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Best Free Vst Effects

207,166 Views | 115 Replies
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Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 21:03:13


Well, I think is useful to keep tracking of very good VST effects and even if it's already a list of software (still, not one separately for effects and not one of free choices), this is more specific and I want to try those and write reviews about each one.
If you want to write here, please post useful stuff, like links and eventually describe your experience with the software you link to.

In the thread Emphasizing Drums I've seen a link posted by Gorgorothx to some effect named "Rescue", so I checked it out.
There I found not one but a lot of free effects.
HERE'S THE PAGE
Variety Of Sounds - Free VST plugins
BootEQmkII - EQ + pre-amp simulator
- seems to me like a NEVE channel strip with a wicked tube preamp. The GUI is amazingly nice and the tube is animated.
Density - a very useful compressor, mostly for drums (as I see it).
Nasty Series - Contains:
NastyLF - low frequency enhancer
NastyHF - high frequency enhancer
NastyCS - character channel strip
NastyVSD - virtual summing device
NASTYtableTop - low-mid booster and colouring
Rescue - analog style modeled signal designer
TesslaSE - tube saturator
epicVerb - it's a reverb and it's epic...

Those add instant character to the sound, just drop into a channel and you'll see.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 21:39:11


Antress Modern Plugins
38 free VST plugins in just one shot.
Just too much to say about, come on 38 plugins...
Anyway, some great compressors, EQ's and several classic NEVE channel strypes plus some mastering tools.
I found those by mistake (quite a happy one I say).
Actually I was looking for mastering studio to send my album and google-ing for "Manley Vari-MU" I found those (yep, there is a Manley compressor emulator there)
Effects list:
Modern VU Meter
Modern Compressor
Modern Equalizer
Modern Expander
Modern De-Esser - very useful for voice, especially if you use a condenser microphone
Modern Spacer - reverb
Modern Limiter
Modern Amplifier - classic LA-2A® compressor coloring
Modern Deep Purple - classic master EQ coloring
Modern Analoger Turbo
Modern Exciter
Modern Black Dragon - classic Pultec® EQ coloring
Modern Booster - classic SSL® EQ coloring
Modern Dynakiller
Modern Monster - channel strip
Modern Painter - classic API® EQ coloring
Modern Painkiller - amplifier
Modern Proper - EQ
Modern VR-ME - classic Manley Vari-MU® compressor emulator
Modern VH-ME - classic Empirical Labs Distressor® emulator
Modern VF-ME - classic Fairchild® compressor emulator
Modern VC-ME - classic Tube-Tech CL1B® compressor emulator
Modern V66-ME - classic Neve 1066® EQ emulator
Modern V73-ME - classic Neve 1073® EQ emulator
Modern V81-ME - classic Neve 1081® EQ emulator
Modern V84-ME - classic Neve 1084® EQ emulator
Modern VG-ME - classic GML® Parametric EQ emulator

I personally used those on my album, mostly on drums (EQ and compressor) and brass (EQ and spacer whitch is a reverb actually) and I got some very nice results.

All plugins come in a huge .rar file.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 21:41:15


Hey, thanks for the plug ;) Yeah, those are some great free ones (especially Rescue). I have 2 more links to share on this thread:

http://www.tweakbench.com - A fine selection of awesome custom VST instruments and effects. Chiptune/Noise artists will especially like these.

http://www.arcanedevice.com/ - Some cool VSTs as well as a small sample library of weird noises etc... I'm not as familiar with these, but great stuff from what I've seen so far. p.s. the website is weird and kinda hard to navigate at first... but very cool and original.

Nice job starting a more "definitive" thread here ;)

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 21:43:12


Holy crap man! That Boot EQ MKII is awesome! Density is amazing too, i love some of the presets on it. It was fun messing around with the settings too. Nice find. ;)

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 22:16:54


Glaceverb is another excellent reverb plugin. (Dont know how it compares to epicverb, or if theyre different kind of models)
SIR Reverb is a free convultion reverb plugin.
YOUWASHOCK! is a great exciter VST.

(google)

should we expand this thread to VSTis as well? Or perhaps create another organized topic like this.


