Last week, we covered new free vocal effects, but this time,
let’s cover 15 Free & New Mixing Plugins in 2024.
I put these in no particular order since they’re all great,
but I do have my personal favorite later in the video, so stick around for that.
Real quick, we have a new membership - new members get 10 free mastered songs,
so your next release can sound as good as possible. You also get unlimited feedback on
your mixes from us and other community members to get a lot of helpful perspectives quickly,
and you get in-depth educational courses to learn both the fundamentals and the
nuances of audio engineering. More on this at the end of the video.
1-8. Venn Audio Free Bundle
For a while now, I’ve been singing the praises of Venn Audio’s Free Clip plugin,
but they just updated it and threw in an additional 7 plugins for free.
The free bundle includes Free Clip, Free Comp, Free Convolve, which is an IR loader, Delay,
EQ, Gain, Meter, and Free Tone, which is a sine wave generator.
Free Clip is just as great as it was before,
but now with a new look - Free Comp is a simple but very clean-sounding
compressor. The EQ offers 7 bands with 7 filter options, low CPU usage, and accurate filters.
All in all, this bundle is worth your time. Let’s take a listen to
the EQ followed by the compressor and the clipper.
Peak Eater - Vladyslav Voinov
Speaking of clippers, Peak Eater feels as if FabFilter made a clipper - it sounds super clean,
has a simple and well-designed interface, and has the basic functions you need.
Like Free Clip by Venn Audio, we can alternate between 6 different clipping types,
introduce oversampling, and, unique to this plugin, blend the dry and clipped signal.
Lastly, the button on the top right is a bypass. Out of curiosity, let’s listen to Venn Audio’s
free clip and then this plugin with the same settings to see if we can notice a difference.
Free Release - Reflex Acoustics
When I first installed this plugin, I was almost certain I’d delete it.
I didn’t know what it was going to do, I didn't like how little control I had,
and I thought the effect would be something super aggressive and unpleasant.
But I was absolutely wrong - this plugin imparts very subtle waveshaping and transient expansion
to create a really pleasant effect. The release dial alters the length of the affected range,
but it’s pretty hard to hear much of a difference.
To the top left, we have the LUFS of our input and output, and there’s a graphic in the middle
I honestly don’t understand, but this effect works perfectly on an instrument bus or even a mix bus.
Let’s take a listen.
TDR Prism - Tokyo Dawn Labs
If you like free plugins,
you’ve probably come across Tokyo Dawn Labs. Prism is their newest free plugin,
and normally, I wouldn’t be too excited about an analyzer, but this one is definitely useful.
You can monitor up to 4 different images of the input and/or the side-chained signal,
and you can check out the stereo signal's frequency response,
just the left or right channel or the mid and side image.
Auditory masking lets you see where you have aggressive overlap,
and the human option smooths the signals to better reflect how we perceive loudness.
Lastly, you can choose between RMS or peak monitoring and vary
the measurement from instance to instance.
If you want to learn more about it, Dan Worrall made a great video showcasing the plugin.
TENSJr - Klanghelm
Klanghelm is another name you might recognize - they’ve made some celebrated
free plugins over the years and just released this new free reverb plugin.
The reverb’s decay ranges from half a second to an impressive
20 seconds - predelay and modulation are included,
and you can shape the frequency response of the reflections with the slider at the bottom.
Personally, I wish they included an output gain dial since the reverb seems to attenuate the
source’s level, but that’s not really an issue. More importantly, the reverb sounds complex and
full, and it lacks the unpleasant metallic sound you often get from algorithmic reverbs.
Let’s listen to it on an instrument bus.
Ghz Loudness - Goodhertz
Goodhertz makes great-sounding and creative plugins, so it’s
nice to see them release something for free.
This plugin is a combination of metering and normalization,
and I can honestly say it’s the best free metering plugin available - even better than Youlean’s.
Not only can you measure the momentary, short-term,
and integrated LUFS, you can set target levels for the Peak, TP,
LUFS, and RMS, and have the plugin apply the gain needed to reach those levels.
Even more interesting is that this gain can be adjusted by the plugin like a gain rider,
with the timings controllable within the Options window.
Under ‘Summary,’ you can see all of your metrics neatly organized, and under ‘Channel,’ you can
measure and alter the stereo image, monitor individual aspects of each channel, and more.
Lastly, the manual is easily accessible from the bar at the bottom, as are various languages,
which is a nice touch I’d like to see more developers include.
Neural Note - Dr. Audio
This one is my favorite on the list - for what it’s worth,
I think it’s amazing this plugin is free.
You can either click record and play a track or load in some audio,
and the plugin quickly converts it into MIDI data.
Under transcription, how sensitive the plugin is to note changes, start and stops of notes, and the
minimum duration of notes can be altered both before and after the audio has been processed.
Amazingly, it even measures pitch bend and can track this info and map it onto the midi.
The notes can be snapped to a specific key and in
the octave that you want and can even be quantized with automatic BPM detection.
Whenever you’re done adjusting it, simply drag and drop the midi file into your DAW and select
the instrument you want to use for playback. Now, arguably, this plugin is less for mixing
than it is for producing, but I wanted to include it since it’s such an impressive and handy tool.
I’m going to use this on a vocal, create multiple layers,
and then select some different instruments for the playback - let’s listen and notice
how quickly this plugin lets you introduce some creative processing to your mix.
EFX Refract - Arturia
I included this plugin in the video on free vocal effects,
but the more I use it, the more I enjoy it on multiple sources.
It introduces modulation and can create up to 8 voices - which can then be fed
into a bandpass filter, comb filter, digital distortion, analog emulation
distortion with 4 algorithms, or a harmonizer with selectable notes.
The amount of the effect is modulated with an LFO at the bottom, which can be synced to the BPM,
and we get a lot of useful presets to help us get a grasp of what the plugin can do.
The more I use it, the more I like it - for example,
I just used it on some doubled guitars in a mix to give a unique chorusing effect.
Let’s take a listen and notice how the plugin can create both drastic and creative,
as well as subtle and practical effects.