, especially Vinyl and Labs are no brainers, since .. well, they’re free, so make sure to download them straight away if you haven’t done so yet ?