In this week's Friday Free Plug-in we feature Nova from Tokyo Dawn Records, a free plugin so good it’s hard to believe it’s free.

I’ve commented many times in the past about how the very best free plugins are so good they give premium plugins some serious competition. The plugin I involuntarily think of whenever I say this is TDR Nova. It’s not new but looking back, the last time we featured it was way back in 2020 and having checked, it’s fully up to date including Apple Silicon compatibility. If you’ve never tried this one you owe it to yourself to give it a go.

What Is TDR Nova?

Nova is a parallel dynamic equaliser. They have designed the GUI using the familiar layout of a parametric equaliser, with each band including a dynamics section.

Tokyo Dawn Records describe it as "a user-friendly WYSIWYG drag and drop display paired with a classic “knob” interface" designed to give access to the various parameters driving Nova’s powerful processing capabilities. Nova has four dynamic EQ bands and additional high-pass and low-pass filter sections, and it has what Tokyo Dawn Records refer to as "having an intuitive equal loudness functions to help find the optimal setting without getting distracted by loudness differences".  As with any dynamic eq, it can cover a range of tasks:

• Parametric equalisation

• Dynamic equalisation

• Frequency selective compression

• Multi-band compression

• Wideband compression

Nova features also include a preset manager, undo/redo, A/B, detailed documentation, and copy & paste.

Check it out in the video below.

How Do I Get This Plug-in?

Go to Tokyo Dawn Records website using the button below and click on the appropriate download link for your system. You do not have to open an account or get your email, although you are offered the option to sign up to the TDR newsletter and learn more about Nova's bigger brother Nova Gentleman’s Edition, which the paid-for version with more features.

TDR Nova is available as VST, AU & AAX Plug-Ins for Windows & macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon). No iLok required.