1. Xfer Records Serum

1. Bitcrushers emulate digital forms of old school recording, tape emulators do the same for magnetic recording, vinyl emulators do the same for physical recording. There are also other parts of the equation like filters and adding noise or warblers. Vst plugins are out there that do all of that. I especially like tape saturation effects.
2. Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2. The king of VST synthesizers. Omnisphere 2 had to be number one.

This free VST piano is a fantastic, fully featured virtual instrument that provides fantastic realism and sound quality. RDG Audio’s Free Piano comes with staccato and auto sustain features. It also has a seperate control for adding complementary strings and pads on top of the piano sound. This plugin is available for both Mac and PC. Speakers is a plugin effect designed to emulate a wide range of loudspeakers and microphones using our state-of-the-art convolution engine. Shape any sound like it’s being played by an old telephone, radio, or classic cabinet; or shape it like it’s being recorded by a vintage ribbon microphone or even a toy recorder. The effects it supports are Chorus, Phase Flange along with controlling its Tempo. Download Freq Echo. MT POWER DRUMKIT 2. MT powder drumkit 2 is a drumkit plugin that is available free. If you are looking for a plugin that helps you in getting a high-quality drum sound, then this plugin.

Serum is a wavetable synthesizer produced by Xfer Records that lets you create, import, edit, and morph wavetables. It boasts a workflow-oriented interface that makes creating and altering sounds fun, as opposed to tedious. If you’re looking for a versatile multi-purpose synth, Serum is an excellent option.

This synth delivers two ultra-clean oscillators with 16 voices per oscillator, click-and-drag modulation application, tons of different filters, and ten built-in audio effects. Serum’s popularity makes it a go-to synth when collaborating with other artists.

2. Spectrasonics Omnisphere

Omnisphere brings together many different types of synthesis to create a truly unique software instrument. It includes over 14,000 sounds, 58 effects units, and an excellent patch sorting system and search bar. If you like using presets, you’ll find no shortage of them using Omnisphere.

Believe it or not, Omnisphere is the only software synth in the world to offer a Hardware Synth Integration feature. You can control Omnisphere with over 65 well-known hardware synthesizers, which makes using Omnisphere a very tactile experience.

For more synth recommendations, check out '5 of the Best Plugin Synths on the Market.'

3. Native Instruments Kontakt 6

Kontakt is a sampler that provides you with access to over 55+ GB of detailed, creative, and expressive software instruments. It powers the biggest selection of sampled instruments available, many of which are available from third-parties.

You can drag and drop your own samples into an instrument’s interface or build your own instruments with sample-editing and instrument-building options. If you’re looking for playable software drums, strings, brass, keys, guitar, bass, and more, it’s worth experimenting with Kontakt.

4. XLN Audio Addictive Drums

Recording drums is a nuisance. It can take a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money to record a studio drummer. A lot of producers steer clear of recording live drummers because of the convincing realism and quality that drum production studios like Addictive Drums 2 are capable of.

Whether you produce rock, pop, indie, jazz, electronic, or other styles of music, Addictive Drum 2 will deliver the samples, editing functions, mixing functions, and rhythmic patterns you're looking for.

5. Celemony Melodyne 4 Editor

Celemony’s Melodyne improves pitch accuracy without the robotic sound characteristic of Auto-Tune. If a vocalist falls out of key a few times throughout their recorded performance, Melodyne may be the answer.

Thanks to Melodyne’s user-friendly pitch editor window, you can easily click and drag blobs (segments of audio files) to affect their pitch and time. The built-in Pitch Drift and Pitch Modulation tools let you control pitch drift and vibrato.

VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology. There are three types of VST plug-ins:

• VST instruments: These plug-ins generate audio and are either virtual synthesizers or samplers. Many VST instruments emulate the appearance and sound of famous hardware synthesizers. Popular VSP instruments include Massive, FM8, Absynth, Sylenth 1, Reaktor, Gladiator, Vanguard, and Omnisphere.
• VST effects: Effects process audio instead of generating it. VST effects function like hardware audio processors, like reverbs and phasers.
• VST MIDI effects:MIDI plug-ins process MIDI messages and send MIDI data to other VST instruments and hardware.

VST Plug-ins

VST plug-ins can be used within a digital audio workstation, in programs like Pro Tools and Logic. They’re frequently used to emulate hardware outboard gear such as compressors, expanders, equalizers, and maximizers. You'll frequently find these distributed to emulate certain models of hardware; there's some for vintage compressors, and you'll frequently find effects that emulate vintage hardware (both in instrumental and stompbox-like effects).

Think of VST plug-ins as really affordable ways to make your home studio sound like a really expensive commercial operation.

VSTi Plug-ins

Aside from VST plug-ins, you'll also find VST-instrument or VSTi plug-ins. These can emulate really cool, but expensive, hardware (like Hammond B3 and Nord Electro). The quality of these VSTi plug-ins can vary from acceptable to really poor; it all depends on the quality of your system resources (RAM and scratch space on your hard drive, for example), and how well-sampled the instrument is. You also want to make sure that your VSTi plug-in offers true polyphonic content, meaning you can make life-like chords that don’t sound too artificial.

Quality

There are thousands of plug-ins available. Some only take a few hours to produce and are free, but the quality is terrible. Some are made by huge companies and sound amazing, but are expensive. VST plug-in developers try to recreate the sound as closely as possible, but the original instrument is probably always going to sound better than the plug-in. You might be trying to get the rich, full-bodied sound of an organ, for example, but who owns an organ? No one has access to every type of instrument, so a plug-in will have to do. The good news is that VST plug-in technology is improving, so quality can only get better with time.

VST Plug-in Standard

Sound Quality Issues With Vst Plugins

Created by Steinberg, a German musical software and equipment company, the VST plug-in standard is the audio plug-in standard that allows third-party developers to make VST plug-ins. Users can download VST plug-ins on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. The vast majority of VST plug-ins are available on Windows. Apple’s Audio Units are standard on Mac OS X (it’s actually considered a competing technology), and Linux lacks commercial popularity, therefore few developers create VST plug-ins for the operating system.

Free Reason Vst Plugins

Where to Find VST Plug-ins

Free Vst Plugins Download

There are thousands of VST plug-ins available, both commercially and as freeware. The Internet is flooded with free VST plug-ins. Home Music Production and Bedroom Producers Blog have robust lists of VST plug-in recommendations, and Splice and Plugin Boutique also offer a ton of free plug-ins.