The 15 Best VST Plugins in the World Right Now (Including Free Ones)
Musicians have always loved a healthy dose of sonic possibilities, and as many different ways of treating their sounds as possible. People in other industries may be surprised at how huge the audio plugin industry is, but when you consider the number of guitar effects pedals, studio effects and slight variations on acoustic instruments that existed before the digital revolution, it starts to make more sense: these are instruments for creation and expression; not just tools.
While we’ve covered The World’s Best Free Plugins elsewhere on the site, here we’re paying our respects to some of the best plugins available right now overall, running down the top VST, AU and AAX options that should take pride of place on anyone’s dream hard drive in 2019.
This list is in no particular order, and there are many plugins that have just fallen slightly short of legendary status. We’ve even got a list of Honorable Mentions at the end.
The 15 Best Plugins Right Now Are…
– Reaktor (Native Instruments)
– Omnisphere (Spectrasonics)
– LABS (Spitfire Audio)
– Serum (Xfer Records)
– XO (XLN Audio)
– Superior Drummer (ToonTrack)
– VocalSynth (iZotope)
– SPAN (Voxengo)
– Pro-Q (FabFilter)
– Diva (u-he)
– ValhallaRoom (ValhallaDSP)
– Virtual Mix Rack (Slate Digital)
– OTT (Xfer Records)
– Ozone (iZotope)
– ShaperBox (Cableguys)
– Honorable Mentions (Regroover, Pro-C, Avenger, Thorn, Sausage Fattener, Spire, EchoBoy)
Reaktor (Native Instruments)
£169
REAKTOR IS AVAILABLE ON ITS OWN FROM NATIVE INSTRUMENTS OR AS PART OF THEIR KOMPLETE BUNDLE
Perhaps the ultimate ‘Anything Is Possible’ plugin, at its deepest, Reaktor lets you patch virtual signal together at the component level to build anything from a simple delay to a full-on workstation instrument. But that doesn’t mean you need an entire degree to get going with Reaktor – you can use prebuilt instrument or effect ‘ensembles’, some of which are free via Reaktor’s user library; and mid-level modular-style components in the form of Blocks.
Version 6 now opens with a choice of Play, Patch or Build setups. Play let’s you launch an entire Reaktor instrument or effect, such as those made by Native Instrument (Monark, Form, Rounds, TRK-01…) or by third parties. Patch lets you command a modular-style setup using virtual patch cables.
Some third-party instruments and effects are useable with the free Reaktor Player, as is Blocks Base, a collection of modular components made by NI to help you get started in the Reaktor’s ‘Play’ view.
Not only does Reaktor – or the free Reaktor Player – enable you to work with a wide variety of pre-made instruments, you can break them down to the component level and create your own formulations, or use it as a full modular system.
REAKTOR IS AVAILABLE ON ITS OWN FROM NATIVE INSTRUMENTS OR AS PART OF THEIR KOMPLETE BUNDLE
Omnisphere (Spectrasonics)
$499
GET YOUR COPY OF OMNISPHERE FROM THE SPECTRASONICS SITE
Spectrasonics’ producer favourite is continually evolving, just like its best sounds. The idea behind Omnisphere has always been to give you the best possible sound straight out of the box, but also to offer a huge amount of control over other aspects of the sound.
For those who don’t know, Spectrasonics frontman Eric Persing is one of the world’s top sound designers, having worked as a sound designer for Roland on synths like the Juno-106, D-50, JV-1080, JP800 and loads more. Eric’s sound-design calibre and experience runs through Omnisphere, with audible results.
GET YOUR COPY OF OMNISPHERE FROM THE SPECTRASONICS SITE
LABS (Spitfire Audio)
FREE
YOU CAN GET STARTED WITH LABS AT THE SPITFIRE AUDIO WEBSITE
Since the release of the LABS series over a year ago, the platform of free instruments continues to swell. Coming from Spitfire Audio, the artisanal samplers of orchestral instruments, you can basically guarantee the sound quality here.
Once you’ve downloaded the LABS plugin shell, you can use it to run any of the growing number of LABS instruments available from Spitfire. Available at the time of writing are Music Box, Dulcimer, Scary Strings, Soft Piano, Synth Pads, Peel Guitar, Charango, Amplified Cello Quartet, Drums and more – and somehow, they’re all completely free.
The control surfaces of the LABS instruments are scant, but as always it’s the sound that truly counts, and the quality throughout the range is completely off the charts.
YOU CAN GET STARTED WITH LABS AT THE SPITFIRE AUDIO WEBSITE
Serum (Xfer Records)
$189
YOU CAN GRAB YOUR SERUM LICENSE FROM THE XFER WEBSITE
Possibly the most successful synth of the modern era, Serum is the current king of softsynths and doesn’t seem to be stepping down from the throne anytime soon. So what’s so good about this plugin?
