Reply To: RazorClip by Analog Obsession FREE Analog Based Clipper Plugin

[Peter DeLegge]

On jude77 said

I know I say this a lot, but it’s amazing what we are able to get for free.  For someone who is on a tight budget these are great days to be making music!

Exactly. I’ve spent a ton of time compiling the curated lists of the best free Kontakt and non-Kontakt sample libraries and sampled instruments, best free synths (okay, and the @lamia6 came along and did a better list, so I deleted mine! She has far more expertise with synths and stuff like guitar and amp sims, I think my forte is assessing sample libraries and sampled instruments), and best free effects plugins. I realized several years ago that if you could round up the different best of the best freebies — just the cream of the crop — after sifting through the mountain of meh, there’s some amazing free stuff. It’s far superior to what  was free a decade ago. The bar was raised.

I’ve been contemplating putting together a best of the best list for rock, folk, and singer/songwriter music producers, as I make music in each of those genres, or at least do a rock one to start. I have made some little demos to show people what you can do with free sample libraries. For effects, the shortcomings I see with the free stuff is that to get the state of the art AI mixing and mastering plugins, you almost always have to pay. For sampled instruments, the big differences are detailed sampling (AKA deep sampling) and round robins, stuff like a full, detailed, orchestral library isn’t feasible for free — those are extremely expensive to make and a great deal of work to create and program as sample libraries. But there are surprises, like SoundPaint’s free Steinway piano, which is also available in Kontakt for free. But a detailed, high qulaity, versatile guitar library with sophisticated scripting or the same for string libraries are what is still not available for free. But if you can live with less detailed libraries, there are options.  There are plenty of options for acoustic and electronic drum libraries and synths.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

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