Doesn’t matter if you’re new to music production, or if you’ve been at it for a few decades (like me), you can and should use these free plugins. No particular order here. All of them are great and valuable.
AMBIENCE, By SMART-ELECTRONIX
This is a fantastic reverb. Free, and considerably better than many paid reverb plugins. It has a lovely, simple GUI - which even the most novice user will understand quickly. Play with the knobs or try the dozens of included presets. Either way, behind that simple and intuitive GUI you’ll find an incredibly useful reverb tool.
Rough Rider 2, By Audio Damage
Wow. If you only try one plugin on this list, make it this one. This is the sequel to the also fantastic (and free) Rough Rider 1. Not only is Rough Rider 2 the best free compressor plugin, it’s as good as compressors that cost hundreds of dollars. Easy to use, thanks to another simple, intuitive design. Not many presets this time, but don’t worry about that. Chuck it on a drum buss, twiddle the controls, and within moments you’ll be in love.
Lecto, By Poulin
Think guitar amps, think Poulin. There’s three or four knocking about, all free, and all doing different things (kinda). Lecto is, for me, the nicest sounding AMP available. Two channels, each with three modes, from crunch to modern gain. Try it on literally everything. Uses a lot of CPU if you use 8x, so only use that rate when you’re ready to export the audio signal.
Noisemaker, By TAL
There aren’t many free synths I’d recommend, (outside the ones that came with your chosen DAW), but this one is well worth a look. 3 oscillators, 2 LFOs with different running modes, a very easy to understand envelope, and over 200 presets, so you can discover the breadth of different sounds it can create very quickly, then make your own.
SPAN, By Voxengo
You don’t think you need a SPECTRUM ANALYZER, do you? Well you do, honest. That this is a free plugin is almost insanity. Don’t worry if you don’t understand why this tool is so important, especially if you’re new to production. Without a tool like SPAN, you’ll never get your mix to sound how it should. Wanna know what it does? Open your DAW, load up a track by your favorite artist inside the DAW, load SPAN into the mixer channel, and see what it tells you. Or watch this Irish guy explain way better than I can:
That’s it. Stay tuned, guys! More posts from me soon :)
By TagOG