featuring potion · crosstalk · aquarium · afterhours · tortuga

HOLY SMOKES: audio plugins

featuring potion · crosstalk · aquarium · afterhours · tortuga

plugins

POTION plugin window: three buses of ingredient slots beside a glowing cauldron 1potionparallel effects rack CROSSTALK plugin window: a coiled phone cord over six station cards 2crosstalkphone & radio effect AQUARIUM plugin window: an underwater tank whose water surface is the filter curve 3aquariummorphing autofilter AFTERHOURS plugin window: a neon hologram over a rainy night walkway, reverb controls below 4afterhoursreverb with ambience TORTUGA plugin window: a skeleton pianist at a mossy shipwrecked grand, seen from above, with glowing wreck sliders and a keyboard below 5tortugapirate grand piano
POTION plugin window

chapter 1

potion

A parallel multi-FX cauldron. Three buses, three slots each, eighteen ingredients. A ladle blends the buses and two spoons stir anything you drop them on.

  • 18 ingredients on three shelves: saturation, fuzz, folding, crushing, compression, filters, formants, chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, tape wobble, resonator, tape delay, reverb, pitch shimmer and width
  • Ladle XY blend between the three parallel buses, with level, pan and mute per bus
  • Two spoons (LFOs: sine, triangle, saw, square, drift, bounce, envelope), free or tempo-synced
  • Four vessels that colour the whole blend: uranium glass, gold, silver, bismuth
  • Heat, Reduce, Lid: input warmth, glue compression and a soft safety clipper
  • 30 factory recipes plus a SEASON button that throws together a tasteful random pot
formats
VST3 · CLAP · standalone
system
Windows 10/11, 64-bit
latency
45 samples (reported to the host)
in the browser
lite version · presets + main controls
full plugin
free download
play the lite version get the full plugin
CROSSTALK plugin window

chapter 2

crosstalk

Your sound, dialled through a bad phone line. Six stations sit on a coiled cord between the mic and the earpiece, each one a different way a call falls apart.

  • Robot: a 14-band vocoder on a buzz carrier, frame-held like an old speech chip
  • Drive and Crush: blown mic preamp, mu-law codec bits and sample-and-hold
  • Signal: real packet loss (Gilbert-Elliott model) with repeat, mute and garble concealment, plus jitter
  • Line: hiss, crackle, mains hum and reversed crosstalk ghosts
  • Speaker: a band-limited resonant earpiece cone with breakup
  • 34 factory numbers, loudness-matched so A/B comparisons are fair, and REDIAL for variations
formats
VST3 · CLAP · standalone
system
Windows 10/11, 64-bit
latency
zero
in the browser
lite version · presets + main controls
full plugin
free download
play the lite version get the full plugin
AQUARIUM plugin window

chapter 3

aquarium

A morphing autofilter. Six filter styles live under one water surface, and that surface is the filter's real frequency response. Drag the water to set cutoff and resonance.

  • Lagoon state-variable, Reef 4-pole ladder, Abyss diode screamer, Coral vowel formants, Sonar tuned comb, Manta 8-stage phaser
  • Tide: an LFO with five shapes and stereo spread, free or tempo-synced
  • Swell: an envelope follower that moves the cutoff with your playing
  • Exact waterline: the curve on screen is computed from the filters themselves
  • Output wall so it never goes past 0 dBFS, even at full resonance
  • 35 level-matched specimens and a FEED button for variations
formats
VST3 · CLAP · standalone
system
Windows 10/11, 64-bit
latency
zero
in the browser
lite version · presets + main controls
full plugin
free download
play the lite version get the full plugin
AFTERHOURS plugin window

chapter 4

afterhours

A reverb for late nights. Rooms, halls and plates that stay smooth at any length, shimmer that stays in tune, and a city outside the window if you want it.

  • Five characters: modern, plate, chamber, 1984 and cloud, all level-matched
  • Room, tone, mod + shimmer: size, decay, pre-delay, bass and treble decay, drift, and a clean pitch shimmer with chord intervals
  • Normal, gated and reverse modes, plus freeze (or hold any MIDI note)
  • Ambience: rain, neon, city and more, fed into the space and following your playing
  • Effects: bloom, echo, memory, glitch, orbit and worn tape
  • 78 memories (presets) in eight shelves and a RANDOM button for variations
formats
VST3 · CLAP · standalone
system
Windows 10/11, 64-bit
in the browser
lite version · memories + main controls
full plugin
free download
play the lite version get the full plugin
TORTUGA plugin window

chapter 5 · pirate grand piano

tortuga

A concert grand dragged up from a shipwreck, still played by its skeleton pianist. Restored and clean when you want it, salt-cured, drunk and haunted when you don't.

