I realize that a lot of the musicians on this site would rather not spend too much money on their tools and samples, which is fine. The problem is that finding high-quality free stuff can be hard, and in some cases nearly impossible.

My hope is that we can use this thread to help each other find the best free plugins and tools out there. I'll get us started:

Crystal Soft Synth (http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/): Crystal is a quality soft synth with an enormous amount of options, even including granular synthesis. It's particularly suited to atmospheric instruments and sweeps, and is extremely configurable. It also comes with a large amount of presets, and lets you download additional presets at will. It can take quite a bit of CPU power to run, but it can easily be worth it.

MinimogueVA (http://www.home.no/gunnare/): This is a solid attempt at recreating the famous Minimoog synth. Perfect for those fat basses.

Arppe2600va (http://glenstegner.com/softsynths.html): Extremely configurable and flexible soft synth also based on a classic synthesizer. The interface isn't all too easy to figure out, but it's easy to see that there's a lot of power under the hood here. Make sure you turn down the volume before fiddling too much with this, as there's no inbuilt protection against signal overloading. Twist the wrong knob with the volume turned up, and you risk ruining your speakers.

Thanks a lot TiLT, I anticipate having a lot of fun with these tools

Here are some of my favourites:

Aodix 4 (http://www.aodix.com) : Now free, this is a new vision of tracking by the late Arguru (also did NoiseTrekker 2, Psycle, TraxVox)
This tracker works with sequencer precision but with a tracker interface. The notes are represented as blocks, and patterns can be called like if they were notes (very nice for arrangement). Mainly for use with VST (MIDI as well). One of the only trackers to offer ASIO Input (for recording).

polyIblit (http://www.bostreammail.net/ers/polyiblit.html) Nice 3 osc virtual analog synth. I like it because of its vintage like sound and because it is relative light on the CPU.

Synth1 (http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/synth1v107.zip) This virtual analog is built like the Clavia Nordlead 2 synth. Nice alternative to the hardware synth.

Excellent suggestions! Hopefully more people will chime in as well.

For starters, here's my almost overused fish family:

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=5

Blockfish, Spitfish & Floorfish. Compressor, de-esser & expander/gate. Highly recommended!
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A mighty cool reverb plugin:

http://www.ariescode.com/ariesverb.html

AriesVerb, really versatile for various awesome glitchy reverbs.
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A paragraphic EQ:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1120.html

NyquistEq, I use this in every channel.

Fuzzpilz Oatmeal: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2237.html
-This is probably my most used virtual instrument. Very suitable for ambient, atmospheric pads, industrial noise or just plain wierd sounds. My favourite feature is the "random" button

DBlue Glitch: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1904.html
-This is one sweet glitch plugin.

I use Synth1 all the time. Best damn free all-purpose synthesizer you can get your hands on. As for effects I mostly rely on the Classic series plugins:
http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/

Excellent tread. I use a lot of vst:s from Angular Momentum. Analog Warfare is my favorite at the moment. Some are free, others are shareware.

http://www.amvst.com/index.php

Wow, there are so many good suggestions in this thread. I'm going to spend ages just trying to get familiar with all these neat plugins.

Synth1 is a must, even if you do "buy" synths

I also recommend the following [look on kvraudio and google!]:
SuperwaveP8
STS-24
EZPoly
Crystal
Triangle II
Delay Lama
EVM UltraSonique
StringSynth
SoloString
invader
tapeworm
padawan

that's all I can think of for now

The absolute best ***free*** synth for making basslines: KARNAGE. Read more and download here: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1539.html

This site also has lots of other good synths/effects plugins.

Also, if anyone's interested, I've amassed quite the collection of percussion samples over the ages (kicks, snares, hi-hats, crashes, rides, congas, tabla, you name it)- mostly homemade, sampled from various synthesizers. I've also got a pretty hefty collection of 180 bpm breakbeats and basslines that I made myself- stuff that I haven't worked into my own tunes for one reason or another. Let me know if you're interested and I can figure out a way to redistribute all of this (everything is basically public domain, since I made it myself and have no interest in profiting from its distribution).

Ha! This thread is golden! I finally got around to trying out one of these plugins (Minimogue) and I am having so much fun! Yes, I think I will start making my own music after all! Note: I LOVE Freeware / Careware!!!

You could consider distributing them on BitTorrent if you're considering releasing them to the public domain.
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thecanary said:

Also, if anyone's interested, I've amassed quite the collection of percussion samples over the ages (kicks, snares, hi-hats, crashes, rides, congas, tabla, you name it)- mostly homemade, sampled from various synthesizers. I've also got a pretty hefty collection of 180 bpm breakbeats and basslines that I made myself- stuff that I haven't worked into my own tunes for one reason or another. Let me know if you're interested and I can figure out a way to redistribute all of this (everything is basically public domain, since I made it myself and have no interest in profiting from its distribution).

I love the crystal soft synth - thanks for the tip TiLT. I'm learning renoise so I can write some new material finally.

GnoeZ! not the Meth! :O



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solo said:

I love the crystal soft meth - thanks for the tip TiLT. I\'m learning renoise so I can write some new material finally.

Slammy shhhhhh people will come try to steal my bathtub er lab.

Yeah solo, I'd like to hear some new stuff from you



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solo said:

I love the crystal soft synth - thanks for the tip TiLT. I\'m learning renoise so I can write some new material finally.

Kjaerhus Classic series is also free
http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/


EDIT: just noticed that GeckoYamori already posted this earlier..

Bizune VST - http://www.bizune.net - a 4 osc synth featuring an interesting GUI

KarmaFX - http://www.karmafx.net - a collection of FREE effects AND the KarmaFX Synth, a modular synth all wrapped up in a VST client. Modularity! AND PRESETS!!

All nice suggestions, freeware rocks (but sometimes crashes my computer though )