Say you're broke...

[classic]

When Broke broke, Synth1, ProteusVX, Firebird, Surge, DecentSampler, Vital, Drumburst and MTPower drums, the IK, U-he, NI, and KV331 freebies, fed into the BlueCat free plugin collection, is a pretty nice pool to cool off in
[/quotet

Not to mention all the free Kontakt library's, that are powered by the Free Kontakt player.
Actually, you don't need to spend a dime to make music.
May be just for the computer and a midi keyboard and some headphones sooo....

[empphryio]

These threads are hilarious in that there's no mention of the KVR OSC. Which is a monthly competition run right here at KVR for the past 15 years using only free synths and effects where you have to list everything you use. There is also a website that has all the entries.

How can none of you be aware of the kvr osc?

[mabian]

You're broke. You want to make music. You don't want to compromise, but of course you're broke, so you need to. There are lots and lots of free VSTs, and many of them on par with commercial software. Others still can be made to sound good, but might not be as pleasant to use as some commercial alternatives. But, I'm guessing, most of you have some commercial software that you feel cannot be replaced by any free VST, software you would invest your little money on because you feel that you need to. Which is it?

I'll start.

Valhalla reverbs (at least VintageVerb and Room, although Plate is great too but I could do without it).
MJUC (a really great compressor, I feel you could get away with using this on any source and it would work fine).
One convolution reverb (the free ones are all too limited).
Reaper.
I don't feel I need to buy any softsynths (and in fact I haven't bought any).
Maybe the TDR bundle (just because it's very reasonably priced and they're are great plugins, their free versions are wonderful but for example Nova GE does add very useful features).

That's it really, for me.

Valhalla.... most of it IMO can be decently replaced by SuperMassive and some other freebies (Variety of Sound plate/epic clouds, Dragonfly, OrilReverb, Klanghelm Tens Jr ecc,)
MJUC... isn't MJUC Jr enough for most cases?
Convolution reverb... is ConvologyXT too limited?
About soft synths, should you need any, lots of ground covered by SurgeXT, Vital, Charlatan, NoizeMaker etc...

All in all that's a good time for making music being broke...

[Vortifex]

But the premise of the question is basically: your budget is very low and you're willing to compromise, but still want good enough stuff to make music with. The question is not, what freeware isn't bettered by a paid alternative.

They explicitly asked which of your paid plugins do you feel can't be replaced by free ones, and my answer basically was "almost all of them".

[hotmitts]

If you were very low budget I'd say the one thing to spend out on, is the right DAW for you, that makes all the difference to workflow. You could get by on free plug-ins but workflow is of the essence. I've tried with free DAW options but I'd still go on the KVR sales page and pick up a cheap Studio 1 license rather than use something which I didn't find intuitive.
Somebody else might love the workflow in Cakewalk or whatever of course so that's just me

[martiu]

if you make ambient no need daw, need reakta buy now second hand if broke

[Uncle E]

May be just for the computer and a midi keyboard and some headphones sooo....

Plus, Komplete Kontrol’s now include the full Kontakt 7. When I got my cheap little M32, it also came with a nice suite of instruments.

[Uncle E]

About soft synths, should you need any, lots of ground covered by SurgeXT, Vital, Charlatan, NoizeMaker etc...

I’m surprised no one mentioned Analog Lab Play. It’s the most analog sounding of the free options, IME.

[mabian]

About soft synths, should you need any, lots of ground covered by SurgeXT, Vital, Charlatan, NoizeMaker etc...

I’m surprised no one mentioned Analog Lab Play. It’s the most analog sounding of the free options, IME.

It has too few presets and too little control. For example, if a patch has the arp/sequencer enabled you can't turn it off...

- Mario

[Mister Natural]

by the OP's premise : I'd get LIVE12 intro for $100 and be done with it. Plenty of instruments and fundamental EFX to cover all the bases there and 8 tracks to work up.
Peace

[ghettosynth]

if you make ambient no need daw, need reakta buy now second hand if broke

Yeah, on that note, supercollider is free. A friend of mine is a noise artist and he just writes software to make noise. I'm quite certain that he's never in his life spent a nickel on software.

https://supercollider.github.io/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW1otBbTh-E

[trewq]

ChordwarePA Lite is free.

[DCrown]

Install all Antress plugins and you will have all kinds of high quality plugins including top notch reverb and Distressor emu

[whyterabbyt]

if you make ambient no need daw, need <any modular synth that runs standalone> buy now second hand if broke

good call.

[whyterabbyt]

These threads are hilarious in that there's no mention of the KVR OSC.

this mention of the KVR OSC is hilarious in that the actual question is what someone would use if given a choice, rather than being told what to use to meet the constraints of a competition.