BBS Signature

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 22:22:17


Last post for today from me.
Melda Production Free VST
Another colection of free and amazingly nice VST.
MCompressor- provides standard compression with volume maximization and has adjustable compression shape
MEqualizer - 6 band parametric equaliser
MRingModulator - performs standard ring-modulation effect using two oscillators with continously adjustable waveform shapes
MAnalyzer - FFT based analyzer for audio
MPhaser - a traditional phaser with adjustable shape
MLimiter - a traditional way to enhace recording sound power and finish the mix
MWaveShaper - a traditional wave-shaping plugin with adjustable shape
MAutopan - a traditional automatical panner
MVibrato - a traditional vibrato with adjustable shape
MTremolo - a traditional tremolo with adjustable shape
MStereoExpander - provides stereo field modification to improve or smaller clarity of differences between channels

Also, as you can see on the screenshot, those shapes there are looking nice, those you can adjust and draw yourself and customize the effect in a way I've not seen before.

On that page you may find also MDrummer, one of the best drum machines. The small version comes for free.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 22:26:18


At 3/24/09 10:16 PM, S3C wrote: Glaceverb is another excellent reverb plugin. (Dont know how it compares to epicverb, or if theyre different kind of models)
SIR Reverb is a free convultion reverb plugin.
YOUWASHOCK! is a great exciter VST.

(google)

should we expand this thread to VSTis as well? Or perhaps create another organized topic like this.

Thanx for dropping by.
This should be a thread only for effects, we don't want to mess it.
Also I will write about GlaceVerb tomorrow a short review, it's one of my favorites, but... but... people, if I take my time to write short reviews, post links and keep things organised, please do the same when you post here, don't just write :
"(google)"
that is not the most helpful and definitely not pretty :D

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 22:26:23


dBlue Glitch]

I've heard all but good things about this little glitch plugin. Sadly I can't use it on my Mac but I plan to pick it for FL whenever I get the chance.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 22:37:30


At 3/24/09 10:26 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: dBlue Glitch]

I've heard all but good things about this little glitch plugin. Sadly I can't use it on my Mac but I plan to pick it for FL whenever I get the chance.

Awesome vst.

Feels kind of cheap using it though, personally. So I try not to.


www.myspace.com/aeliasmn for must up to date tracks. :)

BBS Signature

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 22:49:43


de la Mancha has some sweet random freeware VST effects (simple but weird and different). There used to be a really cool pitch/tempo modulator called Pitchfork that I used in my February MAC9 submission (its the sparkly/computery sound during the guitar-only bridge at around 2:20) but it appears to have been upgraded and only available for money now :(. Still the other ones are worth checking out, I like to play with KitchenSync although I havent released anything with it yet.

All the other sites linked have been pretty awesome and Im hoping to try out a lot more of them tomorrow, I hope this helps with something a bit unique :P. Thanks for the links so far!


Hi there my name is not Bill.

BBS Signature

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 23:05:12


At 3/24/09 10:26 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: dBlue Glitch]

I've heard all but good things about this little glitch plugin. Sadly I can't use it on my Mac but I plan to pick it for FL whenever I get the chance.

I've used glitch for a couple of my songs. I like to play around with a wide variety of plugins though. I love Vanguard.

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-24 23:22:05


At 3/24/09 11:05 PM, DevonAkins wrote:
At 3/24/09 10:26 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: dBlue Glitch]

I've heard all but good things about this little glitch plugin. Sadly I can't use it on my Mac but I plan to pick it for FL whenever I get the chance.
I've used glitch for a couple of my songs. I like to play around with a wide variety of plugins though. I love Vanguard.

No offense dude, but this thread is about free Vst effects. But yes, Vangaurd kicks ass for techno/trance stuff

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 03:53:31


At 3/24/09 10:38 PM, DJ-Divinorum wrote: What would you Yellow Aura's recommend for harder styles, and hard sounds?

It's not the aura that makes the people, is the people that pee on the aura and make it yellow...
That was informative, isn't it ?
I'm not into hardstyle at all, I prefer music closer to acoustic, but, there are some tricks that you can do there to get the right sound.
You can use distortion, ring modulator, granulator and all the rest of effects (EQ, compressor, amp simulators...etc...).
Important is how you use those ;)
An useful plugin might be KTGranulator.

At 3/24/09 11:22 PM, Gorgorothx wrote: No offense dude, but this thread is about free Vst effects. But yes ... etc

Couldn't agree more, a topic named " Best Free VST Effects" should be about free vst effects.
So, now on topic.

Dasample -Glaceverb was mentioned before.
This one is on my favorite list, since I discovered it I use almost on everything that needs reverb.
Works like magic on drums, voice, keys, guitars (electric but mostly acoustic) and trumpet.
From the official description:
"GlaceVerb is Dasample's first attempt to implement its works on Residual Vector Modulation (RVM) in a VST plugin. RVM is a proprietary algorithm developed to calculate the deformations, the vibrations and the acoustic response of surfaces and materials."

