Audio Damage recently revealed that along with a new look to their website, they are making their entire legacy catalog, which comprises 33 plugins, free to everyone. The collection stretches all the way back to 2002, with the release of Mayhem. In a blog post on their site, they stated that there are a few reasons for giving away the plugins, which encompasses the company's entire history.

One of the primary reasons for giving away the plugins is that they release an overwhelming amount of support emails from people in need of the legacy versions from their pre-2016 Audio Damage accounts. As most of these products are not even on their store anymore, they end up having to send out Dropbox links to the installers anyway, which would be solved by having the products out in the open.

Audio Damage also stated that most installers for their legacy plugins are already available in "cracked" form. This obviously presents a serious risk of malware for people willing to download pirated software. By releasing their legacy products for free, they are helping to ensure that nobody will be putting their computer at risk for wanting to use one of their old products.

Another reason for the generosity is that Audio Damage is a small company with limited resources. Therefore, business-wise, it doesn't make much sense to update their legacy products for contemporary systems. In fact, for many of the products, an update would actually mean having to rewrite the software almost entirely.

The complete list of legacy products is as follows:

• 907A Fixed Frequency Filter
• 914 Fixed Frequency Filter
• ADverb Vintage Reverb
• Automaton Cellular Automata Buffer Effect
• Axon Neural Network Drum Machine
• Basic Subtractive Synthesizer
• BigSeq Rhythmic Gate
• BigSeq2 Rhythmic Gate
• Bitcom Rhythmic Bitcrusher
• Deverb Abstract Reverb
• Discord Pitch Shifter
• Discord 2 Pitch Shifter
• Discord 3 Pitch Shifter
• Dr. Device Filter
• Dubstation Bucket-Brigade Delay
• Filterstation Filter
• Fluid Chorus
• FuzzPlus 3 Distortion
• Kombinat Multi-Band Distortion
• Kombinat Dva Multi-Band Distortion
• Liquid Flanger
• Mangleverb Abstract Reverb
• Mayhem Suite (Filter, Delay, Compressor)
• Panstation Auto-Panner
• PhaseTwo Phaser
• Phosphor Additive Synthesizer
• Ratshack Reverb 2 Delay
• Replicant Buffer Effect
• Ricochet Multi-Tap Delay
• Ronin Multi-Effect
• Rough Rider 1 Compressor
• Rough Rider Pro Multi-Band Compressor
• Tattoo Drum Machine
• Vapor Diffusor

Obviously, since these are legacy products that are given away for free, Audio Damage will not be providing any support whatsoever. However, they have stated that most of the Windows products will work in a DAW that is capable of hosting both 32- and 64-bit plugins. Mac users with Sierra or earlier should also be able to run everything, but those with High Sierra or later might be out of luck. For the registration of the older products that require a registration code upon installation, Audio Damage included the relevant information in a text file.

 Another ramification of releasing the products for free is that Audio Damage has removed the Upgrades section of their store. Instead, they will email owners of previous products a discount code if a crossgrade or upgrade becomes available. They will also no longer offer multi-version jumps, and instead, upgrade pricing will be for one version.

To download all the legacy plugins, visit the Audio Damage website and be sure to let us know in the comments or forum which ones you've tried out and think are still worthwhile.