Plugins we have found
Effects and instruments, free and paid, as we find them. Nothing here is a review: the description is the maker's own account of the thing, and the requirements are printed because they are the part people discover too late.
Some links on this page are affiliate links: if you buy through them, VST FINDS earns a commission. It never changes your price.
Protoform for Live
by Spektralisk (@spektralisk)
Random sample instrument. 16-slot kit random draw. One click arrangement extraction.
$49
klattsch
by Crash United (@me_irl)
Retro vocal synthesizer. Supports plain english, japanese kana/romaji, and raw arpabet phoneme codes. Includes piano roll with pitch editor and six built-in voices.
Free
CRUMPETS
by CRQL (@BristowEwan)
Cepstral formant shifter. Control the cepstral cutoff for formant and harmonic information. Shift up/down the mid-information formants.
VST3, CLAP, AU · Free
Loom
by Remo De Vico
Time-stretch texture instrument. Weave controls grain overlap from 1 to 16. Scatter invents phase from 0 to 100 percent.
Free · 62 ratings, 4.9 average
Panacousticon Series
by Emi liano
Max for live granular instrument bundle. Three granular instruments covering density, spatial erosion, and locked repetition. 1991 includes built-in generative source requiring no external sample.
needs Ableton Live 12.4, Max for Live · $39 · 30 ratings, 4.9 average
Snake
by Maxime Dangles
Snake generator sequencer. 3 custom sequencers. Choose precise notes to randomize sequencers.
Free · 29 ratings, 5.0 average
Frankenstein
by Remo De Vico
Sample fragment generator. Loads up to 30 samples. Generates waves with 12 to 64 slices.
needs Ableton Live · Free · 13 ratings, 5.0 average
0angel
by Sernn
Concatenative sample pack generator. Exports 24-bit WAVs with auto-tagging and manifest CSV. Writes native Ableton .adg Drum Rack files.
needs Ableton Live 12.0.5 or later, Max for Live · $19 · 8 ratings, 5.0 average
Shatter
by Remo De Vico
Granular fragment spatialization instrument. Slices cut at rising zero-crossings. Granular pitch-preserving time-stretching.
$20 · 5 ratings, 5.0 average
STAB by Isthmus Sound Collective
by Isthmus Sound Collective
Generative stab pattern instrument. Generates sound and pattern fitting selected key. Six automatable knobs for character, tone, decay, width, drive, delay.
VST3, AU, Standalone · needs Ableton Live 10.1 or newer, Logic Pro, GarageBand · $7 · 5 ratings, 5.0 average
gooper MAX
by brand0
Multi flanger phaser effect. 5 comb filters with configurable sweep range. Barber-pole phaser mode.
AU, VST3 · $20 · 4 ratings, 5.0 average
ARGISH
by Tunary Instruments
Self-playing drone synth. Generates complete arrangements with intros, builds, choruses and endings. Includes real sampled electric guitar counter-melodies.
AU, VST3, AAX, Standalone · $89 · 4 ratings, 5.0 average
FIELD KIT Playback Engine / Standalone + AU
by Field Tone Audio
Field recording playback engine. 4 independent playback windows. 3 LFOs with modulation patchbay.
AU, Standalone · $35 · 4 ratings, 5.0 average
Danaides
by Inear Display
Sequenced sound-mangling effect plugin. Available as VST3 and Audio Unit. Supports macOS Intel or ARM.
VST3, AU · Free · 4 ratings, 5.0 average
TMPLT Sounds
by TMPLT Sounds
Analog-style kick drum synthesizer. Dual-path signal chain with separate click generator. Monophonic and retriggerable behavior.
VST3, AU · Free · 4 ratings, 5.0 average
Two legs, Five arms
by François Pé
Generative drum machine plugin. Six lines: kick, snare, clap, hi-hat, toms, percussion. Continuous style axis blending house, rock, afro-cuban, hip-hop.
AU, VST3 · Free · 4 ratings, 4.5 average
Impactor 1.0
by RawtonForge
Procedural kick drum synthesizer. Additive synthesis engine with up to 12 bandlimited harmonics and continuous inharmonicity. Analytic phase-driven core with full phase control over the tail.
needs Ableton Live 11, Ableton Live 12, Max for Live · $30 · 3 ratings, 4.7 average
Better Channel EQ
by AnyChannelAudio
Analog hardware inspired eq. Four accurately modeled analog EQ models. Modeled transistor/tube output stage.
Max for Live · needs Ableton Live Suite, Max for Live add-on · $19 · 2 ratings, 4.5 average
ANALOGICAL
Analog bass and synth instrument rack. 33 presets and 33 MIDI clips included. 16 macro controls for synthesis parameters.
needs Ableton Live 12 Suite · $15 · 2 ratings, 5.0 average
RESET
Ableton operator instrument rack. 16 performance macros. 23 instrument presets.
needs Ableton Live 12 Suite · $15 · 2 ratings, 5.0 average
VST3
by Windows-G
Chorus effect plugin. Two LFO shapes: Triangle and Sine. Wet signal high-pass and low-pass filters.
VST3 · Free · 2 ratings, 4.5 average
VOLTRA dark hybrid synth
Hybrid synthesizer for dark techno. 139 factory wavetables included. Resonator V2 physical modelling engine.
$44
FREE
by
Audio analysis plugin. 13 analysis lenses including loudness, spectrum, and stereo. Verdict rules engine writes findings with numbers and rule IDs.
VST3, AU · Free
FREE
by
Mid/side effect plugin. Free mid/side plugin. Mid/side processing focus.
VST3, AU · Free
4 physics-inspired plugins
by
Physics-inspired audio effects. Spectral Mass Rebalance uses multiband dynamic tilts. Airy is a point source widener.
VST3, AU, AAX · Free
Spectrowalk
by Remo De Vico
Spectrogram walking granular instrument. Four sounds load as adjacent worlds with crossfade. Binaural HRTF spatialization with head tracking.
Max for Live, Standalone · $12
SPIRIT
Evolving wavetable instrument rack. 16 macro controls. 40 instrument variations.
needs Ableton Live 12 Suite · $16
Questions people ask
Are these really free?
12 of the 27 on this page cost nothing at the time we checked. Free here means a price of zero on the maker's own page, not a trial and not a cut-down edition. Some makers ask for an email address before the download; their page says so, and we do not.
What formats are these in?
Of the 27 listed: VST3 (11), AU (11), Standalone (4), AAX (2), Max for Live (2). Where a maker does not state a format we leave it blank rather than guess, so an entry with nothing listed is one whose page did not say.
Do any of these need something I might not have?
Some do: Ableton Live, Ableton Live 10.1 or newer, Ableton Live 11, Ableton Live 12, Ableton Live 12 Suite, Ableton Live 12.0.5 or later. That requirement is printed on the entry itself, because it is the part people find out after downloading. Where a maker ships a wrapper for one host beside a plugin that runs anywhere, the requirement belongs to the version being sold, not to both.
How were these picked?
They came through the same filter as everything we post: a maker's own page, read and stored, with every number checked against it. 18 of the 27 here carry buyer ratings, which are printed. We do not rank things we have not measured, and nothing on this page claims a listening test we did not do.