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Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:33 am
by Billy's Little Trip
Warning: Do not ever download illegal stuff from the internetz. This is just to look at.

I got an email of a guy with some VST plugs on demonoid. Some I have, some look familiar. I didn't download it. But if anyone is interested in seeing, contact me.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:47 am
by fluffy
Pirated isn't free, it's illegal. Probably not a good idea to post stuff like that here. There's a bunch of ways this could cause problems for the admins.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:48 am
by Manhattan Glutton
Plus, those plugins might make your guitars sound like toys and your duets sound like doubled vox. Probably should stay away.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:58 am
by Billy's Little Trip
Should I edit/delete it?

edit: yeah, I added a disclaimer.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:11 pm
by JonPorobil
Probably a smart move. So was deleting the list of names.

I'm guessing it's one of a six- or seven-part set (A-C, D-F, G-K, L-M, N-P, Q-T, and U-Z, or something like that). Honestly, I see collections that large and it makes me think they were compiled more for pack-rats then people who have a genuine use for the technology. If I wound up with all of those plugins for free, I might find some use for some of them, but not nearly all of them.

If I were interested in that, I'd patrol various bittorrent sites and spend hours playing with the toys, but one of the benefits of a big community is being able to share knowledge and help make decisions like that easier. For instance, MG's recommendation would save me hours of exploration that would likely have not been very fun (and if these weren't illegal torrents, would also have been very expensive).

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:15 pm
by Manhattan Glutton
At some point I got too lazy to use third party plugins. If it isn't in Reaper's default install, the probability is unlikely.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:19 pm
by irwin
There should totally be a list on the wiki of all these free plugins.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:24 pm
by fluffy
Manhattan Glutton wrote:At some point I got too lazy to use third party plugins. If it isn't in Reaper's default install, the probability is unlikely.
I'm the same way, but with Logic. If something is free or cheap and sounds interesting I'll usually install it but then find that it's much more cumbersome and not really any better than Logic's built-in equivalent anyway. Even in the case of something that's clearly better than Logic's (such as Native Instruments Akoustik vs. Logic's Steinway softsynth) the fiddly nature of whatever crappy plugin with its own stupid DRM activation application and license manager and whatever the hell usually dissuades me from using it unless it's vital to the song.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:29 pm
by Manhattan Glutton
fluffy wrote:the fiddly nature of whatever crappy plugin with its own stupid DRM activation application and license manager and whatever the hell usually dissuades me from using it unless it's vital to the song.
Add to this the whole x32-64 bridging, instability, and terrible UIs, yep. My only real hold-out is dBlue Glitch in addition to some sample kits.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:45 pm
by JonPorobil
fluffy wrote:
Manhattan Glutton wrote:At some point I got too lazy to use third party plugins. If it isn't in Reaper's default install, the probability is unlikely.
I'm the same way, but with Logic. If something is free or cheap and sounds interesting I'll usually install it but then find that it's much more cumbersome and not really any better than Logic's built-in equivalent anyway. Even in the case of something that's clearly better than Logic's (such as Native Instruments Akoustik vs. Logic's Steinway softsynth) the fiddly nature of whatever crappy plugin with its own stupid DRM activation application and license manager and whatever the hell usually dissuades me from using it unless it's vital to the song.
I was the same way, but with Adobe for a while (I don't use Audition anymore because I lost my intaller application when moving between computers). Audition came with full-featured compressor and reverb plugins, the best noise reduction plugin I've yet worked with, and one of the best stretch tools, as well. They all came with their own huge sets of usable presets, too. In versions that have come out since then, there's also a pretty full-featured AutoTune clone, but I've never used that. The new version of Audition (CS5.5, up from 3, skipping over 4 and 5 for some reason) looks awful. I'm thinking about buying a copy of 3, though, once the price comes down now that 5.5 is available.

Cubase LE4, which I've been using for the last two years, and using exclusively for the last nine months, came with some plugins, but they're not as great, and have fewer relevant presets. I ordered the full version of Cubase 6 last weekend (ooh, come to think of it, it should be waiting for me when I get home today!), and I'm hoping to see better plugins. If not, I'll just have to poke around for a better compressor and a better reverb. (This thread will be invaluable for that search, by the way.)

All this discussion is deviating a bit off-topic, but I suppose you can argue that it comes back around to being on-topic by merit of the default plugins all being "free," kind of. I mean, we all need to be using a DAW anyway, so before scouring the entire Internet for a decent reverb, maybe it's a good idea to learn the one that came with your program?

I assume that the people who regularly use (and post to) this thread have already done that, though.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:50 pm
by Manhattan Glutton
Generic wrote: All this discussion is deviating a bit off-topic, but I suppose you can argue that it comes back around to being on-topic by merit of the default plugins all being "free," kind of.
Reaper packages their VSTs separately for free, which you can use in any DAW. http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:52 pm
by JonPorobil
Manhattan Glutton wrote:
Generic wrote: All this discussion is deviating a bit off-topic, but I suppose you can argue that it comes back around to being on-topic by merit of the default plugins all being "free," kind of.
Reaper packages their VSTs separately for free, which you can use in any DAW. http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
Oh, man! I didn't even know that!

