Gear/Software

2015 is already looking promising for the VST world, if some of the best plugins from last year are any indication. There were some excellent updates to modern classics and all sorts of new faces that popped up along the way.

This short list is a mixed bag of premium and freeware plugins – if you have any holiday money left over I recommend that you consider investing in one of the premium ones, because they pack some serious power.

You should definitely check all of them out, though, as they could all be stellar additions to your sonic arsenal!

This freeware softsynth is an emulator of the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, which was released in 1983. But don’t be misled: not all of its sounds are 80s-tastic. It actually comes with some beautiful pads and plenty of other useful presets to keep you busy for quite a while. And, of course, if you do want some new-wave-sounding textures, this would be a good place to find them.

Also, if you’re a proud owner of an original Yamaha DX7 – which I doubt many of you are – you can use this emulator as a means to create new patches for your synthesizer, by tweaking them on your computer and then sending them to the synth for immediate use. Maybe not one of the best features of this VST considering how few people probably own the hardware, but still a fundamental aspect.

A Top 10 list showcasing the 10 best free VST plugins as of July 2019. The list recommends a filter selection that will help every electronic music producer. VST plugins are virtual instruments and audio effects for your digital audio workstation. There are literally hundreds of free VST plugins online nowadays, and finding good ones takes time. To help you focus on making music instead of testing audio plugins, we listed the best free. Search results showing free effect VST Plugins, VST3 Plugins, Audio Units Plugins (AU), AAX Plugins and Rack Extension Plugins for Windows and MacOS. The results are sorted by most popular with KVR members (Data from MyKVR 'Favorites' Group). Here are 10 free VST effects plugins that’ll add flavour to your sound: 1. Best free echo VST: Valhalla Freq Echo. The Freq Echo is a frequency shifter with analog echo emulation. My personal favourite. It adds chorus, phasing and flanger effects. Go ahead and create some wild glissandos and runaway echos.

It’s hard to go wrong with this one; it’s versatile, it’s efficient, and it’s free!

Is it game-changing? No. Is it innovative? No.

Is it versatile, easy to use, and free? Yes!

BrainStormer was a nice surprise from last year: it’s pretty standard when it comes to softsynths, but it has a well-designed interface and doesn’t have an intimidating amount of features and parameters to tweak. The sound quality is good and it’s a great introduction to the world of softsynths for novices.

Once you get used to how it works, you’ll be crafting your own synth sounds in no time – and it’s always good to have a free way of doing that.

With over 4,000 presets categorized by musical genre, strumming simulation for its “chord mode,” an efficient arpeggiator and all sorts of other features, Predator has been one of the best VSTs around for years. If you’ve been interested in VSTs for a while then you’ve surely heard of this one by now.

Top 10 Free Vst Plugins 2015 Free

There is a demo available for download, however it only works for 30 minutes at a time, you won’t be able to save your presets, and it will only work for 30 days, after which it will add noise to the playback, rendering it relatively useless. It costs $179 for the full version, but at least with the demo you’ll have plenty of time to get a feel for how it works and what you can create with it.

This second generation of the Zebra softsynth is more powerful than its predecessor in pretty much every aspect. It has a huge bank of original sounds and contains many of the usual suspects when it comes to methods of modifying textures, but it also has a very useful Wave Editor page that lets you generate your own sounds, for all you sound designers out there who like to make your own noise. There’s also a Synthesis page where you can tweak your sounds in even more interesting ways and save your own patches. There are also plenty of free patches you can find online.

A useful feature of the Zebra2 is its clever way of organizing the sound library: you can mark certain sounds you don’t like as “junk,” which will then be hidden from you, and you can mark others as favorites which will be given a yellow star next to their names. This way you don’t have to repeatedly cycle through the sounds you know you’re never going to use.

This one isn’t free either at $199, but there is a demo version available – although, after 2 minutes, it’ll start playing random notes along with what you’ve created.

A legendary standalone program and VST plugin coming from one of the most innovative music creation companies in the industry, Absynth has long been in a category all its own. It’s known for not only being a great tool for electronic music producers looking for more leftfield textures to work with, but also for being beneficial to sound designers, since it offers so much in the way of modifying sounds.

Absynth 5 comes with 200 new synth sounds and some interesting additions to its already solid repertoire, including a much easier way to search for sounds through descriptive keywords and a new effect called the Aetherizer that lets you make textures that range from metallic to liquid to just plain otherworldly. It has 2 new filters and a new Mutate feature that randomizes the parameters for any patch you want to use.

Its price is steep at $199, but this is a plugin you’ll be putting uncountable hours into.

This list should be enough to get you started on your search for new digital gadgets to tinker with. Here’s to making 2015 a productive year for all you producers out there!

