VST Plugins

No matter how good your performance, your individual tracks, or your mix, if you don’t get the mastering right, it all tends to fall apart.

Now, that’s a tad dramatic for our tastes, but it’s what a clever YouTube ad told us. So, we thought it might be fun to open with something dramatic.

But it’s true that mastering is all about doing some touch-up work, adding some glue to the pieces, and applying a final layer of polish to your tracks.

In this guide, we’ll look at the best free mastering software and VST plugins.

10 Best Free Mastering Software & VST Plugins 2022 – Create Professional Sounding TracksRead More »

You can use bitcrushers on synths, vocals, guitars, bass, drums, and just about anything you want. It adds a unique distorted character to your tracks you can’t easily achieve using other methods.

Bitcrushing is easy to overuse, but used sparingly and strategically, it can enhance your tracks – especially in the electronic music genre, but it can also work great for other styles like pop, hip-hop, and even rock.

Although your DAW might already have a decent built-in bitcrusher, if you’re looking for alternatives, and VST plugins that do a little more, you’ve come to the right place. Here we look at several free bitcrushers to add some serious personality and character to your mixes.

11 Best Free Bitcrusher VST Plugins 2022 – Epic Distortion EffectsRead More »

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 2022Read More »

If you’re doing any kind of mixing, one thing’s for sure – you’re going to need quality compression.

Compression can help with smoothing out your mix, giving your tracks a more “even” sound, adding punch to your drums, and it’s a powerful tool at the mastering stage too.

Whoever says there’s a shortage of free compressor VSTs out there, though, clearly hasn’t done their homework. In this guide, we’ll look at numerous compressors that will help you get the perfect mix.

19 Best Free Compressor VST Plugins 2022 – Get Perfect Volume Every TimeRead 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 2022Read 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 2022, 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 2022, 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 2022, 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.

41 Best Free VST Plugins EVER 2022 – ESSENTIAL Instruments & EffectsRead More »