Serum has two wavetable oscillators which can import custom sounds, a great filter, up to eight draw-your-own LFOs, envelopes and a whole bank of in-built effects. The feature list goes deeper and further, but these basics are arrange so intuitively – and sound so good – that Serum has found its true place at the top of the synth tree. For a basic guide on getting into Serum for beginners, check out our Quick Start Guide.
Serum’s many famous users and its huge range of preset waveforms and modulators have helped it become a go-to virtual instrument for producers the world over.
YOU CAN GRAB YOUR SERUM LICENSE FROM THE XFER WEBSITE
XO (XLN Audio)
€180
XO IS AVAILABLE FROM XLN AUDIO
This drum machine from the makers of Addictive Drums takes a fresh approach to choosing sounds, laying them all out in a virtual space for easy, visual browsing and auditioning. Features like shortlisting, hotswapping and easy identification of similar sounds make replacing one hit with other candidate sounds a complete breeze.
So sound selection is easy as pie, but there’s more to XO that helps make it one of the most fully featured drum machines out there. The plugin’s sequencer section (below) offers multiple pattern lanes and A/B versions, as well as a neat little Accentuator that helps add dynamics to your rhythms. The usual drum machine controls of tuning, envelope, velocity sensitivity and so on are here, as well as effects (delay and reverb)
All the while, knowing that you can easily step out of your sequence and try replacing certain elements within the handy browser makes XO an incredibly flexible – and also fun – drum machine plugin to get professional sounds from.
XO’s export options are also hugely easy, letting you export audio or MIDI files of the entire beat or individual elements, processed or unprocessed.
XO IS AVAILABLE FROM XLN AUDIO
Superior Drummer (ToonTrack)
€269 - €349
SUPERIOR DRUMMER IS AVAILABLE FROM THE TOONTRACK WEBSITE AND FROM PLUGIN BOUTIQUE
Standing at over 230GB of raw samples, and boasting seven kits with 25 snares and 16 kicks, Superior Drummer has got to be the last word in getting great acoustic drums in your DAW. You can even import your own drum samples into Superior Drummer to have its engine play them back.
So why such a large library? For these six kits (and those 25 snares and 16 kicks), Toontrack have sampled everything at a huge level of detail, at many velocity layers, with round-robin options so no two successive samples sound the same, and with brushes, rods and mallets in addition to just sticks.
Superior Drummer also includes 350 electronic drum sounds from drum machines, so there’ll quite literally be something for everyone here… except those with small hard drives, of course!
SUPERIOR DRUMMER IS AVAILABLE FROM THE TOONTRACK WEBSITE AND FROM PLUGIN BOUTIQUE
VocalSynth (iZotope)
$199
VOCALSYNTH IS AVAILABLE FROM iZOTOPE
Despite the name, VocalSynth is actually an effects plugin, specialised for creating effects that we associate with vocals, thanks to five main processors and some extra effects.
The Vocoder module gives you the classic vocoder sound, and Talkbox applies a similar effect to the hardware of the same name, without needing you to stick a tube in your mouth. Compuvox gives real vocal the tinge of early digital speech synths using bit reduction and more.
Polyvox offers harmonisation and vocal doubling to make thicker vocal sounds, giving chorusy effects at low levels, and full-on wide doubletracking at higher levels. Biovox models the human voice and lets you give other sources (whether synths or otherwise) a tinge of real speech. You can apply all five effects together, just a single one, or any combination in between.
Just as important to VocalSynth’s sounds are the effects. While there’s run-of-the-mill vocal effects like Chorus, Filter and Delay, you also get more left-field options like Distort, Transform, Ring Mod and Shred. These effects are reorderable so make yourself a tricked-out vocal chain.
VOCALSYNTH IS AVAILABLE FROM iZOTOPE
SPAN (Voxengo)
FREE
GET MEASURING BY DOWNLOADING SPAN FREE FROM VOXENGO
The one plugin in this round-up that doesn’t make or process sound, Span is a visual analyzer that gives you real-time information on the frequency content and level of anything you pipe through it.
Used on a mix channel, Span can help you identify where the power is – or isn’t – in a sound. Used on the master bus, it can give you a critical insight into the tonal balance and loudness of an entire tune.
Span’s massively quick and easy to use, and the fact that it’s free can’t hurt anyone.
GET MEASURING BY DOWNLOADING SPAN FREE FROM VOXENGO
Pro-Q (FabFilter)
£134
PRO-Q IS AVAILABLE ON THE FABFILTER WEBSITE AND AS PART OF THEIR PLUGIN BUNDLES
FabFilter’s Pro-Q has always been the last word in EQ plugins, and version 3 takes things to heights that were previously unheard of in the world of mix engineering.
