Seeing arcer's post of a free software synth gave me the idea for this thread - if you find (and like!) a free piece of audio software, let the rest of us know!

To get the ball rolling, I found this nifty free sound recording/editing package, called (rather neatly, I think) WavePad. The features are a bit better than basic - but all seem to work effectively as far as I can tell.

I tried recording a vinyl LP, and it allows control over record levels, a fairly good zoom to cut out the intro and outro bits, and some filters - which all seemed a little ham-fisted, but fortunately the undo works! The interface is nice and intuitive, so I was up and running in no time.

http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/ - http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/

There are plenty of good 'uns out there Cert

just sirf over to http://www.kvr-vst.com - www.kvr-vst.com and have a scroll through the plug-ins on offer. A lot of a paid for but the freeware stuff is in there too, you have to have a bit of patience in searching.

The only problem is, as always, sorting the wheat from the chaff.

There are a few I've picked up which are excellent;

FX

The Kjaerhaus collection of freeware stuff is very usable and has some genuinley nice sounds. Their compressor is perfectly acceptable, if not tremedously exciting, and their reverb is pretty good too. The modulation effects are very usable.

Mda do some nice FX including a pretty good leslie/rotary one - they have loads of freeware stuff and their electric piano isn't too bad

And most definitely worth checking out are digitalfishphones - this guy stopped designing plug-ins a while ago but his work is still available for download and they are really, really superb. Dominion, Spitfish, Blockfish, Endorphin, are all almost pro quality to my ears and are completely free! I use them all the time for compression etc and can't recommend them highly enough.

Camelphat Free is also a great little piece of gear and adds a nice warmth and slight crunch to sounds.

In terms of free synths there's few that I'd recommend - most just sound flat to my ears, especially those made with synthedit.

There are a few that are nice though

Crazy Diamonds is a really nice little string synth that pretty much makes the sound it's named after

Big Tick make some good clavi and string synth freebies (can't remember the names offhand) but they're worth checking out

There's a little mono/poly that is made with synthedit that is quite nice called Oberon - if only for its funky 70s GUI.

Beyond those it's hard to know - there's hundreds of bits and pieces out there you just have to be juducious in your downloading. You could end up with a VST folder crammed with baubles none of which are very shiny or bright. Download, audition, discard. Just hang on to the ones that really impress.

Yeah - I know there are loads of free bits and pieces out there, arcer, I just get fed up with downloading loads of programs, trying out a few, only using one then forgetting about the rest.

What I'd like to do in this thread is home in on those pieces of software that are actually useful - ones that you've used and come back to - not the ones that time out before you've got around to testing them, have important features disabled or slipstrean a whole pile of online shopping crap onto your PC...

So hopefully we end up with a ProgArchives music software review thread

Keep 'em coming - these are great!

oh yeah, sorry, I went off on a bit of a know-it-all tangent there didn't i

have a look at the ones i did mention, they were the first I though of and therefore are probably the ones I most use....

The Big Tick synth I like is called Cheez Machine, perfect for washy, Shine On, JM Jarre pads

I don't know how useful it is, but I can spend hours playing with Delay Lama:

http://www.audionerdz.com/index2.htm - http://www.audionerdz.com/index2.htm

Here's one I found for utah_man for his M-tron thread...anyone who wants to play with VST instruments without a big, expensive and complex host program should appreciate it.

http://www.tobybear.de/p_minihost.html - http://www.tobybear.de/p_minihost.html

Try this - a completely working, fully functional *FREE* 8 (stereo)-track recording studio/sequencer with effects and everything. ENJOY!!!;

D'Oh!

I removed the link 'coz it points to a Media Manager, not Music Studio.

You can get Music Studio Silver Edition FREE on PC Format and Music Tools magazines.

I'll stick it on Yousendit when I get an hour or so (it's about 200Mb).