Let’s be honest, we all love free stuff, especially free VST plugins for Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Cubase, Bitwig Studio or any other DAW! Tell me one electronic music producer doesn’t!
Download the Best Free VST-Mac Audio Plugins. Synths, Reverbs, Compressors.and much more. Just click and download.
That’s why I’ve written up this review of my top choices for free plugins that you may want to check out and download to use in your music.
Free Mac Vst Plugins. MOscillator is an antialiased generator plugin withadjustable oscillator shape. It can be used as a testing generator foranalyses or, thanks to the integrated modulators, for more advancedeffects such as subbass enhancement. Mar 08, 2019 GUITAR VSTs: Best Free VST Plugins for Guitar. 1) Nick Crow 8505 Lead. A formidable VST amp for heavy metal fanboys and shred aficionados, Nick Crow 8505 lead has been in the game for a while now. It comes in handy for adding that powerful and jaw-dropping raw punch to your guitar tone and makes it sound more intense and “heavy”. Correlometer is a free analog-style stereo multi-band correlation meter AudioUnit, AAX, and VST plugin for Windows and MAC. It is based on the correlation meter from another Voxengo great product, the PHA-979 phase-alignment plugin. Besides its adjustable band quality factor, side-chain input.
Speaking of free stuff, if you haven’t signed up to us yet, you can get free sample packs and tutorials by some of our featured artists from the BassGorilla Podcast – all you need to do is sign up here.
This list is in no order and may be expanded to include other plugins over time. Let me know in the comments if you know any other great free plugins at the bottom of this post!
1. SampleTank FREE
Windows, Mac OS X It’s insane that something as good as SampleTank could be free. It comes with a wide range of virtual instruments, from basses to drums, guitars, synths, organs, ensemble strings and orchestral sections, vocals and much more! You can upgrade to SampleTank 2L or 2.5 XL if you’re impressed with the quality of the sounds you hear in the free version.
SampleTank FREE Sounds- Sample based sounds (parent): 58
- Preset sounds (child): 146
- Combi sounds (combi): 0
- Total sounds: 204
- Total size: 579 MB
2. Flux BitterSweet v3
Windows, Mac OS X BitterSweet from Flux is a free transient shaper plugin. It works well for adding more ‘punch’ to your drums, especially your kicks, snares and toms. The extra punch comes when you turn the dial to the ‘bitter’ setting. You can soften the punch of a sound when you turn the dial towards the ‘sweet’ setting. It is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit plugin. Features:
- Output Gain, controlling the gain at the end of the processing.
- Bypass routes the incoming signal direct to the output for a true smooth transition between processed and clean signal.
- Three different transient 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.
3. Glitch 2
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux Glitch is an audio effect plugin for Windows (VST), Mac (VST and AU) and Linux (VST), available in both 32-bit and 64-bit formats. Featuring a new and improved sequencer which can play multiple effects simultaneously, with the ability to trigger unique scenes from every note on your keyboard, Glitch can be as gentle or as brutal as you like. Add the occasional splash of re-trigger or stretcher to single hits within your drum loop, or fill the entire sequencer with random effect blocks for a totally chaotic trip down the digital rabbit hole… the choice is yours! Features:
Sequencer
- Each program consists of 128 scenes that can be triggered via MIDI notes. Each scene has its own unique sequencer pattern, timing, and effect settings, allowing you to create tons of unique variations for every moment in your song, all ready to go at the press of a key!
Free Mac Vst Ableton Free
- Multi-lane sequencer allows many effects to be played simultaneously, to create interesting layered sounds.
- Improved sequencer timing controls to better match your groove and song structure.
- Intuitive pattern editor with drag’n’drop. Draw, erase, resize, split and join blocks with ease.
Effects
- 9 cheeky little effect modules designed to slice, dice, chop, screw, twist, turn and mangle your sounds into radical new forms.
- Tempo-synced effects can easily be dialled in to precise musical timings such as 16th notes, 8th note triplets, and so on.
- Filter, mix, pan and volume controls on each module, to help shape and fine-tune the output.
Free Mac Vst Ableton Tutorial
4. Zebralette
Windows, Mac OS X Zebralette by U-He is just one of its big brother Zebra2’s oscillators packed into a simple, easy-to-learn framework – but you have everything you need to make some pretty amazing sounds. Sounds that can be directly loaded into Zebra2 later. And should you eventually decide to upgrade to Zebra2, you will already know everything there is to know about the oscillators. Zebralette has two LFOs (one per voice, one global), a multi-stage envelope and three on-board effects (chorus, EQ, delay). Not forgetting Zebra2’s famous dual spectral effects, which include several squelchy filter algorithms. Download Zebralette Here
5. Camel Crusher
Windows, Mac OS X CamelCrusher is a free ‘colouring’ multi-effect plugin. It offers two characteristically different distortion sounds which can be blended together to create a wide variety of tones and textures. Great for guitars, drums and plenty more! There’s also a warm, smooth analogue-style low-pass filter with buckets of resonance. Assign a MIDI controller and start tweaking! Finally, let’s not forget the easiest-to-use compressor you’ll find anywhere. It can ‘phatten’ up your sound as quickly as you can turn up the ‘Amount’ knob! Features:
- Two different distortion types.
- Warm, analogue-modelled resonant low-pass filter.
- High quality, easy-to-use compressor, with ‘Phat’ mode.
- Powerful ‘MIDI Learn’ function.
