From effects racks to impulse responses to Max for Live synths, Free Stuff Friday is here again, packed with production freebies from the Ableton community to send you off on a weekend journey of musical creativity.
Rock It
First up, Rocks to Riches, a unique Instrument Rack from Rory PQ, constructed from rock samples - no, not the genre but actual, physical, rocks. You can grab Rory’s final pack and start using it in your tracks, and in the video below, he shows his process from the sounds of those pebbles shuffling around on a plate, to a lush deep house organ sound; you’ll be surprised just how musical rocks can be!
Open the Box
Whitebox Synth Makers have been making Max for Live synths, Instrument Racks, and Effects Racks for a while now - preview the sounds of their mysterious “Spotfield” Max for Live instrument in the audio sample above. From the spectral tones of the Tenser 2 “drone thing” to free jazz generating Rack Arcturus, there’s a whole treasure trove of free downloads to be explored over at the site.
Impulse of a Legend
It’s been a long time coming Mac users, but here is a definitive guide to 5 free VST plugins for Mac OSX. They can be used in any music production program that support VST, but since this is a blog dedicated to Ableton Live, these are – of course – geared towards electronic music production. The 10 Best FREE VST Synths to Use – Forgive Me Lord, For I Have Synth! When it comes to VST synths, you can decide on whether you want to buy one, or you want to download one for free. Naturally, the best VST synths are really the one that you’re gonna have to buy.
Live 9’s Convolution Reverb can accommodate any impulse response (or IR) sample you throw into it. To that end, Bedroom Producers Blog has collected a set of IRs sampled from the legendary Boss GT-8 multi-effects unit. With a pioneering history in stompbox effects, Boss effects have been used by guitarists, keyboard players, and others for decades. the GT-8 IRs are available both as raw waveforms, and as presets for Live 9’s Convolution Reverb, ready to launch.
It’s that time of year - your wallet rinsed by the holiday season, and nothing inspirational under the tree, it’s time to head out and find yourself a bargain or two, and maybe reinvigorate your inner composer. Happy New Year!
#1 - Zebralette
Zebralette
Name: Zebralette
Developer: u-he
Link: http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebralette
Licence: Free
Format: VST/AU/RTAS
A ‘taster’ version of u-he’s Zebra2 synth, Zebralette has one oscillator (to Zebra2’s two), two LFOs, multi-stage envelope and on board effects, but that’s just what it says on the website! What I like most about Zebralette is that it has a superb ‘in-yer-face’ analog sound unlike anything that comes built into your DAW, and an interface that helps you understand what is going on, rather than a swarm of meaningless knobs (although it has some of those too of course!)
Alchemy Player comes with 1 GB of free samples organised into 200 free instrument presets, with a heavy emphasis on the ‘evolving pad’ approach. These can be tweaked via two X-Y pads and eight ‘remix’ pads, and if you own Alchemy Mobile you can remote control Alchemy Player from your iPad.
The full version of Reaktor comes as part of Native Instruments’ Komplete, but you can sample the power of Reaktor’s modular approach to sound generation by downloading this free Player. Make sure you also download the free Factory Selection which includes three free instruments, but for some reason isn’t spelt with a ‘k’!
The free version of NI’s industry standard sample player. You will also need to download Factory Selection, which is the free 560 MB sample library, also mysteriously missing a ‘k’.
Three drum pads, three synthesis models, MiniSpillage is a percussion synthesiser designed to tempt you to buy its big brothers, Elektroid and DrumSpillage.
#6 - Scythe
Scythe
Name: Scythe
Developer: Plastaq
Link: http://www.plastaq.com/scythe/
Licence: Free
Format: VST
Just to balance the books - a VST only synth that uses ‘grain manipulation’ (does this mean you can morph between wheat and barley in real time?) and has given rise to the GrainBender app for iOS. Love that sexy UI!
#7 - Free Alpha
Free Alpha
Name: Free Alpha
Developer: Linplug
Link: http://www.linplug.com/
Licence: Free
Format: AU/VST/RTAS
Ableton Live 10 Free Mac
Linplug make some great synths, used by tweak-gurus such as Vince Clark and Rob Papen. To dip your toe in the water get this free versions of Linplug Alpha