Thanks!

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:01 pm
by Lunkhead
I've been mostly the same way, with the stock Cubase plug-ins. Jon, Cubase 6 has a new reverb plugin ("REVerence") which is pretty nice, though I also liked the one they added in 4 ("RoomWorks"). It also has an auto-tuner, which works only just OK, from my experience so far. I think using a MIDI track to input the pitch info into the autotuner will be the best way to use it, but I haven't gotten around to trying that yet. The VST Amp Rack is a bit better than the Amp Simulator.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:03 pm
by Lunkhead
Manhattan Glutton wrote:
Generic wrote: All this discussion is deviating a bit off-topic, but I suppose you can argue that it comes back around to being on-topic by merit of the default plugins all being "free," kind of.
Reaper packages their VSTs separately for free, which you can use in any DAW. http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
I don't see a Mac version of the plugin pack though sadly, for the Mac users out there.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:09 pm
by JonPorobil
Lunkhead wrote:I've been mostly the same way, with the stock Cubase plug-ins. Jon, Cubase 6 has a new reverb plugin ("REVerence") which is pretty nice, though I also liked the one they added in 4 ("RoomWorks").
LE4 has Roomworks, but I don't like it. Maybe I'm using it wrong, but it feels like the only two effects I can get out of it are "imperceptible" and "drowning," with no in-between*. Reverb has been the one mixing element I've been most dissatisfied with since losing my Audition install. I'll let you know what I think of REVerence when my copy comes in.

Speaking of Auto-Tune, I recently took an off-the-cuff recommendation from the IRC room (Mike Lamb, if I recall correctly) for a pitch-correction plugin. Check out gSnap if you haven't already. http://www.gvst.co.uk/gsnap.htm

Free, VST, bare-bones pitch correction. The "subtle" setting has served me well so far. It appears on two of the tracks on my recent album, and no one seems to have noticed yet.

*However, there are various discernable types of "drowning" which would be nice if I were interested in playing with obvious reverb as an effect, but the majority of my tracks favor a more organic aesthetic, so this isn't particularly useful to me.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:11 pm
by fluffy
Lunkhead wrote:
Manhattan Glutton wrote:
Generic wrote: All this discussion is deviating a bit off-topic, but I suppose you can argue that it comes back around to being on-topic by merit of the default plugins all being "free," kind of.
Reaper packages their VSTs separately for free, which you can use in any DAW. http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
I don't see a Mac version of the plugin pack though sadly, for the Mac users out there.
Do VSTs have to be built specifically for MacOS in this day and age? I thought the various Mac-based VST hosts just used libwine or something to link in the DLL. I haven't ever gotten around to trying any VST-AudioUnit bridges though.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:18 pm
by irwin
The OSX version of Reaper comes with native (32-bit) plugins:

reaverb.vst.dylib: Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386

I don't see why you couldn't copy them out of the Reaper package and use them in another DAW, but I don't think I've ever tried it. My non-Reaper DAW is AudioUnit-only.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:19 pm
by Manhattan Glutton
I was under the impression that the ones packaged with Reaper, at least in Windows, have customizations/VST extensions to make them work better in Reaper.

But I'd be interested to see someone try.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:28 pm
by jast
Generic wrote:Maybe I'm using it wrong, but it feels like the only two effects I can get out of it are "imperceptible" and "drowning," with no in-between
Usually that's a problem of dry/wet balance.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:41 pm
by Lunkhead
jast wrote:
Generic wrote:Maybe I'm using it wrong, but it feels like the only two effects I can get out of it are "imperceptible" and "drowning," with no in-between
Usually that's a problem of dry/wet balance.
I'm not sure if this is normal or right or whatever, but I always apply reverb as a send effect. I set up an FX channel with the reverb plugin I want on it and set the plugin's mix control to 100% effected (aka wet) sound. Then I use the send amount on the individual tracks to try to dial in the right amount of reverb per track. If you're not already doing that, maybe you could give that a try to see if lets you dial things in more precisely. Usually I also send all the tracks in a group of "similar" tracks (e.g. all backup vocal tracks) to the same FX channel.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:46 pm
by fluffy
Using it as a fully-wet send effect also works better when applying an effect to a mixing bus or track group or whatever your DAW of choice calls it. Also helps to save CPU power since then you're only applying one effect to a mixed input instead of trying to reverb a bunch of individual tracks.

Re: Free Plug ins

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:49 pm
by Lunkhead
I made a new thread, perhaps we should move this discussion over there so as not to stray too far off topic for too long here?

http://www.songfight.net/forums/viewtop ... f=6&t=8005