Hi everyone! I'll continue updating this over time as I discover more - adding only free plugins that meet the following criteria:
Must be completely free or donation-ware that accepts $0 payments
No "lite" versions, trial/demo versions, mini or watered down versions
Must work on both Windows and Mac
Must be actively supported and downloadable from an official website or page
Must be fully functional without it's paid add-ons, sample packs or preset packs even if it has them available. (Example: Vital Synth)
No junk, no sketchy links, no bad or poorly made crashy and buggy software, all tried and tested by me to be legit and useful
I'm so excited to make this list for you! I feel like every audio/producer website out there has a giant list of free plugins... but here's the problem: 90% of the plugins listed are a complete waste of time and a waste of space on your computer because they don't work, they are redundant, they are unsupported, or they are just an overall nightmare to use. So it's about time I make a list of free plugins and instruments (that I actually use) and find to be professional level in terms of sound and user experience.
Note: Many of these amazing plugins are created by independent developers who have Patreon pages or other ways to support them. Although these plugins are free, if you are in a position to donate, subscribe or support these developers in any way, that will ensure a future of amazing accessible free plugins for those who cannot.
Plug-in Suites:
If you’ve never tried these plugins, get ready for an INCREDIBLE upgrade to your library. Airwindows is not your typical plugin company: Chris Johnson, the developer, handcrafts each plugin, focusing on simplicity, transparency, and sonic purity. His philosophy centers on minimalism: so that means no GUIs, no flashy features—just raw audio processing. The plugins are free, open-source, and available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. These plugins are not only incredible tools; they’re an exploration of sound, a testament to craftsmanship, and a gift to the audio community. I personally find these plugins to be some of the best analog emulating plugins and tools I use, so thank you Chris for your amazing work. Recently these plugins have been updated to be included in 1 single interface which is very nifty and helps keep your plugin folder organized.
MeldaProduction’s MFreeFX Bundle is a treasure trove for music creators seeking high-quality plugins without breaking the bank. Here’s why it’s a game-changer: The MFreeFX Bundle offers free 37 audio effects and tools. These plugins may lack flashy GUIs, but their sonic prowess is anything but ordinary. From spectral analyzers to reverbs, they’re lightweight yet powerful. Whether you’re mixing, mastering, or experimenting, these plugins deliver!
Analog Obsession, created by Rıdvan Küçük (Tunca), offers a collection of vintage-modeled audio plugins for digital audio workstations. These plugins are available in AAX, VST, and AU formats for both Windows and Mac platforms. The collection includes analog modeled equalizers, compressors, preamps, and more. These plugins are exceptional—perhaps even outshining some paid alternatives. The Neve-inspired CHANNEV, the killer VCA-modeled dbComp and BusterSE compressors, and the ear-fooling SSQ J-series-modeled EQ—all crafted by an independent passionate creator. All you need to do is sign up for his free Patreon.
Kilohearts Essential Plugin Bundle is an awesome batch of 32 plugins that are super quick to load and easy to use. My favorite thing about these is the quick and easy naming and interface. Each one is very simply named after the exact effect, so when you are searching your plugins, you can simply type in "phaser," "filter" or "delay" and it pops up immediately ready to use. Not only that, but the controls are easy as well, letting you quickly tweak to your [kilo]heart's desire. Straight from the website "We intend to continue adding high-quality plugins to the Kilohearts Essentials bundle at no extra cost, so your options will continue to expand in the future. New licenses will be added to your account as soon as they are released." What's not to love about that?!
Chowdhury by Jatin Chowdhury, was previously unknown to me for SOME unknown reason, but it is a pretty awesome little pack of free plugins. You get a Tape Emulation Model, a cool distortion plugin, a custom distortion creation plugin, an audio multi-tool plugin, an "infinitely expandable" delay plugin and more! Not only this, but it is also completely compatible as FX modules for the Surge XT synth below. From the website "ChowDSP software is driven by the desire to create useful tools for musicians and audio engineers; tools that sound great, are easy to use, and provide musical inspiration." Thank you Jatin for these great plugins!
Free Suite by Venn Audio is a complete professional quality suite of useful and simple plugins. High quality clipper, compressor, delays, panning, a convolver and more. Simply download and put into your plugin folder, no sign in required.
If you are into alien technology, wait no, dangerous otherworldly... wait... I shouldn't even be talking about these plugins. Or should I? I'm not sure what they will do if they find out. It might not be safe to share this link, it may not even be real, I can't tell. But if these plugins are real, you should definitely check them out. Or not, you know... maybe just take a little peak and don't tell anyone.
These relatively unknown plugins are some of the best emulations in the chip-tune world. The emulation synths and plugins are super fun and super lean on CPU. There's also a whole suite of developer tools too, which are great for diagnostic and testing use cases.
Let us zoom back to the past for some wild Windows 95 looking plugins... not really though, as looks can be deceiving - these plugins were just updated. These excellent plugins provided by Prisma are both wildly creative and very utility focused. They are just as fun to use as that old PC game you had to load into your computer so go give them a try!
