There’s never been a better time for independent DIY musicians to mix, master and produce their own tracks, to avoid expensive studio fees. You can download a seemingly endless supply of free VST plugins for music production to add to your digital audio workstation, whether that’s Logic Pro, Ableton, Pro Tools or any other easily-accessible music production software.

Here's a list of the very best. Try them out for yourself, it won't cost you a thing!

Mango is a Harmonic Processor creating luscious sounds in an extraordinary musical manner. This fruity valve or tape like decadent dessert will take your music to another level; adding that sweet, creamy and pure fruitiness making your audio material a succulent masterpiece. Mango works in Mono-, Stereo- and Mid/Side mode. 3) iZotope Music Production Suite. IZotope develops tools at the cutting edge of music production, mastering and audio signal processing, and the Music Production Suite brings together six of iZotope’s signature plugins: Ozone 8 Advanced, Neutron 3 Advanced, RX 8 Standard, Nectar 3 Plus, VocalSynth 2, and Trash 2 Expanded.

Free VST plugins for music production

12 Best VST Plugins for Professional Vocal Mixing. Top 7 Vocal Recording Techniques – Secrets For Killer Vocals. 5 Tips to Make Your Bass Sound Better. 10 Music Production Mistakes To Avoid. S(M)exoscope is a real-time Oscilloscope plugin. Originally released in 2003 on the Smartelectronix website by Bram de Jong and Sean Evans, S(M)exoscope was my Oscilloscope of choice right up until I moved to a 64 bit environment and it no longer worked due to being 32 bit only.

Native Instruments has done a remarkable job by releasing KOMPLETE START. It’s a complete audio-mixing bundle that contains a variety of VST plugins, virtual instruments, thousands of audio effects, and several other free resources for music production. Earlier all these elements were available individually.

If you’re looking for an awesome free effects plugin to give your track a boost when recording music at home, or a helpful tool to streamline your production, check out this comprehensive list and download the best free music production plugins for Mac or Windows from across the web.

Know of any great free plugins for music production not featured on this list?

Let us know in the comments section below!

Free creative effect plugins

If you're looking to give your tracks something extra, and make light work of creating unique sounds, take your pick from this collection of free creative effect plugins, sure to shake up your next production.

iZotope Vinyl

This fantastic free VST effect plugin allows you to mimic the dust, scratches, and warp of a worn record, as well as the electrical and mechanical sounds of the turntable it would be playing on. Download here.

Guitar Gadgets

Guitar Gadgets simulates a number of analog guitar pedals, including Delay Attack, Super Phazor, Crusher and more, and is perfect for using on electric guitars and guitar amp imitations. Download here.

Illformed Glitch/30-vst-plugins-for-fl-studio-registration-code.html.

Glitch is an audio effect plugin which can play multiple effects simultaneously. It features a sequencer and a collection of great effects, as well as the ability to randomize - or ‘glitch’ - effects for some off-the-cuff inspiration. Download here.

Head Crusher

As the name suggests, the Head Crusher is not for the faint-hearted! But offers five different saturation modes to add something extra to a vocal track or make give your drums a heavier feel. Download here.

Ohm Force Frohmage

Frohmage by Ohm Force is a powerful filter with an easy-to-use interface, designed to provide warmth, dirt and many more unique effects more to produce a professional sound on any track. Download here.

Anarchy Rhythms

Anarchy Rhythms is a cross between drum machine and an audio effect. It takes an audio input and applies a customisable mix of modulation, filtering, feedback loops, oscillation and compression to create a unique sound. Download here.

Voxengo Oldskoolverb

One of the ultimate free reverb plugins, OldSkoolVerb offers a broad range of options, allowing users to create many types of reverb. It is best to be used with softer instruments like piano and vocal tracks. Download here.

CamelCrusher

CamelCrusher is a popular free multi-effects plugin, featuring two different distortion tones which can be mixed together to develop multiple textures and sounds. It’s perfect for a wide range of instruments including drums, guitars, and more. Download here.

Hysteresis

This glitch delay plugin can be used to create robotic-sounding abstract audio effects. It includes effects like delay, modulation and others, for processing percussion and much more. Download here.

Shattered Glass Audio Code Red

Inspired by the British consoles of the late 1960s, this plugin recreates the EQ and bold overdriven sounds of the Beatles, perfect for those nostalgic riffs. Download here.

Free plugin synths

To save you from sifting through the many, MANY free plugin synths across the internet, here are a few of the very best. Try them out and let us know what you think!

