Atomic Monster Theatre

AtomicMonsterTheatre

A VST3 synth for monster-movie sound. Play theremins, flying saucers, roaring creatures, haunted organs and Geiger-counter fallout, from 49 presets named like B-movies.

49factory
presets
Format
VST3 instrument
Platform
macOS, Intel and Apple Silicon
Version
1.0.0

Inside the theatre

The plugin's own screen, dressed like a drive-in poster. Click any part of it to see what it does.

The Atomic Monster Theatre plugin window. A red marquee title sits above an oscilloscope and VU meter. Below are a preset bar showing The Blob Gurgles, a Sound Type panel with Monster Roar and Flying Saucer selectors and a morph slider, two panels of knobs for those sounds, and an on-screen keyboard.

Six sound sources

Pick a source to see what it does. Each has its own controls, and the morph lever blends two of them into one sound.

    Effects that age the sound

    Tape, spring, radio and film effects sit next to a filter, saturation and envelopes, so a clean tone can end up sounding like it was found in an archive.

    Morph lever

    Blend two sources into one. Turn a theremin into a flying saucer, or a growl into a melody, and stop wherever it sounds best. Try the lever here.

    ThereminFlying saucer

    Tape echo

    Set the echo time and feedback, then let the degrade control wear down each repeat. Wow makes the tape unstable.

    Spring reverb

    A spring tank with tone, decay and a boing control, for that splashy, drippy, B-movie space.

    AM radio

    Low and high cuts plus a honk control squeeze the sound into a transmission from a crackly valve radio.

    Old film

    Crackle, hiss and projector hum, as if the soundtrack had been printed on a worn reel.

    Transistor drive

    Saturation that adds bite and grit when a tone needs to sound dirtier.

    Filter and envelopes

    A resonant filter with keyboard tracking and velocity response, plus amp, filter and pitch envelopes.

    Now showing

    49 factory presets, each named like a B-movie. Choose a category to see its bill.

      Wave your hand

      A pocket theremin that borrows the instrument's idea, using your browser's audio. It is a toy: the plugin has five more sources, plus tape, spring and film to make it properly strange.

      • Press and hold the pad. Move left and right to change pitch.
      • Move up for louder, down for quieter.
      • With a keyboard, focus the pad, hold Space, and use the arrow keys.
      Hold to play
      A2A3A4A5A6

      Download

      Atomic Monster Theatre 1.0.0 for macOS, as a VST3 plugin that runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

      Download for macOS AtomicMonsterTheatre-1.0.0-macOS.zip

      This build is unsigned. It has no Apple Developer ID behind it, so macOS blocks it the first time. Step 3 shows how to allow it. Only install it if you trust where you got it.

      1. Unzip the download

        Double-click the zip to get the plugin, a file ending in .vst3.

      2. Copy it into your VST3 folder

        Put it in ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 and create the folder if it isn't there. In Finder, use Go, then Go to Folder, and paste that path.

      3. Allow it to run

        Open Terminal, paste this command and press Return. It removes the quarantine flag macOS puts on unsigned downloads.

        xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Atomic*.vst3

      4. Rescan in your DAW

        Restart your DAW and rescan plugins. Atomic Monster Theatre will appear as an instrument.