Best Free VST Plugins

[SANDS]

thanks chris, I'll check them out. Can't beat free!

[XHipHop]

[rolo95]

How they sounddddddd ????????????


The GUI are visual candy...

but... if they are free... can they sound good ???

just a thought

[XHipHop]

those were all made with this, btw:

SynthMaker

[Chrisc_o]

Wow, no offense but old news my friend.

I will not elaborate, the search function is there for that, but in keeping with the title of the thread I strongly recommend the Stillwell plugs. These truly rock.

[RusRant]

Stillwell aren't free though.

Blockfish rocks, and free.

[Chris Lago]

But they look so cute!

[Chrisc_o]

Demo versions are full featured, just with a nag screen.

This means free.

But I am a huge fan of the digital fishphones.

[RusRant]

The problem with the antress plugs, besides not sounding anything like the gear they look like. Is that they use a ton of processing. Not worth it to me, but ymmv.

The ssl listen comp is cool for total compression destruction. Pianoverb is cool for haunting verb weirdness.

[jruberto]

yes, this is definitely a well-worn path here.. use the search.

After auditioning a lot of free plugins & throwing most of them away, of the ones I've kept I find that I keep coming back to:

Fish Filets
- blockfish is pretty great for noisy, heavy-handed, gooey compression
- spitfish is a damn good de-esser

Kjaerhus Audio
- the whole "classic" lineup is pretty great, i use the comp every day and the modulation effects are all cool in their own ways.

Magnus NyquistEQ - love it. can go really narrow Q. some UI usability quirks. still love it.

Magnus Ambience reverb (donationware) - a pretty good sounding, versatile & configurable reverb. At 100% quality it can use a *lot* of CPU.. I tend to leave CPU/Quality knob at about 60% then set it to 100% before printing mixes.

I gotta say, I finally grabbed the Antress plugs to check them out. Tried their fakey 1176 & LA-2A and thought they both sounded pretty awful with any amount of gain reduction. Okay, really awful.

[D. Rumble]

+1 for the Kjaerhus plugins. I have a whole lot of Waves stuff, PSP stuff, URS stuff, etc etc, but I keep coming back to the Kjaerhus Classic Reverb and Compressor.

d.

[KillerV]

Originally Posted by rolo95

but... if they are free... can they sound good ???

just a thought

I mean absolutely no offense when I say this: This is what really gets me about Gearslutz sometimes. Loads of great plugins here don't get any respect, or even a second look just because they're free, while folks who know what they're doing are raving about them on other forums. It's always this mentality of things having to cost an arm and a leg to be even considered.

There are LOADS of great free stuff out there (digitalfishphones, Bootsy's stuff, Kjaerhus, etc.)

As for the Antress stuff. Yes, they are kind of old news, but it seems like he released some new ones as well. I'll have to check them out. Some of his stuff have been useful here and there, but they do take up a lot of processing power and there are definitely other plugins that do the same job better.

[ambiguity]

Glaceverb is a cool verb, Windows only unfortunately.

SIR is also good.

I also like fishfillets, and Ambience verb.

[MelodyMan]

The latest version (3.84) of the Antress-plugins is pretty good. Much better than the original versions. The tube-compressor (don't know its name anymore) is the best of the bunch, imho. The Modern Analoger is also a gem.

[Chris Lago]

Originally Posted by D. Rumble

+1 for the Kjaerhus plugins. I have a whole lot of Waves stuff, PSP stuff, URS stuff, etc etc, but I keep coming back to the Kjaerhus Classic Reverb and Compressor.

d.

Me too man, I got Waves, URS and PSP plugins but I mostly use Classic plugins when I work inside fruity loops.

I actually used the fairchild Vst and it sounded really good with my setup, I was surprised! The Tubetech VST is good too. Of course, nowhere close to the real thing.

[dickiefunk]

Other free plugins I love are :-

Bootsie

Downloads « Variety Of Sound

I like them all but my favorites are BootEq mkII and Epicverb

TAL

Products

TLS

www.tinbrooketales.com

Go to the archive and check out all these great freebies

Voxengo

Voxengo - Free VST, AudioUnit Plug-Ins

Loads of great free stuff here to!