I personally find it better than many (well, kind of all) commercial products.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 03:59:22


Am I allowed to post Audio Units here?

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 08:59:58


I am jut Audio Moderator, not Forum Moderator,so, I can't tell to people "You are allowed" or "You are not allowed", but I think that the title says kind of what is about this thread:
Free VST Effects
Still, people post commercial (quite expensive I would say) synths and stuff...

Anyway, due to the fact that are several programs that run VST's on Mac, AU on Windows and there are some converters that transform DX to VST, VST to AU and probably AU to VST, I guess you can post also AU.
If you post those, please give a link to some converter :D

Let's get back to the topic:

Free Multiband Compressors

T-Sledge
T-sledge is an efficient and free multiband compressor VST plugin. the VST let you visualize the overall signal so you can "see" the result of the compression while you hear it.
This is a multi-band compressor for mastering, equipped with peak limiter, level maximizer and 4 compressors/expanders/limiters. And it is equipped with 2 kinds of dividing filter IIR/FIR. So, it also operates as a dynamics EQ

BuzComp Free "Hard & Digital Linear" Compressors
A top quality free VSTs !
Effects List:
BuzComp Free GranComp - Classic Hard Compressor
BuzComp Free GranComp3 - Multiband Classic Hard Compressor
BuzComp Free GeneComp - Generic Digital Linear Compressor
BuzComp Free GeneComp3 - Multiband Generic Digital Linear Compressor

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 09:04:43


Some people don't seem to get it. It's only for FREE vst EFECTS .
So only vst plugins that are free, and that change something to audio generated by something else. They don't generate audio on their own, otherwise they're called VSTi.

Also, I'm bookmarking this thread. =3

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 09:23:44


Otium FX - Basslane
Basslane is a free audio effect for VST compatible hosts. It's a simple, yet very handy little utility to control the stereo field of lower frequencies in your audio material. Allows you to define the processed frequency range while using several monitoring options, and to tweak how much you want it squeezed .

What is this useful for?

%u2022 Regain tightness in the bottom of your mix by keeping kick drums and bass lines centered in the stereo field.
%u2022 Drum tracks mixed from multiple sources, or processed with delay, reverb etc will often sound "messy" if the kick drum isn't centered. Just drop Basslane on the track.
%u2022 Experiment with effects on various tracks without losing definition and focus in the bass region.

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 13:15:39


Some more Vst Effects in my arsenal that I'd like to share:

Broadcast
- It's included in a bundle with a nice reverb, vintage sample emulator, and more. Broadcast is an awesome multiband compressor, limiter, and spacial image processor in one sleek little plug-in. I use it alot, because the included presets can do some of the work for you ;)

Cyanide2.0 - This is a handy little plug-in for wave shaping and "distortionating" capabilities. Can make some awesome sounds with your existing samples.

Paradigm Shifter - Is a "beat shifting delay mangler with lots of modulation options" Sounds great for glitch or electro stuff, and could probably work well with any genre for that matter. This little guy is fun to mess around with, seeing what kind of crazy sounding shit you can push out of it.

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 16:36:20


Ambience

It's a very nice effect, it has plenty to modify and it adds a great amount of depth to ambient songs. I like the easy to use design of it, and even though it has a nag screen, it does nothing more to prevent use of it.

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 18:29:56


our title for today:
A Little Bit Of Helping With Mastering.

So good that we have two ears and we can listen to stereo recordings.
Is so nice when you can hear toms going from one speaker to another, when you hear backing vocals somewhere behind and a little bit at the side of the main voice...
Sometimes panning is just not enough and if you are dealing with an already mixed down material or some drum loops that you can't "split" to ellements, you might need a stereo image widener.

Beside "Fruity Stereo Enhancer" there are some free tools to helo you:
Airwall - not the most amazing stereo tool but decent enough.
Made with SynthEdit, so, some DAWs might have problems with it.
Flux Stereo Tool - an amazing looking tool, tons of controls (stereo field, phase, gain, mix...etc...etc)
Another amazing tool for mastering is QuikQuak - UpStereo, a limiter-compressor, stereo enhancer and exciter, all in one, with very intuitive controls.
Vs 2 Beta is already up.

Well, like usually, when try to fix a problem, you create another.
If you widen the stereo field too much, some f the things that must be in the center get muddy and lose power.
For fixing that you use Otium FX - Basslane that was posted before.

