Need some advice.

[Eusis]

I'm recently new to making electronic music. I'm currently using FL Studio and Ableton Live 2 with a E-mu 0404 soundcard. Lately I've been trying to experiment with making Ambient/Experimental music. With Ableton Live I've been having fun recording my Microkorg and acoustic guitar into it and messing around with the sounds with Live's built in effects.
I've also downloaded some free VSTI's and I'm experimenting with recording VSTI's in fruity loops and loading them as samples into Live. My question is could any of you here, who have more experience with a computer based mehtod recommend some free or cheap VST effects? I've been looking at stuff that spirit canyon audio has on there website, does anyone know of any free effects kind of like what they have so I could get a taste of what spectral delays and such do?

Thank you for your time.

[Frippertronix]

I'm recently new to making electronic music. I'm currently using FL Studio and Ableton Live 2 with a E-mu 0404 soundcard. Lately I've been trying to experiment with making Ambient/Experimental music. With Ableton Live I've been having fun recording my Microkorg and acoustic guitar into it and messing around with the sounds with Live's built in effects.
I've also downloaded some free VSTI's and I'm experimenting with recording VSTI's in fruity loops and loading them as samples into Live. My question is could any of you here, who have more experience with a computer based mehtod recommend some free or cheap VST effects? I've been looking at stuff that spirit canyon audio has on there website, does anyone know of any free effects kind of like what they have so I could get a taste of what spectral delays and such do?

Thank you for your time.

Don't know about Spirit Canyon, but one of the best things you can do is just browse the KVR database (link at the top of the bar to your left, under the News link). Use the search engine to define that you want freeware, what your OS is, and then you can narrow it to different kinds of effects. If you have broadband, the D/L's are superfast since these plugs are rarely more than 1.5 MB. Just try a bunch and see what you like. And watch the KVR effects forum for announcements of new free plugs. With the possible exception of a good DAW (tried the free ones before I got Tracktion 2 and I found them all too limited), there not much you can't do at a fairly high level of quality with freeware.

[BKK-OZ]

Yeah, what Frippertronix said, and tho there might be some doubling up, you might want to look @ this list too: Future Producers

[Frippertronix]

BTW, there's a nifty little plug that's free that makes it easy and intuitive to capture and craft loops, but now I can't remember the name and I'm at "work" right now . I'll check tonight and post it here. Since you want to juggle loops in Live as a main way of composing, this would probably be a good tool for you.

[multree]

oh and... while we offer no Spektral Delays ....there's some stuff that could intrest you (e.g. SpinBug, MonstaChorus) at our site... just click on my sig

[bobbyblank]

eusis,I bought all three of the spirit canyon collections, and I now think they are an absolute must for ambient work. For 50 USD, I got way more convo-craziness than I'll ever need. when I need an organic electro-acoustic pad type thingy, or a unique reverb, I now always have what I need. just get one pack for 25 bucks.
or go for some free 'regular' convolution verb at

http://www.noisevault.com/
or
http://www.xs4all.nl/~fokkie/IR.htm

and betabugs VST's should be a beginner's best friend. very streamlined, they do all the thinking for you!

[shamann]

If you're interested in doing some spectral manipulation, here's a few freebies:

Go here to ConcreteFX's free stuff thread, get Chimecho, Revz, SpectGate, Spectring and Freeslicer. Well get them all really as they are all useful and good, but those are the spectral ones.

Go here for Richard Dobson's phase vocoder, get the pvoc vst plugins pack. Note though that they are mono.

Go here to nullpointer, get the plugin pack 2, you'll be looking for Z-SpShift & Z-SpVoc.

Go here to mp3some, get Wavethresh, Shapee, and Ether.

Go here to Plogue, get Rebuilder. Stop by and have a look at Bidule. Not free, but free to use while in beta. One of the most powerful spectral processors around, well worth looking over.

Not so much spectral manipulation, but go here, get everything. And for a screamingly cool no latency convolution plugin, go here to Voxengo's site, get Boogex, which is also an amp sim.

That should get you good and started. I should add, many of these aren't in the KVR database.

[Eusis]

Thanks for the advice. Thanks for directing me to your site multree, can't wait to try out your SpinBug effect. Finally have a chance to experiment with a lesie speaker type sound now. I've been wanting to mess around with something like this ever since I first heard Tomorrow Never Knows and the panio parts at the beinging of Echoes.

[JackDark]

You can find eons of great free VSTs here:

http://jackdark.proboards39.com/index.cgi

More added daily.

[mckenic]

BTW, there's a nifty little plug that's free that makes it easy and intuitive to capture and craft loops, but now I can't remember the name and I'm at "work" right now . I'll check tonight and post it here. Since you want to juggle loops in Live as a main way of composing, this would probably be a good tool for you.

Hi Frippertronix!!!

Be sure to post this when youy can please huh???

Im also interested in capturing a 'What you hear' sound on Win Xp... Audio Hijack on OS X is great. Now I need a Win alternative

Thanks Man!

Dave

[Eusis]

Thanks for all the links. Is the upgrade up to Live 5 worth it? I've been reading how you can use VSTI's directly in it. Does Live 5 work good with VSTI?