Tunefish 4

Tunefish 4 is a diverse free plugin synth with plenty of sound to play with. It has something for just about any situation, whether you're looking to create bass, leads, pads or anything else. Download here.

Ichiro Toda Synth1

Modelled on the Clavia Nord Lead 2 Red Synth, this plugin features a range of great tools, including 4 types of filters, tempo delay, 128 presets and much, much more. Download here.

u-he Tyrell N6

This incredible synth plugin is a truly powerful concept and offers plenty of great possibilities for your next track. And unbelievably, it’s available completely free, so check it out for yourself. Download here.

HELM

Helm not only features everything you could ever need from a synth plugin, but also runs pretty much anywhere and is available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Download here.

Siegfried Kulmann SQ8L

The SQ8L by Siegfried Kulmann features 3 lo-fi oscillators for each of its 8 voices, plus a wide range of other great features, and can produce lots of diverse and interesting sounds. Download here.

Free mixing effect plugins

So you're ready to get to work with your mixer, but you're looking for some extra inspiration to bring the best out of your track? Here are some of the best free mixing effect plugins for all of the creative DIY sound engineers out there.

Klanghelm IVGI

IVGI not only provides very soft and subtle saturation effect, but is also able to produce a very dense and dirty sound with unmistakable distortion effects. Download here.

TDR Nova

NOVA is a parallel dynamic equalizer with the well-known format of a parametric equalizer. Each band also offers a thorough dynamics section, which means the processor can cover a wide range of applications. Download here.

Softtube Saturation Knob

This free Saturation Knob plugin is a modeled output distortion that can be used to fatten up bass lines, add harmonics and shimmer to vocal tracks, or simply kick your drum loop up a notch. Download here.

Best Music Production Plugins

MeldaProduction MFreeEffectsBundle

This effects bundle from Melda Productions contains 30 different audio effects and is completely free. Alternatively, you can pay to upgrade to the professional version for even more options. Download here.

Sonimus SonEQ

SonEQ is a digital equalizer that combines the best parts of some vintage gear in one great package. It has a 3 bands equalizer, 2 filters and a pre-amp section. Download here.

Luxonix LFX-1310

LFX-1310 is a multi-effector with 24 algorithms and 3 serial slots to play around with. Every unique algorithm on this free plugin offers an exciting new effect. Download here.

Free plugin tools

Creating a great track isn't all about adding effects. It's about being in control of your sound and getting the most out of your software. These free plugin tools and utilities can help you produce the perfect mix. Download them now and see for yourself!

Beyerdynamic Virtual Studio

This incredible free plugin tool simulates a selection of real speaker systems in different environments, so you can see what you track sounds like in a host of venues, from big concert hall to intimate stages, without even being there! Download here.

Circular Labs Mobius

Music Plugins Free

Mobius is free software used for the real-time design of audio loops. Basically, it has 8 synchronized stereo loopers that can be used in any combination with extensive MIDI and computer keyboard control. Loops created can then be easily saved and loaded. Download here.

Voxengo Span

SPAN is a free real-time audio spectrum analyzer for music and audio production applications, featuring a wide range of powerful tools, compatible with just about every DAW out there. Download here.

Blue Cat Audio Gain Suite

Blue Cat’s Gain Suite offers a number of gain utilities, so you can control the levels of one or more tracks in real time, alongside a collection of other unique and exciting features. Download here.

There are hundreds of free VST plugins for music production available across the internet. These are just a selection of our favourites!

If you enjoyed using any of these plugins, make sure to share this list with your friends, or if you know of any great free effects or plugin tools not featured here, then please let us know in the comments!

It’s 2018 and there are literally hundreds & thousands *maybe*, of VST synth plugins in the market. Some are free, some are expensive and some cost very little.

Not every VST synth is made equal. On some synths, you may find big and usable sounds, right on the get-go. And on some other synths, you could get sound that sounds too amateurish until you spend time tweaking and inserting effects into it.

We could have attempted to write a list of the top 100 best free & paid VST plugins in the world today, but I really wanted to focus on the real best 5 must-have software VST synths, that should consider installing in your setup – as a music producer, whether you produce electronic music or hip-hop music.

Let’s get started.

The 5 Best Software VST Synths To Install Today

Check out this video, where Tim Cant (a really hilarious producer) shows us insights into the five of probably the most popular software synths in the world today. He’ll explain the five synths below, shows a quick walkthrough of each and explains what made them popular.

