The music software market is now littered with sampler plug-ins, but most come at a price. Not so Vember Audio's Shortcircuit (v1.1.2), which, having previously retailed for $135, can now be downloaded for free.
Shortcircuit differs from many of its contemporaries in that the focus is not on the playback of a library of bundled sounds, but on sound design. The import and editing of samples is said to be "fast and logical", while excellent sound quality is also promised.
Each instance of Shortcircuit has 16 outputs and can play back up to 256 voices. Each voice has two filter slots (an extensive range of filter algorithms is included), three step LFOs and two AHDSR envelopes. Group effects (up to two per group) can also be applied.
Shortcircuit can import files in a variety of formats including WAV, AKAI S5000/S6000/Z4/Z8, NI Battery, SoundFont 2.0 and ReCycle! 1 and 2.
You can download Shortcircuit v1.1.2 here - it runs on Windows under VST hosts. A beta version of Shortcircuit2 (which is currently in development) can also be downloaded for free.
