VST freebies & cheapies, what do you like?

Been curious about that - do you just sidechain the signal of another track that you think is conflicting with it? Or the master bus?

I buss all the competing tracks to one and then use TrackSpacer on that buss.

So in the case of the vocal, everything but the drums/bass.

I love Trackspacer - I usually have one on a bass/subs group being ducked by the kick drum, and set up a group of virtually everything but bass and duck that by the snare

Hmm I have a demo version but I haven't been able to get it to do anything. So do you need to sidechain /use a send to get it to do anything? Or should it just try to separate things if you just use it as an insert on a buss?

Thanks for the headsup DJI, I was trying to remember the name of that plug...

Jordan, I'm pretty sure you have to use a sidechain...

Thanks for the recommendation, DJI. I watched a Youtube demo/review and copped it immediately.

Thanks, I ended up getting the demo version working and it's pretty cool. I might go for it too, even though I said I was done buying plugins this year. :)

Cosign on Trackspacer, I love it, my main job is in Post and I use it all the time to carve a little notch in my music or fx busses to make some room for voice, which it does very well.

You have to be careful though, there's a bug that sometimes pops up where you get distortion on the right channel, if that happens just reload the plug as multi-mono instead of stereo, that should fix it.

quick survey: what is everyone currently using for drums?

Samples :)

I usually start with a rack of a bunch of M4L drum devices. But I don't think my drums sound that great! :)

Funny, I was just about to ask the same question. I've been trying to reduce my time auditioning one-shot samples by making my own presets for Ableton's Drum Rack, and using Klevgrand's Skaka (for shaken percussion), and (soon) Boz Digital's kick/snap/clap/stomp plugins.

Can anyone recommend a VST drum machine that they find particularly joyful to use? I've been using synth plugins for percussion parts when Drum Rack's lack of a synth engine doesn't cut it, but it'd be nice to have a go-to (virtual) drum machine that handles multiple parts.

Been using Klevgrand's Slammer recently as a sort of side percussion thing, it's great!

I'm still in the dark ages with Battery to be honest, I find that there are a couple of drum sample kits in there that work really well.

I had to make a couple of fake Nirvana tunes for a podcast recently and used the old Battery multi-mic kit into the Arturia Fet-76 with the 'all buttons in' setting to pop the room, it sounded surprisingly good.

I think mostly I'm one of those people who don't like using midi for drums, it just feels wrong somehow

https://blog.native-instruments.com/5-free-e-pianos-kontakt/

Arturia Tape Mello-Fi - lo-fi tape-style modulation effect:

https://www.arturia.com/products/software-effects/tape-mello-fi/overview

PS it's FREE until December 31

Their servers are creaking. I got it a half hour ago and it's still not showing in my account.

lol same

i guess we can watch the video about it in the meantime >

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5r2HhDeFgE

and yes there are about a billion other plug-ins that do the exact same thing already but hey

i guess the tape stop thing is new tho

I’m using Uhe Satin for tape sim stuff at the moment, not quite sure how as I sold my licence but it just kept on working. Should probably just download this and go legit again lol

I like Audio Thing's Reels plugin and SketchCassette for this lo-fi stuff, they have a nice distortion.

Subtle tape stuff is beyond my hearing ability, I want it absolutely trashed if I'm using a "tape" plugin.

Also Izotope's Trash 2 is free!

https://www.izotope.com/en/shop/trash-2.html

Nice free Spitfire labs Xmas-related thingy.

https://labs.spitfireaudio.com/christmas

After a kerfuffle with Arturia software center (turned out it was just on their end), I got my Pigments update (great) and the Tape Mello-fi freebie. The latter rules - I've had a bunch of tape emulations and saturators, and this is the best by far. Instantly usable and fun, highly recommend people grab it if possible.

Cool! Will you be posting anything on Instagram for #jamuary?

Ha, not likely. For electronic music my setup isn't very video-friendly, I almost always use headphones instead of monitors, and work mostly on the computer.

For drums, the more I've been practicing and getting my hands right, the less I've felt compelled to make any videos for some reason. Maybe if I finally get some drums set up in the house, although drum kit sounds terrible on phone audio.

I cracked and bought the hainbach audiothings gong amp. Think it goes back up to full price tomorrow-ish?

Surge synth is now free/open-source, and they added a bunch of stuff. Haven't tried it yet, though: https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/index.html

New Hainbach dropped: https://www.audiothing.net/instruments/noises/

Recently went through a bunch of free transient shaper plugins for a specific use case, and Crack from Surreal Machines is very nice:
https://www.surrealmachines.com/transient-machines-vstau/

Also scooped a few others, I have high hopes for Rave Generator if I can get it working.

I'm kinda disappointed in Noises, it's interesting but I don't feel that you can screw with the original samples quite enough for my liking, plus bit reducers are corny.

Bought the latest cheapy background noise cleaner-upper from Waves that's just been released, I have RX Elements but it's great to have something that I can use in real-time across a track.

Got an email from Native Instruments with a bunch of free downloads from NI, Izotope, and Plugin Alliance since apparently they're all teaming up. Looks like some real useful stuff in there (mostly on the saturation, mixing, and masering side of things), I won't say no.

Free Mellotron VST:
https://www.audiolatry.com/mel-lofi/

nice!

Hora Detour module in VCV Rack is great fun - self contained vector synth, combine it with the Instruo Harmonaig module for a sort of polyphony (or maybe there's a way to get polyphonic note input into VCV Rack, I haven't really looked)

This DAW Mixbus is awesome. Pretty much this stock daw, a good editable delay and a good editable reverb = all you need for a killer mixer software.

https://harrisonconsoles.com/product/mixbus/

Really you could get by with just the DAW and a good audio editor that had some decent effects built in.

For mixing, this stuff is awesome - the EQ and compression and gain control is so deep - you don't need anything else. I've been cutting stuff with limited tracks and this app has been awesome for mixing. Don't about inputting synths or anything.

I've gone back to Acid as my cut 'em and track with a virtual drum machine or loops. I find it much easier to cut up files than Ableton, which has some cool effects built in. Acid not so much, but it was the first software like this I used, so I know how to use the edit tools - hence - it works for me.

Not really a VST thing, but not sure where else this should go. Does anyone know of any good, preferably free, collections of vocal samples? Can be singing, talking, stuff from movies or TV, whatever, as long as it is not weird generic stuff.

freesound.org might have some usable things that realm but it's a slog to go through

https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/downloads/

Finally got around to installing the Access Virus chip emulator and a Virus C BIN file, sounds and works great, takes up pretty much zero CPU

If you have Minimoog D for iOS, it's now a free VST/AU on macOS.
https://www.moogmusic.com/news/model-d-app-now-available-macos

Angela‘s reaction to

Not really a VST thing, but not sure where else this should go. Does anyone know of any good, preferably free, collections of vocal samples? Can be singing, talking, stuff from movies or TV, whatever, as long as it is not weird generic stuff.

Ooh good one

possibly the wrong thread, but i guess spitfire audio guy chose a good week on twitter to pledge support for transphobes:

https://ra.co/news/77787

It's not exactly a cheapie since the intro price is $59, but Cherry Audio's new emulation of the GX-1/CS-80 is pretty great.
https://cherryaudio.com/products/gx-80

Does anyone use Analog Obsession's donation/ware plugs? Looking at YT reviews they seem almost too good to be true.

Whoa, definitely going to get those, ty