Recomended Free VSTs and VSTIs

[Super Fata]

With all the free vst stuff that's available now, I thought it would be nice if people listed the ones they think are good. There's like an infinite number of really bad ones, so this should be of value to many and save us both time and frustration... I'll start listing some of mine in my next post

PS! If I somehow missed it and this is allready a topic somewhere else, just let me know and I'll delete it.

[Super Fata]

Instruments:
-Aethereal Free (Great for pads and atmospherics)
-Alien 303 Bass Synthesizer (Tecno Bass)
-Alieno (Very nice presets, good stuff!)
-Alionoctis Free (Pads & drones, «metallic» and some harsh freqencies sometimes)
-AM Kicklab XL (Kick drums)
-AMVST Claplab (Clap Drums)
-Antopya (Cool, easy little synth with nice sound and quite original GUI)
-Arppe2600va (Good emulation of the classic loved by Depeche M. and Kraftwerk. Fun to tweak)
-Clapofluxury (If you need thin sounding percussive sounds)
-Cosmogirl 2 (Pling plong synth with nice presets)
-Crystal (Semimodular synth. Lots of soundbanks available. This is a treasure of a synth)
-Cygnus SF (Space/pad synth with it's very own character)
-DSK Asian DreamZ (Asian instruments & percussion)
-DSK ChoirZ
-DSK Darkness Theory (Drones and dark pad sounds. This shines with som additional FX added)
-DSK Etherial PadZ 2 (Pads. This too shines with some tweaking and FX added)
-DSK Indian DreamZ (Indian instruments & percusssion)
-DSK Mini DrumZ 2 (Emulation of several classic drum machines. Needs some compression)
-DSK Synthopia 2 (Easy to achieve nice sounds with this. Lush synths, pads and choirs)
-Ganymed
-GTG MX2008 (Very digital sounding synth with many presets)
-Krakli S3B (Very nice for chillout pads and such)
-Majken Chimera ( Phaze Distortion Synth. Not a «bread and butter» synth, but very original. Me like)
-Microtrance (Simple and sound very good)
-Mini DiZi (Chinese Bamboo Flute)
-Mini Erhu (Chinese violin)
-Minimogue VA (Moogish solo synth)
-Motion 2.8 (Modulating sounds, many good presets)
-Nitrous PD (EBM-ish sounds. A little harsh)
-Nitrous PM (Same as above, pherhaps even harsher)
-Nubile (A good Organ)
-Oatmeal (Quality synth with character and plenty of banks available. One of my favorites)
-P8 Superwave (Synth with great classic presets. Another favorite)
-Phybes (Vibraphone and bells)
-PlasticZ
-ProtoPlasmTSMfree (Great pads!)
-Rainbow (A versatile and sollid go-to synth with several synthesis options)
-Raspier (Good «bass gitar»)
-RedTron_400 (Simple little melotronish thing. Nice retro sound)
-Rez v2.0 (One of the best freebies ever! Great for electronic music)
-Shortcircuit (Recomended sampler synth)
-Sophia (Noise synth. Not for everyone, but great stuff)
-String Theory 1.5 (I cant belive it's free... Lots of «woody» string themed sounds)
-STS 17 free/STS-21 free/STS24 free (Space Pads, atmospherics. Love it and use it alot)
-Synth1 (Very capable synth. Dont be fooled by its looks. Insane amount of banks available!)
-TAL-Bassline (Great mono bass synth)
-TAL- Elek7ro II (Another great mono synth)
-TAL- Noisemaker 2 (Great sounding synth with many nice presets. So easy to program!)
-TAL Vintager
-TB Carillon
-TB Tapeworm (Funny melotron, think «Strawberry Fields forever»)
-The Element of Surprise! (Generates presets. More often than not something usable.)

[shayman]

Endorphin for me
http://www.songwriting4guitar.com/endorphin
Shayman

[Super Fata]

It's really good? I've been looking for something to put on my master track, bringing the mix forward, but not distorting it. Endorphin does this well? I've used Kjaerhus compressors, but not on the master, because of unwanted artifacts. Guess I'll have to check it out!

[Impulseman]

Does anyone know if Steinberg's product or Native Instruments can be used in Mixcraft 5.2? I've tried some of Kontakt sounds but they seem to lag a lot in my PC (look in my signature).
Thank you!

[Ianpb]

If someone is looking for a good, smooth distortion effect VST that is free I would strongly advise JCM900. It has a simple, plain interface too. Maybe Acoustica should consider including it.

[kiran]

Yes steinberg product kore player does work in mix craft but not guitar rig
Kiran

[Impulseman]

I would recommend Free GVI CVPiano by Tascam. Some people had problems making it sound in Mixcraft but I finally found something to make it work. Can't say if it'll work for all of you but it did for me.

When loading the CVPiano, keep the settings as they are, with the default piano loaded in channel 1. Then load the same piano in channel 2. You're supposed to have two pianos, but there is only one that plays and Voila! It work perfectly for me. It seems that it loads on the same channel as the track you're using, I don't know but it sounds beautifully for me. Perhaps it refers to your actual track (I was playing a MIDI song) versus it's channel, for example if you load it on track 3, it will probably need to be loaded on channel 3. I'm not sure of that.

Anyway, you can always try it and leave a comment on how it works for you. It's free so no loss done!

[chibear]

No one has mentioned IK Sample Tank. This one is mainly an advertisement for their pay stuff, but there are some very nice sounds in the free sounds, like a few of the kits, editable Horns and violins (23!!). I've ordered their Miraslav Philharmonic orchestra synth to tide me over till I have the cash for the EastWest stuff.

In testing it I ran 12 different tracks of it in MixCraft with no issues and very little CPU usage so the problems I've had with some of the totally free VSTs are non-existent. Enjoy.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletankfree/features/

[Bernard the Hermit]

CamelCrusher is a tiny but very versatile, Free distortion / tube / filter / compressor unit, which sounds mental on guitar and bass, and also can make ripping synths and crazy drum loops.


http://www.camelaudio.com/camelcrusher.php/

and super light on the CPU

What about Tal-Filter 2 - i use this ALL the time,
super intuitive - you draw your own envelope, and assign it to any one of a range of filters / pan / volume
it has tempo sync to the host and because it has input and output gain stages you also have basically a saturation stage before output too.
I love it!

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/TAL-Filter