In this week's Free Plug-in, we are featuring Ratshack 2 from Audio Damage, a plugin version of a very cheap, very popular analogue ‘reverb’ from the early 80s, the Realistic Electronic Reverb 32-1110.

What Is Ratshack?

First things first, this is a legacy product which has been discontinued and made available for free. No support is given and if you are using an Apple Silicon Mac it’s probably not going to work. I tested it on my Intel mac and its fine. There is a newer version, Ratshack Reverb 3, which is only $19 and supports Apple Silicon and AAX.

Secondly it isn’t a reverb, it’s a delay. I think the distinction wasn’t really that well understood by the kind of people this unit was aimed at back then. I was one of them! As an enthusiastic 13 year old in my first rock band I borrowed this exact unit from a friend’s dad. We managed to break it almost immediately and had to buy him a new one!

I can vouch for the accuracy of the sounds this plugin version makes. It’s a terrible delay and a worse reverb, which in the early 80s wasn’t ideal but in these days of freely available, excellent digital reverb makes this analogue munge-box rather brilliant.

The delays are short but the regeneration from the repeat fader is long. A very trashy distortion is available from the microphone fader and depth doesn’t control modulation as the name might suggest, it is the wet/dry balance. Be aware that at the top this control only goes to approximately 50/50 wet/dry so this plugin isn’t suitable for use on a send-return loop.

How Do I Get This Plug-in?

Use the button below to download the appropriate installer. That’s it!

Ratshack is available for Windows and Mac in the following formats: VST, AU, and Standalone. There is no AAX version. No iLok required.