Best FREE VST Instrument Plugins 2020!

[creativesauce]

Is it bad to say I don't use free plugins at all? Nice list. I do have the (yes free) Spitfire BBC one but haven't done anything with it as of yet.

I dont think it's bad! For some people who just dont have the $$s, they just gotta make do, and for them I think it's pretty incredible.

[Gamma-UT]

You won't believe my reaction to OP's video.

I made video of it, rendering now, will start a thread soon.

Video makers hate this simple trick.

[leeleema]

You won't believe my reaction to OP's video.

I made video of it, rendering now, will start a thread soon.

I made a video of my reaction to revvy's reaction to the OP's video, uploading shortly. What happened next may surprise you.

[excuse me please]

Spitfire is not free... what's the download size?

Had to ask, because the total package is 590 GB.

[excuse me please]

Great editor.

[GaryG]

Ouch! So anyway, what's your favourite free VST instruments?

You first. You started this forum thread. If you want a forum discussion, have a forum discussion. If you want snide comments about clickbait marketing, stay the course you have set.

I'm all about the music man. Well, at the moment, for sure it's the BBC Symphony Orchestra from Spirfire (Discovery edition). It pretty much competes with many commercial ones I heard, and is fairly straight forward to pick up and just make music with.

I'm sure he doesn't need me to but I will say Mike(?) is definitely one of the good guys on Youtube, his videos are show genuine insight, he obviously knows his stuff.

[layzer]

Is it bad to say I don't use free plugins at all?

no, but how good your music is really depends on your
composition and production skills,
not whether your instruments are free or not.

[PieBerger]

Is it bad to say I don't use free plugins at all? Nice list. I do have the (yes free) Spitfire BBC one but haven't done anything with it as of yet.

I'm the same. I've picked up and regularly use a few freebies like Celestial, Ceil and CoffeePUN from Acustica but otherwise stick to native stuff in Live and a modest selection of third-party stuff. There's just so much free stuff out there of varying quality, that I would rather not spend my time scouring through to find what I want. Using bundled and commercial plugins helps keep my usable library at a reasonable size. A lot of my third party plugins, particularly from Fab Filter are multifunctional and AFAIK no free alternatives exist that can cover the same ground in a single plugin. There are free EQs, free dynamic EQS, free analysers, but none combined into one plugin, with efficient workflow on top. Same for Saturn, which I use for single and multiband saturation, basic tonal and dynamic balancing with the onboard EQ and compressor and clipping by driving the input into the Tape algo. Free tools exist that can each of them, but none that I'm aware of that can do them all. I'd rather invest my time to learn the ins and outs of fewer plugins, than save money but increase time spent, trying to find and learn the workings of multiple free plugins instead.

Everyone's different though and we live in a time where almost everyone's needs and budgets can be catered for

[Chapelle]

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[crickey13]

Productivity hack: Simply typing out your favorite VST plugins might save you a lot of time.

No need to spend an hour recording, editing and uploading a video.

Simply write them down. Saves you a lot of time. And we only need a few seconds to read your favorites, instead of watching a video for 15 minutes.

This post is sponsored by dexed. Do you need a free DX7 emulation? Go to https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ and download it for FREE! I repeat: https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/. Thanks for reading!

The only free VST plugin that I use regularly is Dexed, I don't really need anything else other than maybe Surge and Synth1 every once in a while.

This post is also sponsored by dexed. Do you need a free DX7 emulation? Go to https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ and download it for FREE! I repeat: https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/. Thanks for reading!

[farlukar]

Wait so this whole thread is just to plug dexed?
For shame.

[Teksonik]

Is the first post the kind of Clickbait video that people have been complaining about ?

[rezoneight]

Is it bad to say I don't use free plugins at all? Nice list. I do have the (yes free) Spitfire BBC one but haven't done anything with it as of yet.

I'm the same. I've picked up and regularly use a few freebies like Celestial, Ceil and CoffeePUN from Acustica but otherwise stick to native stuff in Live and a modest selection of third-party stuff. There's just so much free stuff out there of varying quality, that I would rather not spend my time scouring through to find what I want. Using bundled and commercial plugins helps keep my usable library at a reasonable size. A lot of my third party plugins, particularly from Fab Filter are multifunctional and AFAIK no free alternatives exist that can cover the same ground in a single plugin. There are free EQs, free dynamic EQS, free analysers, but none combined into one plugin, with efficient workflow on top. Same for Saturn, which I use for single and multiband saturation, basic tonal and dynamic balancing with the onboard EQ and compressor and clipping by driving the input into the Tape algo. Free tools exist that can each of them, but none that I'm aware of that can do them all. I'd rather invest my time to learn the ins and outs of fewer plugins, than save money but increase time spent, trying to find and learn the workings of multiple free plugins instead.

Everyone's different though and we live in a time where almost everyone's needs and budgets can be catered for

Yes all of this. And I'm not slamming any of the free stuff, or anyone who finds the free stuff useful. I've downloaded all of it. But with the quality of stuff that comes with Live or Logic plus the stuff I've bought over the years I see little use of free plugins.

[rezoneight]

Is it bad to say I don't use free plugins at all? Nice list. I do have the (yes free) Spitfire BBC one but haven't done anything with it as of yet.

I dont think it's bad! For some people who just dont have the $$s, they just gotta make do, and for them I think it's pretty incredible.

Agreed. And people (at least my impression, could be wrong) undervalue the stuff that comes with the major DAWs.

[creativesauce]

Is it bad to say I don't use free plugins at all? Nice list. I do have the (yes free) Spitfire BBC one but haven't done anything with it as of yet.

I dont think it's bad! For some people who just dont have the $$s, they just gotta make do, and for them I think it's pretty incredible.

Agreed. And people (at least my impression, could be wrong) undervalue the stuff that comes with the major DAWs.

That's true. Logic esp has great instruments. But I guess it's about having more variety too.