Free Best Vst Plugins

Honorable mentions:

Nexus 2 – An extremely powerful softsynth with excellent quality and all sorts of incredible sounds to choose from. It’s expensive at $250, but if producers like David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia can be trusted regarding plugins to get excited about, then you should get excited about the nexus vst.

MT Power DrumKit 2 – Powerful. Countless hours of fun. Vst plugins for x32. NOW FREE!

TuneFish 4 – Another great freebie with plenty of great features, and it’s only 10KB in size!

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The world of free VST plugins is huge and can be a bit overwhelming. You can download and install them all, but which ones are really worth downloading?

I have used many free plugins over the past years and decided to post my personal favorites. They are in a random order so make sure you check them all.

TDR Nova

TDR Nova: Free EQ VST

TDR Nova is a parallel dynamic equalizer with an easy to use interface. The analyzer shows you exactly what your changes are doing. Besides the 4 bands it also has a low pass filter, a high pass filter and you can apply compression on each band separately or on the total output.

Tokyo Dawn Records also provides a paid version called the Gentleman’s Edition with more bands and more options. The free version already offers a lot and is definitely a must have.

A1StereoControl

The A1StereoControl plugin allows you to expand or limit the stereo width of your single mixer channels or the master output. The plugin has a clear and clean interface so even starting producers can work with this plugin with ease.

The Safe Bass mode deserves a special notification. In this mode all the bass frequencies below an adjustable frequency are set to mono. This makes it an ideal plugin for mastering tracks that you want to use in clubs.

Brainworx Cleansweep V2

Brainworx Cleansweep v2 Free Filter VST

The Cleansweep V2 of Brainworx is a nice plugin to clean up your mix. Every song needs its filters and the Cleansweep is one of the best free filter plugins out there. It allows you to set the knobs exactly how you want with your mouse wheel or you can just type in the exact value you want.

So, if you are looking for a great and free filter plugin, search no more.

Flux BitterSweet V3

Top Vst Plugins Free

Transient designers are very commonly used plugins for drums. The BitterSweet V3 plugin of Flux is one of the best free transient designers you will find. To amplify the transients amplitude turn the big knob to bitter. If you want to decrease the transients amplitude simply turn it to the sweet side.

The plugin has three different processing modes.

* Main: using a regular stereo signal scheme for the processing.

* Center: processing the Mid channel only, very efficient for snare and kick drums.

* Stereo: processing the Side channel only, very efficient for panned rhythmic/transient instruments.

Sonimus SonEQ

Sonimus Free EQ VST

The Sonimus SonEQ is the second EQ of this list. This one is a three band EQ, low mid and high. And it has a high pass and low pass filter. It also has a pre-amp section with a bass booster.

The input, output and drive knobs give you some nice saturation control. A higher level of the input control provides more saturation while the output control can be used to compensate the output level.

Izotope Vinyl

There are many vinyl type plugins but iZotope’s Vinyl is my favorite. It can give your tracks that vinyl feel you are looking for. Especially useful if you want to create some old school Hip Hop tracks.

Download this free plugin and play with the slides and knobs to see what kind of feel you can create for your track. You will not be disappointed!

Illformed TapeStop

Illformed Tapestop Free VST

Illformed is providing their older plugins as a package for free. This package includes Glitch 1.3, Crusher, Stretch and TapeStop. TapeStop being my favorite one.

This plugin gives you a tape stop effect to apply on a single source or the master output. You can adjust the stopping speed with the slowdown knob and when the trigger knob gets above 0.50 it will trigger the tape stop. A nice plugin to have some fun with and to generate some crazy sounds!

Ohm Force Frohmage

Ohm Force’s Frohmage is not just a lowpass filter. It combines filtering with some other great features like distortion and delay. This way you can make some amazing filter sweeps but also heavily distort the sounds. Applying delay on each band will give you the opportunity to create some unique phaser effects.

Download this plugin at the Ohm Force website to see what it can do for your productions.

Camel Audio CamelCrusher

Camel Audio CamelCrusher Free Filter VST

One of the best free plugins is the Camel Audio CamelCrusher. It provides three easy to use effects that can be blended together to suit your desires. The distortion has two types that can be mixed together. The filter is a warm souding lowpass filter and the compressor lets you phatten your sounds with just one knob.

If you download this plugin there are presets included but you can also adjust the settings yourself or simply hit the randomize button.

Sanford Reverb

Of course the list is not complete without a reverb plugin. And this is easily one of the best free plugins you can find, the Sanford Reverb. It is out there since 2009, but free since 2015.

This plugin comes with great presets but feel free to play with the knobs for some amazing results. When I started using this plugin I especially loved the early reflections and freeze mode. With these two features you can create your own unique reverbs for all kinds of purposes and genres. Definitely check out the website of Leslie Sanford for this plugin.

Note: This reverb plugin is also featured in our list of 5 best free reverb plugins!