1. SynthMaster 2.9 (KV331 Audio)

SynthMaster, an award-winning synth may have been around for a long time, but every update has kept it fresh for the competition with the world’s best soft synths.

Now at version 2.9, SynthMaster has practically every sound generation feature you could want in a synthesizer: wavetable oscillators, loads of voicing parameters, dual filters, multistage envelope generators and a modular signal flow – all times two with two synthesis layers. On top of that, there’s also four LFOs, an effects section including a Vocoder, and loads more.

SynthMaster’s Killer Feature? It’s oscillator waveforms include samples of classic hardware to use as sources.

Its seen to be used by DJs like Armin van Buuren, Martin Garrix and Zedd.

Buy SynthMaster at Plugin Boutique – $99

2. Spire (Reveal Sound)

The Spire does not come cheap. (Almost the price of a DAW!).

But it brings an impressive range of oscillators and synthesis types, and an even more impressive range of third-party preset developers. Spire is an extensive VST plugin as it allows for complicated modulation options while sounding extremely big.

Choose one of 49 waves in a Spire oscillator, and you can morph it using the CtrlA and CtrlB knobs. What these two do to the waveform is determined by the synthesis type, which is selected at the top of the oscillator. And that’s without mentioning the dual filters, the four LFOs, the four envelopes and effects.

Spire’s Killer Feature? It’s five-page modulation matrix, giving access to over 200 mod destinations. Reveal Sound, the maker of Spire also claims that the plugin is used by artists such as Dash Berlin and Hardwell.

A quick thing you should know about Spire is that it uses quite a bit of CPU processing and in our opinion, we think that could be improved – perhaps in its upcoming version updates.

Buy Spire at Plugin Boutique – $199

3. Avenger by Vengeance Sound

You probably have heard its sounds in lots of music pieces on the radio. This monstrous, top-of-the-line synth is the first instrument released by plugin and sound household legends, Vengeance Sound.

It has eight oscillators, which host classic analogue shapes, samples, a choice of digital wave cycles and wavetables. ThThere areM and AM options, and each oscillator can be run through a unique combination of filters, amps, arpeggiators and effects, meaning that you could make an entire track in one instance of Avenger.

Elsewhere, there’s a spectral filter, macro controls, and far too many features to even namecheck.

Avenger’s Killer Feature? It’s got an entire drum machine – and drum sequencer – built in! Put simply, Avenger is excessive and would fit the tweak-hungry music producer.

Buy Avenger at Plugin Boutique – $220

4. Diva (u-he)

Synths made by u-he (like Zebra synth), never fail to disappoint. Diva is a classic analogue synth takes the best bits of hardware history and puts them into one incredible-sounding plugin. It’s also the type of synth to reach for to make big rave music anthems.

With Diva, you could pair a Minimoog oscillator with an MS-20 filter, and then pipe the signal through a Jupiter-6 style envelope, or swap out any of the elements for any other. Diva’s also got two LFOs, two effects slots, a Modifications tab to make advanced tweaks, and a kickass oscilloscope visualiser.

Diva’s Killer Feature? Divine Mode – this menu control cranks Diva up to maximum quality, making it its most analogue, but with a hefty CPU hit. You could use it if you have enough CPU power under the hood of your computer.

U-he’s Diva is no stranger to the world of music production and has been around since late 2011.

Buy Diva at Plugin Boutique – $179

5. Serum (Xfer Records)

My personal favourite to the list of synths here. Serum is a modern looking wavetable VST synth, that has become a staple to many electronic music producers. Out of the box, the presets itself sounds super big and usable. You’ll enjoy using them in your tracks and will only look at tweaking them, to create your own unique sounds.

Music Vst Plugin

Serum’s two wavetable oscillators are actually superweapons, with 3D wave morphing, additive synthesis, wavetable interpolation, wave cycle morphing, and loads more complicated-sounding powers. But the trick is, in reality, every one of Serum’s features is completely straightforward to use, and there are countless third-party preset packs available that showcase its incredible potential.

Serum’s three Killer Features? It’s got up to eight multipoint LFOs, PNG Wavetable import, and everyone with Serum gets a copy of Serum FX, an effects-only version with only Serum’s FX tab.

Native Instrument’s Massive is something of an alternative to Serum, but having experienced them first-hand, I’ll be first to tell you that you’ll find it easier to program on Serum compared to Massive.

Buy Serum at Plugin Boutique – $189

Best Audio Vst Plugins

What are your takes on the 5 VST soft synths that I featured here in this post? Let me know and contribute some of your thoughts to the other readers!

Music Production Vst Plugins Download