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 found a freeware piano called MDA Piano which was, actually, fairly crap. But free, and as far as free VST instruments go, it did actually sound almost like a piano. I will probably use it at some stage. I have worse sounding piano sounds on Absynth.

The next thing I found was a joy to behold. Also free – Mr Tramp. It’s a kinda electric piano / Rhodes sorta sound, and I really just love it to bits. Nice and warm and funky and just really cool.

And the third thing I was impressed by was Magnus Choir. Although, I was very quickly unimpressed by the demo version making annoying loud BEEPS! Every ten seconds. I am thinking of buying it, even though I have been horridly put off by the stupid beeps while trying to try it out. It’s just the sort of thing that thoroughly annoys me. They should’ve picked a less annoying way to protect there program, because the only reason I haven’t bought it yet, is because I’ve been so annoyed by it. But I might still buy it… When I get less annoyed. Maybe. I don’t really need a choir, but I just thought it was particularly good for something so cheap. Hmmmm. Decisions.

I also tried out a synth called Voxynth, which wasn’t really my thing, but it was much easier to trial without being annoyed, so I think it deserves some kudos. It just goes silent after three minutes. Much better idea than stupid loud annoying beeps every ten seconds.