Musical Entropy releases The Great Escape - freeware emulation of Thrilltone dynamic tremolo

[Larry Shelby]

Musical Entropy, the maker of Spaceship Delay and Guitar Gadgets, has just released a new freeware plug-in called The Great Escape, a dynamic tremolo modeling the analog pedal of the same name from the French company Thrilltone.

This tremolo has standard controls such as speed, depth, LFO waveform options (type and symmetry), but it features also an envelope detector which changes the speed and the depth of the effect, with your playing, to make it more expressive, with customizable sensitivity and envelope release time. It is well suited for guitar players (that's April / Guitar month after all), but it can be used with any other instruments by setting up the threshold control accordingly.

Musical Entropy focused also on educational resources. In the plug-in, the users have an access to a description for each control by moving the mouse over them, to a capture of the original pedal manual, to a "waveforms" tab displaying the shape of all the signals interacting with the audio input, and to an embedded tutorial (like in Spaceship Delay) explaining what a tremolo is, how to use the plug-in, and suggesting tremolo tricks to play with.

In summary:

3 waveforms available (triangle, sinus and square).

Speed up or slow down effect speed, with a simple pick's hit.

Reinforce or reduce effect's intensity, with your playing dynamics.

Finely set transition time with the dedicated "Release" knob.

Optimized for all instruments, not just for electric guitars, thanks to the "Threshold" control knob.

Extra educational features to help users understand what is happening in the plug-in.

Presets made by Francois Maxime Boutault from Les Liens Du Son and Musical Entropy.

2 hidden Easter eggs (again it's April).

The developer points out that this is a preview version of an upcoming commercial plug-in. The sound signature of the plug-in is not representative (yet) of the original pedal behaviour, with all the final features not available either, and the current features which might be subject to change. It has been released early to help people have fun when they stay at home during COVID-19 containment. After a given period of time, this preview plug-in won't be available anymore from the musical entropy website, until the release of the commercial plug-in, but will be still usable as a freeware forever.

The Great Escape is available on musicalentropy.com, for Windows, mac OS and Linux (Ubuntu 16+) 64-bits in VST, VST3, Audio Unit and AAX formats

http://musicalentropy.com/

[Patrick Wichrowski]

Nice plugin with waveform and envelope visualization ☺️

[Brian Cadoret]

A real classy tremolo plugin sits nicely along side my MatchLock.

[Brian Walton]

The   plugin has a splash page at launch that says it will get progressively more annoying over time.    FYI