I had not heard of these creative and useful plugins before doing an epic hunt online, but WOW we got a lot to unpack. In this series we get a multiband doppler effect, tempo synced harmony delay, fidelity reduction plugin, reverb, degenerative delay processor, formantic noise processor and a couple of excellent synths! Not only do these plugins sound like they could be technical lingo from Star-Trek, but they are also bound to take you on an incredible journey to unknown sonic worlds.
These are some excellent analog emulation plugins. The Tube Preamp can be used on multiple tracks simultaneously to get sort of an analog "buss" interaction between them. The spring reverb and Baxandall style EQ are also classic timeless sounds. Thank you Fuse Audio for giving us a fresh twist on these nostalgic sounds.
A satisfying Saturator, a de-escalating de-esser and a truly powerful transient shaper all for free!
Ambisonic Plug-in Suites:
Created by the incredible staff and students of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics in Graz, Austria. This is an ambisonic plugin pack that's ready to take you to the nth dimension, or rather 7 dimensions deep into the surround sound and ambisonic world. You get a Granular Encoder, Multiband Compressor, Room Encoder, Stereo Encoder and more. It's also open-source <3
Another incredible pack of free and open-source spacial audio plugins developed primarily by members of the Acoustics Lab at Aalto University, Finland. Similarly to the above plugins, these can help you encode ambisonic audio projects, but in up to 10 dimensions.
Reverbs and Delays:
Totally free and VERY nice sounding reverbs with a lot of great flexibility!
The plugin developer TAL has finally updated this plugin which brings it BACK onto the list! It's an awesome reverb with a great additional function of a built in Side-Chain feature.
Ahhh we love Valhalla. In my opinion, they have THE most usable "all-arounder" reverb available right now. It sounds simply amazing on anything! BUT we aren't hear to talk about that, we are here for the FREEBIES and these three plugins are really cool and creative when it comes to reverbs, delays and echos. Certainly worth checking out especially considering the high-quality.
These are some really beautiful reverbs and delays with high-quality but simple controls. The Delay Eleven is a perfect clean replacement (with a nice controlable) drive for Waves H-Delay if you ask me. I also love the oversampling on the reverb.
Synthesizers:
Vital Synth (All Around Wavetable Synth)
Vital, designed by Matt Tytel, is a visual synthesizer that combines spectral warping and wavetable synthesis. Key features include customizable wavetables, visual feedback, and powerful modulation capabilities. With it's easy to navigate interface, it is perfect for beginners, however it goes VERY deep and is something I use all the time as a sort of "free alternative" to Serum/Massive. All you need to do is sign up for a free account - no strings attached, fully functional, "all-arounder" type synth.
Dexed (Yamaha DX7 Type Emulation)
Dexed is a faithful recreation of the iconic Yamaha DX7, a groundbreaking digital synthesizer from the 1980s. The DX7 revolutionized music production with its unique sound and became a staple in countless hit records. Dexed uses Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesis, a technique discovered by Professor John Chowning who I got to meet when I was in school for Audio Engineering. In a completely audio-nerd fashion, he discovered this "by accident" when messing around with a computational audio processor! By modulating sine wave oscillators with precise control, FM synthesis generates rich, complex, and harmonically diverse waveforms that can sound like real acoustic instruments or otherworldly things. Dexed faithfully reproduces this process. Unlike some software synths that rely on complex analog modeling, Dexed accurately captures the DX7’s sound without heavy processing as it was a completely digital synth in the first place. It can even load original DX7 preset files, preserving the instrument’s distinct timbral character. Dexed’s interface simplifies FM synthesis for users. It offers 144 automatable parameters accessible from a single panel, making sound design intuitive. I find it extremely easy to use and explore - even better with the ability to load in original "carts" from the DX7 and use those classic sounds!
Surge XT (Hybrid Synth)
Surge XT is a 3-oscillator subtractive synthesizer that goes beyond the basics. It supports both linear FM synthesis and wavetable synthesis, making it incredibly versatile. It is open-source and freely available, which is a rarity in the world of high-quality synthesizers. Its open nature allows for community contributions, bug fixes, and continuous improvement. Surge XT is MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) compatible. This means it can take full advantage of expressive controllers like the LinnStrument, allowing for nuanced and dynamic performances. From its oscillators and filters to modulation sources and effects, it empowers users to create complex and beautiful sounds. It's active community fosters collaboration, patch sharing, and ongoing development. I personally love a lot of the presets, but also have dived deep into creating patches that are absolutely massive sounding or completely haunting. It is truly an "all-arounder" like Vital but the different interface inspires a completely different sonic direction. So whether you’re after classic analog sounds or experimental textures, Surge XT can do it all.
Cardinal Synth (Virtual Modular Synth)
Do you love VCV rack? Ever wish you could just use it as a plugin? Well me too! Luckily, Cardinal Synth does exactly that! Thanks to 73 different developers, it comes with 1079 modules built in so you can happily spend too much time tweaking your modular synth in peace. Cardinal has taken all the default modules included in VCV Rack and recreated them to be even more useful within a DAW as a plugin. So if you love modular, you can finally let your dreams of poor cable and power management come true with zero risk of your bank account disappearing.
