Vacuum Vintage: Vacuum Tube Synth Plugin by AIR Music Technology

Vacuum Vintage is built around two Vacuum Tube Oscillators. Rather than selecting a single waveform, you can morph between the four available wave shapes, which gives more control over timbre. The oscillator output passes through a mixer, where drive, distortion and ring modulation can be applied before the signal reaches the high-pass and low-pass filters.

Each filter offers a saturation control for a more aggressive tone, while the default setting stays smooth. Together these stages let you shape everything from warm, rounded tones to gritty, distorted ones within a single instrument.

The Age section adds realism to the sound. Its Drift control sets how much pitch drift is applied to the oscillators, and its Dust control adds crackle and noise that make the synth sound older. The developer describes this as an emulation of the imperfections found in vintage hardware.

Modulation includes two envelopes, which can be set to retrigger in the settings page, plus an onboard arpeggiator. The included library, designed by Richard Devine and Mark Ovenden, covers leads, pads, basses, arpeggios, percussive sounds and effects, giving you a starting point to edit.