You don’t have to look far beyond the Ableton website to find fantastic VST plugins, instruments, and effects to make the music of your dreams. If you haven’t explored Max for Live already, you’re in for a treat – and we’re going to show you the best of the free. Here’s how Ableton describes Max for Live: “Max for Live is a platform to build your own instruments and effects, tools for live performance and visuals, and much more. You can open up any of Live’s Max devices, see how they’re built, and change them to meet your needs. You...

Get glitchy with these three best glitch VST plugins of 2021. Sometimes, we want a little something extra in our sounds and mixes. It could be for rhythmic purposes or to add a flare of something new, interesting, and surprising. In this article, we’ve compiled the three best glitch VST plugins you can find. And trust us, with either of these three in your arsenal, you won’t need anything else. Without further ado, let’s dive in with our first choice – the famous Effectrix. 1. Effectrix (by Sugar Bytes) If you're looking for a glitch VST plugin that does everything...

  What are the best VST synths for beginners? That’s a great question to ask when you’re new to making music. While jumping into the first synthesizer plugin you see might seem like a great plan, it can be discouraging when not knowing what to do with all the controls and settings... Yup, it's true. Synthesizers come with a lot of different settings, knobs, and dials. With oscillators, filters, effects, LFOs, and other modulation parameters, and much more... where do you even start? Don't worry. This article will show you the six best VST synths and synth bundles for complete...

What on earth do music producers do all day? "They make music, right?" A seemingly obvious question, with an answer that might surprise you... While Instagram might tell you a music producer sits in their spaceship-looking studio all day exploring sonic possibilities, there’s a lot that goes into being a modern-day music producer. But before exploring what music producers do, let’s look at what goes into music production to answer this question a bit clearer. Is music production a skill? Yes, music production is a skill. Or rather, it’s a combination of multiple skills... A lot of expertise in a wide...

  Building a home studio can be as simple as putting a laptop on a table and plugging in a pair of monitoring headphones. But it can also be a tremendously advanced process and long journey — sometimes spanning over several years. If you're looking for someone with hands-on experience in building amazing home studios, it's Toronto-based producer, modular wizard, PML tutor and dream home studio creator Attila Hanak. In a previous interview with him, where he gives us a tour around his studio The Sixteenth Bar, he gave us some insight into his most beloved synths, thoughts on his studio and...

Which synth VST plugin is the best one in 2023? That's a great question – one we will answer in this comprehensive list of the eight best software synths this year. Without further ado, let's dive into our first choice in our list – Diva, by u-He. 1. Diva (by u-He) The legendary Diva synth by u-He is a must-have for all electronic producers. If you didn’t know, Diva stands for Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analogue synthesizer (I’m not kidding). That description sums up this great synth pretty well. Diva beautifully simulates the noisy, warm, and beautiful sounds of retro synthesizers –...

In this article you'll find the top 8 absolutely free VST compressors. All kinds are available - from digital, visual effects, up to emulations of classic, old-school analog racks. Click here to learn everything about music production. 1. Audio Damage Rough Rider 3 Rough Rider is a compressor with character. You can use it to add a bit of vintage bite and warmth. Works on all types of tracks, but it’s best to use it to add pumping to rhythmic tracks. "Rough Rider is one of the most popular dynamics processors on the planet, with well over a half a million downloads...

In this article you’ll find our top 10 absolutely free vst equalizers in 2023. All kinds of EQs are available - you’ll definitely find something you like. Get ready to give your tracks an extra touch of professional equalization. Click here to learn everything about music production. 1. TDR Nova TDR Nova is a dynamic equalizer - which can adapt to your track unlike any regular EQ. You can set each band to react to the amplitude - so your frequencies are limited and boosted automatically, based on the sound itself. “A user friendly WYSIWYG drag and drop display paired...

In this article you’ll find our top 8 absolutely free VST synthesizers. You can combine these with your stock synth plugins and you’ll have a wide selection of free synths! Digital Synths 1. Surge by Claes Johanson It’s one of the most powerful free synthesizers. It features many synthesis techniques, a great selection of filters, a flexible modulation engine, a lot of effects and routing options, as well as modern features like MPE and microtuning. Surge is a digital synth which has wavetable oscillators, but also has analog-style features like filters. It's quite a complex synthesizer at first sight, but...

In this article you’ll find our list of top 10 absolutely free VST plugin effects for creative mixing. Combine these with your stock plugins and you’ll really improve your arsenal of mixing tools! 1. Ujam Finisher Micro This effect is really simple but incredibly fun. It’s a one-knob multi effect. It combines a lot of effect chains in a super simple interface. “Finisher stands for instant inspiration and endless creative sonic variety, a little bit like a magic spray finish for audio tracks“ 2. Tal Filter 2 TAL-Filter-2 is an LFO-Tool type effect. It has volume and panorama modulation possibilities,...