actually I thought there would be a topic about this but i cant find any
i could ask this on irc, but i think it's better ask on this so the list never die and everyone gets learn

my question is whats your free vsts suggesstions at categorized?
well i said categorized, i mean if i example about categorized is doing suggesstions of the free reverb vsts or delay or vibration or instruments, romplers or another categories on vsts

my suggesstions;
TDR Nova
probably so many people know about this vst is "TDR Nova". i've never seen crash on MPT with this vst and its doing job well.
Linky

Snap Head
i'll suggest "Snap Head" especially for the micropitch control, it's very useful on the MPT. My only complaint is delayed 20ms
linky

Fretted Synth Free Amp 3
Amp and another some effects for i suggest "Fretted Synth Free Amp 3". It has much easier interface than another free amp vsts to me. It's definitely not the best of accuracy but it's really easy, just 2 3 clicks enough to set something up.
clinky

also i have one vst i dont know when where how i got it, it called "snesecho", i don't know if it creates a real SNES echo effect but i can say that an echo vsts should be like this, i really like it.
(ok, quick research, this was made by nyanpasu64 but i can't find the download page. if you find the page please share with us)


and also recently I was looking for a free plugin about phase, phaser, phase manual automation, but i couldn't find
aaaand also, I've been looking for a free plugin that provides a nice vibrato effect just like famitracker vibrato effects (i dont know why but famitracker vibrato effect always different from the other systems to me) but I couldnt like any vst I found


(MPT has only 1 fx column on 1 channel so using vst to some effects on other channels seems like a good idea for me)

For anyone who liked messing around with grossbeat in FL here’s a free clone called time1 by tilr. It has a vst version or you can install it natively into reaper with its package manager thingy.
https://github.com/tiagolr/time1
He also has a lot of other creative automation vsts on his GitHub

recent fave of mine is Vital

. It’s free but there’s a paid tier for those who use it a lot or something, idk. pretty standard synth, but it’s almost like a wavetable editor at the same time. highly recommend it for those who want to use lots of synth in their songs

For plugins available as VSTs, I'm a big fan of the Socolabs Wavetable

plugin and the VST version of Carla

, the later has a patchbay interface and let you do modular music with all your plugins and soundfonts. These two are free and open source.

Solaris

by Adam Szabo has really cool effects you can apply on an audio source. It's only available on Windows but I was able to use it on Linux both with OpenMPT and Yabridge.

I also like a lot WhySynth

and hexter

for FM synthesis but these are actually not VST but DSSI plugins, so I think you can only use these on Linux.

Surge XT and EP-MK1 are two pretty darn nice VSTs which I believe to be free

Surge XT can be built as vst2 but you need to do it yourself

One of the Surge XT developers released a free FM synth a couple months ago called Six Sines

. Of all the free FM synth VSTs I tried, I think it's among the best in terms of features and UI.

I thought I'd also mention this collection of physical modeling synths I stumbled upon last year: Quilcom

. It has a huge variety of generators for all kinds of instruments.

Use Bendy in FL studio to do funny vibrato and pitch stuff. Basically midi out on steroids

https://blog.wonthelp.info/2021/12/03/bendy-an-fl-studio-plugin-for-using-piano-roll-bends-panning-etc-in-third-party-vst-plugins/

I don’t have any plugin recommendations that haven’t been given already but I’m definitely downloading all of these.

and shoutouts to all the plugin developers that actually open source their shit instead of releasing it as freeware and then leaving it to die

anything is free if you look hard enough!

that is unless you post about it on BOTB

Oh I forgot to mention the AVL Drumkits

, these are ready to use drum kits with different samples depending on the velocity and preconfigured stereo.

Orchestral Tools' Berlin Free Orchestra has been a recent free favourite of mine, as it's essentially a fully free orchestra (with solo instruments!!! which is why I picked it up personally) running in a sample player that's relatively lightweight.

You do need to make an account with them, and note that they will display your first name in the sample player itself, but other than that it's free!

Delay Lama.

I will not elaborate.
Also Meowsynth.

