I’ve got my favourites, I’m sure you have too.
This one is new.
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I used to use a lot of arcDev (here’s a dropbox link, provided by Skye himself on kvr forums – link) and some other free stuff, like bini (if i remember correctly, it was a synth where you can draw a waveform) and vellocet stuff (I really liked logic distortion for some reason. I don’t even know what it does, but I used it as a guitar effect just before overdrive or something…). What else… some minimoog ripoffs (minimogue for example), some soviet synth remakes (i think it’s easy to find them on kvr and other sites), lots of mellotrons (tapeworm, meltron, nanotron - and maybe 4-5 more), DSK plugins (not sure if they were free, but I don’t usually download pirated stuff, so… maybe at some point?), synth1, XONE, Sophia (I think it is a noise synth), mda plugins (mdaPiano was my favorite), muon atom, Burque - that was a great bass synth… Oh, another mellotron, this one is Redtron. Acrobatics Rombo and Vento. I think both of them are compressors. Alright, that looks like a graveyard now. Anyway… Most of them are free. Or were free… And some of them are fantastic. Like mdaPiano (if I am not mistaken) was very dynamic and you could do lots of things with it. It was not 100% natural piano, but… idk. it was good enough.
btw, let me fangirl over arcDev and Skye Klein for a bit. So he’s a musician and I absolutely loved his bands. Halo, for example, was a sludge metal, like Godflesh and Swans and Isis (the band) set to minimum. Really minimalistic. And A Beautiful Machine (Home | A Beautiful Machine) was just great. This one is more like nugaze/ metal shoegaze like Jesu, for example. Terminal Sound System (Solaris | Terminal Sound System) was like a dub thing, I think. Like Scorn or something like that. Yeaah… Love this stuff. Almost every project is great
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Not much, really. I can scroll about two screens in the list (Instruments and FX), but there are very few I’m returning to: The NI Noire piano, Valhalla Delay & Supermassive and Arturia’s Tape Mello-Fi & Reverb-Plate 140.
What else… I can’t not buy much of the Hainbach stuff, though, even if I end up not using those. Felt instruments are super nice, for mopey ~chamber music bits - got the cello(s) and a piano, might need to get the viola eventually. And Gentle Winds from Fracture Sounds is beautiful.
I’ve dabbled with a whole bunch of synths, but outside of fun noodling never made anything with them.
And I miss my trial period of the Hauptwerk organ.
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Nice topic! Here are a few I find interesting: RAVE from IRCAM (research center from France doing crazy audio stuff; RAVE is a real time neural network resynthesis engine); Enzyme from Humanoid Sound Systems (sadly discontinued scanned synthesis plugin); Ongaku by Giorgio Sancristoforo (organic sounding chaos box; but I’d recommend anything from him, really); EXC!TE CYMBAL and EXC!TE SNARE DRUM from CHAIR (free, high quality percussion physical modelling).
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Oh right, I have the Bento box! But it’s cryptic 
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+1 on the Arturia stuff, I really like their Buchla Easel emulation! I’m yet to try Mandrona Labs’ Aalto, I’m curious to see how they compare.
Right now.
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Haha! Have fun 
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I haven’t used VSTs much lately, but do sample stuff for Morphagene occasionally, and more often with my standalone audio software. In the past, I was a bit of a collector of the esoteric, so here goes:
Sonic Lab - Sinan Bokesoy’s creations are incredible. Of late he has been doing more AV work and installations, and has software that combines both.
Giorgio Sancristoforo - I love this man’s work, and I still use his devices and buy new ones. He has a sale on at the moment. NB they are not VSTs.
Accsone’s Crusher X - The last word in granular synthesis.
GRM tools - a fixture of experimental music with a long history.
Physical Audio - State of the art physical modelling.
Soundhack - Tom Erbe’s software.
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Soundhack! I use their binaural plugin inside VCV all the time.
I’ve been meaning to try out Sonic Lab’s EnvBot, I have a feeling I would use it a lot. Which ones do you recommend?
I haven’t given the bots sufficient attention to comment really - IIRC there is a bit of setup involved to use them, and they take a little taming in order to avoid a descent into chaos. I may return to the Midi one though in the future. Fundamental, Thermo and Oceanic are all sound sources (cc with the latter too), and are just great things to leave playing and listen to. Oceanic is mesmerising to watch too. I took some time learning the CosmosF stuff in the past, but I have forgotten most of it now. Very powerful environment, but a massive learning curve. Polynodes, the new one, looks fairly challenging too. I haven’t used the AV modules.
There is a learning curve with all his stuff, and the preset system he insists on using is a PITA.
There are 7 day demos available, and he usually has BF discounts.
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Great thread, and some interesting suggestions to check out. The Soundhack stuff is awesome, I used to use Bubbler granular delay far too much, until I got Unfiltered Audio’s Silo and Arturia EFX Fragments. Both are excellent but EFX seems less work to get sounds I like. Sound Toys Crystallizer is another classic granular delay, I also got their effects rack on sale but don’t use it much. I’m an effects junkie mainly, for synth sounds I enjoy patching my own from scratch so I don’t use many VST synths, apart from Pigments, mainly for the sample/granular engine. Arturia Motions is another effect I’ve been using a bit recently, it’s designed for cheesy build-ups and risers but it’s surprisingly good for more creative sound design too.
I very like Arturia some things, but can’t forgive them Synthi V, because (imo) one of most tasty modular principle was violated there - if we put pins osc > output, it will not produce sound, until we press note key. Ie No instant generation - It’s wrong Synthi. Honestly i was very disappointed by this approach. Ok i know that key pres need just the first time per session of loaded plug, but anyway it’s matter of lack of instant sounding presets too (just im fan of this ability).
This is even stranger because for example their Moog modular (and Arp2600) has “instant” ability for a bunch of years, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And about Arturia’s Buchla Easel versia, i’m not tried it a much, but as i remember they was released near in the same time that Synthi, so i’m even afraid to try (i suppose HW Easel has ability of generate with no keys ? Or i’m wrong)
(that for example why i loved vcv, there is definitely no shortage of instant generation here heh)
Trying to mention some lesser known (and potentially free) interesting plugins - as I’m sure everyone knows u-he, Valhalla, Fabfilter, Meldaproduction, and so on - and listing only stuff that I’ve personally used and liked a great deal, just as I’ve liked those u-he, Valhalla, … etc, hehe:
Ryukau’s Uhhyou plugins index – Uhhyou Plugins
Chowdhury DSP Chowdhury DSP - Products
Full Bucket full bucket music
Airwindows (Consolidated) Airwindows Consolidated | Airwindows
Surge XT https://surge-synthesizer.github.io
(Yeah, I just had to mention Airwindows and Surge, even though I’m sure these aren’t unknown here in plugin form, either xD)
Variety of Sound Plugins – Variety Of Sound
Togu Audio Line TAL Software
YSFX for running Reaper-specific effects in commonly used plugin formats GitHub - JoepVanlier/ysfx: Hosting library for JSFX
And for the aforementioned, some of the best ones around (Sai’ke’s stuff), be sure to scroll all the way through GitHub - JoepVanlier/JSFX: A bundle of JSFX and scripts for reaper.
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Yes this is really cool dev, liked his works too, there is some unique things, and pretty usable\buggy-free, despite betas.
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Here’s another great donation ware resource. https://analogobsession.com/
I’m also a big fan of Audio Damage plug-ins. Eos2 is my go to reverb. And they have a number of free plugins which are worth using including a legacy version of Eos. https://www.audiodamage.com/pages/free-and-legacy
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