These synths from Nakst are "naksty" hahaha... oooooh that was lame. BUT these synths and waveshapers are NOT lame at all and totally worth checking out! They also happen to be light on the CPU for those of us who like to have 400+ tracks per session.
Compressors, Limiter/Clippers, Equalizers:
Quick Note: I'm not going to write down and include every free compressor or EQ ever created. There are way too many and so many useful ones are included in the free Plugin Suites that I linked to above. Others may be equivalent or redundant to stock plugins found in every DAW, so I'm staying true to this article's intended purpose and not including anything of that nature. Below, you will only find Compressor and EQ Plugins that deserve a special and separate shout out.
The ADHD Leveling Tool by ADHD Audio Tools is a Tube Leveling Amplifier inspired by legendary hardware (LA-2A). It is meticulously crafted to suite a variety of compression needs. Not only does it serve as an ideal compressor for vocals, but I also use it extensively on drums, summed instrument busses, and even during mastering. It allows you to add character and tame peaks in any track within your mix and sounds incredibly full. Just add a tad of drive on tracks that could use some grit, or turn off the drive entirely for a super smooth tube compressor sound that can tighten an entire mix. The side-chain HPF feature is particularly nice for mastering on electronic music tracks. All around, this is a perfect compressor with a delightful analog sound in my opinion!
Xfer's OTT, which stands for “Over the Top,” is a free dynamic multi-band compressor plugin created by Xfer Records and the esteemed producer Steve Duda. This plugin has garnered widespread acclaim for its remarkable capacity to bring depth, character, and a touch of excitement to any sort of audio. My main advice with this plugin is to not over-do it (hence the name "Over the Top")! It can make stuff extremely bouncy and can push frequencies unnecessarily if you do go too far. However, if you learn how to tame this beast, it will definitely be your best friend on drums, synths, busses and more.
Nova stands out from typical equalizers by seamlessly integrating parametric equalization with dynamic processing. Each frequency band includes a comprehensive dynamics section, empowering it to tackle a diverse array of tasks. Whether you’re aiming to enhance the richness of a master track, add clarity to a drum bus, or mitigate sibilance issues, Nova offers elegant and effective solutions.
FX, SATURATION/DISTORTION, EXCITERS:
Overheat by Sampleson
This is a beautiful free analog emulation plugin that "is based on the natural distortion and compression that occurs when analog signals are pushed to their limits." Definitely worth a download. Not only does Sampleson offer this plugin, but they have several free high quality synths too.
Two different and impressively quick ways to add Saturation/Distortion and Excitation to your mixes. Fresh Air truly succeeds in creating nice high end excitation on vocals, guitars and many more, just make sure not too push it too hard, I find that 5%-10% is usually more than enough to get the job done! Heatwave is a really fun clipper/saturation and distortion plugin... not really sure how else to describe it, but it sounds awesome on drums and anything you need to blast with a bit of crunchy drive or clipping.
Saturation Knob by Softube
Saturation Knob by Softube is a great all around saturation for vocals, drums, bass etc. Make sure you don't push it too far or it will really sound clipped (unless that's what you are going for).
Cymatics has an awesome Analog Chorus plugin called "Memory" which give instant vibes to your guitar or synths. Deja Vu is a tempo shift plugin and it's "slowed-down atmospheric-like effect can be heard on countless modern pop and hip-hop records" according to it's website.
The website description is all you need to understand this plugin: "NEW FREE PLUG-IN HELPS YOU INSTANTLY ADD UNIQUE LO-FI VIBES TO YOUR SOUNDS." And they aren't kidding! This is an awesome character plugin that can instantly change the vibe of your track, recording or instruments with just a few knob twists.
Check out the suite of 11 free amp/saturation/distortion plugins by Ignite Amps! These are all amazing and I've used them countless times on guitars and vocals! There's Tubes, Screamers, Distortions, Drives, Fuzz - pretty much everything you need to get flaming hot or beautiful saturated guitar tones.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
All the following plugins didn't meet the criteria above, but if you are still looking for more, you are crazy... I mean... I gotchu :)
Vinyl (Vinyl Simulation where you can select from different eras)
Replika (Cool delay plugin)
Raum (Great reverb)
Ozone EQ (The famous EQ from the Ozone Collection)
These plug-ins are awesome and although they are "lite" versions, they have incredible functionality. My favorite is Cassette Tape 2 which I use all the time for a lovely saturation and drive
Several lite analog emulation plugins including a transient shaper, "snare buzz," a kick enhancer, and a tape emulation.
Slightly watered down versions of their full version plugins, however they are all great!
Great free plugins from Tokyo Dawn, they are usually mini versions of the full releases so they didn't meet the criteria above.
Mini version of KClip 3 BUT it's extremely simple and usable especially for really great bass and kick clipping
Sadly no longer actively supported and technically in "beta" haha, but it's fun and still works
Hasn't been updated since 2018, but says it is still actively developed so go and send the dev a message! It's a fun and unique freebie.
In "Pre-Release" currently. But it's a cool open source project that is supported and available for download