Again, no elaboration on my part, but these need to be mentioned in this thread.

I like the mda vst plugins, especially the piano plugin. I haven't used the others that much, but they can do some insane stuff from a quick glance.
They are available in vst2, vst3, au and lv2 formats and open source. The vst3 version is a bit buggy and the presets don't apply for me without wiggling the sliders a bit and they override custom values, but I maintain a fork that at least fixes the latter issue. (else you can't save custom values, as a preset is always automatically applied on loading the plugin)


Here is the fork if anybody's interested (but I'd stick to lv2 or vst2 if possible): https://github.com/linux-leo/mda-vst3/tree/master

EDIT: since kaytse mentioned meowsynth, I would recommend Nyasynth, an open source replica: https://github.com/a2aaron/nyasynth

I'm also a fan of onetrick urchin

Is it free? Well no ^{, but actually yes *wink wink* *cough cough* open source *cough cough* (please buy it if you can) (I can't, can't afford it)}

Instruments:

* Osirus

and OsTIrus

- emulators of the Access Virus line. Those plugins require the ROM files of the original synths, which can be found on Internet Archive.

* VK-1

- neat Moog Voyager emulator for a believable 70's sound.

* BitKlavier

- ostensibly a prepared piano emulator, but basically a sampler with unique sound design options.

* Regency

- phase distortion is one of the most obscure synthesis methods. This synth makes some neat digital acid sounds.

Effects:

* Deelay

- one of the two best free delay/reverb plugins out there. I'm overusing it lol

* Spacer

- the second of the two best free delay/reverb plugins out there. A powerful atmosphere design tool, though it glitches sometimes.

* Ribs

- a cool-looking granular effect with lots of options that can be played with a MIDI channel.

First of all bump because I want to hear more recommendations, second I wanna mention the airwindows plugins are awesome, third I came across this great ott alternative: https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/pull/6925

Because I don't use LMMS though, I let chatgpt port it to a ladspa plugin: https://gist.github.com/linux-leo/f1b56f2d386e29631cc814aeeafebaf8

^{(I know AI Bad I'm so sorry please don't kill me I just wanna make music)}

Note: The plugin does not report latency caused by enabling lookahead, (mainly because my DAW doesn't support polling the latency ladspa port), so you'll have to set the latency manually in your DAW or add latency reporting to the code and make sure your DAW supports it

edit: oh and I know github is evil too, just haven't made the switch to something else yet.

Anything by Full Bucket Music. Mostly emulations of Korg synths like the Poly800, Poly61, PS-3x00 series, and even the VC-10 vocoder, but with some others thrown in there.

VirtualJV. Roland JV-880 emulator based on Nuked SC-55. You will need ROMs, but they’re easy to find. It can load additional samples from dumped cards, and between them and the built-in patches there’s a BUNCH of 90’s cheese in it. Do note that this is VST3 only, so…

Kushview’s Element. This is a shell plugin which has one very interesting feature - it can load VST3 plugins in hosts which only support VST2, such as OpenMPT. And yes, it’s extremely stable. Only one VST3 plugin I use doesn’t work in it.

Combo Model V, Combo Model F, and Foo-YC20. Three combo organ simulators, Vox, Farfisa, and Yamaha respectively. The same company that made the first two also made Kee Bass, a physically modeled keyboard bass instrument made by a company that also makes, uhh, HVAC units.

SQ8L. This is another synth emulator, this time for the Ensoniq SQ-80. No ROMs required. It also uses the same sound chip as the Apple IIgs, which is kinda fun.

And finally, Speek. It’s SAM, the C64 speech synthesizer, in VST form. It’s just as crusty, just as tweakable, and even includes some recreations of well-known lines from 90’s EDM tracks.

Edit: here are the links!

Full Bucket: https://www.fullbucket.de/music/vst.html
VirtualJV: https://github.com/giulioz/jv880_juce
Element: https://kushview.net/element/
Combo Model V: https://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Plugins/Combo-Model-V.shtml
Combo Model F: https://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Plugins/Combo-Model-F.shtml
Kee Bass: https://www.martinic.com/en/products/kee-bass
SQ8L: http://www.buchty.net/ensoniq/index.html
Speek: https://blog.wavosaur.com/text-to-speech-vst-vst-speek/amp/

I apologize for my rambliness in this post, but I just have to talk about these plugins!

