| Product | Charlatan |
| Developer | BlauKraut Engineering |
| Price (MSRP) | Free |
| Type / Tags |
| Instrument(s) |
| Operating System |
Latest Version |
Download | Released |
| 1.3 | Downloads | ![]() |
| Copy Protection | None |
| Avg. User Rating |
Charlatan, a freeware polyphonic, subtractive virtual analog (VA) synth whose design focuses on sound quality and easy usability. The design philosophy was to provide a feature set just large enough to cover a wide range of sounds rather than an infinite number of parameters and modulation options cluttering the user interface and distracting from the creative process. That said, Charlatan's synthesis architecture is flexible enough to create all kinds of sounds, from conventional classic leads, basses and pads to weird blips and noises.
While making no compromises about sound quality, the algorithms have been optimized for efficient CPU usage making Charlatan well suited as a "bread and butter" synth even in projects with a large number of plug-in instances.
Feature Summary:
- 2 oscillators with triangle, sawtooth, rectangle and noise waveforms.
- Oscillator pulse-width modulation (PWM) and slew rate modulation (morphing between triangle and sawtooth).
- Oscillator hard synchronization and ring modulation.
- 2 ADSR envelope generators.
- LFO with host synchronization.
- 3 filter types modeled after classic analog hardware: 4-pole (24 db/oct) and 2-pole (12 db/oct) lowpass, bandpass.
- Filter code based on nonlinear zero-delay feedback technique for accurate emulation of analog counterparts.
- 3 voice modes: Monophonic with retriggering, Monophonic Legato and 8-voice Polyphonic.
- Low CPU usage.
- 100% coded in C++.
- Native 64-bit support.

Discussion
mztk excellent synth, sounds great. perfect for all sequencer lines, with multiple
instances running. would like to see more from this dev in the future, taking
the concept a bit further. top-notch go-to machine. (would be nice to set different
background colour, too, next time ;) )
solidtrax That's also what we think and hope for (and more). Would be awesome to have a highpass filter and some more osc-options/waves f.e.
Gernburgs I actually have grown to love this VST. The Organ 1 sound preset is so phat it's just awesome!
Great VST!
rayola1 sweet but solid sound. filter sounds great, would love to LFO and envelope modulation
thank you very much!
I hope for more...
jcs.sts Sounds great, especially the demo track on y'alls site. any chance of an OS X version for when I'm away from my Windows rig?
TEKing66 Just discovered the Charlatan synth, and I must say that for a free VST I am very impressed.
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