It’s the end of the month, and your bank account is empty…
…again.
Oops.
And as much as you might feel like buying that new Waves plugin…
Apr 09, 2020 Izotope Vocalsynth 2 is an exclusive and outstanding package deal constructed with choice offers, models, samples, basses and significantly excess. Therefore, This progressive plugin contains been completely coded inside C for cutting down.
(You’ve had your eye on it for months, right?)
It’s probably not a good idea.
But if you’re still looking to expand your plugin library, don’t worry.
Sometimes, the best things in life are free…
Here are 7 of my favorite free plugins. Each of them offers something new and unique (no boring EQs or compressors). Download them all to extend your sonic palette and ultimately, craft better-sounding tracks.
And if you’re looking to dive deeper, I also put together a list of five plugins I use on every mix. If you’re wondering which plugins I recommend, download the list below to make sure you’ve got my top tools for the job.
1. iZotope Neutrino
Neutrino is the baby brother of Neutron—iZotope’s newest channel-strip plugin. While Neutron has a number of innovative features, Neutrino spins off the best of them.
Neutrino tames undesirable resonances caused by poor room acoustics, cheap gear, and heavy-handed processing. iZotope calls the effect “spectral shaping,” and it can sound similar to gentle, low-ratio multiband compression. This can make tracks sound smoother and more polished—like sanding the rough edges off a freshly cut piece of wood. I find Neutrino particularly useful on electric guitar tracks, which often have lots of harsh resonances.
2. Voxengo SPAN
People say “don’t mix with your eyes.”
Meh.
The truth?
Tools that provide visual feedback, when used properly, can help you make better mixing decisions.
A spectrum analyzer is one of these tools. It plots the frequencies of sounds out on a graph, which allows you to “see” what tracks are comprised of.
SPAN is my favorite spectrum analyzer. You can control the ballistics and response of its graph, which makes it flexible enough for a wide variety of tasks. You can even route multiple tracks into SPAN and compare their frequency content.
(P.S. Voxengo has a few other free VST plugins. They’re worth checking out too, but SPAN is my favorite.)
3. Brainworx bx_solo
Bx_solo is a no-frills, stereo-imaging plugin. While it’s the least sexy of this bunch, it can still be pretty useful.
I like to add bx_solo to my mix bus. While I rarely push the stereo width past 100%, collapsing it to zero is an easy way to check for mono compatibility. The mid and side solo buttons are also useful. It’s great to have this one around—you never know when you might need it!
4. HOFA 4U Project Time
Mixing is a race against time.
The more time you spend on a mix, the more attached you become to what it sounds like. This makes it progressively harder to make good mixing decisions. Given enough time, even the worst mix will start to sound decent.
This is one reason I recommend mixing quickly and impulsively. You’ll get to the finish line faster, retain more objectivity, and ultimately, craft better mixes.
The first step towards more efficient mixing is to track how much time you spend doing it. Without this information, it’s easy to get lost in a black hole of endless tweaking.
Project Time makes this easy. Add it to a track, and it will start counting. The timer automatically stops when you close the session, and starts when you open it up again.
Keep an eye on Project Time, and you’ll train yourself to mix faster and more efficiently. It’s also an invaluable tool if you bill by the hour!
5. MeldaProduction MFreeFXBundle
MeldaProduction makes some great plugins. They’ve earned the praise of many notable engineers, including mastering guru Ian Shepard.
The MFreeFXBundle contains 30 free VST plugins. They range from workhorse tools like a compressor and EQ, to less common effects like a ring modulator, flanger, and oscilloscope.
If you’re looking to fill some holes in your plugin library, this is a great place to start.
6. Flux BitterSweet
BitterSweet is among the best transient shapers out there. It can produce results on par with studio mainstays like SPL’s Transient Designer and Waves’ Trans-X.
This simple plugin can achieve a wide variety of effects. Turn the knob to the right to add punch to drums, enhance the pluck of an acoustic guitar, or boost the consonants in a vocal performance. Turn the knob to the left to soften tracks and push them back in the soundstage.
7. iZotope Vinyl
Sometimes a little crackle is a good thing.
Vinyl will make tracks sound like they’re being played on a turntable. You can vary the intensity of the effect by controlling the volume of different types of noise, the degree of wear and tear, and the decade your sound is from. The results range from subtle filtering to Edison phonograph.
This plugin is great for special effects, like filtering down a vocal or making an intro sound tiny.
