Black Rooster Audio releases RO-GOLD, a freeware vintage-modeled reverb effect in VST, AU, and AAX plugin formats for compatible DAWs on Windows and macOS.
RO-GOLD emulates the EMT 140 vintage plate reverb. But that description doesn’t tell the whole story.
You have a good eye for detail if you’re wondering where the Gold in the plugin’s name comes from. Black Rooster Audio attempted to simulate the sound of an EMT 140 fitted with a 24k gold plate.
Whether or not the gold plate thing is a joke, RO-GOLD definitely has a warm, lush, and expensive sound, despite being freeware. I know that vintage is an overused term in the audio gear realm, but this free reverb plugin describes such a description.
UPDATE: Black Rooster Audio reached out to confirm that the gold plate isn’t a joke. Here’s more info from the developer: “We’ve created a physical model based on the plate from the legendary EMT-140. With this technique, it’s possible to customize parameters like material, plate size, pickups, and driver positions, among others. In the case of the RO-GOLD, we used the physical model with gold as the plate material. This gives you a different sound (decay, stereo image, tone, etc.) compared to the classic steel plate.”
I like when a reverb sounds good right out of the box and doesn’t offer too many customization parameters. Thankfully, this is the case with RO-GOLD.
The plugin only features four editable parameters: Bass Cut, Damper, Pre/Delay, and Dry/Wet. The first two are responsible for the tone and reverb length, so you really don’t need to spend much time fine-tuning the reverb.
RO-GOLD is suitable for use on different audio sources, but plate reverbs are best known for sounding amazing on vocals. You can hear some examples on the developer’s website. They provide several demos, including vocals, drums, synths, and a banjo.
If you’re bored with your DAW’s built-in reverb or you simply want to try something new on your vocals, give RO-GOLD a try. After all, reverb is the most important spice in a good mix, and it never hurts to keep a secret spice in your kitchen.
Speaking of vintage reverbs, you might also want to give our free BPB Dirty Spring a shot. It’s a freeware spring reverb emulation with a built-in bitcrusher. Sounds a bit crazy, but it does wonders on drums and synths that lack character.
RO-GOLD is available in VST, AU, and AAX plugin formats for 32-bit and 64-bit plugin hosts on Windows and macOS. You can download the software for free from the product page linked below. A valid email address is required to receive the download link.
The download is around 500 MB in size because the installer includes all Black Rooster Audio products. You can choose which ones you want to install during the installation process.
Download: RO-GOLD
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14 Comments
Tomislav Zlatic
onA big THANK YOU to BPB reader Aris for the info about RO-GOLD.
MRG
onMmm, no CLAP. Hah, I’ll take solace thinking it might have avian flu.
alex
onI’ve never got the download link, but there’s actually direct download:
https://blackroosteraudio.com/en/products/ro-gold
Mike
onThanks! I ctrl + f’d and didn’t find any mention of a download on the page linked in the article. This link is perfect.
alex
onAnd it’s a single installer for all of their plugins. But I finally got to try Cypress TT-15 which I should have done a long time ago :)
Pisces
onYer.. 515mb to download this free plugin, then you have a license manager an licence activation to navigate.. I know its free and they produce high quality plugins, but that is a bit of a burden and may put some people off, especially when there are so many other free shiny objects, taking our attention..
D
onThat was painful. Half a *gigabyte* of unrelated installer to download, and signing up to the newsletter isn’t the answer, you have to go via “Join our Community”, not that it says clearly anywhere on their site how to activate it!
(Thanks for pointing it out though!)
mx
onon the website there is an FAQ which clearly explains how to install and activate their plugins. not that it is a very complicated or unusual process to copy a serial number from an account to the plugin window when you first start the plugin…
“join our community” just means you have to sign up for an account, but could you name any plugin developer which doesnt want you to create an account?
maybe there are some, but i dont know any example at the moment.
sure, it is a bit annoying that you need to download all of their plugins for just one that you want to install, but it is also a bit annoying to read this kind of complaints about free plugins in the comments, especially when somebody before mentioned the exact same thing.
could everybody who writes comments maybe also read the other comments before (and maybe also the text or faq on the websites they are commenting on)?
(thanks for pointing THAT out though, meow…)
Mike
onI just tried activating using my account’s serial key and the plugin popup is saying invalid email or serial.
mx
onmy activation worked fine, just like it should. i have used the plugin already.
it is just a stupid question, but i caught myself doing this a couple of times already: are you sure that you did not copy and paste a spacebar, forgot one letter somewhere or something similar?
if it does not work after excluding all mistakes i would write to black rooster support.
Leo
onI know, you have to download their entire plugins bundle, what a pain.
Olaf
onThanks!
leo
onI tried the free RO-GOLD Vintage Gold-Plate Reverb Version 2.6.1, and it is a super CPU hogger; it brought down my Pro Tools session to a stall. No wonder why this is free.
Steve
onThanks for the info.
I tried to download this a couple of years ago, but couldn’t remember why I didn’t bother.
Thanks for the reminder; you saved me a load of hassle:)