In the fast moving world of audio plugin development, progress necessarily begets obsolescence, and as software has evolved over the last couple of decades, many much-loved virtual instruments and effects have fallen by the wayside. Here are five abandoned plugins of yesteryear that we’re still crying ourselves to sleep over.

TC Electronic Native Bundle

Back in the days when many developers still made a thing of describing their plugins as ‘native’ in order to differentiate them from Pro Tools’ DSP-powered TDM equivalents while implying that they had parity in terms of functionality and sound quality, TC’s signal processing suite was a real eye-opener for producers yet to be fully convinced that software effects could genuinely match hardware in the studio. Comprising a compressor/de-esser, a limiter, two EQs (graphic and parametric) and a reverb, the general focus of Native Bundle was clearly on mixing, but the addition of the wicked Filtrator modulated filter in version 3, followed by the Sonic Destructor distortion and lo-fi-ifyer in v3.1, added a welcome creative angle. Sadly, though, this wasn’t to be expanded on, as the Danish outfit pulled the plug shortly after. Boo.

Native Instruments Spektral Delay

Ah, the flat, grey-hued design of the vintage Native Instruments plugin – is there any sight more evocative of those heady early days of ‘serious’ music software? Spektral Delay was truly ground-breaking on its launch in 2001, introducing FFT-based (Fast Fourier Transform) spectral processing into the technological mix. Essentially a very fancy delay effect, it was very much slanted towards sound design rather than workaday echo effects, turning input signals of all kinds into ambient soundscapes by carving the left and right stereo channels up into up to 160 frequency bands for individual processing and modulation. Alas, there’s never really been anything like it since, although MeldaProduction’s excellent MSpectralDelay plays in the same ballpark.

Camel Audio… in general

Logic Pro users, quite rightly, felt more than a little bit smug when Apple acquired Brit developer Camel Audio in 2015. Cupertino’s audio industry power move resulted in the discontinuation of the superb CamelPhat and CamelSpace multi-effects, and Alchemy hybrid synth, which were subsequently (and very effectively, it must be said) rolled into Logic’s then-languishing collection of built-in plugins. While it’s great that these three legendary devices are still around in any form, CamelPhat’s supremely effective combination of distortion, filtering, EQ and compression, in particular, is still sorely missed by many veteran PC-based producers, who have had to find other ways to beef up their beats since, none of them quite the same as Camel’s perfectly realised classic.

Audio Ease Riverrun

They might be best known for the seminal Altiverb convolution reverb, but in the late noughties, Dutch DSP masters Audio Ease also garnered rave reviews for their amazing Nautilus Bundle of effects, the undoubted highlight of which was the Riverrun granular synth. Slicing the input signal into grains that could then be pitched, shaped, randomised and played back at variable speed via a handful of intuitive controls, with the brilliant Rhythmic mode making musical sense of the results, this unique creative powerhouse was a delight to mess around with and a constant source of inspiration. If we could choose one plugin from our list for resurrection, this would probably be it.

Cycling ’74 Pluggo

Before they partnered up – very successfully, it must be said – with Ableton, groovy Californian outfit Cycling ’74 were making some of the hippest, craziest plugin doodads around. Their greatest hit was a collection of over 100 instruments and effects, originally developed in their Max/MSP programming environment, but made universally useful through conversion to VST, AU and RTAS. With such descriptive names as Squirrel Parade, Fragulator, Cyclotron and Monstercrunch, Pluggo was a glorious grab-bag of distortions, delays, synths, granular processors and much more, brought together within the host DAW by the Pluggo Bus plugin and cross-plugin modulation routing. A tragic loss for the electronic music community and no mistake, but at least Ableton Live users can get 47 of Pluggo’s awesome modules in the free Pluggo for Live Max For Live Pack.

Has your creativity never quite got over the demise of a particular plugin? Let us know in the comments.