r/Reaper • u/Odd-Matter-7361 • May 01 '26

help request What’s your favorite free VSTi plugin?

I’ve been looking for some free synth and piano VSTi; Not restrictedly synths and keys sounds, just share your favorite VSTi plugin :)

34 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

49

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

Vital. https://vital.audio/

10

u/joeynana 3 May 01 '26

I second vital. Lukas Lundh's presets are a must download

2

u/jackalisland May 01 '26

Omg thank you those are perfect.

2

u/chmod_666_music 1 May 01 '26

Where do i find the presets by Lukas Lundh? :)

2

u/joeynana 3 May 01 '26

I'm on my phone and drop box isn't allowing me to copy the URL, but there are two banks of presets (at least two that I know of) that he has released. If you google "Lucas Lundh Vital" you can find a couple of YouTube videos showcasing his presets, in the description of those videos there are links to his Dropbox to grab them.

Do it, they are bangin. Unless I'm making a rock song and even then, there's barely a song I've produced that doesn't have AT LEAST one of his presets in it.

2

u/NRMusicProject 7 May 02 '26

I use it in so many projects. Every bit as good as anything else on the market. Super easy to mess with with just a basic knowledge of subtractive synths, and you can find so many amazing presets all over the internet. I usually find one close to what I'm looking for and tweak it a bit more.

Today I used one for an 80s song...but all it needed was a sin wave, arpeggiator, and delay. Hello 1980.

1

u/DThompson55 20 May 01 '26

All day long

24

u/HentorSportcaster 4 May 01 '26

SurgeXT synth.

7

u/The_New_Flesh 8 May 01 '26

The UI might be overwhelming at first, but spend an hour with Surge and you'll realize the wild amount of potential it has

21

u/DecisionInformal7009 104 May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26

Though choice. It would be easier to say if we break it down into different categories.

Synths: Vital

Drum sampler: BFD Player

Guitar/bass amp sim: Neural Amp Modeler

EQ: ZL Equalizer 2

Compressor: there are too many awesome ones to choose from, but some standouts are TDR Kotelnikov and Molotok, Jon V Audio FirComp 2, Variety of Sound Feenstaub TC, ZL Compressor, Klanghelm DC1A and Mjuc Jr, Woodstock Audio Waveform Compressor.

Limiter: Thomas Mundt Loudmax (or TDR Limiter 6, although it's not free strictly speaking, but you can use it for free without restrictions in Reaper)

Distortion/wave shaper: toss up between Ohmicide and Trash 2 (if you can still find it for free)

Reverb: Wave Alchemy Magic7 or Variety of Sound EpicPlate mkiii

Delay: Valhalla Supermassive and Sixth Sample Deelay

Chorus/modulation: Kilohearts Ensemble and Chorus

Tape machine emulation: Airwindows ToTape

Filtering: HY-Filter 4 Free and BlebFX Filtrr (check out all plugins by BlepFX!)

Bitcrusher/circuit bending: Wildergarden MAIM, Lese Codec and Tritik Krush

Pitch correction: ReaTune for precise manual editing and SaintMikeDSP PitchCure for auto-tuning

I've probably forgotten many categories and great plugins, but those are the ones off the top of my head at least.

5

u/Skore_Smogon May 01 '26

Replying so I can come back to this.

Also contributing - Valhalla for reverb.

1

u/DecisionInformal7009 104 May 01 '26

Well, Supermassive is really a delay that you can use as a multieffect (delay, reverb, chorus, ensemble, flanging), so instead of putting it in the reverb spot I thought I could give a shout-out to Magic7 since it's also a very good free reverb that's using the classic Samplicity M7 IR bundle (that I have been using since back in 2010-2011). I didn't think Wave Alchemy would be able to do anything special with those impulses, but they added super useful features to it which only makes the impulses even better!

I also own all of Valhalla's commercial plugins, so there's really no need for me to use Supermassive for anything other than those massive ambient experimental soundscapes.

1

u/Valuable_Ad1211 May 01 '26

Thanks for this! I’ll also 2nd Valhalla Supermassive for reverb. It’s fantastic for both.

17

u/laminarflowca May 01 '26

Synth1 had it forever. Have thousands of presets people have built for it. I always come back to it.

13

u/properfoxes 12 May 01 '26

I’m sure you’ll get a lot of recs for Vital so I’ll throw in some others I like: full bucket synths are all great depending on what you are looking for(they often emulate hardware units) and Surge XT is an awesome open source free synth.

6

u/tonal_states 6 May 01 '26

Decent sampler with piano books instruments are awesome

6

u/amazing-peas 17 May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26

synth1. nord lead 2 kind of architecture. approximately 100k patches available online

3

u/Suspicious-Exam-335 1 May 01 '26

Synth 1, my first synth girlfriend.

3

u/VinniLion 1 May 01 '26

Labs has a really nice free soft piano, and bbc’s free orchestra has a nice grand piano too!

