Whether you're a beginner or a professional, plugins can be expensive. However, you're in luck! There are loads of free alternatives out there that can spice up your productions. Here are 10 free plugins you need to know!
Valhalla FreqEcho is basically a delay plugin. However, this isn't just your standard delay plugin. The interesting thing about it is the echo and frequency shifting that you can do with it. Sometimes you might need a more creative delay rather than just a basic delay. This one is very useful for sound design or just to create some fancy effects on your sounds! Try it out and get creative with it.
Lofi music has been growing a lot over the last few years. Some people are recording old vinyl records to create that old-school vibe. But what if you could do this with a free plugin? With Vinyl you can create the old-school sound within seconds! This plugin is easy to learn by trying out all the knobs and see what they do. You can also automate the Spindown button to create a cool effect.
You probably have heard about OTT if you've watched a couple of EDM tutorials on YouTube. It stands for "Over The Top", and it's based on a preset in Ableton. OTT is a multiband compressor that does both upwards and downwards compression at the same time. Meaning that all audio below a certain threshold will be pushed up and all audio above a certain threshold will be pushed down, squeezing the sound together.
People love it because it's super easy to use and can create a huge impact on sounds. Above, from left to right: the depth is your dry/wet knob, adjust this to your liking. The time is the attack and release time. In and Out gain should be pretty self explanatory. Below these knobs you can adjust the treshold for each of the three bands individually. On the bottom, you can change the amount of upwards and downwards compression. To learn more in depth about compression, you could check out our blog on that.
Do your vocals sound lifeless? Vocal Doubler helps you to make your recordings sound wider and more full. The best thing is that you don't need to be a professional to use this plugin. Everything is controlled by just a few parameters that you can play around with.
Finding a good-sounding acoustic guitar VST is super hard. But with the lite version of Ample Sound Guitar M, you get the whole acoustic guitar experience straight into your DAW. The great thing is that there's so many parameters and effects that you can tweak to your liking. It might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but after trying it out you'll know what everything does in no time.
When we're on the subject of Ample Sounds VST's, another great plugin to mention is this one! Bass P Lite II is the modeled sound of a Studio-P-Bass. Again it's free, easy to use and packed with possibilities!
Finding realistic sounding acoustic instruments can be a struggle. Luckily, we have Spitfire Audio LABS. It comes with a lot of super high-quality packs, specialized in real instruments. You will get everything from clean pianos to nice warm string instruments and horn sounds.
Transient processors come in handy quite often. However, most of them are quite expensive. But not this one. Bittersweet is a free transient processor controlled by just one single knob. Turning it to the Sweet side reduces the transients, and turning it to the Bitter side magnifies the transients.
Another easy-to-use VST! MJUC Jr. is a compressor that was modeled after Variable-MU-Compressors to give your sounds more warmth and power!
This is the last one on the list and a VST that will help you a lot! PanCake 2, as the name already suggests, is all about panning. When you want to create an interesting panning effect, you usually need to create annoying automation curves. PanCake 2 makes this super easy and interesting by just changing some easy-to-use parameters!
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