Geonkick is a free drum synthesizer plugin for VST3 and LV2 plugin hosts on Windows and Linux.
We’ve talked a fair bit about synths this year, but Geonkick is a novel one. While you can certainly use any sort of synthesizer for generating percussive sounds, few are freely available that have drum sound synthesis as their main purpose.
Geonkick is a free software synthesizer that specializes entirely in creating your own percussive noises, and it does so with a great amount of flexibility. If you’re on the hunt for unique and fresh-sounding drum sounds, this might be the way to go!
So, what exactly is Geonkick?
It is a drum synthesizer, first and foremost, and comes with 16 stereo channels of output with a potential 16 instruments to create.
Each instrument has three layers, with a pair of oscillators and a noise generator. This gives a fair amount of flexibility in terms of how you approach the design of a particular percussive sound.
Each instrument also has an assigned MIDI key, so you can play an instance of GeonKick much like a typical drum machine plugin.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it has the same degree of flexibility as something like Microtonic, but there’s certainly plenty to explore when making your own percussive sounds with GeonKick.
The overall sound of the instrument is very much catered towards electronic music, although you could undoubtedly mold it to fit whatever sort of genre you make.
All said, Geonkick is a wonderfully impressive free instrument, which is filled with a plethora of sound design options when it comes to creating your own unique drum sounds.
Geonkick is also open-source, meaning any enterprising developer who wants to do a little work and contribute to the project is free to do so. You’ll need a Windows or Linux computer to run GeonKick. Supported Linux distros include Arch, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Manjaro, and others.
Available plugin formats for GeonKick are VST3 and LV2. You can also run the standalone application for sound design and exploration.
Geonkick is an instrument that invites experimentation. I’m certainly looking forward to giving it a thorough workout in VCV Rack.
Download: Geonkick (FREE)
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15 Comments
Tomislav Zlatic
onA big thank you to BPB reader Vik for the info about this freeware plugin.
Fever 27
onomg finally free kick synth!
Hell'ektrix
onThere are already several free kick synth plugins :
– Noizefield – Kick Machine
– Sick Noise Instruments – NoizeClick
– Chowdhury DSP – ChowKick
– Teragon Audio – KickMaker
– WokWave – KickWork
– Ocean Swift Synthesis – QuirQuiQ
– Solcito Musica – Toum! (Kick-Tom-Percussion-Bass Synth)
And certainly more.
Jhonny_MA
onYeah There is a lot, But Hardly one of these you wil get a ready to use result like geon Kick, It’s better than most paid alternatives too
operator operator
onnothing slaps like operator does
alex
onPsycho Circuitry has released FET-162 compressor and there’s a free version:
psychocircuitry.com/fet-162.html
John
onWindows and Linux only.
Sean
onMaybe open with “for windows and Linux only” so we Mac people don’t waste time reading the entire article and dreaming of ways we might use this plugin only to get to the end and find out it’s not intended for us :)
Disappointed in Detroit
Miguel
onMaybe Mac users should “learn to stop acting like special snowflakes on the Internet” se we normal people don’t waste time reading the entire comment section and dreaming of not reading useless cringe only to get to the end and find out that in 2023 (almost 2024) people still don’t know that nobody cares you use Mac.
Disappointed in Buenos Aires
Kret
onIt would nice to have a plugin with two pitch envelopes, for shaping the kick more.
Ocean Science
onIt’s actually has 2 frequency envelopes on every oscillator and you can adjust individually or you can just copy paste from another oscillator or you can adjust general envelope to shape 2 oscillator together. Also it has 3 layer, so you can activate it if you want to create more complex kick
Schabbes
onWow this thing is good! Possibly the best drum synth out there!
Definitely far more powerful than “something like Microtonic” :) not as fast and convenient maybe.
CoopMusic247
onDo I need a new kick plugin?
No, but at this point I’m a collector helping to preserve them for the next generation.
CGrrr
onA great plugin, but it’s a bit complicated.
Numanoid
onSlimVerb reverb by 2B Played Music is available as a free download until December 25th with the coupon code SLIMFREE