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Preamble

However and whenever you make music, you will not make everything from scratch. If you are a pianist, you will probably not build a piano yourself.

I make most of my music digital (and almost everything I've released has been digitally made), and for that you need plugins and samples. I'm not a huge fan of sampling in the sense of that I transform an existing piece of music, as that is legally difficult (unless you have paid/royalty free samples of course etc etc).

So, I lay down most my loops myself using the Piano Roll. Now, where do I get my plugins? If you watch tutorials on YouTube, many people have popular plugins/vst that are quite expensive, like Omnisphere, Serum, ...

Starting out, I didn't really want to buy anything, these plugins make great sounds from the get go, but no great tool helps you if you do not know how to wield it, and again, these cost a fair amount of money.

So, I started looking where I could find some good free sounds ...

(also nothing in this article is sponsored, I just wanted to write down my experience, maybe it helps someone!)

plugins4free (formely vst4free) and web searching

Looking for plugins back then, I found this website. It's a hub for all kinds of free plugins and effects. They also have sections on MIDI and Hosts, but I've never used these (Audacity is linked under Hosts -> Programs that can load plugins).

Everything is neatly divided into categories, like guitar, bass, all kinds of synthesizers (FM, Analog, Vintage Emulations...) and also drums. Given, I have downloaded plugins that aren't so great already, but you can just go through and see what you like.

On the top of my head from what I currently use from there:

Granted, not all of them are from plugins4free directly, they have their own sites, but they can be found and downloaded there as well. I used to go through the plugins there and just make a song with them, there are definitely some great free synths you could try! From the top of my head, Synth1 also comes to mind, an Analog Synth for which you can find a lot of presets for. Nowadays, I don't use that many plugins anymore, just a few that I know that are good (see below, I have some paid ones).

I decided to rename this section web searching too, because by searching/googling you can also find good plugins, or people on YouTube show them off. Examples for these I use would be Soraboy, Magical 8Bit Plug 1 and 2, and NES VST (emulating the Nintendo Entertainment System)

Stock Plugins

Growing up is realising stock plugins are the best /hj

But in all seriousness, stock plugins seriously rock, of course this depends on the program you are using, but I think especially regarding effects, FL provides a lot of great plugins (Fruity Compressor, Parametric EQ 2, ...). I also used to use Sytrus a lot, come to think of it, I heard "On Little Cat Feet" from the OneShot OST was made with a bell preset of Sytrus. FL Slayer has also come in handy often for me, whenever I wanted some heavy guitars. It all depends on how you use them! Of course, FL Slayer might not sound super organic and natural, but you can achieve that by how you place the notes and placing velocities. I don't need there is any plugin, free or paid, that will immediatly do the sound you want. You will have to use Equalizers anyway so the frequencies dont overlap.

So yeah, try what your program provides you with! I personally think often you don't even need anything else, somethings the stock plugins are already the best at. Or more like, I couldn't even use a paid compressor better, I know how Fruity Compressor works and it does the job well. I don't need more, sometimes less is more ;) I think they are quite simple and handy to use.

Vital

A friend told me about this, it's a great free synth, apparently you can also make great sounds yourself but I just got some free packs of patches that you can find online, and then you have sounds til the end of days xD You will for sure find something you like/can use.

Humble Bundle (paid)

I might have mentioned Humble Bundle before, I like them. They sometimes have music producer/sample bundles, I bought like two of them, and I was set. For like 20€ you get a huge repitoire of a company, the one I have got was from Applied Acoustics Systems. They had great Analog Synth sample packs which I often used in my productions.

I also got a sample pack with turntable scratches and some guitars and basses, which I have used on some tracks I might have not released yet (depends on when you read this), the Jet Set Radio inspired ones.

It's nice because when you pay for it you often have a license for commercial productions, which is probably more than you need if you just put your music on YouTube. You definitely need it if you put stuff up on streaming services. (Realistically, I don't think you will be caught using samples you aren't allowed to use, but I don't dare to try it out, I want everything to be in the clear legally)

Indie Plugins (paid)

I'm not sure how I exactly I found them, but for my older productions I was using a Plugin called "Love-Fi" by an independent plugin maker called "Quiet Music", I have made good experiences with those.

They had sales too and I think I got the thing for like 15€, I have been using it again lately for the drums on "Rosered Dreams". If you look around, I'm sure you can find great plugins for more affordable prices like this one.

Also, I will just add here, don't make music expecting to make a lot of money. I do it for fun, I'm definitely in the red. But I don't mind, not everything should be about money, especially your hobby. Compare to my article were I wrote about marketing yourself.

Soundfont(s) (something I have been using A LOT lately)

I think I wrote about Soundfonts before. Currently for a lot of my songs I'm using the free "FluidR3_GM" Soundfont. It is also cleared for commericial use! And I think on some Linux distros its an dependency even.

It gives you a great selection of some basic sounds you can use, good variety. Guitars, Pianos, but also Synth sounds. I have been very happy with it :> All my latest track use at least one instrument of it.

I use "Juicysfplugin", a free 64bit Soundfont player to play this. (Some soundfont players only work in 32bit for some reason, thats why I got this one.) It has a simple interface and you can also set ADSR and Cutoff and Resonance in it. Definitely recommended! :D

Closing Statement

I think you can make great music regardless of what you use! Of course having an expensive plugin can help a lot, and some things are industry standard (like Autotune, which I have never used), but you can also get very far with stock plugins and a few simple sounds. Have fun producing :D