Chitemere Audio
Virtual instrument
Six instruments. No samples.
TROOPER is a cinematic instrument for Windows, written in C++. Every sound is modelled rather than recorded, so the whole thing is one 12.6 MB file with no library to download and nothing to stream from disk. Bend a note and the string really retunes.
The panel is lit by the sound. Each engine owns a colour, the keys glow with the note envelope, and a piano's sympathetic strings light on their own as they ring.
01What is inside
Six engines, all modelled.
Modelling instead of sampling is why changing key or tempo renders again exactly, with none of the artefacts that come from stretching finished audio.
Felt piano
A dispersive waveguide with a real sympathetic string bank. Hold the pedal and the undamped strings ring in sympathy, exactly as they do on a real harp.
Woodwind
A jet waveguide driven by modelled breath, with vibrato that arrives late the way a player’s does rather than switching on at the note.
Cinematic strings
Sections rather than a single instrument, with detune, bow noise and a swell articulation for the slow builds.
Tonewheel organ
Nine drawbars, percussion, key click and a rotary cabinet that accelerates and brakes properly between speeds.
Guitar and bass
A plucked waveguide with a body resonator. Acoustic, electric, lead, bass and sub, each voiced and levelled separately.
Bells and mallets
Modal synthesis, so inharmonicity is a control rather than a property of a recording you are stuck with.
02New in 1.1.0
It plays like an instrument.
Every control goes somewhere the model can genuinely use it, rather than to a volume fader wearing a different name. There is a jet to blow harder into and a string to bend, not a recording to play back faster.
- 01
Pitch bend
Retunes all six engines, including notes that are already ringing. On a waveguide that means recomputing the loop delay compensation rather than resampling anything.
- 02
Mod wheel
Vibrato on strings, woodwind and guitar, the motor on the vibraphone, a deeper rotary on the organ. Nothing on the piano, because a struck string cannot be vibratoed.
- 03
Breath control
Drives the woodwind’s jet directly, so blowing harder changes the timbre and not merely the level. It is a physical model, and breath is the input it was built around.
- 04
Expression pedal
Continuous level on the sustained engines, and the organ’s swell, which sits ahead of the drive stage the way a real console does. Back off the pedal and the overdrive goes with it.
- 05
MPE and aftertouch
Per note bend and pressure from an MPE controller. Aftertouch leans on a held note: louder, brighter, more vibrato.
- 06
Scala tuning
Load a .scl or .tun and every engine follows it. Because nothing is sampled, a 19 tone scale is genuinely 19 notes to the octave rather than a resampled piano.
1.1.0 also adds saving your own sounds, key and velocity splits per layer, and all 530 presets in your DAW's own preset menu. Projects saved with 1.0.1 recall exactly the same sound.
Specifications
- Formats
- VST3 and standalone
- Platform
- Windows 10 and 11, 64 bit
- Sounds
- 530, plus your own
- Control
- Bend, mod, breath, MPE, Scala
- Download
- 12.6 MB, no sample library
- Price
- Free
- Version
- 1.1.0
Installing
- 01
Run the installer and accept the licence.
- 02
Windows SmartScreen will warn you, because the installer is not code signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
- 03
Pick the VST3 plugin, the standalone app, or both. The default plugin folder is one every DAW already scans.
- 04
Rescan plugins in your DAW. TROOPER appears under Chitemere Audio.
FL Studio
If it does not show up, open Options, then Manage plugins, add the VST3 folder to the search paths and run Find installed plugins. FL does not scan every standard VST3 location on its own.
On a Mac
A macOS build with an AU, for Logic and GarageBand, is in progress. It compiles, but it has not been tested on real hardware, so there is nothing to download yet. Windows only for now.
03Downloads
Every version, still downloadable.
Installers are hosted on GitHub and download straight from here. Older versions stay up: a project saved with one of them should always be openable.
Every installer carries both the VST3 plugin and the standalone app. Nothing here needs an account or a licence key.
View on GitHubIt is free. Go and make something.
No account, no email, no licence key. Download it and it works.
Download TROOPER 1.1.0