It starts with the thoroughly digital graphic interface and spectrum readout, from which you can just click to create a band. And if you’re not sure where your mix might benefit from some EQ notches, you can just hold your mouse over the spectrum and get some suggestions for bands to pull down quickly and easily.
Pro-Q’s bands can also be made dynamic, as of version 3, and you can display information about potentially masked or masking frequencies from a sidechain signal or any other instance of Pro-Q 3 in a project. All of this not to mention the huge range of filter types available, individual control over mid/side bands, and many, many more features that make this plugin the ultimate EQ.
PRO-Q IS AVAILABLE ON THE FABFILTER WEBSITE AND AS PART OF THEIR PLUGIN BUNDLES
Diva (u-he)
€179
CHECK OUT DIVA ON THE U-HE WEBSITE
Ever wanted to take the best components from one analogue synth, and combine them together with the most influential parts of another? Diva lets you do just that, modelling some of synth history’s most respected circuits inside a single synth.
Diva offers oscillators from the Moog Minimoog, Roland Jupiter-6 and -8, Roland Alpha Juno and the Korg MS-20 among others. Diva’s filters are also taken from these synths, as well as from the Oberheim SEM, and the envelopes model the Minimoog, the Roland Juno and Jupiter ranges. u-he have also expanded the options of all these filters, adding extra capabilities, slopes and other improvements throughout.
It all adds up to a system that can create anyone’s dream synth, with advanced circuit modification possible in a separate tab.
CHECK OUT DIVA ON THE U-HE WEBSITE
ValhallaRoom (ValhallaDSP)
$50
GRAB VALHALLAROOM AND THE OTHER VALHALLADSP PLUGINS ONLINE
All the Valhalla reverb plugins (including the most recent, ValhallaDelay) are bona fide classics of music production, and for good reason. These digital reverbs have been modelled by ear to sound great, and they bear the convenient price tag of $50.
You can find our Quick-Start Guide to all the ValhallaDSP reverbs for an intro to the Valhalla canon, but the concepts will be familiar to anyone who knows even the slightest about reverbs.
With 12 reverb modes, and no-nonsense control over the parameters of both the early and late reflections of the reverb signal, ValhallaRoom gives you everything you need to come up with a great-sounding reverb every time.
GRAB VALHALLAROOM AND THE OTHER VALHALLADSP PLUGINS ONLINE
Virtual Mix Rack (Slate Digital)
$15/mo
VMR IS AVAILABLE ON ITS OWN OR WITH OTHER SLATE PLUGINS AS PART OF THE EVERYTHING BUNDLE. CHECK IT OUT ON SLATE’S SITE
If you’re into analogue emulation – plugins that give you the sounds of classic compressors, EQs and other studio effects as closely as possible, without the huge price tag – you’ll enjoy what Slate Digital have to offer.
Like the name implies, Virtual Mix Rack is a modular ‘rack’ where you can insert and reorder a collection of plugins. Compressors like the FG-401, FG-116, The Monster; and EQs like the FG-S, FG-N are here among other processors, all aping the studio hardware that gained popularity after its use on so many hit tracks.
Actually, the way people tend to pay for Slate Digital plugins (by subscription), gets you every single plugin made by Slate Digital. For the price of VMR, you also get Slate’s Virtual Tape Machines, Virtual Console Collection, Virtual Buss Compressors, and even some processors made by other companies. Netflix for your DAW… sort of.
VMR IS AVAILABLE ON ITS OWN OR WITH OTHER SLATE PLUGINS AS PART OF THE EVERYTHING BUNDLE. CHECK IT OUT ON SLATE’S SITE
OTT (Xfer Records)
FREE
GRAB YOUR FREE COPY OF OTT FROM THE XFER RECORDS SITE
This effects plugin from the makers of Serum is an exercise in mimicking a specific, esoteric effect: a particular preset from Ableton Live’s Multiband Dynamics processor that really pushes sounds to the next level. OTT brings that effect to users of other DAWs, and it’s totally free.
There are Low, Mid and High bands inside OTT, and each lets you dial in compression or expansion (making it something of a multiband compander), using the interface’s central coloured vars.
You can set the depth of OTT’s effect, the time that the dynamics processing actually takes to kick in, and introduce upward compression and downward expansion – a fairly advanced free effect, then.
GRAB YOUR FREE COPY OF OTT FROM THE XFER RECORDS SITE
Ozone (iZotope)
$249/$499
iZOTOPE OZONE IS AVAILABLE IN STANDARD AND ADVANCED FLAVOURS FROM iZOTOPE AND PLUGIN BOUTIQUE
Now at version 9, iZotope’s Ozone software has spent years redefining the process of mastering music, having gone from being the bane of mastering engineers to a trusty helper for many of them.
