The Watering Hole

Post your freebies here, with a link if available.
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Ambience: best reverb I have that doesn't require dedicated hardware to run. I know convolution is technically better, but there's something so ridiculously usable and immediate about Ambience.

Freeness: not really "free" but it has the world's most painless nag screen, and it saves and recalls your settings even if you don't pay for it.

Download (Windows): http://www.smartelectronix.com/refer.php?url=~magnus/files/ambience-demo-win-vst -2003-10-25.zip

BuzMaxi3: If not the flat-out winner of the gigantic mastering limiter shootout, this one was definitely in the top 2 or 3. And the price is unbeatable. It just does what it's supposed to do: makes shit louder, without making it sound worse.

Freeness: total

Download (Windows): http://www.x-buz.com/BuzMaxi3_download.html

the Kjaerhus plugs, originally suggested by Charger, I still use the classic limiter for light limiting.  The auto filter is nice too.

http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php

GMulti: Though I don't usually recommend multiband limiters, when I do want to use one, I like this one. Not only does it do the trick exceedingly well, but it has some features that you will not find at any price in any other limiter.

   * It has a MIX knob. Yes, you can limit the shit out of your mix, and then mix in only a little of that crushed stuff, like 25%, as a fluffy crispy topping on top of your original mix. And the MIX knob is phase-aligned, so no weirdness when you mix raw with cooked, unlike that "off" sushi you had in Japantown.
   * It has "WIDTH" knobs for each band. Yes, you can actually reduce or increase the stereo separation for each band. You can make the bass super narrow or the treble ridiculously wide. Don't ask me how they do this, because it's probably something inherently damaging and evil to the phase coherency of your mix... but hell, you're throwing a multiband limiter on your mix, so you can't love it all that much anyway.
   * It has one of the best scrolling waveform displays I've seen in a plugin... bar none. With very little CPU. Not sure how this guy pulled this off, but it's slick as hell... switch between bands and you instantly get to see the amplitude of the band you are limiting, before and after the limiting. Very nice.
   * You can get it in the old-school, relatively plain and ugly BLUE interface, or you can get a slightly more modern skinned version that won't embarrass you quite so much when you whip it out in front of your favorite local band.


Freeness: total

Download (Windows): Original blue skin: http://www.gvst.co.uk/dl070421/GMulti.zip
New-school skin: http://www.gvst.co.uk/dl070421/GMulti-GJ.zip

Postscript: you won't really understand how cool this plugin is until you get the ratio up to around 2:1 on a band... get them all up there and it starts to sound like FM radio.

FreeG from Sonalksis a handy little tool not quite a channel strip but more than just a meter.

http://www.sonalksis.com/index.php?section_id=99

although not fx plugs soft synths would handy listed too here are 2 from arturia.

Analog Factory: 137 sounds full user ability no saves, prophet V disabled

Jupiter V: 20 sounds full user ability no saves

both are the demo version
http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/downloads/demos.html
Arturia, Analog Factory and Jupiter V demos

Tls limiter, saturator and the always awesome tape stop...heh...bonus points for using tape stop...lol...also ranked high in the limiter shootout...

Totally free....

http://hem.bredband.net/tbtaudio/

We can't forget about Antress....whole bunch of goodies....

http://antress.myweb.hinet.net/

We'll need a good EQ...I read nothing but good things about this one...and it's orange...bonus...

http://www.aixcoustic.com/index.php/Electri-Q-posihfopit/30/0/

Wouldn't be right not to include the Fish Fillets...

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

or Dominion....

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=4


Buz on top of the totally titties limiter...also do a bunch of comps....poke around there...

http://www.x-buz.com/Products.html

another decent EQ...Nyquist...

http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/

Voxengo has some free goodies...Including SPAN...

http://www.voxengo.com/group/freevst/

and if you've got a sound card you can mix and record with this...there's no excuses for not being able to participate...I used to use this at work with a motherboard sound card...no problems at all...