Moving Beyond Free Plugins: My Favorite Plugins
I hope these 7 free plugins help you craft tracks that sound fresh and unique.
If you’re looking to dive deeper, I also put together a list of 5 plugins I use on every mix. If you’re wondering which plugins I recommend, download the list below to make sure you’ve got my top tools for the job.
Before you go—what’s your favorite free VST plugin? Share your pick in the comment section below.
Bonus: 3 More Free Plugins for Mixing
Free Izotope Vocal Remover
Free Video on Mixing Low End
Download a FREE 40-minute tutorial from Matthew Weiss on mixing low end.
VocalSynth is designed to open up an expansive array of vocal potential, allowing the user to produce complex, interesting and unique vocal effects.
Shape and manipulate your voice to create electronic vocal textures, robot sounds, computerised harmonies, vocoder and talkbox effects, and thick octaves or doubles. Uncover otherworldly sonic palettes or finally access the vocal treatments of your favourite tracks.
Izotope Vocal Doubler Download
Vocoder | Talkbox | Polyvox | Compuvox | Auto or MIDI voice generation.
Automatic Pitch Correction | Distort | Filter | Transform | Shred | Delay.
Key Features:
- Four vocal engines: Get robotic vocals (Vocoder), organic harmonies (Polyvox), glitchy digital speech (Compuvox), and singing synthesized sounds (Talkbox).
- Specialized vocal effects: Add edgy or tasteful distortion, filters, speaker convolution modeling, beat-repeating madness, and wide stereo delays.
- Pitch correction: Correct off-key notes in your vocals with real-time pitch correction with natural-sounding results.
- Streamlined voice generation: Add harmonies, octaves, or unisons in Auto mode, or get the exact harmony voicings you want.
- Presets: Quickly access classic sounds you’ve known and loved, plus distinctive new combinations of all four vocal engines.
- Vocoder
- Explore new worlds of robotic vocal sounds with this powerful vocoder that’s easy to setup and packed with great presets to get started quickly.
- Quickly choose between a range of classic hardware and modern digital vocoder sounds.
- Three modes: Smooth, Vintage, and Hard.
- Talkbox
- All the funk without the steep learning curve, slobbery PVC tubes and rattling teeth.
- Emulate an old school Talkbox to make a synthesizer or any side-chained instrument “talk” like you.
- Three modes: Dark, Classic, and Bright.
- Polyvox
- Create organic harmonies built from your voice with this polyphonic pitch shifter.
- Give vocals more “oomph” by building a group of backup singers that sound as natural or as computerized as you want.
- Add a whole heap of pitch-shifted superhero sounds to your voice.
- Compuvox
- Computer voice effect modeled after the handheld talking and teaching toys of the ’80s.
- From text-to-speech emulation to space age hooks, get a range of glitchy digital vocals effects.
- Pull out the breathy “spookiness” from the voice.
- Auto or MIDI voice generation
- In Auto mode, just sing and VocalSynth will add voices to create chords, octaves, or doubles. In MIDI mode, play your optimum melody or harmony on a keyboard and VocalSynth automatically shifts your voice to those notes.
- Automatic Pitch Correction
- Pitch correction lets you do anything from subtle, reasonable correction to more extreme pitch-shifting effects.
- Distort
- A wave-shaping distortion with custom tones designed to enhance VocalSynth’s re-synthesis engines. The distortion module is great for either subtle overdrive or gnarly, harsh, high-gain distortion. It’s loud, it’s noisy, it’s great.
- Filter
- Filtering is a simple but effective way of adding character to your vocal. VocalSynth’s Filter includes our New York Low-Pass for a warm and buttery ’60s-style 4-pole ladder effect, Scream for resonant filtering and aggressive peaks and overdrive, or the Combo filter that combines both flat High-Pass and Low-Pass filters in a single sweepable control.
- Transform
- The hand-picked convolution speaker models bring out the full character of VocalSynth’s re-synthesis engines. Dial in amp convolutions and speaker emulations to enhance space and realism or find common special effects like telephone or radio voice. Choose the right space for your vocal.
- Shred
- An evolution of iZotope’s beat-repeating technology, just turn it up and immediately achieve the glitchy, funky dance track sounds you’ve been after. Shred takes part of the buffer and repeats it in interesting ways that add rhythmic range to your vocal-processing arsenal.
- Delay
- VocalSynth’s Delay is a wide stereo delay with just a bit of filtering for flavor. The Delay creates exciting spatial effects with panning movement, great for adding interest to an otherwise steady vocal track.