Melda’s MSoundFactory is the latest plugin-creation platform and is also behind your free plugin in this issue. Here’s how to get up and running with this ‘one plugin  to rule them all’ and also some more detail on how the free cm plugin was created…

Fun factory

Will your plugin attempt be great or a bit of an 808-state? The power’s in your hands

MSoundFactory is the new kid on the plugin creation block, although it’s been around for a couple of years now. The easiest way to describe it is with the cover-all title of ‘modular instrument’ which features everything from sampling to synthesis, and that offers everything from individual building blocks right up to complete plugins. The thinking behind MSF, Melda say, is that this will be the company’s last plugin because literally everything they develop now, will come from it. You will, they say, need just one plugin to rule them all, and this is it. “A single instrument that does it all,” they say, in a slightly Tolkien-esque way.

Melda are also hoping more third-party companies will join the MSoundFactory party, and the plugin currently comes in three flavours: MSoundFactoryLE (£84) provides all the MSoundFactory sounds, but it doesn’t let you access the edit screen; MSoundFactory (full, £265, although £170 as we write this) gives you all the edit facilities you need to make your own sounds and plugins; and finally MSoundFactoryPlayer, which is free (and which MSoundFactory defaults to after the 15-day trial period), which offers limited instruments (including MonasteryGrand) and sounds from third-party plugins. We’re focussing on the full version here which you can download and use by following the mini tutorial below.

Instrument or creator?