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/

It's what I'll be using...It's the cat's ass...A full featured DAW...free to try as long as you want and super cheap to buy...

I would add "guitarsuite".

- Boss DS-1 (Distortion stompbox)
- Boss SD-1 (Super Overdrive stompbox)
- Tube Screamer (Overdrive stompbox)
- Oberheim PS-1 (Phaser stompbox)
- Univox Univibe (Modulations stompbox)
- Fender Twin 1969 (Guitar amplifier)
- Marshall JCM900 Dual Reverb (Guitar amplifier)

Good quality VST plugins and totally free !

Here: http://www.simulanalog.org/

Ciao !
Marco

P.S.
Great idea the Recording thread !!

A link from the site Marco just put up

For those who need to know - schematic heaven

http://www.schematicheaven.com/index_FLASH.htm

compand... part of the soundhack freesound bundle... mac/windows, vst/rtas/au...

awesome.

http://www.soundhack.com/freeware.php

http://reaper.fm/files/themepack.zip

click that link...and copy them to the existing themes folder in Reaper...

there's roughly 10 bazillion of them...heh

Just found these:

http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/audio_vst.htm

Good (really good..) free plugins for mixdown. IMO Ferox is a killer !

Ciao !
Marco

Check this link:

http://www.dontcrack.com/freeware/audio-freeware.php

And of course let's not forget this also:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9780

LAConvolver Audio Unit Plug-in
Mac audio unit only(UB)
http://audio.lernvall.com/

OSX users can use IRs on the cheap now.

A good sampler with 2Gb sounds library for free (Drums, bass, pads, piano)!! No limitations, no "beep" every 30 sec, etc etc... it's free and full working !!!

http://www.yellowtools.com/

PC & MAC Versions are available (VST and stand alone)!

Just installed, it works great with Reaper !
10% Cpu for Bass and Pad sounds on a Athlon 3200+

Great product !


Ciao !
Marco

Tried to nab the plugin from the very first link in the thread (dead)....anybody have other recomendations for good reverb plugs? About to dump onto Guitar Center my little Lexicon MX200 unit and pick up a Carbon Copy for delays - will just use VST stuff for ambience/verb from now on.

http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/

And look for Ambience.  The old link is out of date but the plugin is still there.

Thanks! Got it.

Someone suggested this one as well, its fully free to boot...not sure how it sounds though (epicVerb)

http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/

Just checking out epicverb = good find.

Checking it against some random acoustic jam stuff in a project.

Really nice - like the ambience mode.

Can anyone recomend a solid chorus (for guitar) vst? Doesn't seem to be a popular plugin when searching recording boards, they're all about mastering, reverbs and delays, lol.

thanks

I use this one, and it's free. Some of their other vst's are good too


http://www.kvraudio.com/get/648.html

That was fast, thanks! They're asking me to register to DL, will try later when I get home.

You don't happen to have any samples you recorded with it in action do ya?

I don't use chorus that often, so nothing recent. I'll have a look, but it is a very good chorus and can be stereo too, lots of parameters to fiddle with.

I just lifted the dlls off my system. Drop them into your vst folder and they should work (chorus and flanger)

I think these are the correct dlls, give them a try.

Got the file, thanks, a big help!

Are those the Kjearhus (however you spell it) plugs?  I love their chorus - try the Fat on Rhodes preset and dial in mix to your taste, that sucker is killer!

KrankZilla — Nov 18, 2011Are those the Kjearhus (however you spell it) plugs?  I love their chorus - try the Fat on Rhodes preset and dial in mix to your taste, that sucker is killer!

Yes, that's the ones.  Really excellent set of plugins. I had them for years and they still stand up to todays latest plugins.  Try the flanger that I attached too...has some great effects.

Holy shit! Just sampled the chorus on some clean guitars, sounds AMAZING, really lush and dense without weirdness or artifacts!! Blows away the only other option I had (some faux chorus presets one of my delay plugs tossed in as extras I guess - puke). Thanks again, Jon!