Ozone is a single plugin that lets you load up EQ, Dynamics, Spectral Shaper, Maximizer, Imager, Dynamic EQ, and Vintage Limiter, EQ and Tape modules. It also goes further, offering track referencing features, master assistance to gain a starting point for a project, codec preview, dithering and more, depending on whether you take the Elements, Standard or Advanced packages.
iZOTOPE OZONE IS AVAILABLE IN STANDARD AND ADVANCED FLAVOURS FROM iZOTOPE AND PLUGIN BOUTIQUE
ShaperBox (Cableguys)
$170
SHAPERBOX – AND OTHER SIMILAR PLUGINS – ARE AVAILABLE FROM CABLEGUYS
ShaperBox takes in five components that all have something in common: they’re displayed across a graph, with a drawable curve that represents the movement of the main parameter of each effect. So with the Volume module loaded up in ShaperBox (as shown below), you can draw a curve as if it’s an LFO linked to the track’s volume.
The other shapers included in ShaperBox are Filter, Pan, Width and Time. Each can be split into multiple bands of operation, can have its rate and timing messed with, and there are preset curve shapes as well as entire preset setups that use multiple shapers in a complete configuration.
It’s the TimeShaper that can be one of the most creative processors here, with its ability to perform tapestop, scratching and timebending effects, depending on how you draw the curve. A little goes a long way, but thankfully, because of the preset curves available, it’s easy and fun to get a starting point for some creative time-twisting.
SHAPERBOX – AND OTHER SIMILAR PLUGINS – ARE AVAILABLE FROM CABLEGUYS
Honorable Mentions
Accusonus’ Regroover software is adept at breaking apart drum recordings and giving you control over their separate elements. But it’s not all about isolation and separation – a lot of what Regroover does is about slicing and resequencing patterns, putting a new spin on whatever rhythmic material you send through it.
You can grab ReGroover at the Accusonus website, for the usual price of $219. A Pro version is also available.
FabFilter have popped up here already with Pro-Q, but their Pro-C compressor is a similarly fully featured ‘last word in’ processor, this time for compression duties. Pro-C’s eight types of compression give you different flavours of classic compressors, as well as straight and ‘clean’ digital dynamics. The usual compression controls are here, but the oscilloscope view displaying gain reduction is a particularly useful feature.
Pro-C is available from FabFilter for £134, and is also available as part of FabFilter’s bundles.
Vengeance-Sound Avenger is fast becoming one of the most trusty synths out there. Its reputation for comprehensiveness is very well deserved, boasting eight oscillator sources including wavetable, classic analogue, sample, FM and even drum machine types. Each oscillator can be routed through the effects in a completely separate signal path, and there’ loads more to see in this huge synth.
Avenger is available at Vengeance-Sound website or through Plugin Boutique. It’s priced at $220.
DS Audio’s Thorn synth is one from Dmitry Sches, the maker of several boutique and highly respected synths. Thorn uses spectral synthesis, with a harmonic filter, which is sort of like using keytracking and formant filtering to keep a consistent timbre of sound – the point being that it sounds great! There’s also plenty more synth greatness from the Glitch Sequencer, Arpeggiator and built-in Effects section.
You can find out more about Thorn from the DS Audio website. It costs $199.
Dada Life Sausage Fattener has achieved some kind of legendary status in the world of producers – and that with only three controls. Sausage Fattener was made by Tailored Noise to production duo Dada Life’s specifications for creating a ‘sound better’ plugin that simple makes everything cooler. Using a mix of effects, a little like a macro control over the depths of several processes, sausage fattener has stolen the hearts (and the sausages) of producers the world over.
Sausage Fattener is available from Tailored Noise for $39
Reveal-Sound Spire has gained a huge following and a legion of preset packs since its release, thanks to its many synthesis types and the ability to morph waveforms. There are also dual filters, four LFOs, four envelopes and an effects section.
Spire’s available for $189 from the Reveal Sound website.
Soundtoys EchoBoy might be getting long in the tooth, but it’s still quite a comprehensive delay toolbox. With four modes of operation – Single Echo, Dual Echo, Ping Pong and Rhythm Echo – EchoBoy can perform anything from subtle flanging to alpine echoes, and that Rhythm Echo mode is a key one to watch, with its ability to place signal repeats on a grid yourself.
EchoBoy is available from Soundtoys for $199, and is also available with other processors as part of their Effects Rack in Soundtoys 5 onwards.
By James Russell
The co-host of Appetite For Production podcast and a long-time reviewer of plugins and DAWs, James is available on Twitter if you strongly disagree with his choice of today’s best plugin instruments and effects!
