Favorite VST Instruments/Effects?

March 8, 2010 1:06 PM

What are some of your favorite/unique VST effects and instruments?

I've been hunting for VST effects and instruments lately. What are some of the most unique/useful VSTs you've found?

posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

By leaps and bounds, I have to say that my favorite free VST instrument I've ever seen anywhere is MiniMogueVA, a complete MiniMoog emulator. It is absolutely error-free, smooth, and always interesting – I can sit and prod it endlessly and still get new and interesting stuff out of it. For instance, the oscillator settings are very complex, and as with the old MiniMoogs there is a gated arpeggiator. Really awesome stuff.
posted by koeselitz at 1:19 PM on March 8, 2010

Glitch is pretty cool, but it's sadly Windows only.
posted by cloeburner at 1:24 PM on March 8, 2010

As far as free VST instruments go, I'm a big fan of Synth1. It sounds surprisingly good and also has a huge range in terms of the types of sounds you can get out of it.
posted by wondermouse at 1:40 PM on March 8, 2010

Useful: Cakewalk's SFZ for playing soundfonts. They have a free version you can download. Grizzly is a handy drum sample player-- I don't know much about drum machines, but I like the sample sets that come with it.

Unique: Crystal spouts an endless array of bizarre and interesting noises. Surface does a surprisingly good simulation of knocking on chunks of wood or metal.
posted by moonmilk at 1:43 PM on March 8, 2010

arcDev's FSU effects and The Interruptor's dubbed out delays are essential tools in my mix/remix/live improv setups... All free.
posted by mintcake! at 1:55 PM on March 8, 2010

For $49, Augustus Loop is Frippertronics in a plugin (here's a free one, not nearly as good as AL). It's unique, insane, and totally fun. Audio Damage makes great stuff, I would highly recommend Rough Rider (from this page of their free downloads), but you can't go wrong with any of their offerings. And, if you're in the mood for one single plugin that will make everything just sound better, there's nothing like Vintage Warmer - for $149, you can play with the big kids. It's my secret sauce for individual tracks and overall mixes.
posted by dbiedny at 2:42 PM on March 8, 2010

I've always been a fan of the VST instruments and plugins available at Tweakbench. Simple to use, and fun.
posted by robotot at 7:34 PM on March 8, 2010

guru by fxpansion is the best softsynth drum machine i've worked with. for programming it's a breeze, and for drum sound design it's brilliant - you can layer drum sounds on the fly, tweaking each individual sample layer extensively. it sounds like a small thing but it's not, the sounds you get with just a few layers sound 1000% more professional and/or interesting than those you get with single samples (i'm convinced this is the ONE BIG SECRET to most big producers drum sounds) and the workflow for that and your basic drum programming needs are really easy. one caveat - while it's easy and stable to import loops, i don't like the way it handles them (the way it chops them up isn't very useful)

also gforce minimonster is a solid, great sounding mini emulator that sits very well in the mix, is rock solid, and has great presets.
posted by messiahwannabe at 11:28 PM on March 8, 2010

Seconding Tweakbench. Personally I love the Nintendo chiptune sounds from Peach, simple and a load of fun.
posted by iivix at 1:44 AM on March 9, 2010

If you're into dance music production, the best drum machine I've found is Drumatic 3, an endlessly tweakable take on analogue style 909/808 type sounds - you can push it and push it until you get some seriously massive noises.
posted by iivix at 1:47 AM on March 9, 2010

I am getting some pretty good sounds out of daHornet. I assume you know about KVRAudio? I usually just peruse the top 50 for cool stuff.
posted by jasondigitized at 4:54 AM on March 9, 2010

can someone mirror Surface, linked by moonmilk above? the download link isnt working.. thanks.
posted by 3mendo at 6:09 AM on March 9, 2010

When I first used 'reaper' it had a plug-in built in which allowed "time&Pitch" to be manipulated in a coordinated fashion, on a multi-axis graph... (for example, I could slow something right down, yet adjust the pitch, and have it maintain the same pitch as the original, rather than dropping the clip down to a bass frequency muddy mess; or I could speed something up without it becoming a chip-munks backer...)

Then during one of the upgrades to that effect just dissapeared, and I hadn't thought to note the name... some searching led me to "elastique" or something like that... but basically when I had access to that, it was my Favorite.

To the person who likes "Glitch" (which looks pretty amazing awesome!) > but seems to be windows only, have you tried "avocado-glitch"- it's on windows, the mac, and linux, and comes built in with "reaper".

I once duplicated, but forgot how I accomplished it, and now find myself seeking an effect which can drag out a sound; like the effect that is applied to the sounds in the first "the Matrix" movie... during the scene where Neo is in the chair, just after the whole "blue/red pill" part... there is a "glitchy-dragging out of the sounds" just as "neo" is being "sucked" into (out of?) the matrix... (I think I created the effect using "avocado-glitch"... but again, didn't write down which effect[s] it actually was that got me that effect.)

See a pattern? ^
posted by infinite intimation at 3:33 PM on March 21, 2010