The RedFaux Transmission

10 Great Free VSTs : The Free VSTs That Made The Cut

So recently I had to wipe my computer clean and start from scratch.  I had quite a plethora of free vsts on the computer and decided that most of them weren't really worth re-installing.  Here are the 10 that made the cut and were re-installed on the machine because I do use them frequently. I think most of these are PC only folks... Click on the VST title to go to the download pages for each VST. 

 

1. TAL- Noisemaker - So pretty much everything put out by TAL is really good and usable, but I think Noise Maker stands out.  I find myself using this synth alot for sound design and music.  It has a nice fat analog sound to it and it is really easy to tweak to get the sound you want out of it. 

 

2. Analog Warfare (1, 2, &3) - This comes as a suite of 3 plugins (Analog Warfare 1, 2 & 3).  Install all of them.  They are all slightly different and good for creating creative synth textures, modulation & arpeggios. 

 

3. TAL Dub III - Another TAL plugin, this is a great simple little delay vst that allows you to create tempo synched or free form delays.  You can control what speakers the delay is pumped to and there is even a drive knob that allows for some subtle distortion.  I find myself reaching for this delay quite often. 

 

4. String Theory - This is a physical modelling synthesizer.  Its specialty is strings.  The synth has 2 arpeggiators which allows for some complex patterns. The range of the type of sounds it can create is impressive.  

 

5. TAL Filter II - This is a filter vst lets you apply an envelope across time and apply it to 7 different types of filters (the same ones used in Noise Maker) as well as pan and volume.  

6. Rez 2.0 - This is a monophonic virtual analog synth that is bright and resonant sounding.  I use it alot for bass lines that I need to cut through the mix. 

 

7. Boom Comb - This is a comb filter plugin that I use quite a bit for sound design to get crazy flange/delay/gritty style effects.   

 

8. Valhalla FreqEcho - This is the only free multi-band delay I know of, and it's good. I used it on vocals for the last dance remix I worked on. It was great for building up tension. I would also recommend this for sound design as well.   

myVST Demo: ValhallaFreqEcho MkI from myVST on Vimeo.

 

9. TAL Tube - This vst is a tube amp simulator which adds warmth to any sound you apply it to.  I use this one alot to add extra oomph to drums especially. 

 

10. DBlue Glitch - Glitch is an effects sequencer that allows you define the size of the slices of audio it effects based on a time grid.  I use this plug quite often on drums to spice up boring loops or patterns.  

 

Well I hope you enjoy these 10 plugins.  I think you'll find they are definitely the cream of the crop.  

Until next time... Over N Out

- RED

Using 32-bit VST plugins in a 64-bit DAW (PC)

At work they upgraded me to a 64-bit PC running Windows 7.  I was pretty happy about this until I discovered that I couldn't run my 32-bit vst plugins in my 64-bit version of Cakewalk Sonar 8.5.  A friend of mine recommended "BitBridge" which at some point was Sonar's answer to using 32-bit plugins in their DAW but I could find very little information on it. However, I did find a little app called "JBridge" which does the trick. Once installed you can run your 32-bit VST effects and instruments in your 64-bit DAW.  I only tried this with Sonar, but according to their documentation this should work with other 64-bit DAWs as well. You can download a demo version for free to see if it works for you.  The full version is: 14.99 GBP or $21.62 US.  For more information visit the JBridge Site.

Until next time... Over N Out

- RED

3 More Great Free VSTs

 Have you ever noticed that some free VST synths have names that sound like viruses? I've downloaded a few vsts that were so aptly named that I figured if they did turn out to be viruses it would be my own damn fault for not getting the hint from the title.

Here are the ones that hit the top of my paranoia list:

• The Devil Inside
• HAHAHA
• Karnage by Kriminal
• Scandalous
• Imp-osc-ter

Incidently, all these are legit and not viruses :)  Now that my nerdy joke is out of the way... here are 3 free VSTs I think are worth mentioning.

1. TranceDrive <-- DOWNLOAD HERE

 

TranceDrive, created by Maik Menz, is a nice big fat sounding VST, complete with 3 oscillators, 3 LFOS a choice of filters (Low, High and Bandpass) and a host of effects: gate, chorus, phaser, flanger, distortion, delay, reverb & EQ.  Each oscillator supports 6 different wave types including a super saw which allows you to get really fat sounding basses.

