PavlovsCat Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 (edited) I didn't realize that Arturia's Augmented Strings is still available free or I would have put it on the list from day one. I added Heavyocity's new Emotive Choir to the list, two freebies that are worth getting whether or not you're on a tight budget, because they both simply sound very good. If people are still using this list, please let me know by posting or giving this post I like, and I'll continue to update the thread. If not, I'll let it die a natural death. I just thought this would be a great resource for those on a tight budget. That's the reason I decided to organize it by instrument category, so that people can find the instrument they're looking for at the moment if they have a specific gap to fill, say a piano, guitar, drums, percussion, electric piano, strings, choir, etc. [EDIT: Arturia has ended this promotion. ] Edited June 16, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 I've added soft synths to the list and would urge others to post their own favorites. Just as the rest of the list, I created this list primarily to be of value to those who are short on funds. Of course, it can also be very useful to those who are not short on cash, but my heart has always been with those who have more passion than money. It's easy to find whatever you like if you have lots of money to spend, but it's more of a challenge if you don't have money. And today, there is an amazing amount of high quality free samplers, sample libraries, soft synths and effects and I simply hope to make finding all of that easier for people, that's my only mission with that list. I have zero other agenda. I'm not looking to be an influencer or to get NFRs from devs. I'm not concerned with developers being offended at my reviews or favoring developer friends, it's how I operate, for better or worse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User 905133 Posted January 18, 2023 Share Posted January 18, 2023 (edited) 35 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said: I didn't realize that Arturia's Augmented Strings is still available free . . . . I get "That promotion is no longer active!" Edited January 18, 2023 by User 905133 edits Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 (edited) 42 minutes ago, User 905133 said: I get "That promotion is no longer active!" Wow, what is it with my bad luck posting links this week?! I'll UPDATE the listing on page one. I made the above post adding this to the list after I googled "augmented strings intro." Arturia actually bought that keyword phrase at Google, created an ad and still have an Augmented Strings Intro landing page active (my guess is that they should have removed this campaign but didn't; technically, it reflects that either they're being sloppy in managing their Google ad campaign and landing pages or they're only extending this offer to consumers who go through the Google ad campaign; my guess is that it's the former situation). However, as I already have the plugin, I didn't login to follow the process through to the end. You can start at Google and see if it works as shown below and if it doesn't let you get intro, I suggest contacting Arturia support and asking them why. Having a background leading digital marketing at large brands before starting my own dot com, if I were them, considering that they kept this ad campaign and landing page running, I would simply give anyone who went through this experience Augmented Strings Intro for their effort. But I can't say what they'll do -- but it's definitely worth a try since they still have this campaign and landing page active (I took these screenshots minutes before making this post). Edited January 18, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted March 19, 2023 Author Share Posted March 19, 2023 (edited) I just added some instruments to the original post, including some pianos, organ, drums and tuned percussion. If anyone has any additional freebies that play in free players, please post them here to share with others. If I agree with your suggestions, I'll also add them to my list in the original post too. I just want this to be helpful, particularly to those on a tight budget, so they can quickly build up a collection of quality sampled instruments. I also invite those looking for free libraries to post what they're looking for in this thread and I -- and I'm sure others -- will help you find what you're looking for if it exists. I know many of us here have tried a lot of free libraries looking for those really magic finds that inspire us, and I want the list to help others find those libraries with ease. Edited March 19, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSteven Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 (edited) Oldie but Goody Interesting free soft synth, been around for ageshttps://daichilab.sakura.ne.jp/softsynth/index.html#about Use the 64bit beta version Functionally, it is modeled after the red synth Clavia NORD LEAD2 and has the following features. 