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Contents:
• Guitar Amp Simulators
• Effects
• Visualization Tools and Meters
• Recording Programs

•• Quick Start Guide
•• Plugin Recommendations For Beginners

I will continue to update this list, so check back often. And if anyone has any good ones that aren't in this list, then let me know and I'll add them in.


Guitar Amp Simulators

NOTE: DIG2.0 and Boogex are really all you need from this group of guitar amp simulators. These two combined with the effects plugins below will give very usable guitar sounds, and all for FREE!

AcmeBarGig DIG 2.0: This is a really good one and it is by far the best free plugin for heavy distortion that I've seen. Thanks to OldG for finding this one! Highly Recommended!
AcmeBarGig | Affordable High Quality VST Plugins

Voxengo Boogex: The clean and semi-distorted tones are really good, but the high gain tones leave a lot to be desired (he's working on that for the commercial release). Highly Recommended!
Voxengo - Boogex

Free Amp and Helian: Distortions are terrible, but the other effects aren't too bad.
Fretted Synth

SimulAnalog: More free guitar amp simulators.
SimulAnalog Guitar Suite

Amplitube Uno:
http://www.betterguitar.com/Equipmen...liTubeUno.html

TubeBaby:
TubeBaby - a VST tube amp simulation


Effects

Since this list is getting quite large, I have organized them in the order that I find the most useful and get used most often in my own projects (with the most useful at the top). Some of the more obscure effects (such as tape modeling, wave shaping, etc) are at the bottom of the list.

Buzzroom BuzMaxi3 Limiter & BuzzComp Compressor: The BuzMaxi3 is a very neutral sounding limiter even when hit pretty hard. Put this on your master channel as the last thing in the chain and you'll be guaranteed not to have any accidental clipping. BUZMAXI3 is a MUST HAVE
buzzroom - Limiter
buzzroom - Compressors

AiXcoustic Creations Electri-Q: I use this EQ all the time. It's is extremely versicle since it has 64 bands of parametric EQ (yes, you heard that right... 64 bands!!). Highly Recommended!
AiXcoustic Creations: Electri-Q (posihfopit)

Bootsy: One of the best freeware EQ's I have ever heard and the other effects are amazing as well, which include a reverb, compressor, and more... Highly Recommended!
Bootsy's freeware VST effect plug-ins

Melda Production: WOW!!! One of the best freeware packages I have ever seen. Best freeware compressors, phasor, and tremolo I've seen. Plus a hand full of other awesome effects. Highly Recommended!
MeldaProduction Free VST plug-ins, effects, virtual instruments

Kjaerhus Audio Classic Series: Incredible effects! These hold their own against "commercial" plugins... And are even better some of them. Highly Recommended!
Kjaerhus Audio - Professional Audio Plugins

Digital Fish Phones: Fantastic compressors, de-essers, noise gate, etc. Highly Recommended!
digitalfishphones.com - free audio vst plugins

Antress Modern Plugins: A huge variety of effects that model analog equipment (compressors, EQ's, reverbs, tape compression, etc.). Highly Recommended!
Plugin List
DOWNLOAD (Download the "Full Package" for all of the plugins)

Tritone Digital: Tritone Digital makes some of the best sounding plugins available, and the ColorTone-Free and PhaseTone are freebies. Highly Recommended!
TriTone Digital - For The Love of Tone!

Voxengo: Voxengo also makes some of the best commercial plugins available, but the freebies are a little more obscure and IMO aren't as useful as some of the other freebies.
Voxengo - Free VST's

Jeroen Breebaart: Also a good variety of effects. (Compressor, Limiter, Tape Simulator, Reverb, Stereo Enhancer, and more!)
Jeroen Breebaart | Free VST plugins

SSL (Solid State Logic) LMC-1: SSL is a company who makes very high end mixing consoles ($100,000+) that are in a lot of pro recording studios.
Solid State Logic

Uncut Pluings: Other EQ Plugins: 31-band/15 band Graphic EQ's and 5 band/3 band Parametric EQ's.
VST EFFECTS

PARIS EQ: Ported from the what used to be a $4,000 recording system (including hardware) called PARIS before it was discontinued. And the EQ from PARIS is now available for free.
KVR: Matt Craig ParisEQ - Virtual Effect (screenshot of the plugin, but the download link doesn't work anymore)
Deepsound Music - Ressources musique et audio (<-- use this for downloading)