  • A real concert grand, sampled key by key, with pedal and release noises
  • The piano: tone, lid, dynamics, string resonance, noise, release, tuning, width and the sea around it
  • Ten wreck sliders: wear, rum, moss, rattle, sway, powder, drown, parrot, grotto and curse, from a little detune to a cursed ghost shimmer
  • Play it anywhere: any MIDI keyboard, or your computer keyboard in the standalone
  • A blacklight switch for the whole scene
  • 27 charts (presets) on four shelves: restored, tavern, the deep and cursed, plus dice for variations
type
instrument (MIDI in, stereo out)
formats
VST3 · CLAP · standalone
system
Windows 10/11, 64-bit
samples
255 MB on disk, any drive you like (about 1.2 GB of RAM while loaded)
full plugin
free download
get the full plugin

Piano samples: Salamander Grand Piano V3 by Alexander Holm, licensed CC BY 3.0.

visuals

Tools for the picture side of a release: cover art, visualizers, promo loops. They open full screen and run right in your browser; nothing you load is uploaded.

Depthwave window: neon depth looks and palette editor Adepthwaveneon depth renders Drop in a video or photo, or go live with your camera, and turn it into a glowing depth render. Pick a look, paint the palette, then export seamless loops, GIFs or hi-res stills. open depthwave ↗ ImagineFX window: retro looks, effects and properties Bimaginefxretro photo + video fx One-click retro looks, moods built from colour palettes, effects, frames and stickers for photos, video and your webcam. Every slider stays editable. Export PNGs or video loops. open imaginefx ↗

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downloads

The full plugins, every knob unlocked, for your DAW. The current lineup is free for personal and commercial music: no account, no licence key.

potion

parallel effects rack

crosstalk

phone & radio effect

aquarium

morphing autofilter

afterhours

reverb with ambience

tortuga

pirate grand piano · installer

install

  1. Unzip the download.
  2. Copy the .vst3 folder to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
  3. or the .clap file to C:\Program Files\Common Files\CLAP\
  4. Rescan plugins in your DAW. The .exe runs on its own, no DAW needed.

TORTUGA comes as a setup program instead: run it, pick where the plugin and its samples go, and it does the rest.

system requirements

  • Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
  • A VST3 or CLAP host (Ableton Live 12, FL Studio, Reaper, Bitwig, Cubase, Studio One…)
  • A GPU with OpenGL 3.3 for the plugin windows
  • macOS / Linux: not yet. The lite versions in the studio run everywhere.

release notes · 1.0.0

  • First public release of POTION, CROSSTALK and AQUARIUM.
  • All factory presets loudness-matched.
  • Lite versions playable in the browser studio.
  • New: AFTERHOURS reverb.
  • New: TORTUGA, our first instrument.

By downloading you agree to the licence. Check a download: certutil -hashfile Potion-1.0.0-win64.zip SHA256 and compare with the hash above.

special features

about

HOLY SMOKES is an audio plugin brand. We make instruments for the in-between: effects you can see, that move, that have a personality before you touch a knob.

Every plugin gets a lite version you can play in the browser, on your own sounds, before anything touches your hard drive. Like what you hear? The full plugin opens everything up.

New plugins land here first. Check the plugins page for the current lineup.

contact

Bugs, ideas, collabs, press: email us.
Please include your OS, DAW and plugin version for bug reports.

faq

What's the difference between the lite and full versions?

The lite versions in the studio give you each plugin's presets and its main controls, so you can hear what it does on your own audio. The full plugin unlocks every control, runs in your DAW with automation, and has its full animated interface.

Do your plugins cost money?

Each plugin's page shows its price. The current lineup is free to download and use on commercial releases. Future plugins may be paid; lite versions will always be playable here.

Does my audio get uploaded anywhere?

No. Files you open in the studio are played and processed in your browser and never leave your computer. No upload server, no analytics, no cookies.

Which browsers work?

Any current Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, on desktop or mobile.

What can I export from the studio?

A WAV of your track through the lite plugins: 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit float, with an optional effect tail and normalising.

Which systems do the full plugins run on?

Windows 10/11 (64-bit) as VST3 and CLAP, plus a standalone app. Other platforms are on the list; each plugin's page and the downloads list what's available.

A plugin doesn't show up in my DAW.

Make sure the whole .vst3 folder was copied (not just the file inside), that your DAW scans Common Files\VST3, and rescan. Still stuck? Email us with your OS, DAW and plugin version.

setup

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