The 100 Best FREE VST Plugins of All Time (51 – 75)
⇦ Click here for Part 2 (26 – 50)
51. Softube Saturation Knob
This free VST plugin Saturation Knob is a great output distortion tool that can be added to any elements that need a little grit.
Use it to fatten up bass lines, add some harmonics and shimmer to vocals, or simply destroy your drum loop.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
52. Xfer Dimension Expander
This dimension expander from Xfer Records is a simple, yet effective tool to add some depth to your sounds and create a more “spacious” effect.
This is a very easy tool to download and use, and is available for both Mac and PC.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
53. Elektronic Sound Lab SL Drums 3
ESL-110 is a Classic Drum Machine Rompler with gives a fantastic quality of sound for a simple, free VST plugin.
Some of it’s features are: (taken from website)
- Windows & Mac compatibility
- LP Filter
- 32/64 bit
- Reverb effect
- Pitch effect
- Amplitude Range
- Multi-Out Support
- VST3 Support.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
54. Alan Vista Cymbalistic
Cymbalistic is a sampled cymbals VST plugin.
It contains 68 great sounding stereo 24-bit samples from the
University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios public domain library.
- 1 Hi hat
- 1 ride cymbal
- 4 crash cymbals
- 2 chinese cymbals
- 4 stereo outputs
- Release time for each cymbal
- Volume and Pan for each cymbal
- Amplitude dynamic range control.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
55. 2getheraudio Cheeze Machine
The “Cheeze Machine” by 2getheraudio is a vintage-style synthesizer with a great selection of effects and over 60 user presets.
Cheeze Machine 2 includes an expanded oscillator section, convolution reverb, a vintage ensemble chorus, and 64 bit compatibility for VST, AU, AAX and Standalone applications.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
56. Nick Crow 8505
This is a free (although you can donate) VST plugin emulation of a rock guitar amp.
The features on the amp include gain and great tone stack controls for tweaking the low, mid, sweep and high.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
57. Ignite Amps ProF.E.T.
ProF.E.T. is a software emulation of a high gain distortion preamp/stomp-box for guitar. It has been developed to accurately model its real hardware counterpart, designed and built by Ignite Amps in 2018.
The features include: (from the product website)
- Ignite Amps proprietary JFET non-linear modelling engine
- 4 controls tonestack with additional Shape switch
- Mono / Stereo processing support
- Selectable oversampling rate (up to 8x)
- Global input / output level controls
- Double precision (64-bit) floating point mathematical model
- Fully automatable controls
- Ignite Amps proprietary preset management system with bank file import/export functions
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
58. SimpleRecorder DjinnDrum
SimpleRecorder is a Synth-edit VST plugin with great quality drums samples.
There is also a volume and a pan control for each element.
This free VST plugin is windows only.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
59. Melda MTremolo
MTremolo provides a definitive tremolo sound with an adjustable shape, including editable waveforms and harmonics.
The plugin can synchronize automatically to your host and is capable of handling up to eight channels of surround audio.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
60. Ignite Amps Emissary
The Emissary is a digital emulation of a custom dual channel guitar tube amplifier. It has been developed to accurately model its real hardware counterpart, by Ignite Amps, in 2014.
It is a no compromise custom amp built for the kill. Featuring a very versatile clean channel that ranges from pristine cleans to slightly overdriven tones and a mean lead channel designed for serious bone-crushing distortions, it offers a very wide tonal palette for the modern metal musician.
The Emissary is meant to be used as a virtual guitar amplifier for live playing and jamming, tracking or mixing inside hosts capable of VST or AU Plug-Ins support.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
61. Decomposer Sitala
This is a fantastic simplistic drum sampler plugin.
You can use the Sitala factory kits or your own sounds, and groups of samples can be saved for future use. Each sample is analyzed for dynamics and pitch, which makes the controls more intuitive and musical.
Each sample has 6 knobs to experiment with: shape, tuning, volume, compression, tone and pan.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
62. MT Power Drumkit 2
The MT Power Drum Kit is a free drum sampler offering the powerful, high-quality sounds of an acoustic, realistic drum kit.
Samples have been specially recorded and processed to make them ideally suited for use in pop, rock and metal productions.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
63. Melda MCompressor
MCompressor is a powerful, free VST plugin that provides refined compression possibilities.
It features an adjustable compression shape, giving you the power to create dynamic sound effects, and a range of up-sampling options for a crystal clear sound.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
64. Valhalla FreqEcho
FreqEcho is an innovative echo plugin, with low cut and high cut controls for the feedback path, allowing for finer control over the echo decay.