A VST plugin that I am astonished is free is the Synful Orchestra

plugin. It is an orchestral plugin that uses "Reconstructive Phrase Modeling technology" to essentially replicate the sound of recorded instruments in orchestras which include horns, trumpets, trombones, bowed strings, plucked strings, flutes, clarinets, oboes, english horns, and even crazy fantasy sounding instruments if you play around with the settings enough in presets because the instruments have a degree of synthesis to them while sounding extremely realistic in my opinion. It's multitimbral, and sounds really good! I haven't used this plugin in any entries, but I really want to. I highly recommend Synful to anyone who is apprehensive about downloading or purchasing an orchestral library/plugin due to the high file sizes they can reach. Synful is well under 100 megas if I recall correctly.

ADLMIDI and OPNMIDI

are vsts that emulate the OPL3/YMF262 and OPN2/YM2612 with midi banks for instruments, think fm midi drivers used in dos games. Having chips as a vst with easy midi support and multitimbral support is great! You can even greatly increase the amount of chips for more voices. Highly reccomend for MS-DOS MIDI FM cheese enthusiasts, or just fun seekers

Of course, mentioning retro fm plugins means I just have to talk about Dexed

, which is also free, and emulates the Yamaha DX-7! Great sounds off of this plugin, especially considering there are thousands of archived DX7 preset carts available online. My main complaint about Dexed is that it isn't multitimbral, so you need multiple instances of Dexed for an FM only track using 6op FM (rip CPU), but using it as a lead, bass, or pad is fun still. Interestingly, I do know of a mobile app called KQ Dixie that has multitimbral support for the DX7, but unfortunately it is paid, not a plugin, and it is on mobile, so it can't really be used in a DAW. Really wish there was a KQ Dixie equivalent as a free VST plugin.

That's about as far as I have to go in talking about VSTs, as I hardly ever use a DAW! I can't really! Unrelated tangent, but I find a lot of them really expensive, and I feel uncomfortable with how professional music software is marketed towards people who make a lot of money. Anything that is free is like LMMS, and while it may have potential, it just doesn't have the features I'm looking for, while anything that is free is around 100 dollars! That being said, I am trying to use REAPER via the free trial it has that can be re-evaluated, but I still just am so uncofortable by EULAs, they feel predatory, I just want to make music without having to worry about business and all this capitalism crap. Where's my ideal software!!!! I suppose I should be making money, as I am fresh outta public school. I may seem a little ungrateful talking like this. What can you do?

Oh seeing this thread again made me remember I found this page on the lyceum not long ago, for even more free plugins :o
VST list

I was looking for a real upwards compressor for linux today (to replace my ai slop compressor) and this ended up being one of the only plugins capable of upwards compressing, but it also functions way differently than normal multiband with ~16000 bands, almost letting you do eq on the bands, and I thought that was really cool: https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug/tree/master/plugins/spectral_compressor

- Redtron SE

is a great mellotron VST. Gives you a lot of different tape samples to play with, and lets you blend between them a little, too!

- Spicy Guitar

is a physically-modelled guitar synth that's tricked a couple friends into thinking it's the real thing.
It can be tricky to make a MIDI guitar sound natural, but Spicy's got a lot of features that make it easier, like automatic strumming and a palm mute key.

- DSK ChoirZ

is not a good choir VST. I grew up listening to the OFF soundtrack, though, so I'm a sucker for unnatural sounding synth voices.