Speaking of "Flux Plugins" could not let out a very interesting effect, Flux - Bittersweet 2.
"Turning the central button on the sweet side, decreases the transients amplitude. On the bitter side, the transients amplitude is magnified. Bitter-Sweet also features a control for the signal to be processed. When the main position is engaged, the process affects the stereo signal. If Center is engaged, only the M signal of the internal MS matrix is processed. If stereo is selected, only the S signal from the MS matrix is processed. Three transient detection modes can be selected. A varying period of integration for transients can be accessed. A Link function is available to compensate the output gain regarding the transient processing setting."

Somehow I didn't get to get it right, always had a muddy sound with it, but worth trying... I'm just a guy with wooden ears sometimes :p

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-25 18:43:07


Ah, check this out also 15 totally free reverb plug-ins that rock
And now a photo with Flux Stereo Tool, QuikQuak UpStereo and Airwall getting friendly together:

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-26 17:36:34


Kjaerhus Audio has quite a few great effects. I use them often. They cover the basics (their Classic Autofilter is quite impressive).

kjaerhusaudio.com is the site.

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-26 20:57:12


Yep, Kjaerhus Audio is a page that should be checked.
Not all of the plugins are free, but there are a lot of free plugins, suitable for everything, in fact all of the "Classic" series are free.

Classic Chorus is a great sounding and easy to use classical Chorus VST plugin. Nice Plugin for adding Depth, Fatness and Stereo perspective to almost any Electrical Instruments or Vocal.

Classic Compressor is a classic analog style VST Compressor Plugin with a lot of warmth and punch. Special designed to use on individual Instruments and Vocal, but also useable on your final mixes.

The Classic Delay emulates three of the most commonly used delays / echo sounds types: Tape, Analog, and Digital, but without the introduction of noise. A quality control is included where the sound of the echo machine can be adjusted to give the preferred amount of "imperfection". The delay can be synchronised to the host, and the feedback can be reversed to give a ping-pong effect.

Classic EQ is a 7 Band Stereo Equaliser with a warm analog sound, well suited to make non-surgical tonal corrections on all instruments, vocals and final mixes. The passive and additive structure, together with unique "Warm" and "Saturation" algorithms, produces warm and pleasant sound, just like some of the most expensive vintage gear. The left and right channels can be adjusted individually or linked together.

Classic Flanger takes you to a trip back to the mid 80's. It will give you that subtle or massive swirling effect that is used mainly for guitar, but can be used for many other instruments as well. Due to a tightly controlled feedback path, it is possible to boost the flanging effect to maximum without getting unwanted side effects.

The Classic Master Limiter VST plugin is specially designed to boost the overall level of your final mixes, but is also highly useable on very dynamic instruments. With just one control on the front panel operation is as simple as it gets; just turn the Threshold down and hear how your mixes gets louder and louder. Very high compression ratios can be obtained without changing the balance of the mix.

The Classic Phaser emulates analog phasers from the 70's and 80's. These vintage phasers got their characteristic sound from the analog phase shifting filters used, unlike the delay lines used in most modern digital phasers. To get a deeper and fatter phasing effect, more filter stages were cascaded. The Classic Phaser works just like an analog phaser, and with selectable filter stages from 4 to 12, it can resemble anything from phaser pedals to expensive studio phasers from that time period.

Classic Reverb is a nice and smooth reverb that does a good job on almost any instrument. It can be adjusted to sound like most any acoustic space, ranging from a small shower to a large concert hall. With the "Hi-Damping" control, it is possible to change the sound from bright and sibilant to a more natural / warmer sound.

The Classic Auto-Filter is an analog modeled four-pole filter with resonance control. It can be used for creative effects like auto-wah-wah and filter sweeps, as well as a fixed filter for equalizing purposes. The filter is selectable between low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and band-reject (notch). The filter cut-off frequency can be modulated from the envelope follower and the LFO.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-27 18:38:34


I see that people get more interested by "Deathstep" and spammy crap that a list of tons of free software better than a lot of commercial ones... So much for "passion for music", aye ?
Anyway, I keep posting, more for myself to keep tracking good plugins.

THD analog-style saturator - a tube preamp simulator, quite popular.

Digitalfishphones are some of the best plugins (as a proof, they are just listed here, isn't it?), developed by Sascha Eversmeier who is currently working for "Magix" company.
Endorphin - One of the best compressors, designed mostly for last stage of music processing, mastering.
Reading the explanations on it's page could help to understand more about mastering generally.

The Fish Fillets - channel insert package - contains:
BLOCKFISH - a versatile compressor with countless ways to shape the incoming audio.
SPITFISH - a dead-easy to use de-esser, aimed mainly at mono or stereo vocal tracks.
THIS IS THE BEST DE-ESSER I EVER TRIED !!! and I tried Waves plugins also that have 2 de-essers and several compressors that can make the job, but SPITFISH is much better than all plugins I've tried.
FLOORFISH is a simple expander / gate device.