- A collection of useful Preset patches to get you started.
- Randomize for instant inspiration.
Virtual instruments are software emulations of traditional instruments or hardware electronic musical instruments.
There is a staggering range of virtual instruments available nowadays, covering multi-timbral rompler modules to dedicated emulations of guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, and more.
Some of these VSTi plugins (as they’re also called) are free. So in this article we’ll take a look at some of the best free virtual instruments you can download today. Many of which are pro worthy.
Find more great gear here:
Intro: About Virtual Instruments
The benefits of virtual instruments are fairly obvious. They take up much less space than their hardware equivalents, they don’t overheat, and many of them have virtually unlimited polyphony. They are also much easier to edit and they almost never break down.
Here we run down some of the most intriguing virtual instruments currently available. Although some purists may scoff at the idea of these replacing their well-loved guitars or keyboards, there is no denying that they provide a surprising range of great sounds at a price that even professional musicians will appreciate.
Best Free VSTi Plugins
The List
The Roundup
Free Vst For Ableton Live 10
Native Instruments’ Kontakt Player is arguably the Don of all free virtual instrument plug-ins. Based on the company’s own hugely successful Kontakt sampler, Kontakt Player effectively hosts all sample-based instruments developed for its more fully-featured big brother.
The compatibility goes the other way as well. All free instruments developed specifically for Kontakt Player will load up and play in the full version of Kontakt. Between the two, there is a staggering assortment of free and paid instruments, all boasting of the trademark Native Instrument quality.
To get budget-savvy musicians and producers started, NI offers a free Kontakt Factory Selection consisting of 50 premium instruments. Some of these are slightly cut-down versions of the instruments developed for Kontakt, while some are full versions developed specifically for Kontakt Player.
While Kontakt Player focuses mainly on standard instrument libraries, Native Instruments’ Reaktor Player is geared more towards the synthesis side of things.
Demonstration
Reaktor is of course the full-blown modular synthesis environment that gives users unparalleled and unlimited opportunity to design virtually any type of synthesizer, sequencer, or signal processor they could think of from scratch. With Reaktor Player, users are able to play back a wide variety of instruments and effects developed in and for Reaktor, with a more modest set of editing capabilities.
As with Kontakt Player, there is a huge range of ready-made instruments available for use in Reaktor Player. NI even offers two free devices to get you started: the Blocks Wired pre-patched modular synth and the Mikro Prism synthesizer.
Reaktor Player obviously doesn’t come close to providing the depth of power and customizability offered by the full version of Reaktor. Nevertheless, it is a good introduction to modular synthesis. Furthermore, the availability of hundreds of Reaktor instruments cover a board range of sound-crafting options.
Ample Guitar M Lite is the free version of Ample Sounds’ popular AGM guitar simulator. Emulating the warm, rich tones of the Martin D-41 acoustic guitar, Ample Guitar M Lite is now on its second version.
For the price of a free download, you get an enhanced set of features that now match the capabilities of the full version. The note range now spans E1 – C5, and the plug-in now works as a standalone instrument. Even if you do opt to use the instrument in your DAW, multiple instances will take up much less resources than before, and they will load up faster as well.
Demonstration
As you may have guessed from the name, Ample Bass P Lite is Ample Sound’s free bass guitar sample player plug-in. A cut-down version of the full Ample Bass P II component of the company’s Bass Series product line, this plug-in has fewer samples and fewer round robin variations than the full version. It also has a smaller note range than the paid product, covering D1 to F4. Nevertheless, the Ample Bass P Lite does a good job of cranking out the distinctive tones of the Fender Precision Bass, which it models.
Manda Audio’s MT Power Drum Kit is a free drum sampler that has a fairly wide selection of acoustic drum kit sounds. Great care has been taken to record and process the original samples, giving users a range of high-quality drum sounds perfectly suited for pop, rock, and even metal.
Those who wish to process their drum sounds with their own plug-ins might not appreciate the fact that the MT Power Drum’s sounds are already processed. Nevertheless, EQ and compression were applied quite tastefully, and the sounds should fit in well in most mixes.
Demonstration
Togu Audio Line has garnered quite a bit of acclaim for its excellent line of synthesizers and effects processors, a number of which are free. NoiseMaker is one of these, and it compares favorably to the company’s own paid emulation of the Roland Juno 106 analog synth, the TAL-U-NO-LX.
The NoiseMaker incorporates some of TAL’s more popular effects processors on board. There is the Juno-derived chorus with two modes for starters, along with a reverb, a delay, and a bitcrusher, all of which exist as free standalone plug-ins.
DistroCore’s DC Bazz::Murda is a bass and kick synthesizer that is capable of a surprisingly wide array of sounds. Although aggressive and distorted industrial sounds are its forte, it can be dialed back for more subdued tones as well. Even so, this is one plug-in that was obviously designed to get as loud and nasty as possible. For some users, that could be a good thing!
Top Pick
Native Instruments’ Kontakt Player and Reaktor Player are a couple of the best free virtual instruments that you can get, without a doubt. They provide a superb one-two punch that simply can’t be beat.
Between the two, you pretty much have all your bases covered, whether you need bread-and-butter rompler sounds, exotic World Music libraries, or synthetic sounds ranging from vintage to cutting-edge.
Given the wide range of sounds they cover and the trademark NI quality, these two are neck-and-neck as our top picks for best virtual instrument plug-ins.