Music Box Suite

Mirage libraries are loaded from a side panel

A free control-hub for FrozenPlain sounds

Mirage is a sample-based-synthesis VST/AU plugin for Windows and Mac that comes free with any powered-by-Mirage product. It’s the control hub for FrozenPlain’s new sounds, offering a powerful set of parameters and effects for rapid, flexible sound design, no matter what the sound source is.

Once it’s opened up in your DAW, you’ll see all of your powered-by-Mirage products ready to click on and use instantly. There’s no subscription or log-in procedure, just instant access to the sounds and presets.

Access to free updates

By purchasing this product, or any powered-by-Mirage product, you gain access to updates with new features and improvements. These will almost always be completely free. We will ensure these updates never break backwards compatibility. This means as the capability of Mirage expands, your old DAW projects or presets will still work just like they used to.

If you already have Mirage, you can visit this page to download the latest version. It’s worth noting that Mirage has no use unless you have a Mirage library; in the current version, these can only be made with our internal tools.

Three independent sound layers can be layered together

Designed for sound layering

Mirage allows for up to three different sounds to be controlled separately and layered together. The layers in Mirage have the following controls unique to them: pitch, volume and pan, filter, volume envelope, LFO, EQ, sample loop settings and MIDI settings. These controls facilitate an incredible amount of manipulation over the original sound source.

Nine effects can be used to shape the sound

A rack of built-in Effects

Built-in effects such as distortion, bit-crush, chorus and stereo widener can be used to enhance the sound with extra harmonics or extra simulated width. The compressor can be used to control dynamics or add punch, and the filter can be used to isolate just the frequencies you need.

Mirage also has reverb and delay effects for real space simulation. These are great for sound design too. One of the reverb effects is a convolution reverb; this is typically used to add a real-sounding reverberation to the signal by using a sample of a real space (AKA an impulse response). Mirage features both realistic impulse responses and abstract ones for creative sound design.

Designed to be played

Mirage enables you to turn samples into fully playable patches. The volume at both the layer level and the master level can be controlled with MIDI velocity. Sustain pedal (MIDI CC 64) is also fully supported, enabling you to hold notes using a foot pedal.

On top of that, any parameter in Mirage can be controlled by knobs or sliders on your physical MIDI controller. This is done by simply right-clicking the parameter, selecting ‘MIDI learn’ and then moving your controller. And of course, Mirage can also be automated by your DAW.

Minimum friction from your mind to your DAW

Mirage is designed to not get in your way. It is fast to load up and is CPU efficient. It has a vector-based GUI that can be resized so that it will work on any size screen. The controls are laid out intuitively, and a full description of what each control does can be viewed by hovering the mouse over it for a moment. Mirage also comes with a PDF user manual with all of the nitty-gritty details covered.

Presets can be quickly loaded and saved

Use presets or create your own sounds

Mirage helps you with finding the right sound quickly. In a recent free update, Mirage received a built-in preset browser. This is a panel that can be opened up via a button at the top of the interface. All the presets are arranged in a clear list which can be navigated with the arrows keys on your keyboard as well as your mouse.

Useful randomisation

For spontaneous inspiration, Mirage features controls for useful randomisation. The first randomisation feature is a multi-mode button that loads a random preset. It can be set to work in one of three ways. Firstly, it can load any random preset at all – even of different libraries. Secondly, it can load a random preset that is of the same library that you currently have loaded. Or thirdly, it can load a random preset in the current preset folder (the folder might contain all bass presets for example).

The next randomisation feature is two buttons that load a random instrument for one or all of the 3 layers. This is excellent for quickly trialling a new sound source but keeping Mirage’s other parameters unchanged.