Probably the only drawback is there are only 11 presets, but the synth is cool and its fun to make your own. I'm working on a bank of original presets for this synth that I will post for you to download as soon as I finish :) 

2. Polly 8 <-- DOWNLOAD HERE

The Polly8 made by Osirus Synths is a wonderfully warm and fat sounding synth.  The sound reminds me a little bit of the Prophet VS.  It features 2 Oscillators, 2 LFOS, a Low and Highpass filter, Delay, Chorus, Arpeggiator, Phaser & EQ.  I love the pads and synth sweeps on this one.  Definitely worth the download in my opinion.

3. Hahaha CS33 v2 <-- DOWNLOAD HERE

The HAHAHA CS33, made by Perthu Music, has 2 oscillators, 1 filter, 1 LFO to EGs and Distortion, Reverb, Delay & Chorus.  I think the filters sounds really nice on this synth and some of the presets really show off some very cool sounding filter modulation.  Like the other 2 synths this one feels pretty polished and doesn't feel or sound at all like a free vst.  Another one worth downloading...

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In closing I also want to mention a relatively new resource on the internet called MyVST.  This is a cool site that shows you video demos of free VSTs and other audio tools. It has video demos of the three synths mentioned up above if you need more convincing before you take the plunge and download them ;-)

- Until Next Time... Over N Out

RED

A Couple of Audio Freebies...

I found a couple of cool freebies on the net last night... and I thought I'd share.

Nine Inch Nails has released their new album "The Slip" and its available for free download at the NIN site. GO HERE to download the album.

Sounds Online is offering a free mini-orchestral VST made from the East West orchestral libraries.  There are only a handful of instruments, but they sound fantastic and are very usable.  You also get a coupon code to upgrade to the East West Gold or Platinum libraries for a discount.  Go HERE to download the free East West orchestral vst.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vatsug// CC BY 2.0

Over N Out

- RED

Checkin In...

Thanks to all of you that have showed interest in the "Heather" synth.  I was quite surprised by it all... in the good way.  Thanks to the folks who re-blogged the post and all you folks who tweeted the link. You guys rock!

Also, in the week I've been on Twitter I've met some great folks and discovered some great audio resources that I'm going to add to the links and resources page.

• The Music of Sound - A blog written by sound designer Tim Prebble
• Think Tank - A music industry blog
• Robin Frederick.com - A songwriting blog by Robin Frederick
• Audio GeekZine - An online 'zine for music & audio production

Stay tuned for some songwriting tips, and more audio geekery in the next few days.

- Until Next Time... Over N Out

-RED

New Free VST Instrument "Heather" from Cos&FX

I have some pretty nice friends... some of them even name synthesizers after me ;-) My friend, Scott Snyder, (aka Cos&FX) who aside from being a Sound Designer in the video game industry, also creates audio plugins on the side.  He decided he wanted to start making them available to the masses so I said I'd help out and offer a place to post them and help create the presets.  "Heather" is his first offering.  It's a VST synth that applies additive and subtractive synthesis elements to create its sounds.  The two filters are very resonant and with some tweaking can be really dramatic and wacky if applied to one of the 2 LFOs. This is a good synth for cutting basses, large screechy sweeping pads, leads and scifi sound effects. For just two oscillators it can be *really* F A T.

I've thoroughly hammered on this VST using Cubase 4 and Ableton Live 8.1 and it is solid... no wierdness.  Give it a shot... its free what do you have to lose?

click the image above to see a larger view.
 

Specifications:

• 2 Oscillators
• waveforms: sine, saw, ramp, triangle, pulse/square, white noise, pink noise
• 2 Low Pass Filters
• 2 free-tempo LFOS that can modulate: pitch, pulse width, filter (cutoff or resonance)
• Saturator
• Decimator/Sample Rate
• 30 presets

Product: Heather

Type: VSTi for Windows

Developer: Cos & FX

Download HERE

- Til Next Time... Over N Out

- RED

p.s. In the near future I will create a "Downloads" page and you can access this vst and other goodies from there... stay tuned!

My Top Favorite 10 FREE VST Instrument Plugins

Last week I posted my list of favorite free vst effect plugins.  I thought I would follow that up with my favorite 10 free vst instruments for the PC.  There seems to be twice as many free synth vsts than effect vsts.  Going through them all to find the good ones is a chore.  For as many as I have saved in my plugin folder I have deleted just as many that just weren't that good.  It seems almost anyone can make a synth with Synth Maker or Synth Edit which is great for people learning to make plugins :)... but it makes finding good and usable free ones a bit more difficult.   Here is my list of favorites to date.

