DREAM DECAY

ANALOG ATMOSPHERE

Intro price. Ends 10/27.26

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WINDOWS

WIN V1.0.0 09/22/26

MAC

MAC V1.0.0 09/22/26

HEAR THE SOUND

Synths
Dry
Dream
Decay
Piano
Dry
Dream
Decay
Drums
Dry
Dream
Decay
Elc Gtr
Dry
Dream
Decay
Cinematic
Dry
Dream
Decay
Acc Gtr
Dry
Dream
Decay

ANALOG DREAMS

BEAUTIFULLY DECAYED

You can think of DREAM DECAY as reverb with analog texture, or as three effects that happen to live in the same window. CHARACTER, SHIMMER and REVERB are modular cards, and you drag them into any order you want. Leave them alone and it's an ambience machine: beautiful, easy to sit under a mix. Take the reverb out and it's a lo-fi box - tape artifacts, saturation, anywhere from light wear to completely trashed. Put SHIMMER after the reverb and it stacks octaves onto the tail instead of the source. The difference between lush and eroded is just how far you push it. Just scroll through the presets and see where it takes you.

“From when I first heard DREAM DECAY, I knew it would be an instant addition to my setup. It’s already made it into several mixes in the first 2 days, and there are many features that I have wanted in a plugin for years and never found.”

-Jake Jackson - Grammy Winning Recording Engineer - Mixer - Producer (Bon Iver at AIR Studios - Bon Iver, Loki (Season 1 & 2), Assassin’s Creed Shadows

A man in glasses and a dark jacket standing in a music recording studio with large mixing console and multiple speakers in the background.

THE FEATURES

Click the triangles to learn more

DREAM DECAY plugin interface
The Analog WarmthDrive + Derez + DreamDRIVE pushes everything through warm glass, tape saturation soft at the edges. DEREZ crushes it down to 8-bit, trading detail for grit. DREAM melts the whole thing into lo-fi texture. All three run with the reverb off.
The Shimmer EngineFeedback + Ascend + DescendFEEDBACK decides how long the octaves stick around. ASCEND sends them climbing, glassy and bright. DESCEND sends them below. Turn all three loose and listen for the chords you never played. That's the world-building part.
The Cascade ReverbMod Depth + Dimension + ExpanseA gorgeous 80’s inspired reverb. Massive and beautiful. DIMENSION sets the size of the space. EXPANSE sets the length of the decay, from a short bloom to a forty-second wash. Add a little MOD DEPTH to get lost in a dream.
The Advanced MenuTone + Shape + Deep ControlFine-tune your sound. Dial in Filters and EQ or add DUCKING for the clarity your mix needs. Then reach into the character controls; trim the tape hiss or let the pitch drift wander into a seasick, warped-tape sway. Turn a beautiful reverb into something that feels broken in exactly the right way.
The Filter PathFilter → Effects / Effects → FilterPuts HPF, LPF and TILT EQ either before or after the CHARACTER, SHIMMER and REVERB effects. In front, you shape the signal on its way in, keeping muddy lows and harsh highs out of the reverb. After, they work on the finished tail, so you can darken it or pull it back without losing its size.
The Character PathDrive → Dream → DerezOpen it and drag the three character stages into any order you want. Run DEREZ before DREAM and soften those digital edges. Run it after and they sit right on top. Same knobs, same values, a different feel. DRIVE → DREAM → DEREZ is only where it starts.

ORIGIN STORY

Kevin-Matley-Composer-Sonic-Cascade.jpg

“DREAM DECAY came from a sound I was chasing while scoring Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. The score is atmospheric, built on a lot of lo-fi sounds, I wanted a reverb that decayed like memory. Something that eroded. It needed to have a big cinematic sound - beautiful yet damaged at the same time.”

KEVIN MATLEY

Composer · Founder, Sonic Cascade

SEE IT IN ACTION

Watch The Sound Test Room put DREAM DECAY through its paces in this walkthrough demo

TECH SPECS

  • Plugin formats: VST, VST3, AU, AAX (64-bit)

  • Platforms supported: macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) and later (Native Apple Silicon + Intel).
    Windows 10 and newer (64-bit).

  • DAWs supported: Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper -
    and any other major DAW hosting VST3/AU/AAX (FL Studio, Bitwig, Reason, etc.)

  • Download THE MANUAL

THE RESPONSE

  • A man with glasses and tattoos on his arm sitting at a mixing console in a recording studio, wearing a Motorhead T-shirt and a cap. There are audio equipment, bottles, and a computer monitor in the background.

    “It can transform a harmonically simple sound into something much more complex and atmospheric.”

    ALBERTO DE ICAZA - 2X Grammy and Emmy Nominated Mastering Engineer (The Studio, Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent)

  • Man sitting at a digital music workstation in a dark studio, with a keyboard and large speaker.

    Very cinematic vibe and easy to create special effects. Very cool plugin.

    ROBERT DUDZIC - Sound Designer For Trailers, Virtual Instruments, and Film & TV Scores (The Odyssey, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die, GTA IV)

  • A man with short hair and a serious expression, wearing a white shirt with a small dotted pattern and a dark blazer, is seen through a glass or plastic surface with red and orange coloring, creating a blurred, layered effect.

    "It gets me to weirder sounds faster, and that's about as important a factor in a plugin as I can imagine."

    MACLAINE DIEMER - World Soundtrack Awards Nominated Composer (Guild Wars 2 & 3, Wildgate)