VST Plugins

Looking to create a punchier drum sound? Want to enhance your percussion tracks?

A transient shaper is an essential at the mixing phase, as it gives you more control over the sound of your tracks, and importantly, their dynamic and even harmonic content.

In this guide, we look at the best free transient shaper VST plugins available, and answer some of the most frequently asked questions.

7 Best Free Transient Shaper VST Plugins 2024Read More »

If you want to talk VST plugin essentials, you can’t forget noise gate.

It can be handy in a variety of recording situations, especially noisy ones like bedrooms, basements, and home studios. Gate can go a long way towards eliminating unwanted noise in your mixes. But even if not for that, “trance gate” effects are quite popular in electronic music.

It’s good news, then, that in this guide, we look at the best free noise gate VST plugins you can download, install, and start using immediately.

7 Best Free Noise Gate VST Plugins 2024Read More »

Many music producers and sound engineers utilize vocoder effects in their mixes. For some, it represents a rather critical part of their VST library.

Vocoder effects can be heard in a variety of musical styles. These days, it is often heard in EDM, pop, or even hip-hop tracks, but it has also been utilized by the likes of Neil Young, Black Sabbath, Phil Collins, Jackson 5, Daft Punk, and The Beastie Boys, among many others.

In this guide, we’ll look at the best free vocoder VST plugins to help you create unique sounding vocals.

13 Best Free Vocoder VST Plugins 2024, Create Unique Sounding VocalsRead More »

If you’re looking to record some guitar, amp sim VST plugins are essential. And fortunately for you, there are quite a few options to choose from.

In this guide, we’ll be looking at the best free standalone guitar amp simulator plugins.

Admittedly, you will find many of the “usual suspects” on this list, but there might be a couple you haven’t come across yet.

So, let’s get into the best free standalone amp sims to boost your songs.

17 Best Free Standalone Guitar Amp Simulator VST Plugins 2024, Boost Your SongsRead More »

Hardware sampling was invented in the 1940s by Harry Chamberlain and rose to popularity with 80s and 90s hip-hop and dance music. Today, sampling is used in a variety of musical genres, be it R&B, rock, country, classical music, or otherwise.

Samplers are first and foremost used to trigger different sounds. But there are also a lot of producers that think of them as instruments unto themselves.

Not surprisingly, as “in the box” digital recording grew in popularity, software samplers also became more commonplace. Today, you can even get them as free VST plugins, and as you’re about to see, there are even some samplers with unique features out there!

In this guide, we’ll look at the best free sampler VST plugins.

13 Best Free Sampler VST Plugins 2024, Capture Great SoundsRead More »

Every sound engineer, music producer, composer, and beatmaker needs access to powerful tools to be able to enhance and bring their music to life.

These days, recording is mostly done “in the box,” with VST plugins. And in recent times, even the free ones are starting to sound better and are quite versatile besides.

There are different categories of VST plugins you’re going to need to build out your library to handle the many things you want to be able to do. So, whether you need to build from scratch, supplement, or augment your toolkit, you’ve come to the right place.

In this guide, we look at the best free VST plugins of all time – essential instruments and effects.

42 Best Free VST Plugins 2024Read More »

Looking to add some nice sounding violin to your projects? You can hardly be blamed for that. Whether it’s lo-fi beats or intimate singer-songwriter tunes, violin can be effective in a variety of musical situations.

And wouldn’t you know it, there are a ton of free VST plugins that might just do the trick.

In this guide, we look at the best free violin VST plugins you can use to enhance your beats and projects.

22 Best Free Violin VST Plugins 2024Read More »

The magic of trance is getting your listener engrossed and immersed in the music. If you can do that, you’ve hooked them.

As with any other genre or style of music, though, you’re going to need the right tools to get the job done. And while there isn’t a shortage of VST plugins available, if you’ve got budget constraints, no doubt you’re going to want to seek out the best free options out there.

The good news is the number of solid free VST plugins is mushrooming by the day. Here are some of the best free trance VST plugins available.

18 Best Free Trance VST Plugins 2024Read More »

Hooked on atmospheric music? There’s just something about it, isn’t there? It’s often relaxing and engrossing, and it can even get you into flow or a trance like state.

But what if you wanted to make your own ambient music? What tools would you require? Are there enough free tools to cover your bases?

In this guide, we look at the best free ambient VST plugins.

28 Best Free Ambient VST Plugins 2024Read More »