The Happy Thread Of Free

[Guy Rowland]

2024 EDIT - some of the best permanent free stuff will remain here in the OP. There's a megaton of free things out there - things on this list should be the cream of the crop. Keep an eye on this thread for new permanent and temporary goodies - some of the very best freebies have been time-limited.

DAW
Apple Garageband for Mac / iPad
Cakewalk byBandlab
Pro Tools Intro (very limited track count but otherwise an extremely high spec and most of what is in the full version - by track bouncing like we all did in the good ol days you can stretch it a long way)
UAD LUNA for Mac
Ardour (open source for Mac, Windows and Linux)

SYNTHS
u-he Zebralette - 2 and also 3 in public Beta
u-he Tyrell N6
NI Mikro Prism and Blocks Base
Digital Suburban Dexed (DX7 clone)
ML-VST PG8X (Clone of Yamaha JX8P)
discoDSP OB-Xd (Clone of Oberheim OB series)
Novation V-Station
Vember Surged

SAMPLE LIBRARIES / PLAYERS
NI Komplete Start
ProjectSAM Free Orchestra 1 and 2
Spitfire Audio LABS
Orchestral Tools SINE Factory
Heavyocity Foundations
Impact Soundworks free collection
Soniccouture free collection
Spitfire BBC Orchestra discover

DRUMS
BFD Free Player
Steven Slate Drums
IK MODO drums CS 1.5
Rayzoon Jamstix free

EFFECTS
NI Komplete Start
Plugin Alliance Free
Bluecat Freeware II
Kilohertz Essentials
Venn Audio Free Suite
IK Amplitube 5 CS
Slate Digital Fresh Air (a great alternative to the esteemed Clariphonic)
A1 Trigger Gate (I use this in preference to all the paid ones)
Nugen A/B Assist
Valhalla Supermassive
TAL Reverb 2 and 3
u-he Protoverb
Voxengo Old School Reverb
iZotope Vocal Doubler
Audiothing Filterjam
TAL Vocoder
TAL Chorus LX (Juno chorus clone)

====

Original thread from here OCT 19 2023

====

Figured this would be a useful place for the occasional freebies that come up. Starting with:

Waves Kramer HLS Channel
(not sure how long this is up for - says for Gearspace subscribers but works for all seemingly)
https://www.waves.com/account/free-kram ... -gearspace

Amplitube SVX2 Bass Amp
(until October 31)
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/news/?item_id=15019

[Geoff Grace]

Great idea, Guy!

Pulsar w495, emulation of the Neumann w495 3-band EQ
(until October 31)
https://pulsar.audio/w495/

UAD LA-2A Tube Compressor
(until October 31)
https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/comp ... essor.html

Best,

Geoff

[soundbylaura]

Free iZotope Ozone 11 Mastering(?)) EQ: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... b1k7_1klc4

Free SoundToys Little Plate: https://forms.soundtoys.com/#/little-plate-promo

[soundbylaura]

Free BOOM sfx

https://www.boomlibrary.com/sound-effec ... d-impacts/

[Lawrence]

Waves is giving away a mystery plugin to the lucky first 10,000 who sign up:

https://www.waves.com/black-friday-2023 ... r-nov-2023

[lofi]

https://8dio.com/products/1928-scoring- ... 9999792328

[soundbylaura]

Free Goodhertz Loudness

https://goodhertz.com/loudness/

[Geoff Grace]

Goodhertz + free = joy

Thanks, Laura!

Best,

Geoff

[Guy Rowland]

A nice little freebie for those with Arturia's Analog Lab - 32 presets called Modern Lab, shamelessly re-creating some famous patches by the likes of Grimes, Radiohead, MGMT, Tame Impala, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars. It's there in the Analog Lab store to download.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks to Jay's tip, Cheery Audio have their SEM Expander free. Not sure if this is a time-limited offer - https://cherryaudio.com/products/synthe ... der-module

[Piet De Ridder]

Bertom Audio's plug-ins — basic but well-made, useful tools — are of the "free / pay what you want" kind:

- Phantom Center (stereo imager)
- Vocal Compressor (simple compressor optimized for vocal recordings)
- EQ Curve Analyzer (analyzer and signal generator plugin to see the frequency response (magnitude and phase) of any plugin or hardware)
- Air Shelf (a dynamic EQ plugin designed to shape very high frequencies, mostly above 10kHz)
- Denoiser Classic (zero-latency noise reduction plugin for music, post-production and live use)

__

[Guy Rowland]

Tutti Free is, well, free from Sonokinetic - Aleatoric orchestral phrases and hits. This is part of their 12 Days of Christmas thing - I don't know if it's just free for a short time or forever.

[Piet De Ridder]

Venn Audio have a free suite of plugins available for download. No registration needed, no strings attached, simply download and it's yours to use. Available for Windows, MacOS and, soon, Linux.



_

[Guy Rowland]

NI's Glaze, from their Kontakt Play series, is free until Jan 15th - https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... ies/glaze/

[Piet De Ridder]

Rather nice, unassuming little reverb: Nepenthe, from Amalgamated Signals.

"Nepenthe's algorithm is based on the concept of velvet noise. Rather than building echoes with a network of delay lines, it uses a predetermined set of randomly-generated echoes. This is a very simple design, which works well with modern CPU optimizations, so Nepenthe runs efficiently."

It's a free download without restrictions, but if you go on using it, you're invited to donate.

__

[doctoremmet]

Venus Theory and UVI offer Noctua, a free cinematic sample collection for Falcon.

[Guy Rowland]

This is quite wowey - Arturia EFX Refract free until Jan 4. A brand new multi-effect.

Efx REFRACT is a stereo multi-effect with versatility at its core. Combining unison-based processing with a variety of secondary effects and modulation options. Effortlessly enrich, texturise and transform any sound, from experimental distortions to detuned harmonics.

https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa ... t/overview

Well worth getting. From subtle to wild.

[Thomas Mavian]

Wow! This is a keeper.

[thesteelydane]

I have just released a new little freebie, Ext.Har which is short for extended harmonics, sourced from the Iremia sessions. Here’s a little walkthrough where I also discuss the different ways of playing harmonics on a string instrument and complain about the weather in Denmark:


Download from the front page of the website here.

[soundbylaura]

Get a free plugin from NuGen Audio for filling out their survey: https://nugenaudio.com/annual-survey-2024

Choices include: SigMod, Jotter, and more.

[Guy Rowland]

Get a free plugin from NuGen Audio for filling out their survey: https://nugenaudio.com/annual-survey-2024

Choices include: SigMod, Jotter, and more.

Sigmod is pretty essential here for hearing / speaker protection - well worth a survey imo.

[GR Baumann]

Strange, I got the message I would have already filled out the survey, was redirected to their shop, and was supposed to pay for Sigmod.

I never filled out that survey, that's for sure. Oh well... LOL

[Guy Rowland]

Softube's VCA Compressor free for "a limited time". Usually $149 allegedly.

https://www.softube.com/vca-compressor

[Lawrence]

Free is fantastic, but I have dozens of compressors and I use 2 or 3. Amazing and confusing times.

[Guy Rowland]

Free is fantastic, but I have dozens of compressors and I use 2 or 3. Amazing and confusing times.

Yup, same.

Maybe I should change the OP to be a collation of all the best free stuff that is out there. If someone was starting from scratch today, I think you'd have excellent tools in almost every area of music-making without spending a dime. Orchestral would be patchy, but there's even some very good stuff there now. It would involve a fair bit of work, but as and when I'm next at a loose end I'll put some effort in.

For those of us heavily-laden we won't use many of these freebies, but it doesn't stop them being excellent.