Glitch

is a powerful multi-effect VST for mangling drum loops and such into glitchy dance music. The first version has been free since its release in 2005. When the creator Illformed (aka dblue in the Renoise community) passed away, his family made the commercial version freeware as well.

even though this isn't a free VST my most-used vst is definitely klevgrand brusfri, it is a noise removal plugin that is much better than the freeware noise removal plugins that i tried. invaluable if i don't want noise from my laptop which is next to my microphone (though noise can be a fun aesthetic choice)

free stuff i liked in the past included glitch, zebralette, and vital.

here is a D-110 (big brother of the MT-32) vst/standalone emulator for desktop pc (windows, mac os, linux) and android as well: https://github.com/luginf/d110-vst-emulator

you can't have a vst sharing thread without a mention of super destroy fx

(these are just a bunch of weird effects, check out the demos!)

Every synth by nakst, really:
https://nakst.gitlab.io/audio/

other purely free things i forgot: sinnah https://nusofting.net/plugins/sinnah, multiple things from insert piz here https://plugins4free.com/dev/200

some very nice recommendations in here! for years i had to rely on freebies exclusively on my laptop, so i have some experience, nonetheless there's not much i can add... except nobody mentioned this yet?

https://github.com/JClones/JSFXClones

it's a handful of classic - and, in some cases, very expensive - commercial plugins recreated from the ground up by Vlad from Tokyo Dawn Labs (iykyk). JS format, but there's a free wrapper to VST. to say 'recommended' would be an understatement :)

synthesis/samplesis:

have used:

CRYSTAL (don't sleep on this weirdo)
tyrellN6 (my most used and therefore loved free)
zebralette
synth1 (idk how nobody mentioned this yet, guess im old)
VCV (modular emulation, of course it has its place)
TAL-BassLine (old)
c700 (yall know this one)
magical8bitplug (one time I installed this on a mac in best buy but it was for the wrong architecture and it froze the computer while making this insane screeching noise and the staff had to come over lol)

have yet to use:

quetzlcoatl
helm
odin2
dexed
vital
TX16Wx (free and deep sampler)
drumatic 3
socalabs collection

DSP:

effects suites:

kilohearts effects suite (must have)
airwindows (huge collection)
TAL free section
all the voxengo stuff
klanglabs

dynamics/mastering/eq:

VladG limiter no6
TDR nova
TDR kotelnikov
TDR molotok
xfer OTT
W1 limiter
flux bittersweet (top rate transient shaper)
slickEQ

reverb/delay:

smartelectronix ambience (legendary algorithmic reverb)
oldskoolverb (very good by voxengo)
valhalla supermassive
valhalla freq echo
valhalla space modulator
freeverb (free, verb)
2warpdelay (delay that runs on pure fractals)
aaltoverb (i recommend checking out madrona labs paid stuff)
mdsp duckverb


glitch/other:

livecut (just got a new update on this classic)
hysteresis (crazy glitch chaos)
illformed Glitch2 (recently freeware)
michael norris plugins (spectral, maybe AU only)
smartelectronix cyanide 2 (epic waveshaping)
bram's bouncy
bram's crazy ivan (destroys your computer in a good way)


analysis:

youlean loudness meter
smexoscope
TDR Prism

---

I also suggest looking through these databases like plugins4free, KVR, etc. you never know what you can find in these places. I think a lot of free stuff out there will work for linux users as well. I'll update if I think of anything else

also a lot of freeware things tend to be 32 bit only. not sure if anyone can even run 32 bit plugins anymore. use jbridge i guess.

For Chipists, if you're like me and you love the sound of OPNA but hate working in Trackers:

OPNA FM Vst

https://trp-i.itch.io/opna-fm-synth

This thing sounds Delicious. It has no bank import, but it's a nearly 1-1 remake of OPNA in every other way.

There is also "nineight", another OPNA vst, but it is incomplete and doesn't function properly.

another thing worth mentioning - battle of the (free) plugins!
with its tenth edition just concluded:
https://www.kvraudio.com/kvr-developer-challenge/
---
bet at least this one should be of interest... https://www.kvraudio.com/product/orbinator-by-audiodev-blog

For ambient atmosphere enjoyers, I'd recommend Xfer Dimension Expander, which can be found here

If I want to make something reminiscent of the 1970s, often times I may utilise Redtron SE by Artifake Labs, an emulation of an old Mellotron. :)))