VST freebies & cheapies, what do you like?

Audio Damage have a freebies page. The compressor is pretty good and can go from subtle right up to "nuclear blast". The tremolo helps spice up organs and pads. The fuzz isn't that great on guitar, more useful as a "totally mess up your sound" effect.
http://www.audiodamage.com/downloads/

ah yes i've been meaning to try those. i have a couple of AD plugs, they're really really good.

are there any cheap AUs out there that emulate 90s romplers such as the roland SC-88? i know of the edirol hyper canvas but it's pretty expensive

anyone know of a sampling synthesizer plugin? i'd like to be able take a sample and spread it across the keyboard. i'm pretty you can do it in Ableton, but programming MIDI in Ableton drives me crazy and i'd love to find a vst that can do it in Cubase.

I was looking for a free VST harmonizer that sounds good and there it is: Pitchproof. It can even do chords.

is there any such thing as a vst that would allow me to vary the tempo of audio as it plays?

with or without pitch shifting? maybe put it into a free dj program like Mixxx, record, and import back into your DAW?

preferably without pitch shifting i think, though yeah that technique sounds useful too, thanks.

Btw free dj program would work for this as well:

anyone know of a sampling synthesizer plugin? i'd like to be able take a sample and spread it across the keyboard. i'm pretty you can do it in Ableton, but programming MIDI in Ableton drives me crazy and i'd love to find a vst that can do it in Cubase.

― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Tuesday, May 21, 2013 1:04 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh, you mean just using it to pitch the sample and bouncing it out as audio? or something else? because that's what i normally do in my DAW, but it would be nice to trigger the samples via midi as well as sequencing audio files.

You can take a sample and map out cue points to a midi device, tho we may be talking about two diff things

I'm an idiot abt this stuff

ohh ok, hmm. i actually haven't messed with dj programs much because i'm an idiot about dj'ing.

also i downloaded a bunch of these free vsts yesterday, haven't checked them out yet: http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/

The VoS VSTs are awesome - you can make some fucked-up self-oscillations and time-pitch-shifts with their NastyDLA effect

It's also a pretty good delay effect.

Anything good going in the various Black Friday sales - soft synths, Ableton packs, etc?

soundtoys 5.1 for half price!!

bump for any Black Friday sales that are worth looking at?

Not sure if I've already stanned for it in this thread but Trackspacer (a sidechained EQ) is incredibly useful for getting some space in mixdowns and a steal at £25.

https://www.wavesfactory.com/trackspacer/amp/

Ooh that looks really interesting, ty

Debating about copping their Spectre plugin too, which also looks cool (and is on sale)

This thing is free, and I use it ALL THE TIME:
http://www.alexhilton.net/A1AUDIO/index.php/a1triggergate

Thanks! I can recommend the free vst synths from u-he (some standalone, some stripped-down versions of paid products), they sound great.

Any more?

Gotta get into those. The other amazing free plugin that I use all the time is this:

https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/plugins/limiter6/

I think it sounds better than a lot of paid master bus plugins.

https://tytel.org/helm/
https://tal-software.com/products/tal-noisemaker

Channel robot are giving away The modernist glockenspiel and the odernist kalimba. I do love me some mallet sounds. These seem nice. Bit of a cpu hit though?
https://audioplugin.deals/free-download-the-modernist-collection-kalimba-glockenspiel-by-channel-robot/

Glitch1- an oldie but a classic. 32bit only :(
http://illformed.org/

xp - ooh, I've been getting into sound libraries for screwing with in samplers, downloading those now

UVI's (free) Workstation comes with a handful of pretty good instruments, though I haven't really found any free compatible sample libraries (vs all the free Kontakt libraries out there).

also in that realm Spitfire's free Labs
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/labs/

O yeah those spitfire things look interesting! thanks
also: https://www.cinematique-instruments.com/pages_instr/page_klang.php

needs full kontakt though

I copped those glockenspiel and kalimba instruments, even though I have made many of my own sample packs using many of my own kalimbas & glockenspiels

https://projectsam.com/library-category/the-free-orchestra/

Dexed - DX7 emulation that loads DX7 patch files.
https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/

I was looking for a good flanger, wishing Valhalla had one, and then found out they have one that's free if you fill out a survey! I've never been happier to respond to a company survey.

