Let’s take a look at 13 Game-Changing Free Plugins - most free plugins are pretty boring,
but these definitely offer something unique or give you something that, until now, had
to be paid for.
But first, we have a new membership - when you sign up, you get 10 full masters for free,
2 additional masters a month, and access to our educational courses.
Text to Sample - Samplab
This a stand-alone application, so you don’t need a DAW to use it.
It’s similar to Dall-E in that you enter a text prompt, and the AI generates what you
type in.
It’s still developing and isn’t perfect yet, but even then, it’s an awesome way
to quickly create some samples, create a beat, or introduce some really unique effects to
one of your samples or recordings.
So, I’m going to type in Trap Hip-Hop Beat, and we’ll take a listen to what it comes
up with.
2.
Neutone - Qosmo
This plugin also uses AI to affect audio, but instead of generating something new, it
alters the timbre of whatever you feed into it.
Various developers have taught the AI to change the timbre based on old recordings, various
instruments, certain types of reverb, and so on.
So, if you insert the plugin on your track, you can alter the sound of a signal to match
or more closely resemble that of one of these machine-learned sounds.
Let’s listen to a guitar being affected with a Saxophone program and notice how the
timbre is altered - not perfectly, but it’s a cool sound nonetheless.
3.
Spiral Delay - Davisynth Audio
This delay creates a super unique effect that I haven’t heard anywhere else.
At first, the delay sounds like your typical delay, but then when you engage the Twist
Rate, it has an incredibly different behavior than most delays.
At the bottom, we can affect the frequencies that are delayed, the timing of the delay,
and more, but let’s just listen to it.
I’ll start with traditional settings, then engage the twist rate so you can hear the
effect.
4.
Siberian Hampster - WitchPig & 5.
Fuzzboy - Dirckt
Guitar pedal emulations keep getting better, and these pedal emulations are incredibly
close to the original units from which they’re designed.
Siberian Hampster emulates the famous Rat pedal with variable distortion, an EQ filter,
and the output.
Fuzzboy emulates 3 different distortion pedals with an input, an output, an effect blend,
and a filter.
Let’s take a listen to these 2 plugins on some guitar and note how close we’re getting
to the actual hardware.
6.
Burier - Kit Plugins & 7.
More - Mod Sound
These 2 plugins are fantastic for creating distortion on an instrument, instrument bus,
or even a mix bus if used subtly enough.
Burier links the amount of the effect with the output, causing a super compressed and
distorted sound - then the mix dial lets you blend in how much you want, while 12dB IR
filters let you shape the tone.
More offers 5 distortion algorithms; each is distinct, can be blended in, and filtered.
To my ear, these are the best-sounding free saturation plugins I’ve heard so far, so
they’re definitely worth downloading.
Let’s listen to Burier and then More.
8.
Magnus Lite - Hornet Plugins & 9.
Wave Break - Press Play
Free limiters don’t get released often, but here are 2 brand new ones for your instrument
or mix buses.
Magnus Lite starts with a clipper before the limiter - just increase the gain to introduce
either clipping or limiting.
Then, adjust the release to create distortion when lower than 50ms, a quick release at 50ms,
or a smooth sound from 200ms and above.
Wave Break is a True-Peak limiter with oversampling and lookahead built in and with the option
for traditional limiting or normalization.
Currently, there isn’t much info about the preserve or saturate functions, and I’m
not hearing much of a difference, but it looks like this plugin will have additional features
in the future.
Let’s listen to both and notice how they shape the transients differently.
10.
Cesium & 11.
Tungsten - Green Oak Software
These 2 plugins have a cool steam-punk design but, more importantly, offer really distinct
sounds.
Cesium is a chorus plugin with an enjoyably unnatural sound.
We can pick between 3 oscillation types - the sine wave being the most traditional, but
it can get weirder from there.
The thick switch adds in some lows to fill out the signal and delay, depth, tone, feedback,
and width give you all the control you need to shape the modulation.
Tungsten is a delay plugin, but like Cesium, it has a distinct sound.
Delay times range from 1/32nd notes to a whole note and can be modulated, reversed, and more
in the bottom section.
Let’s listen to Cesium, then Tungsten.
12.
Spectrogram & 13.
Goniometer - Toneboosters
Metering plugins are usually limited unless you pay for them - but Toneboosters is offering
2 advanced metering plugins for free.
Spectramgrapm shows you the energy of various frequencies and provides a musical scale at
the bottom to help identify in and out-of-key frequencies.
The Goniometer is a little more interesting, in my opinion - it shows the correlation of
the left and right channels but in a frequency-specific way, which is really useful and something
I’ve never seen in another plugin.
Then, we can observe the stereo width and how the overall signal is panned, again in
a frequency-specific manner.
To be fair, most DAWs offer metering plugins that are somewhat similar but nothing with
this level of detail and this many features.
Before we close out the video, let me know if there are any interesting new free plugins
you’ve come across by leaving a comment.
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