Available now

PixelVerb-sa

Game Boy chiptune synth

VST3Windows

How to install: there is no installer to run — close your DAW, copy the plug-in folder into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 and open it again. Why no installer?

What it does

The real Game Boy sound

Four duty cycles of square wave, a four-bit triangle and a 15-bit noise generator — the three voices the DMG actually had. Volume is quantised to sixteen steps like the original chip, which is what gives it the steppy, brittle edge.

Arpeggiator

Hold a chord and it runs through it. Six patterns, six divisions from a half note to a sixty-fourth, and a T button for triplets. It locks to your project tempo, so it stays with the track.

Or cut it loose

The Hz button drops the arpeggiator off the grid and onto an absolute speed, up to 500 steps a second. Push it to the top and the arpeggio stops being a rhythm and becomes a texture — a second instrument hiding inside the first.

Sweep and vibrato

A pitch sweep locked to the tempo for risers and drops, with Hold to freeze the pitch where it is. Vibrato has its own depth, and the mod wheel adds more on top.

Mono or poly

Eight voices when you want chords, one when you want a lead. Pitch bend and mod wheel work throughout, and the on-screen keyboard plays with the mouse if you have no keyboard to hand.

Watch it in action

Hear it

The same four chords, played by the plug-in itself — first held, then with the arpeggiator running.

Arpeggiator off and on

The same chords held, then the arpeggiator switched on

PixelVerb-sa is a Game Boy chiptune synth — not a sample-based imitation but the same three voices rebuilt: square wave with four duty cycles, four-bit triangle, 15-bit noise, and volume quantised to sixteen steps the way the real chip did it.

The centrepiece is the arpeggiator. Hold a chord and it runs through it, locked to your project tempo, from a half note down to a sixty-fourth, with triplets on their own button. The Hz button cuts it loose from the grid and takes it up to 500 steps a second: up there it stops being a rhythm and becomes a texture.

Good for an arcade bassline, a lead that cuts through, or effects — the tempo-locked sweep makes risers and drops without touching automation.

It is free. No account, no licence to activate: download it and use it, commercial work included. If it earns its place, you can buy me a coffee.