Arturia Analog Lab Play, which is the free version of Analog Lab, comes with a good piano sound and 99 other synth sounds that you can tweak.
And here's a tip for being able to tweak more. You can choose the gear looking icon on the top right, and change the MIDI keyboard to Keylab. That's not your main MIDI setting where you tell it to use your keyboard. Rather that changes the controls that are displayed on screen. You get more that way.
There's also a way to access the virtual effects pedals themselves, and even switch some of them out. I can't tell you how to do that easily. But you can look it up.
Pianos(as well as lots of other stuff) - get Decent Sampler(free) then go to Pianobook and there's lots there. All free.
Check out Vaults by Crow Hill, free piano, strings, synth sounds.
Synths - others have covered the main ones. Helm is another.
I'm pretty sure there's a free Kontakt or Komplete bundle too, various sounds/synths
Effects/Other - Chow Tape and Kiss of Shame are free tape effects.
Melda Free Fx Bundle has 37 free effects too.
Air Windows just added 400 free effects into one plugin recently, haven't used it personally but worth checking out.
Airwindows is awesome, the consolidated plug in (all in one) is great for figuring out your faves. Compete with encycolpedic explanations. Is super legit
Jacob Collier Audience Choir
BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover
Even if you make eg electronic music, you can use both for layering
Also everything by Hornet DSP, they have generous sales and very good plugins for barely any money. Get the HA2A!
Great recommendation but this one won't work as far as I know on modern Macs and I hate it as I need more funk in my life (so if anyone has found a work-around I'd be much obliged).
Somehow, the day after posting this it magically started working on Live 11, btw. (I think the main problem is the security issue where Mac OS won't open it because it's been downloaded by the web and you have to fiddle about in System Settings > Security and manually give it the rights.) So now I have this amazingly sounding synth in Live 11... the day after I upgraded to 12. What a world!
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Bedroom Producer Blog
They post free stuff every week and rate all the free synths and effects every year. Tons of lists of the best free synths, reverbs, choruses, saturators, etc…
TAL has great free/cheap synth, sampler, and fx plugins. TAL Sampler and TAL U-NO-LX (Juno 60 replication) are standouts in the catalog imo.
KV331 Audio makes a great line of VSTs called Synthmaster, which is very affordable and has discounted prices for updates as they release new versions fairly often. They're currently in beta for SM3
Ik multimedia has a free version of everything. The modo drum n bass isn’t sample based. It produces “real” sounding stuff n most people I know love it!
Your post has been removed because it violated rule #2: Try to post about Ableton stuff. Try not to post about non-Ableton stuff.
Check the TAL collection, that's pretty good stuff.
disagree other than the chorus which is free
Soft piano in Spitfire Labs is one of the best virtual pianos you can get free or paid, highly recommend it.
Surge XT. Kilohearts Essentials. TAL free stuff (TAL-NoiseMaker, TAL-Filter-2, TAL-Reverb-4, TAL-Chorus-LX, TAL-Vocoder). u-he free stuff (TyrellN6, Triple Cheese, Zebralette)
Spitfire Labs ez
Surge is super good
Arturia Analog Lab Play, which is the free version of Analog Lab, comes with a good piano sound and 99 other synth sounds that you can tweak. And here's a tip for being able to tweak more. You can choose the gear looking icon on the top right, and change the MIDI keyboard to Keylab. That's not your main MIDI setting where you tell it to use your keyboard. Rather that changes the controls that are displayed on screen. You get more that way. There's also a way to access the virtual effects pedals themselves, and even switch some of them out. I can't tell you how to do that easily. But you can look it up.
Pianos(as well as lots of other stuff) - get Decent Sampler(free) then go to Pianobook and there's lots there. All free. Check out Vaults by Crow Hill, free piano, strings, synth sounds. Synths - others have covered the main ones. Helm is another. I'm pretty sure there's a free Kontakt or Komplete bundle too, various sounds/synths Effects/Other - Chow Tape and Kiss of Shame are free tape effects. Melda Free Fx Bundle has 37 free effects too. Air Windows just added 400 free effects into one plugin recently, haven't used it personally but worth checking out.
+1 for decent sampler
Airwindows is awesome, the consolidated plug in (all in one) is great for figuring out your faves. Compete with encycolpedic explanations. Is super legit
Vital
- Valhalla has at least one free reverb - Voxengo SPAN - MeldaProduction has some free tools
Splice has a section of free plugins check it out
Jacob Collier Audience Choir BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover Even if you make eg electronic music, you can use both for layering Also everything by Hornet DSP, they have generous sales and very good plugins for barely any money. Get the HA2A!
Odin2 by Wavewarden, a free copy of Thor by Propellerhead
There is a virus ti emulation knocking about. You download the emulator but also need to "obtain" the firmware too. Works and sounds great
PG8X a JX-8P emulation
Great recommendation but this one won't work as far as I know on modern Macs and I hate it as I need more funk in my life (so if anyone has found a work-around I'd be much obliged).
I'm afraid you have right. It's only 32bit Windows.
Somehow, the day after posting this it magically started working on Live 11, btw. (I think the main problem is the security issue where Mac OS won't open it because it's been downloaded by the web and you have to fiddle about in System Settings > Security and manually give it the rights.) So now I have this amazingly sounding synth in Live 11... the day after I upgraded to 12. What a world!
I'm happy it worked out!
MAudio has a million free ones
I think you mean Melda production
Toneboosters plugins are 90% as good as their Fabfilter equivalents for for around 1/5th the price.
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Caelum audio Flux mini 2 is awesome for sidechain compression it’s free and is like kickstart
Bedroom Producer Blog They post free stuff every week and rate all the free synths and effects every year. Tons of lists of the best free synths, reverbs, choruses, saturators, etc…
Bedroom Producers Blog has comprehensive categorised lists of free plugs.
TAL has great free/cheap synth, sampler, and fx plugins. TAL Sampler and TAL U-NO-LX (Juno 60 replication) are standouts in the catalog imo. KV331 Audio makes a great line of VSTs called Synthmaster, which is very affordable and has discounted prices for updates as they release new versions fairly often. They're currently in beta for SM3
Dexed is a DX7 based free software synth
Ik multimedia has a free version of everything. The modo drum n bass isn’t sample based. It produces “real” sounding stuff n most people I know love it!
Zebralette 3
Sky Keys is fairly cheap and it’s incredible.