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REVEALED: Cherry audio | Vintage Vibes

The best plugins for re-creating the grit and punch of classic analog drum machines

If you love the sound of an analog drum machine, but don’t want to splash-out on vintage hardware, here’s our pick of the best vintage machines, in hardware and software form

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Cherry Audio emulates the Ensoniq ESQ-1 for its 40th birthday, “faithfully reproducing the complex, evolving, and richly textured sounds that defined the hardware”

The officially licensed plugin ups the polyphony, enhances the sequencer and adds a comprehensive effects section

MusicRadar

I’m so obsessed with Olivia Rodrigo’s Drop Dead trance bass sound that I remade it in my DAW

We create our own transient-heavy synth bass with leanings towards the trance-heavy sounds of the 90s. ‘Drop Dead’ you exclaim? No way! We were Born Slippy!

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Synth Week 2026: Exhibitor A-Z

Fantastic new releases and stories from our partners

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“This is the kind of forgotten, half-mythical synth you discover by accident on a forum thread”: Cherry Audio unearths an obscure ‘70s Italian gem with the DS-2

Following last year’s take on the cult classic Crumar Spirit, Cherry Audio revives a lesser-known synth in the Crumar line-up released several years prior

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Cherry Audio’s SH-MAX takes on a trio of classic Roland monosynths called upon by everyone from Kraftwerk to Tame Impala

Bringing together the best bits of the SH-5, SH-7 and SH-3A with an array of modern enhancements, the plugin is a love letter to Roland's SH series

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“Offers power, warmth, charm and usability, in a highly convincing virtual analogue reproduction, with real heart and soul”: Cherry Audio SH-MAX review

Continuing its Japanese homage, Cherry Audio reignites three of Roland’s finest synths from the '70s, in a single soft-synth with plenty of reinvention

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“Built upon the strengths of the original, it takes this vintage classic to contemporary heights”: Cherry Audio Mercury-8 review

Completing the Mercury trilogy, Cherry Audio answers the prayers of its user base, with a recreation of the mightiest of ’80s polysynths

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"It's not just another recreation of the Jupiter-8": Cherry Audio goes "beyond Jupiter" with the Mercury-8 soft synth

This long-awaited Jupiter-8 emulation builds on the creative potential of the original synth with expanded polyphony, enhanced modulation capabilities and a powerful effects engine

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“The stunningly impressive sonic and visual attributes immediately inspire, at a price which is affordable to all”: Cherry Audio Crumar Spirit review

Cherry Audio captures the Spirit of an Italian Mini, with a meticulous recreation of a unique classic

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“It could be easy to think that the strings and brass sections are somehow weaker than their synthesizer counterpart, but this would be an enormous mistake”: Cherry Audio Trident mkIII review

Cherry Audio’s new mythological synth provides a three-pronged attack on an early '80s and underexploited classic

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"It's an orchestra-in-a-box, multi-timbral wall of sound, and Swiss army synth rolled into one": Cherry Audio's Trident Mk III continues the legacy of an underrated Korg classic

This '80s gem packaged a polysynth, brass and string sections into a single instrument, popping up on records by everyone from Yes and OMD to Phoenix

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"It is not a polite instrument – nor is it clean, safe, or obvious": Cherry Audio revives the cult classic Crumar Spirit in its latest plugin

That's the Spirit

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How Cherry Audio recreated the sound of the world's first commercial polysynth in software: “There may be fewer than six working Novachords on the planet”

We caught up with Cherry Audio's CTO Dan Goldstein to find out more about how it crafted a plugin emulation of a super-rare proto-synth from 1939

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“Try this on drums, and you'll end up with something similar to a classic gated drum kit. Eat your heart out, Phil Collins!”: Our go-to plugins for adding flavour to sounds

With so much processing available in modern DAWs, we take a look at some of the more left-field plugins and approaches for maximising the colour of your audio signal

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“We’ll push the boat out here and say that this could be its finest synth plugin to date”: Cherry Audio ODC 2800 review

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"There’s potential for a degree of chaos here": Cherry Audio Yellowjacket review

The EDP Wasp gets the Cherry Audio treatment

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Cherry Audio at Producer Week 2025: Meet the Yellowjacket synthesizer - An entirely new breed

Cherry Audio's latest creation rebirths EDPs classic Wasp from 1978 and powers it up with new features for 2025

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What’s the buzz? Meet Yellowjacket, Cherry Audio's recreation of EDP’s trend-setting Wasp from 1978

You didn’t have to be a genius to see it coming, and you don’t need much cash to climb on board

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"The bass drum is a total bad-ass, while the potential for Aphex-style bleeps and mayhem is available": Cherry Audio KR-55C Software Drum Machine

Steppin’ Out with Cherry Audio’s post-punk beatbox that provides more than a few surprises

MusicRadar

Cherry Audio steps out with an emulation of '80s Korg drum machine used by Joe Jackson and Depeche Mode

KR-55C is a software version of Korg's "Rhythm 55" KR-55A and KR-55B, heard on Jackson's 1982 hit Steppin' Out

MusicRadar

Cherry Audio's P-10 captures the sound of "one of the most desirable flagship analogue polysynths ever created" - and brings that synth into the 21st century

This emulation of Sequential Circuits' "10-voice, 20-oscillator, bi-timbral behemoth" boasts a faithful recreation of the Prophet-10's sound alongside a handful of contemporary flourishes

MusicRadar

Cherry Audio’s Atomika revives a classic Soviet-era synthesizer

The US developer puts a fresh spin on the Polivoks, with extra polyphony, expanded modulation and new effects

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“The crown jewel of the family”: Cherry Audio’s Wurlybird 140B emulates a lesser-known electric piano that some consider to be one of the best

Before the Wurlitzer 200 series, we had this

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“Armed with 450 presets, it has the capacity to impress with its scope for diverse sounds and creativity”: Cherry Audio Pro Soloist review

A bit of a diva in synth clothing? We travel back to 1972 for a reimagining of an ARP classic with soloistic tendencies

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