2 oscillators + 1 sub-oscillator, FM modulation, ring modulation, synchronization, modulation envelope 4 types of filters, distortion 2LFO (host syncable) Equipped with arpeggiator (host synchronization) Tempo delay (host synchronization), stereo chorus/flanger Legato Mode, Portamento 32-tone polyphonic With 128 preset tones. Thorough reduction of motion weight. Use of SSE, etc. Automation ready There's a crapload of free libraries available. Edited June 22, 2023 by TheSteven edited to fix typos 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted March 20, 2023 Author Share Posted March 20, 2023 (edited) Good add, @TheSteven. Thanks. I totally agree with you that it is recommendation worthy and I'll add it to my original post along with Crystal, another golden oldie I thought of after thinking about Synth 1 (and there's a bunch more I'll add as I go through my DAW this week). Edit: I added some older free soft synths I love but didn't think about until TheSteven made his post about the legendary Synth1. Edited March 20, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Last Call Posted June 2, 2023 Share Posted June 2, 2023 With links, omg, this is a serious list. Thanks and wish you the best. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted June 4, 2023 Author Share Posted June 4, 2023 I just added some excellent piano, drum kits and percussion libraries to the list. Just a reminder, if you've just found a high quality mutlisampled free sample library that plays in a free player, please let us know -- post and share. If I don't already know about it and I agree that it's a worthy add, I'll put it on my list too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted June 16, 2023 Author Share Posted June 16, 2023 I just came across a free synthwave/retrowave sample library for Decent Sampler with 15 presets that I absolutely love and can recommend to anyone looking for these kinds of sounds. I added it to the original post. It's called Asimov and can be found on Pianobook using this link: https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/asimov/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audioschmaudio Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 @PavlovsCat Thank you very much for creating the list and keeping it up to date. Highly appreciated. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted June 16, 2023 Author Share Posted June 16, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, audioschmaudio said: @PavlovsCat Thank you very much for creating the list and keeping it up to date. Highly appreciated. Thank you for letting me know you appreciate the thread. As long as I know that people find it useful, I'll keep updating it. Edited June 16, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 Another "Thank You" for sharing your finds 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 Another Drum plugin to recommend would be DrumGizmo: While it doesn't have the fanciest of interfaces and you'll have to mix the drums yourself, its Timing Humanizer is second to none and I'm yet to see any of the commercial drum plugins out there attempt something like this outside of round robins and increasing the library size by adding more samples. https://www.drumgizmo.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted June 16, 2023 Author Share Posted June 16, 2023 (edited) On 6/16/2023 at 11:55 AM, Bruno de Souza Lino said: Another Drum plugin to recommend would be DrumGizmo: While it doesn't have the fanciest of interfaces and you'll have to mix the drums yourself, its Timing Humanizer is second to none and I'm yet to see any of the commercial drum plugins out there attempt something like this outside of round robins and increasing the library size by adding more samples. https://www.drumgizmo.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start You're the second person I know who's recommended DrumGizmo, the other is a really talented sample developer whose name escapes me at the moment. But considering his recommendation and that I've seen enough of your posts that I realize you really know plugins and sample libraries at a deep level, I'm certain that's a really worthwhile plugin that people should strongly consider. I'll check it out myself when I get a chance. But thanks for adding it to the thread, I think it seems like a very worthy addition. Edited June 17, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Rintoul Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 54 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said: Another Drum plugin to recommend would be DrumGizmo: While it doesn't have the fanciest of interfaces and you'll have to mix the drums yourself, its Timing Humanizer is second to none and I'm yet to see any of the commercial drum plugins out there attempt something like this outside of round robins and increasing the library size by adding more samples. https://www.drumgizmo.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start I love open source software and have been involved in a number of projects myself, but I am always amused at how many projects never go to a 1.0 release. DrumGizmo had been around as far back as 2011, but it has never stepped over that 1.0 threshhold. I am not sure of the reason except maybe that OS developers have a hard time saying something is finished and ready for release. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSteven Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 (edited) BlueLab plugins - development ceased in 2021 and made freely available. Mainly tools, some Fx - see list below... Download the whole set athttps://web.archive.org/web/20211120133206/https://bluelab-plugs.com/ or just check out devs old web site for plugin details. or individually athttps://plugins4free.com/dev/606/ Scanned on both ESET and Bitdefender as clean. Plugin list Air - Air extraction and remixing plugin. Autogain - Gain rider plugin, which follows and adjusts the level of a track automatically. Chroma - Chromagram visualization plugin. Denoiser - Plugin that attenuates or even suppress the background noise (hiss) on a track. EQ Hack - Plugin to retrieve visually and accurately an equalization previously done on an audio file. Gain 60 - Plugin that modifies the gain of a track from -60dB to +60dB. Gain12 - Plugin that modifies the gain of a track from -12dB to +12dB. Gain24 - Plugin that modifies the gain of a track from -24dB to +24dB. Ghost - Powerful spectrogram visualization and editing software. GhostViewer - Simple spectrogram visualization plugin. Impulses - Plugin that captures the acoustic characteristics of a place by using impulse responses (IRs). Infra - Phantom fundamental bass enhancer plugin. Lo Fi - Simple and efficient bitcrusher plugin. Panogram - Stereo sound field visualization plugin. PitchShift - Plugin that changes the pitch of a sound, from one octave below to one octave above the original sound. Precedence - Precedence (Haas) effect processing plugin. Rebalance - Single track spectral demixer plugin. SampleDelay - Plugin that simply applies a short delay to a track, with a precision at the level of one sample. Saturate - Simple saturation plugin. Shaper - Transient shaper plugin that amplifies or attenuates the transients on an audio track. Sine - Simple and accurate sine wave generator plugin. Spatialiser - Binaural HRTF spatialization plugin. SpectralDiff - Plugin that detects if two audio files are identical or slightly different. StereoPan - Plugin that sets the panning of a stereo track for each of the two channels independently. StereoWidth - Stereo widening plugin. Wav3s - Sound visualization in 3D. While some of these looked interesting I never really got to checking them out in depth due to bad timing, i.e. my previous computer dying and not realizing (till now) that I had never installed them on my new one. Edited June 21, 2023 by TheSteven 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted June 22, 2023 Author Share Posted June 22, 2023 (edited) @TheSteven I appreciate your adding this stuff. If I'm going to be brutally honest (about my knowledge) I really don't know enough about I mixing and mastering or effects to discern when a free mixing or mastering plugin is good enough to recommend. For my personal use, I tend to start by asking more knowledgeable friends and folks here for advice on tools, look at stuff like Sound on Sound reviews and then demo what people I trust and respect tell me is good to find out what works best for me. Consequently, without that process, I'm incredibly unqualified to weigh in on this plugins. Whereas with sample libraries, I can easily judge sonic quality, things like is the scripting intuitive, are there adequate layers and round robins, etc. Your knowledge and experience with effects plugins is a good compliment to my knowledge of sample libraries. If you want me to add a section to the original post with your recommendations on effects plugins, let me know. I really just hope to create a really helpful resource that is especially beneficial to those short on cash. Edited June 22, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted October 7, 2023 Author Share Posted October 7, 2023 (edited) See page 1, the original post, for the list. I just added a bunch of libraries to the original post and included a great resource I regularly use with lots of great free synth presets that's regularly updated. This list is becoming really extensive and that makes me very glad I organized it well by instrument type so that people can easily find the type of sample library their looking for, if they're in need of something specific like a piano library or percussion instruments. I just tested a free electric piano library that was the best free electric piano I've ever used, Blueprint by Fracture Sounds. I would have been happy if I'd paid for that library. And like everything on the list, it uses a free player (plugin), so there is zero cost to using it. If you have your own recommended free libraries that I haven't listed, please add them in a post and if I agree, I'll add them to the original post. But even if you wanted to give your opinion --- positive or negative -- of a library I've included, please do, it's valuable to get different insights and we don't need to agree on liking a library, as long as we disagree respectfully, we're good. So, if you've used a free library and have a strong opinion, share it. explaining why you feel the way you do -- and give some insights into the type of music you play, because that can be a factor in why a library can work for one person and not another. Your voice and insights may be valuable to others. Edited October 8, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satya Posted October 8, 2023 Share Posted October 8, 2023 We can kinda count NI Massive as a freebie , every focusrite user has it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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