The effects this plugin can create range from subtle chorusing and double tracking to barberpole phasing and flanging to endless glissandos and runaway echos.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
65. Melda MOscilloscope
MOscilloscope is a powerful oscilloscope equipped with a pitch detector, and is incredibly easy to use and understand for both beginner and advanced producers.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
66. Shattered Glass Audio – Code Red
Code Red Free accurately emulates preamp circuit, EQ curves, bold and punchy character, and the warmth of the classic 60s all tube British console that the Beatles recorded most of their material on.
Easily recognized overdriven sound of the Beatles’ Revolution was created by playing a P90 based guitar through two chained preamps from this console.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
67. Teragon ChaosChimp
Chaoschimp is an audio effect plugin designed to cause problems for your setup and sequencer. “Why” you ask? It’s mainly used to test equipment under CPU stress and other crashes and dropouts to see how well your system would fare against these issues in a real live environment.
This plugin is built under the philosophy that instead of hoping bad things never happen, they should be forced to happen often so that one is better prepared for them.
Sound Quality
N/A
Ease of Use
Features
68. Blue Cat’s Free Amp
Blue Cat’s Free Amp is a free guitar amp simulation plug-in offering three amp models created with the acclaimed Blue Cat’s Destructor amp simulation modeler.
We are huge fans of Blue Cat’s free plugins in general, and while this one isn’t on the level of their reverb or compression plugins, it’s still a great, fast, easy to use plugin.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
69. Synister SYNISTER
Synister was developed by TU-Berlin students and is a great, open-source VST synthesizer with a simple design and interface.
Synister features:
- Modulation made easy.
- It is fully Open Source.
- VST and AU Support!
- Sequencer? All-the-way!
The synthesizer features 3 oscillators with ADSR envelopes, multi-mode LFO’s, 2 filters (Ladder/BP/HP/LP), various fx (delay, chorus/flanger, lofi & clip), and a step sequencer with random sequence generator.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
70. u-he Triple Cheese
Triple Cheese, (winner of the 2006 KVR Developer Challenge) is a truly unique freeware synthesizer. It isn’t based on any traditional oscillators or wavetables, no FM or phase distortion and no analogue modelled filters. A touch unusual and a little cheesy, Triple Cheese is quite capable of some surprising sounds.
Feature include:
- 3 comb filters for sound generation (Read more below)
- 8 different modes per comb filter module (11 modes total)
- Polyphonic (up to 16 voices), duophonic, monophonic (retriggered) or legato mode
- VCA with amplitude modulation, pan
- Skinnable UI
- 170 factory presets
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
71. Ample Sound Ample Bass P LITE II
Ample Bass P Lite II aim to bring the Fender Precision Bass sound to your studio.
As we’ve discussed before, a MIDI plugin for guitar or bass sounds is never going to sound 100% realistic. But this plugin does a great job of bridging the gap between reality and software.
Sampling features:
- 443 Samples, Size: 450 mb, 16bit 44.1khz
- DFD(Direct from disk)
- Rich Fingering Noise – more vivid and realistic
- Each Cycle & Rhombic Sampling structure – Separate sample cycle for each note and vel layer to improve sample utilization
- Sustain, Hammer On & Pull Off, Accent.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
72. Audjoo Helix
Helix is a unique synthesizer-plugin with excellent sonic clarity and a huge amount of sound design possibilities.
This free download has a few downsides, the free trial will sometimes create noise or will go out of tune, but it’s great for practising sound design processes.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
73. DSK Saxophones
DSK Saxophones is a free VST plugin for saxophone sounds. It offers modes for both alto and soprano saxophone with onboard tone shaping options like ADSR and reverb.
As with any MIDI sequenced saxophone, the sound is a little clunky, but is definitely worth a download.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
74. DSK The Grand
This is a grand Piano VST instrument that sounds relatively convincing for a free plugin, plus it also has controls for attack, decay, sustain level and more.
Features:
- 4 velocity layers, 4-6 samples / note
- ADSR envelope control
- Reverb fx included
- Available for Windows and Mac (32 and 64 bits)
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
75. Alex Hilton A1 Trigger Gate
Alex Hilton A1 Trigger Gate is a great plugin for creating interesting and unique rhythmic gating effects.
The integrated FX (Lowpass Filter, Drive/Distortion and Echo/Delay)
are designed to be as easy as possible. There are also vast amounts of parameters to get the desired effect for your sound.
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Features
Click here for part 4 (76 – 100) ⇨