1. Superwave P8 by Superwave

 
I can't believe this synth is free actually.  It uses a combination of additive and subtractive synthesis to create its big sound.  It has 2 oscillators, but in "superwave" mode it plays 7 wave forms. It also has 2 filters, 2 LFOs, as well as delay. It is warm and fat and conjures up memories of old Gary Numan & Jean Michel Jarre records. 

2. Amphetamine by Easytoolz

 
While were on the subject of nice and fat...lets talk about Amphetamine. This is a 6 oscillator synth that has great pads.  The filters are funky sounding and that's what I like best about it.  It also has a primitive gate sequencer in it as well. This was entered in the 2009 KVR challenge.  It didn't place, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good pick. 

3. Originally my choice in this spot was 23 Words by XOXOS, but his site has been down for over a week now so I can't recommend it anymore. 

This is a sample playback vst.  What makes it so interesting is you can load up to 23 different wave snippets into the vst and then play them back in order or randomly.  This yields some very interesting and inspiring results.  I find that it is good for loop creation and ideas. 

4. Augur by Smart Electronix

Augur, according to its maker's website, is an "ongoing attempt at a Prophet VS clone". I don't think it comes close to the richness and beauty of the Prophet VS, but its still worth downloading. The vst uses the same modulation matrix diagram that is printed on the actual synth and allows you to make modulation choices by clicking radio buttons in the diagram.  This is a pretty intuitive design.The modulation possibilites are very interesting on this vst.  I like the way its layed out and I like the sounds I can mangle from it. The UI isn't pretty and that may make it unusable for some folks, but I like making sounds on this vst and its easy to make usable ones.

5. Crystal by Green Oak

 
This is another synth I couldn't believe was free. This is a semi-modular synth that has elements of FM synthesis and subtractive synthesis.  It has synthesized wave forms and sampled wave forms to choose from as starting points.  There are multiple modulation envelopes and a modulation matrix that lets you assign sources and targets for modulation.  This synth can create some incredibly creative sounds and it sounds good.  Its not only good for musical sounds but also for sound design. 

6. FMMF by de la Mancha

This vst is based on FM Synthesis and has a nice intuitive interface.  It has 4 operators and multi-stage envelopes to mess about with.   I haven't had tons of time to play with this one, but I think the presets are interesting.  This synth was the 3rd place winner in the 2009 KVR Challenge.  One thing to note is that the web page does warn of possible crashes on multi-core machines if you run more than one instance of FMMF. I haven't had this issue yet though.

7. EMU Proteus VX by EMU

  

I think this one has been available for awhile, but none the less I think its solid.  The presets are all pretty good and straight forward and there is a lot of tweakability here.  The 1000 free pre-sets come from the Proteus 2000 MIDI sound module. You can also load any sounds from the Emulator X library into it as well. 

8. TAL-UNO 62 by Togu Audio Labs

This is a virtual emulation of the Roland Juno 60. This UNO-62 is the most current version of the plug in, there was a previous version call the UNO-60.  Togu Audio Labs refactored the old TAL-UNO 60 to make it a more accurate representation of the Roland Juno 60.  I like it because it does sound pretty convincing and I can always manage to fenagle a buzzy bass sound out of it that can cut through the mix when other vst synths fall flat in this category. 
 

9. MinimogueVA by Glen Stegner

This emulation of the Mini Moog has some additional features like a step sequencer and arpeggiator. It sounds pretty close to the real thing.  You're never going to completely emulate those fat filters in a vst I think, but none the less for a free vst this is pretty darn good.

His Arp 2600 vst synth sounds pretty nice too, but I haven't had good luck with its reliability in Ableton LIVE, so I can't personally recommend it.  It crashes alot for me.

10. Kore Player by Native Instruments

This is NI's free instrument player that also comes with some free sounds (Make sure you download the free Holiday 2009 pack).  The sounds are really polished,solid, very usable AND tweakable to some degree.  NI also has an arsenal of sound packs for the Kore player that you can purchase online at their site.

So there it is.  My list of the top 10 free VST instruments.  All of these have been tested and used in Cubase 4 and Ableton Live 8.1 on a computer with Windows XP.  If you have any favorites I missed I'd love to know about them.

- Until next time... Over N Out

RED