I think it’s great, that there’s so much cool free stuff available on the dub dub dub. I’m not talking about dodgy pirated versions of software that tarnish your morality and fill your computer with bugs. I’m talking about stuff that is free or funded by donations/advertising, or fully functional lite versions there to convince you to buy the ‘pro’ version. It’s great. Not that I’m completely stingy, I have bought much software and hardware, but I’m always on a budget, and free stuff comes in handy. So big ups to the following providers of free stuff… You guys rock!
VST Plugins:
Digital Fish Phones – A groovy little package of a D-esser, Compresser, and Noise Gate.
Kjerhus Audio – The ‘Classic Series’ are a bunch of free plug-ins from Kjerhus – who do some good pro stuff too. The Classic series includes Chorus, Compressor, Delay, EQ, Flanger, Master Limiter, Phaser, Reverb and Auto-filter.
Audio Editing :
Wave -Pad – Possibly a slight rip-off of the legendary Wave Lab, this is a wave editor with the usual wave editor feature like, cut, paste, silence, amplify, reverb, reverse, etc. It is part of a suite from NCH, that includes a multitrack mixing software called Mix-pad, and Record-pad Sound Recorder. I couldn’t figure out from the site if these last two were free or trial versions, so didn’t bother downloading them as I already have more than enough ‘non-free’ software in this department.
Audacity – Audacity was the first bit of recording software I owned back in the good old days… It’s so much cooler now than it was back then! You can record/mix with multiple tracks, it’s VST compatible, with multi-channel hardware you can record up to 16 tracks at once. Comes with a few built in effects too. It’s open-source software which is apparently good and has something to do with a Gnu.
VST Instruments:
Mr Tramp Synth – Mr Tramp is very cool, a kinda vintage Wurlitizer sounding piano reminiscent of the one in used by Super Tramp (though, for that SuperTramp sound you’re gonna need to drench it in effects…).
MDA Piano – You don’t look a gift piano in the mouth. And as far as free piano VSTi’s go, this one is the best. It actually sounds like a piano. It is good, and it is free.
Anyway, thats about all I have time for right now. If you’re hungery for more free stuff…. KVR Audio is a good place to start trawling.
I had a quick play with 4Front Bass instrument, sounds quite good esp compared to some of the synth bass’s
Its free. And there are some other products there.
http://www.yohng.com/bass.html
Cheers Josh. Downloading now…
Hmmmmmmmm. I um, think you should make a decent free synth bass Josh. I can’t say I’m impressed with that one. It’s not bad, it’s just… not great….
Though, I can’t think of any bass ones that are. Bass is just one of those things aye.
Found out about Wave Pad through here. Always looking for a simple free standalone audio editor. Tried Wavosaur and it’s buggy as anything– I’ll give this one a try.
A near-free multitracking alternative to Audacity is Reaper. It’s shareware, but uncrippled save a nag screen on startup. Pretty advanced routing options, native support for VST plugins, track level meters, and the interface is prettier
Haven’t experienced any problems with it yet, but the learning curve is higher. Comparable to Cubase.
http://reaper.fm/index.php
Cheers
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