Mangus Ambience: Good reverb.
Magnus' plugins

GlaceVerb: Another good reverb.
DASAMPLE - Sounds for professionals

SIR (Super Impulse Response): Very good reverb sounds. It is an impulse reverb, and it is very CPU intensive, so you won't be able to use this plugin for "live effects" or in a program that does not have automatic latency compensation without some "tweaking". You will know if your program does or not the moment you press play, because this plugin will delay that track by a very noticable amount and make it out of time with the rest of your tracks. Fixing this is kind of a pain, so unless your program has automatic latency compensation, then I'd suggest using Ambience, Glaceverb, or the OldSkoolVerb from Voxengo.
http://www.knufinke.de/sir/index_en.html

  ** NOTE: ** You will need to download impulse files and open them inside SIR before you can use this plugin.
                      See explanation of impulse reverbs below.

Slim Slow Slider: I highly recommend the CatDelay!
Slim Slow Slider : Produits Slim Slow Slider - AudioFanzine

AG Works Chorus: A very versitle chorus plugin.
[ag-works] Audio Plugins - Chorus CH-2

MDA: A whole lot of effects....
http://mda.smartelectronix.com/effects.htm



Visualization Tools and Meters

Roger Nichols Free Inspector: Spectral display, various types of meters including a volume, peak, and panning meters, it also has a large warning indicator so you can clearly see when you are in the red. It counts the number of clips, consecutive clips, displays how much head room you have, and more... MUST HAVE!
Inspector

Voxengo SPAN: Spectrum analyzer MUST HAVE!
Voxengo



Recording Programs

Kristal Audio: A free 16-track recording program that also has live VST monitoring.... So you can plug your guitar into your computer, load some of these effects onto a track and hear the effects while you are playing guitar just like an effects pedal or processor. (As explained in the Kristal Audio Tutorial).
KRISTAL Audio Engine

[Tekker]

Explanation Of Impulse Reverbs

The way impulse reverbs basically work is you send a short blast of white noise out into a room (such as a cathedral or a hallway.... or a bathroom... lol) and you use microphones to record the reverb sound from the room. Then the plugin uses the wave file of the “room sound” and puts that sound onto your track. You can create a very similiar sound to what you would get if you actually recorded in that room.... The quality of the reverb is largely dependent on the quality of the impulse wave file (and there are some great quality impulses out there!). Also, because the impulse programs work off wave files, you can create your own impulses of any room in your house/studio/etc. There are several websites dedicated to creating and sharing impulse responses, like the Noise Vault Forums and there are a couple example impulses on the SIR website.

The plugin cannot create any reverb sounds without these impulse responses (wave files). So you will need to download some impulse files before you can use it. If you download a bunch of files, it may help to keep them organized by creating different folders for each set of impulses you download instead of putting them all into one folder.... Otherwise you may never be able to tell what what the impulse was from.

The unfortunate drawback to these plugins is they require a lot of processing power. Therefore, they have a large amount of latency (the delay added to the signal due to the time it takes for the plugin to process the signal) and are not able to be used in realtime or by programs without automatic latency compensation. There are fixes for this, the easiest of which is to use a plugin that delays the audio by a specific amount (like the Voxengo Sample Delay or Latency Delay), then set the amount to the same number of samples that the impulse reverb delays the signal, and load this plugin onto all of the other tracks in the program. There are other ways to fix it, but overall this ends up being more of a hassle than it's worth. So unless you have a program that supports automatic latency compensation, then you're much better off using another reverb plugin that doesn't have high latency.

Back to SIR

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Quick Start Guide

This section will have some quick tutorials and tips for getting started with some of my favorite freebie plugins.

AiXcoustic Creations Electri-Q - Paragraphic EQ
AiXcoustic Creations Electri-Q

I have been looking for an EQ like this for a long time and finally found one. 64 bands is far more than any normal person would ever need. This is an essential plugin for everyone to have, even those with lots of other plugins. It can be as complicated or as simple to use as you want it to be.... I'll explain what I mean by this after a basic explanation of the functions.

As with anyother parameteric EQ, you use the mouse to adjust the nodes (the little dots) on the screen in order to make changes to the EQ. Double clicking on a node opens the parameter box for that node, which allows you to change the frequency, gain, and bandwidth for that node. Clicking anywhere on the background outside the parameter box will close the box.

Now here is a very cool trick you can do with the parameter box: Click on words for Freq., Gain, or BW which ever one you click on will turn grey. This will lock that parameter and not allow you to change it until you click on it again. So for example, if you have the frequency set at a certain frequency that you don't want to change then you can lock it so you won't accidentally change it. If you get something just the way you like it you can lock all three so you can't accidentally change anything. This also keeps it locked when you close the dialog box and use the mouse to move the node around.