+ Fish Fillets, Kjaerhus Classic Collection, SIR, Compressive CM, Camel Crusher, Pushtec EQ

[crille_mannen]

+ 1 On the Bootsy Plugins. Really good

[echoclerk]

So these Kjaerhus are good are they?

That Kjaerhus Classic Delay could be handy if it sounds alright. I can never use default Cubase SX Delays

Whats the Kjaerhus 'Classic Reverb' like?


-
i'm looking at all these Voxengo stuff say the Voxengo Analogflux Suite.
There are just soo many fake Analogue plugs around. are these actually any better than say the built in Cubase Magneto?

[Heartfelt]

Reaper-ites are ahead on this one:

The Good Free Effect Plug-in Thread - Cockos Confederated Forums

[henge]

Heartfelt you remided me that the RaPlugs are also available for free!
These plugs absolutely rock. ReaComp is about as versatile as it gets and very transparent. If you can get your head around ReaFir it is an awesome plug imo!

REAPER | ReaPlugs

[MustacheVerra]

Originally Posted by henge

Heartfelt you remided me that the RaPlugs are also available for free!
These plugs absolutely rock. ReaComp is about as versatile as it gets and very transparent. If you can get your head around ReaFir it is an awesome plug imo!

REAPER | ReaPlugs

There's a Reaplug packadge out there that contains jesusonic plugs. It like 100 additional plugs. Some from stillwell, lOSER etc.. I'll see if i can find it...

[D. Rumble]

Originally Posted by echoclerk

So these Kjaerhus are good are they?

That Kjaerhus Classic Delay could be handy if it sounds alright. I can never use default Cubase SX Delays

Whats the Kjaerhus 'Classic Reverb' like?


-
i'm looking at all these Voxengo stuff say the Voxengo Analogflux Suite.
There are just soo many fake Analogue plugs around. are these actually any better than say the built in Cubase Magneto?

I put the Classic Delay on almost every guitar solo. It's great.
The Classic Reverb is one of the few reverbs I've worked with that can actually give the illusion of a space/room, rather than sound like an artificial reverb. Just use it sparsely and you will barely notice it's there, but it just adds some dimension without sounding fake. I love it on drums.

d.

[tourbillon]

I always find that alot of the stuff from angular momentum sounds and looks alright + most of it is free...

alot of it is (as a lot of vst's are) quite trance orientated, which is not really my sort of thing

hi btw

[Chrisc_o]

Hi.

[jruberto]

Originally Posted by echoclerk

That Kjaerhus Classic Delay could be handy if it sounds alright. I can never use default Cubase SX Delays

I tend to use it for more effect-y delays, the controls for Quality and Tape/Analog/Digital give you some tonal options without having to plug in an EQ after it in the chain. I use it a lot for vocal slapback on alt-country kinda stuff.

I use the Cubase Dual Delay for doing funky stereo stuff and for longer duration repeats, especially if the material isn't synced to the grid (i.e. recorded without a click).. The controls are a little mushy on the Kjaerhus plugins, although you can get finer grained control by pulling up an automation track for whichever parameter & setting it's value there.

[MustacheVerra]

Originally Posted by Chrisc_o

Hi.

Did you have something to say?

[Chrisc_o]

Originally Posted by MustacheVerra

Did you have something to say?

I was just responding to tourbillon, it was his first post and he said hi.

Frankly I find it a bit rude that no one else said "Hi".


What IS this place coming to?




Back on topic: KVR rules for cataloging free plugins!

[badmark]

Originally Posted by henge

Heartfelt you remided me that the RaPlugs are also available for free!
These plugs absolutely rock. ReaComp is about as versatile as it gets and very transparent. If you can get your head around ReaFir it is an awesome plug imo!

REAPER | ReaPlugs

+ 1 ... I also really like the ReaEq

[travisinhell]

kjaerhus classic
bootsie
plugs included in reaper, definitely not forgetting the boatload of jesusonic stuff
affordable stillwell stuff

being broke is no excuse when it comes to plugins these days.