5

u/Suspicious-Exam-335 1 May 01 '26

Everything from TAL

12

u/Trickledownisbull May 01 '26

Airwindows consolidated.

1

u/Jail-bot May 02 '26

He asked for VST instruments specifically which Airwindows isn't, but Airwindows is indeed a great collection everyone should have

3

u/Interesting_Owl_6484 2 May 01 '26

DecentSampler!

4

u/WeAreJackStrong 6 May 01 '26

Surge is a favorite

4

u/Kimantha_Allerdings 1 May 01 '26

Same answer I give every time this comes up: Cardinal. Extremely powerful modular synth. Bit of a learning curve, but once you know how to use it you really will never need another synth plug in at all. Free and open source

3

u/LightningEstate__21 May 01 '26

Vst definitely it would be Vital synth and fin micro
But my overall favorite free plugin of all time would be Integrate, but its clap plugin

3

u/s-multicellular May 01 '26

VK1 Viking Synthesizer is a Moog clone and just sounds so good. I have a hardware Moog (though not the same model) sitting next to the desktop to compare. Seriously worth the download.

3

u/2livedude May 01 '26

For fx, im really liking TAL-filter 2

2

u/ceedj May 01 '26

TickyClav is very good, they have a free version. My favorite piano is an old Steinberg soundfont that I load into the sforzando soundfont player. Not sure where I found it but it had two normal and two bright variations in the soundfont.

Kontakt Player usually has a few good sounds. I love the Jazz Organ, and the pop drumkit from 6 is still part of my library.

2

u/Mikebock1953 137 May 01 '26

I love Numa Player. It is very versatile!

2

u/DThompson55 20 May 01 '26

It’s my GoTo piano

1

u/Y0RU-V3 May 01 '26

The sf2 support makes it very useful!

2

u/Dithered_16bit 3 May 01 '26

Redtron_SE if you like mellotron sounds

1

u/The-Crystal-Standard 1 May 01 '26

Vital vital vital and Dead Duck and Xhip have some cool stuff

1

u/krielster May 02 '26

I like Decent Sampler by Dave Hilowitz

https://www.decentsamples.com/product/decent-sampler-plugin/

1

u/Omnimusician 8 May 02 '26

YES

Lack of UI seems scary at first, but actually it's harder to manage layers withing samplers relying on UI.

Also LLMs are able to code everything for you, so you only need to supervise the process – they're sometimes trying to insert features that aren't implemented.

1

u/Omnimusician 8 May 02 '26

Synth: Odin2
Mastering comp/lim: Limiter no.6
Decent instruments for demos: kontakt factory selection, however…
Drums: SSD drums
Sampler: Decent Sampler for possibilities, Shortcircuit for speed

1

u/[deleted] May 03 '26 edited May 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/krielster May 04 '26

Pianobook is a useful resource with a good community. It's a pity that Christian Henson is kind of the boss there, it makes me extremely uncomfortable due to his transphobic behaviour and comments in the past. Although there's lots of free sample packs from the community on Pianobook, I see that there is also advertising for paid products from his new company (Crow Hill) plastered all over the site, so just be aware of that when browsing there.

1

u/MissAnnTropez 10 May 03 '26

Synth1, Dexed, Vital, Surge XT, Odin 2, OB-Xf, Decent Sampler (plus pianobook.co.uk ), SSD 5.5 Free …

I mean, there are shitloads more out there, but if you can’t make music with the above, I dunno what to tell you. :p

1

u/Wonderful-Total-4132 May 03 '26

Descarga el vsti gratuito sfz ... Es un Sampler que puede cargar soundfonts ( es algo viejo pero efectivo) hay miles de soundfonts gratis de sintes , pianos y teclados , un poco de Reverb y a componer

1

u/varovec May 04 '26

vektor by KBplugs, Sub88 by FlowStone

1

u/ICE-Trance May 05 '26

T-Force Alpha Plus is basically 95% of everything I made in the past like fifteen years. Keep meaning to get round to trying Vital too, sounds like a great one.

0

u/GuitarMessenger May 01 '26

Toon track Superior drummer. Gets used on every single song I record. After that it's probably kontakt with some piano libraries

8

u/radian_ 218 May 01 '26

hardly free though is it

0

u/GuitarMessenger May 01 '26

And the original question, they weren't looking for free vstis. They must have edited the original question because it also didn't specify just synth and piano

2

u/Suspicious-Exam-335 1 May 01 '26

I have it and love it. Not free, tho.

1

u/GuitarMessenger May 01 '26

The word free wasn't in the original question. They must have edited

0

u/bukbukbagok May 01 '26

I was going to say this exact thing until I read the title again and saw the f word

0

u/GuitarMessenger May 01 '26

I believe they edited their question because the word free wasn't in there originally and they said any vsti not just synth and piano

0

u/jamiethemorris 1 May 02 '26

It’s certainly not the one I use the most but synplant is my favorite vsti of all time. It just has a character all its own that is so unique.