Free Fridays 7! Fave New Freeware Mac and PC Instruments, Plugins

After a much delayed Free Fridays post, we are back with the seventh installment and have included enough freeware to satisfy your appetite for free plugins for weeks to come. Because here at SonicScoop, we only choose the freshest of freeware (freeware from 2009 can still be fresh!) when scouring the depths of the internet for hidden treasures you may have missed. Bon Appetit!

SyncerSoft – Freq Booster – Harmonic Content Creator

Our first freeware is an EQ VST plugin that meant to create new harmonic content in your tracks or sources from kicks to synths based on a “psychoacoustic algorithm”. Parameters include low mid and high sections with musical keys A-G available for your boosting pleasure. Freq Booster is available for PC only:

Create Harmonic Content with FreqBooster

“This plugin is designed to bring warm and phat sound to modern digital music. With help of it you can create necessary amount of sound harmonics to drumloops, kicks, guitar, boring digital synth or even to final mix. Creation of new harmonics without using eqalisation is a main sense of this plugin. Its good to use it in dance, techno, dubstep, electronica, drum n bass, big beat, dub, reggae and all other styles.

Harmonic operators section define psychoacustic effect of sound. Operators modulate each other in a special way that open a venue to experiment and possibility to achieve sound that you want.

LFO section was designed specialy for Dubstep genre but can be used in other styles too of course. With help of this section you can control pulsation of harmonics with temp syncing or manually. Put this plugin at insert to some boring digitall bass line and assign rate, depth, cutoff knobs to midi controllers to create it floating, pulsating Dubstep Base sound. Main feature of this plugin is separate processing of low medium and high frequency. To assign controller to knob make a right click of the mouse on virtuall controller and you will see pop-up menu where you can choose controller.”

MaxSynths – Latte VSTi Vintage Synth

Next is the free version of the Latte VSTi synth that is for PC only. The only limitation of the free version and the full version is the restriction of 4 voices as opposed to 16 in the full. Latte is a fully functional synth designed to create vintage sounds of yesteryear:

“Latte is inspired by the old synthesizers from the past and is able to produce powerful synth sounds, fat basses, expressive leads, crazy sounds and more. Despite the synth layout looks very simple the modulation options allows to shape the sound in a lot of different ways. One of the most interesting features is the possibility to use the polyphonic aftertouch* as a modulation source to create the typical expressive sounds which has been a trademark for the well known synth gurus of the past.

The Saw/Pulse oscillator of Latte, characterized by a powerful and warm sound, has been created specially with the aim to recreate a realistic vintage sound.

Features:

• 2 Oscillators with custom Saw and Pulse waveforms and noise generator (White and Pink noise)
• 12dB Low Pass/High Pass state variable filter
• 2 LFOs with assignable destinations
• Assignable envelope generator
• Extensive options for external modulation with routable Channel or Poly Aftertouch
• FX section with Chorus and Delay
• 4 voice polyphonic
• Low CPU usage”

Distorque – Fuzz Face and Tonebender MKII Vintage Pedal Emulations

Distorque is back in our freeware feature with emulations of two vintage pedals that were both released back in 1966. Find descriptions of all controls after the link. Fuzz Face and Tone Bender MKII are available in 32 and 64-bit VST format for PC only:

“This is an emulation of a Fuzz Face and a Tone Bender MKII with added controls for tweaking. It runs in mono or stereo, and has selectable 2x oversampling.

The Fuzz Face was first made by Arbiter Electronics in 1966. It had a thick, fuzzy distortion and was made famous by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and David Gilmour. The Tone Bender MKII was also released in 1966, by Sola Sound. Compared to the Fuzz Face, it has a brighter, more distorted sound.

Coded in C++, using VST SDK 2.4 and VSTGUI 4.0.”

Nick Crow – TubeDriver Tube Amp Emulation

The Nick Crow TubeDriver

Here we have another plugin for guitar/bass that emulates tube amplification. The plugin is fully featured with an EQ section, control of oversampling, drive, bias and many more parameters to personalize. TubeDriver 1.0 is available as a 32 or 64-bit plugin for PC only – All parameters are listed with descriptions on the product page. Find this along with a few other free guitar amp emulations at their home page.

Klanghelm DC1A Compressor

Mac users if you haven’t given up hope yet, now is your time to shine! The DC1A is a compressor designed to be as simple as possible yet still be a practical solution for most, if not all, of your compression needs. DC1A is available for Mac or PC in VST or AU format and 32 or 64-bit:

“DC1A is the little brother of the compression monster DC8C. I’ve taken one of my favourite settings from DC8C and tried to make it work in a two control context. Soundwise it’s comparable to the PUNCH mode in DC8C. It’s  kind of a mixture of classic opto and FET designs.

I’ve always wanted to do a compressor with just an input and output knob, a compressor that just works: gentle, faithful, from almost invisible, smooth leveling to heavy pumping with a nice crunchy saturation and punchy enough to treat drums with.

DC1A looks like a one trick pony. But don’t get fooled by lack of further controls. You may be suprised on how many different material this little thing works. DC1A is heavily program dependent, so is the saturation.”

Tonebytes – Bleep’ Chiptune Synth

Bleep’ is a fully functional VSTi synth that emulates classic video game sounds from some of our favorite consoles. This is a must-have for anyone into the chip tune genre or just any fan of video games in general. Bleep’ is available for PC only:

Bleep - appropriately named.

“Bleep’ — is a free VSTi synthesizer plug-in for Windows which inspired by the sound of MOS Technology SID. At the same time Bleep’ is not emulator of this chipset but only partially similar to its architecture.

Main features:

• 3 oscillators with four waveforms: sawtooth, triangle, pulse (with PW) and noise
• Each oscillator has own detuner, ADSR envelope and multimode LP/BP/HP filter
• Multimode LFO synced with BPM
• Modulator Envelope Generator
• Pseudo arpeggiator
• Overall multimode filter
• Built-in preset manager with ability to patch name editing

In addition, VST automation and full MIDI Learning are supported.”

Voxengo – OldSkoolVerb Reverb Plugin

Lastly we have a freeware reverb that will sound like a dream on any non-percussive source, giving us and our source some much needed personal space. OldSkoolVerb is available for Mac and PC in AU and VST formats:

Old school sound, new school interface.

“OldSkoolVerb is a freeware algorithmic reverberation AU and VST plug-in for professional music production applications.  This plug-in implements a kind of “classic” stereo reverb algorithm which is technically simple yet optimal.  It also produces a very clear spatial image that blends well with the mix.

OldSkoolVerb offers you a comprehensive set of parameters permitting you to achieve various reverbs ranging from plate to hall reverb sound.  OldSkoolVerb is best suited for non-percussive and soft-attack sounds like vocals, piano and pad sounds.”

Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.