Top 7 Free Vst to Start Music Production
Posted by Esteban Miranda on
How much time do you spend searching for free vst?
If your answer is a lot, then we have a guide here that will help you start producing music in no time.
Today with Top Music Arts we are going to show you our selection of the top seven free vsts to start with music production. These are the ones that we found most useful, easy to download and install, and compatible with the most DAW and OS out there (so you don´t have to use Jbridge or other third party software to make them work with your daw).
We made a few changes to our template, called “Moonlight” for making this tutorial guide, and a YouTube video to show you how they sound. You will see that they are really easy to use. Of each vst we made a quick review so you can get it going on your daw and start with your own music production as soon as you download and install them.
There are two vst instruments here, the Ample Bass Lite, assigned our Sub Bass track, and the Ample Guitar Lite assigned to our guitar track playing an arpeggio.
Top 7 Free Vst to Start Music Production:
1.Ample Bass Lite
These two plugins are great for covering your basic bass or guitar needs. Both plugins have parameters to sculpt acoustic sound design elements, such as fretboard noise, hammer ons and pull offs. These plugins sound more realistic than any other free bass/guitar plugins, by far, and they have a lot more features than the stock sounds inside your DAW. You can adjust all the parameters in the plugin main window, and the settings (don´t forget to save your settings before you close the window). You can use any midi controller on both of them, and route any parameter.
But you don´t necessarily have to use a midi controller, you can import a tab, a midi track, or just draw your chords, lines, arpeggios, or whatever you have in mind!
- Both are Compatible withMac and Windows.
- Both have 32-bit and 64-bit versions available.
2.Ample Guitar Lite
The Ample Guitar plugin is also very complete, it has FX pedals, and a “Strummer” section, to sequence patterns and customize the physics of the actual strumming. And a tab section as well as the ample bass, where you can load a tab and make the plugin play it for you. If you have the midi of that tablature you can just drop it in your project and it will also play it for you, and you can edit details like the fx you want, and the strumming afterwards.
And for the Acoustic Guitar we added some plugins as well, mostly to keep it off the center. The vst instrument sounds pretty good dry as it is, but for the instruments to complement each other, we decided to go with some processing. We added some Reverb and a flanging Echo.
Download Ample Bass/Guitar Lite:
http://www.amplesound.net/en/download.asp
3.Reverb Solo
Here we have the First free plugin, the Reverb Solo, a very simple reverb plugin I must say. But they say less is more!
The plugin has nothing but a dial that adjusts the reverb color, and a horizontal bar that adjusts the dry / wet ratio. While room for fine-tuning may be limited, this reverb is a great tool to quickly get effective sounds going without dozens of parameters bogging you down. Lately there are a lot of “one knob” plugins. Personally I find them really practical, but sometimes you need to dig deep in your plugin to get the most out of it. We would recommend you to use it as a first reverb option, to get you started.
- Is compatible with Mac and Windows.
- And has both a 32 and 64-bit version available.
4.Valhala Freq Echo
The second free plugin here is the Valhala Freq Echo, a frequency shifter + analog echo emulation. Perfect for dub, and all of your psychedelic needs. Sonic results range from subtle chorusing and double tracking to barberpole phasing and flanging, to endless glissandos and runaway echoes. It´s pretty intuitive to use. And with the mix knob (first on the left) as a dry / wet you can control it with no problems.
This plugin has a pretty cool thing that is, when you position your cursor on each knob, it will show (on lower part of the window) a brief description of what each knob does. That can prove most useful if you are new to this kind of echo plugin.
It has a lot to offer, so we suggest you to play with the settings and see what you can do with it. It´s very trippy.
To download it for free but you will have to go through all the process just like if you were buying it, but you can see the price is 0, so there is nothing to worry. Just register and purchase it so you can download it.
- Is Mac and windows compatible.
- Has 32 and 64-bit versions as well.
Download Valhala Freq Echo: https://valhalladsp.com/shop/delay/valhalla-freq-echo/
5.Xfer OTT
Next we have the Vocal track, where we used the next free plugin, the Xfer ott multiband compressor.
Xfer OTT is a free re-creation of a popular aggressive multiband compressor set-up, used by many dubstep and electro music producers. We cut out the lows, and pushed all the way up the mid and hi frequencies.
The depth knob, is like your wet / dry knob. And you have a little tone corrector eq section, if you are not satisfied with your previous adjustments. Also you can adjust your upwards and downwards knobs, that part is the “exciter” part of this multiband compressor.
It is really useful when your vocals don´t have the strength they need, of just are not recorded well, so you pump up the frequencies you need, and make the adjustments you need on them. So you end up with a louder and more clear version. We used on a vocal track, but you should try it on other instruments.
It can make wonders to a guitar track, synth track or any type of lead!
- Is Mac and windows compatible.
- Has 32 and 64-bit versions.
6.MJUCjrby Klanghelm
Moving on we have the Klanghelm’s MJUCjr, it is a compressor that gets a lot of mileage out of minimal controls. Similar to a CLA or such, with two big knobs to control. On the left side, the compression (or threshold), and on the right, the makeup (or output volume).
A single “Compress” dial manages the ratio and threshold of the compression, while the three-position “Time Constraints” switch simultaneously controls the attack and release times.
Its digital emulation of tube compression provides some colorful saturation, and the compressor can handle smooth attenuation as well as more aggressive pumping. MJUCjr certainly isn’t a compressor intended to be deliberately fine-tuned, but some experimentation can create surprisingly pleasing results (and save the headache of adjusting a dozen parameters).
If you click on the Klanhelm logo, you will open a menu with some global settings. In there you can enable tooltips by clicking yes, and saving your changes. That could be useful if you are new to this kind of compressors.
We used in the project to push up the main vocal a little. And keep it in the center.
- Is compatible with Mac as well as Windows.
Download MJUCjr by Klanghelm: https://klanghelm.com/contents/products/MJUCjr/MJUCjr.php
7.Voxengo Span Eq
Last but not least! We have the Span eq analyzer. SPAN is a real-time “fast Fourier transform” audio spectrum analyzer plug-in for professional music and audio production applications. For the most part it was derived from Voxengo Gliss EQ dynamic parametric equalizer and reproduces its spectrum analysis functionality.
Voxengo has many good free plugins, you should check them out too!
This is the free version but there is also a Plus version, for the cost of 28 dollars with more features available.
It´s a very graphic way to see your mix, to analyze where it peaks and fix it, or to see if a section is too loud. But you should trust your ears more for that. It has some useful presets to get you going right away.
- Is compatible with Mac and Windows.
- Has 32 and a 64-bit versions.
This selection was made so you can download this tools and get your music producing started with no problems, no doubt there will be more free plugins out there. There are plenty of free plugins to find, but not all of them are even worth to have installed. We recommend all of you to try all the plugins you can, and try to learn from each one, and if you find yourself not using one in particular, just uninstall it and try another one.
We would like to know which one you like the most?
You can leave us a comment below