Piotr "Habib" Pyrzanowski has released Extremist, a free multi-effect VST plug-in for Windows designed for use with guitars - its main purpose is for distorting a guitar signal to create an "extremely heavy sound". This effect is not a tube amplifier simulator, however some methods of altering the signal are similar to tube amplification characteristics.
Extremist works in stereo, without any latency, and includes a 15-band stereo equalizer. It uses SSE instructions for Pentium II or newer CPUs.
Controls:
- Drive, Dry, Wet, Volume: knobs for regulating amplification & mixing signals.
- Feedback: level of feedback signal.
- Clip: clipping level.
- Reverb: stereo reverb effect, adjustable up to delay.
- Mod Boost: mid-tones amplification.
- Eq Q: width of each frequency band amplification of equalizer.
- Post LPF filter Q: filtering of high frequencies of effect output.
- Noise gate.
- Amp curve: amplification characteristic.
- Lock bars: steering of equalizer in mono/stereo.
- Post gating: noise gate applied before/after effect.
- Smoothing: signal smoothing (hiss reduction).