Dominion - signal modelling device that contains: envelope shaper, tube saturation emulator, exciter and at the end of audio chain is a compressor/ limiter for avoiding clipping.

Normalizer - denormals eleminator.
Denormalisation is an issue with some audio hosts that don't switch off the plugin's audio task when the song is stopped or a track contains silence (or with instruments: no key is pressed while a sound decays).

All plugins have on their pages very complex and useful explanations, I strongly suggest to read those, might help understanding mixing and mastering better.
Also all plugins comes with a very complex manual in PDF format.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-27 21:27:35


A few good free reverb and delay plugins:

TAL-Dub
- Is an awesome vintage delay processor. It is capable of producing some really huge sounding delay FX.

Skidder and Scrubby - These are 2 of many awesome delay/time manipulation plug-ins offered at the DFX website. Can add really cool and odd effects to your songs. Scrubby is especially useful for producing virtual turntable effects.

Studio Devil
- Studio Devil is a virtual guitar amp with digital vacuum technology. It can take any guitar sound and make it warmer or more distorted, and can actually add an interesting grungy effect to other instruments, including percussion.

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-27 23:51:04


For your "dirty" music needs:

Extremist - Probably the best free guitar amp/distortion Vst I've come across. It can make your guitar samples heavier, or can be used to add some grit to various other instruments (synths, percussion).

Dual Trashers & Shattershot - These 2 Vst effects are part of a series of insane glitch type effects and instruments brought to you by a madman named Jack Dark. These two are my personal favorites for generating ear grinding effects. Head over to his page of "Darkware", download some free plugins and enjoy an adventure in audio mangling depravity.

Distroyr - This is a stereo distortion effect featuring a range of different algorithms for your audio crushing pleasure ;)

Best Free Vst Effects

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-28 02:05:06


At 3/24/09 10:26 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: dBlue Glitch]

I've heard all but good things about this little glitch plugin. Sadly I can't use it on my Mac but I plan to pick it for FL whenever I get the chance.

I was just about to post something about glitch! I've used it, and I must say it's pretty awesome.


BBS Signature

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-28 02:12:24


At 3/24/09 10:26 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: dBlue Glitch]

I've heard all but good things about this little glitch plugin. Sadly I can't use it on my Mac but I plan to pick it for FL whenever I get the chance.

I was just about to post something about glitch! I've used it, and I must say it's pretty awesome.


BBS Signature

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-28 19:13:24


Do the name Smartelectronix ring a bell ? Come on... think...
They were developing all effects in FL since the beginning, great plugins, easy to understand and use, CPU friendly.
Well, they make a lot of freeware and donationware.

Classic Tools

MdspDuckVerb - An interesting reverb.
The reverb output is compressed when there is a certain amount of signal present on its input. It allows to use a lot of wet signal on a voice without loosing too much intelligibility.

AnalogDelay - Tape delay simulator.
It consist in a delay unit followed by a 2nd order lowpass filter with saturation. The delay-time can evolve between 0 and max-delay which lets you be very accurate.

MdspFlanger - This is "another flanger" with the particularity that the LFO is synchronizable to the tempo with different waveforms.

MdspDuckDelay - This is a delay whose output is compressed when there is a certain amount of signal present on its input. It allows to use a lot of delay on a voice without loosing too much intelligibility.

MdspCompressor - A simple and effective compressor with classic controls auto gain compensation and preamp to overdrive it.

All to find HERE

Response to Best Free Vst Effects 2009-03-28 20:18:42


When I was looking for a wah VST I stumbled across Wurr Audio Plugins.
There I found several free plugins made by Patrick Wurr, awesome plugins, easy to use, CPU friendly and those are coming with several useful presets that can be a good start for mixing or just using like that for people with less knowledge about frequency, tweaking and stuff.

The most useful are (at least for me) Green Gate (free, smooth noise gate) and (Little) Tube Booster ST (free virtual stereo tube preamp). Tube booster is useful to me mostly on voices and guitars, adding some nice high frequencies to the voice and warmth.

Free Plugin Collection from Wurr Audio Plugins
(Little) Tube Booster - stereo tube preamp
Wurr Audio Reverb - a small and handy VST reverb
Wurr Audio Filtertüte - 2 band, full parametric, Hi-shelf, Lo-shelf, Eq filter
Green Gate - for all who use other guitar amp sims and miss the "smooth" noise gate
Green Wah - little usefull plugin for guitar players