The fequency, gain, and bandwidth parameters can also be adjusted by using the mouse to move the nodes. Holding down one of the Ctrl/Shift/Alt modifier keys while using the mouse allows you to adjust each one individually.
Ctrl: Adjusts only the frequency
Shift: Adjusts only the volume
Alt: Adjusts the bandwidth

Holding shift while double-clicking on a note resets it to its original position (volume, frequency, and bandwidth are all reset). You can also draw a lasso around several (or all) nodes and use this method to reset multiple nodes at once. Right-clicking on a node and selecting "Bypass" will bypass only that node without affecting the others. This can be very useful when comparing to the original sound before you made the EQ change.

To add more nodes, just simply double click anywhere on the frequency curve. You can add up to 64 nodes.


If all of this seems really complicated, there is a great preset that is very beginner friendly. It is the 22nd preset called "Graphic EQ".

This preset has 31 nodes all lined up equally spaced from each other. You will notice that when you move the nodes you can only change the volume and not the frequency. This preset has the frequency locked (as explained above) for each node. Therefore you can only change the volume and it acts just like a regular graphic equalizer (like on stereo systems). Only with this you can actually see the frequency curve it to see what changes you are actually making to the audio. You can also change the bandwidth of each node, which cannot be done on a typical graphic equalizer. And of course, you can always go in and unlock a band and move it anywhere you want. This is really a very versatile plugin.

The Store and Load buttons at the bottom of the plugin are NOT storing or loading permanent settings. If you remove and remove this plugin from a track and reload it all your stored settings will be gone. So this is more of a temporary storage just as long as you don't remove the plugin from the track it is loaded on. To save your EQ settings permanently on your hard drive go to the Plugin menu at the top of the plugin and choose "Patch Save". This will allow you to save and load EQ settings for different tracks or even completely different projects.


BuzMaxi3 Limiter - COMING SOON!

[Tekker]

Plugin Recommendations For Beginners

If you are new to recording and/or effects plugins, then the list above may seem a bit overwhelming. So to narrow the list down significantly, below are a few effects that I think would be best to start with because they have good sound quality and are also user friendly.


Guitar Amp Simulators:

AcmeBarGig DIG 2.0: This is all you really need to get started with guitar amp sims. It sounds very good for a free amp sim and has some basic guitar effects like EQ, noise gate, and delay built in.
AcmeBarGig DIG 2.0

Voxengo Boogex: NOTE: You can get by with DIG 2.0 just fine, but Boogex has much nicer clean tones IMO. So if you are after very nice clean tones, then this is the one.
Voxengo - Boogex


Effects:
For mixing or for guitar effects

Buzzroom BuzMaxi3 Limiter: This is essential as it will keep your mixes from clipping/distorting. Put this on the master channel as the last thing in the chain (after the master volume faders).
buzzroom - Limiter

AiXcoustic Creations Electri-Q: Using preset number 22 called "Graphic EQ" will simplify the use of this EQ. It will behave like a regular graphic EQ (like on stereo systems).
AiXcoustic Creations Electri-Q

Kjaerhus Audio Classic Series: This package has a lot of the basic essential effects: EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Limiter, Flanger, and Auto Filter.
Kjaerhus Audio - Professional Audio Plugins

Melda Production: This is a great compliment to the Kjaerhus Audio effects as they both contain a few different effects that the other does have. This package includes: EQ, Compressor, Phaser, Limiter, Tremolo, Auto Panner, Vibrato, Stereo Expander, Ring Modulator, Wave Shaper, and Spectrum Analyser.
MeldaProduction Free VST plug-ins, effects, virtual instruments


Below is a list of the effects I like best out of each of these effects packages... Although, for some of them there was only one choice.
I recommend printing off this list so you'll know where to find a particular effect that you are looking for.

EQ: AiXcoustic - Creations Electri-Q
Limiter: Buzzroom - BuzMaxi3
Reverb: Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Reverb
Delay: Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Delay
Compressor: Melda Production - MCompressor
Chorus: Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Chorus
Flanger: Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Flanger
Phaser: Melda Production - MPhaser
Tremolo: Melda Production - MTremolo
Vibrato: Melda Production - MVibrato
Stereo Expander: Melda Production - MStereoExpander
Auto Panner: Melda Production - MAutoPan
Auto Filter: Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Auto-Filter
Ring Modulator: Melda Production - MRingModulator
Wave Shaper: Melda Production - MWaveShaper
Spectrum Analyzer: Melda Production - MAnalyzer