I've never really used a flanger. What's it good for?

Highly recommended skins for U-he's free synths making them more readable -
Triple Cheese - https://github.com/dozius/triple-cheese-themes
Tyrell N6 - https://plugmon.jp/product/interstellar-for-tyrell-n6/

It's a filter effect, the wiki defines it as "produced by mixing two identical signals together, one signal delayed by a small and gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds."

But I stayed away from it for years, maybe because I associate it with the snare breakdown in Lenny Kravitz "Are You Gonna Go My Way"? Then I heard this record, where a lot of programmed drums are run through some sort of shifting filter that I thought might be a flanger, and wanted to give it another go:
https://towheadrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/pure-energy

Thanks for the u-he skins!

has anyone played around with magenta/nsynth yet? i'm downloading now. it's free Max/MSP instrument from google, which uses machine learning to blend timbres from tonal samples, so you can combine the qualities of any two instruments, etc etc.

https://magenta.tensorflow.org/nsynth-instrument

see also: https://nsynthsuper.withgoogle.com/

https://www.discodsp.com/obxd/

Emulation of an OB-Xa - there's a buy link but it's really just a donation

It's pretty sweet, but has the same issue with discrete pitch jumping when you turn the Osc pitch knob, which makes playing with osc sync sound weaker than the real instrument. I'm using it for a pad sound in one of my tracks right now, though!

the same issue that a lot of soft synths have, I mean.

I can confirm that the Valhalla Space Modulator is sick, highly recommended.

"ValhallaSpaceModulator is FREE for anyone who has purchased a plugin directly from Valhalla DSP! "

Had you already bought something from Valhalla Jordan, or was the survey enough?

Ah, I've bought a couple things from them, yeah. $50 a pop and some of the best reverbs and delays I've ever used though.

^^ I use their shimmer and delay plugins on everything.

It's essential to the category of youtube videos that I would categorize as "ambient music made with cheap synthesizer and Valhalla Shimmer".

(related to but distinct from "ambient music made with cheap synthesizer and BigSky pedal")

don't forget "ambient music made with mutable instruments clouds either in module or vcvrack form."

that's an instagram-based genre, right?

New v3 of that was just released

Yes, I saw that. I'm always (and possibly needlessly) scared of installing plug-in updates, in case the update changes something so the plug-in doesn't perform exactly the same as it did on a project using the older version. I imagine that wouldn't be the case with most plug-ins but I'm reluctant to take the risk.

Yeah same. I literally didn't use compression on my first few records because I didn't understand it and my mixing decisions were hilariously naive. Now I have a lot more experience and have consumed countless tutorials, so I do in fact know how a compressor works. But I still prefer to work sort of quickly and intuitively, and if a few minutes of knob-turning isn't working then I'll try something else, or often just change the part.

I've never mixed someone else's record where changing the arrangement or instrumentation isn't an option, that would be an interesting challenge but way harder I'm sure.

But I still prefer to work sort of quickly and intuitively, and if a few minutes of knob-turning isn't working then I'll try something else, or often just change the part.

Yes, same here. And in the past I would beat myself up over my inadequacy, but now I don't care. I just move on. Same way that in the past I would pride myself on being some kind of 'power user' of a program or piece of equipment (this is back in the 1990s on an Atari ST and Akai samplers and so on). Now, I've got a DAW that has hundreds of commands and options, and all sorts of ways of doing things that I don't know about or understand, but I don't care. I just want to get the job done and come out with something I'm pleased with, even though I know it could always be better. That's not to say that I don't still want to improve, but I'd rather improve in the course of doing something, finishing something, not just spend hours learning techniques for the sake of it.

For drums I would recommend the Waves SSL G Bus Compressor, it has a nice way of gluing things together and also works well with other instruments.

I have an Arturia 1176 plugin which I like for more dramatic drum mixing, the 'all buttons in' setting blows things up nicely and pulls a lot of the room sound in, which can work nicely running in parallel with a cleaner drum mix.

I don't know what the best 1176 style plug might be, UA maybe, there is a Waves CLA one, I'm very happy with this Arturia version.

https://klanghelm.com/contents/products/TENSjr

Free version of their new spring reverb plugin based off the giant studio spring units, sounds really nice

I posted it in the other thread but I'm also enjoying this emulation of the Kawai K1

https://www.nilsschneider.de/wp/nils-k1v/

Cool K1 plugin, love that. CD-Rom game and Cinemax channel vibes...

