The Canary

Makes your drums sing

The Canary Frontplate
Free Plugin
50
(4.8 Stars / 50 Reviews)

Manual Download

The Canary Manual

Supported formats

AAX plugin support VST plugin supprt VST3 plugin supprt Audio Unit plugin support

Supported platforms (32/64 bit)

Requirements

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (MAC)

  • Intel Core CPU or Apple SIlicon M+ Processor
  • 1GB of RAM
  • Mac OSX 10.10 or newer (M1/M2 supported)
  • VST, VST3, AU or AAX compatible host (64bit)
  • Display resolution of 1280x1024 pixels or more

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (WINDOWS)

  • SSE2 compatible processor (Intel Core CPU recommended)
  • 1GB of RAM
  • Windows 7 or newer
  • VST, VST3 or AAX (x64) compatible host
  • Display resolution of 1280x1024 pixels or more
 

Overview

The Canary was designed to support you in creating the most powerful and convincing drums you have ever recorded or mixed. This plug-in let's you expand and recover some fundamental aspects of the drum signal that may have been lost during the recording process or which haven‘t been there in the first place. These include tone, attack, sustain and some very basic filtering, which define the natural sound of the shell. You lost attack and impact through your recording? Your drum signals sound dull or not particularly powerful? The Canary is here to help you, synthetically adding those missing features, allowing you to refine and redefine your drums in the mix.

Features

Attack processor

The attack processor brings out the input signal's attack phases. The amount of added attack can be adjusted to taste or simply turned off by right-clicking the respective knob. This is our goto feature on dull sounding, close-mic'ed snares or toms and it really helps to make them cut through in your mixes.

Sustain processor

The sustain processor adds a synthetic sustain phase triggered by the input signal. The amount of added sustain and its pitch can be tuned to taste or simply turned off by right-clicking the respective knob. Works especially well on thin bassdrum signals - dial in a lower tune, set the filter to lowpass, add sustain and adjust the mix knob to taste - boom.

Filter and mix

The added signal components can be filtered using a set of 4 simple pre-defined filters matched to different drum-shell types. Use the mix-knob to blend between the dry and the processed signal.

SSE2 optimized code

DSP operations are pipelined using the SSE2 instruction set. This ensures high performance operation despite very complex computations.

HighDPI / Retina support

Our user interfaces support high pixel density on both Windows and Mac OSX to present you with the most enjoyable user experience on high DPI displays. Please refer to your manual to find whether your DAW is HighDPI capable if you're working on Windows.

Examples & Videos

Customer Reviews

4
Unique and useful by Kans (2025-10-28)

"Unlike typical transient shapers, its functionality is unique. It's useful for restoring the attack of dull drums. It would have been better if the output volume could be adjusted."

5
Enhance your drums now! by Bohumil Bubnik (2025-10-27)

"Fact, that The Canary is free is a no-brainer! This super easy to use plugin is definitely a gamechanger. You try it once and never stop using it."

5
WOW by Andrii (2025-10-17)

"The Canary is brilliant! This free drum processor revives dull recordings with punchy transients, rich sustain, and tonal brilliance—making kicks thump, snares crack, and toms sing. Intuitive controls for attack, sustain, and filtering blend seamlessly, saving CPU while elevating mixes. A game-changer for any drummer or producer!"

5
Good by Danny (2025-10-14)

"I use it always. Love it."

5
Parallel Drum Bus by Tyler Bachor (2025-10-14)

"Great way to get that attack and explosiveness on the drum parallel compression bus!!"

5
I Love The Canary by kurostudio (2025-10-13)

"It's essential for snare drum sound design!"

5
Adds character by Manuel (2025-10-13)

"This is good on drums, but it's worth it to experiment with putting it on other Instruments as well."

5
Bright, Lively, and Full of Character by Seba (2025-10-12)

"Canary delivers sparkling, clear tones with a wonderfully dynamic response. It’s intuitive to use and adds vibrant character to any performance or mix. A must-have for anyone seeking a lively, expressive sound!"

4
Bright, Lively, and Full of Character by Sebastian (2025-10-12)

"Canary delivers sparkling, clear tones with a wonderfully dynamic response. It’s intuitive to use and adds vibrant character to any performance or mix. A must-have for anyone seeking a lively, expressive sound!"

5
nice sound by Fred Y. (2025-10-12)

"I am a drummer so i use this to titen my recording"

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Industry Reviews

Tim Andrew

Tim Andrew

Mixer/Engineer

"The Canary is such an easy and clever tool to add tone correctively or creatively to my drum sound. Mixing intuitive transient control and tone I have already saved time and CPU power. The Black Rooster Audio team have taken drum energy to a whole new creative level."