UA is running a $49.99 "guitar" bundle: https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/plug-in-bundles/uad-guitar-fx-bundle.html

This is a hell of a good deal considering it includes the Lexicon 224. Also comes with Space Echo, Dimension D, LA3A, CE-1, a leslie.... I've only played a little bit with it so far. But that reverb, holy shit. Supposedly the code is ported from the hardware. These are native plugs, you don't need UAD hardware.

!
Thanks for the tip... UA stuff always sounds great, but usually super pricey....

This is intriguing -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d70Vk3_o70

I'm not sure about the "physical modeling" thing. Is it using your recorded sound to trigger a sampled instrument and blending the two? It's cheap enough where I think I'll just give it a shot.

If it uses 'physical modelling', then I would say it's not using samples at all. I'm pretty interested in this too but I'd like to hear what people have to say about it before shelling out $29. I downloaded a couple of Sampleson physically modelled electric piano VSTs a while ago, though I see from my notes that I haven't used them yet. I must say I am attracted to the idea of this kind of thing. I absolutely refuse to use sample packs or multisampled 'virtual instruments'. I don't want the bloat on my computer in terms of the file sizes. Aside from a number of varieties of 909 (e.g. Samples from Mars packs, which are very good), I more or less stick to synths and whatever I choose to sample myself, as I always have.

Saw this covered on the BPB site today and downloaded it immediately. Looking forward to using this.

https://wildergardenaudio.com/maim/

It degrades and alters the input sound using MP3 compression and other adjustments. The sound examples using drums don't seem that remarkable but there's a video on YouTube where it's processing a piano pattern and that sounds a lot more intriguing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALmvEnr0XPo

Some comments say the effects are reminiscent of Digitalis. I might have that already installed, not sure. It's true, I think, that a lot of these things kind of cross over with each other in terms of the results that can be achieved. I'm still using the 32-bit sampler Shortcircuit to load samples and even that has some nice sound processing options built into it.

And contrary to what I wrote yesterday, I also downloaded the free Boz Digital Labs Steinway 1926 piano Lite version, which has also just been written up on BPB. True, it's somewhat multisampled, but apparently only 50 MB in total, which is what I like to see. I like the sound of the demo audio files. I rarely use piano, but I can see that this will be useful.

I started messing around with Haptic Perc, it's an odd duck. There's no wet/dry control, so it's mostly adding tonal info to the attack of your source recording, which will always be audible. So it sounds kinda lame if you use a drumkit loop and try to make it sound like a hand drum, but works pretty well if you're tapping your fingers on the desk (also had some interesting results using brushes on a snare or sticks on a practice pad). The tuning slider also has zero labels, so you're purely going by ear (and it's a little hard to even get back to a previous setting).

Still pretty unique & cool though. I had a track with some hand drum samples that were too short/overly truncated and I was able to use it to generate a more natural sounding decay, it sounds nice blended with the original track.

Hmm. There seems to have been not much interest in it so far. On YouTube I'm still seeing only Sampleson's own promotional videos, which aren't that revealing of what it can do. I'd certainly try out a trial version, but they haven't provided one. I don't think I'm going to spend $29 on it without trying it.

But I'm now quite interested in Sampleson's Metapiano ($89). Sounds really nice, and as I mentioned before, I just refuse to use huge multisampled instruments. This is only 60 MB (and also claimed to be light on CPU). Only thing is, I don't really use piano much, if at all, but it's tempting all the same.

Gonna have to get this I think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79EZpULr6J0

Heh I've always done this by individually pitch shifting or time stretching each hit (as audio, not midi). Looks fun though.

I bought it but haven't used it yet.

that looks cool. Logic added "Beat Breaker" to a recent update, which can chop things up really quickly, but isn't as retro as this one. I haven't messed with BB too much but it is quick! I remember learning about chopping breaks in a 1995 (?) issue of Future Music. It was written before most samplers had graphic displays! so it was all, take the total number of samples for a loop, divide by 8/16, those are your chops. ha. Not sure today's producers (definitely including me!) would have that kind of patience!