On Thanksgiving Day I'm 'officially' launching a blog devoted entirely to VST instruments, but you can take a sneak peak if you like. By Thanksgiving day there should be 75 free instruments and 2 orchestral Romplers.
New GM Order list of 75 Instruments
These are free VSTis that will work without needing Kontakt or anything else that costs money (well you'll kinda need a DAW).
For Windows you should just be able to unzip them in your VST directory. You'll have a small dll file in the VST directory and a sub-folder with an mse file.
On a Mac, go to: Macintosh/Library/Audio/Components for the AU file...
No Budget Orchestra
NBO Kake Violin
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
This Violin is kind of experimental as it has looping samples. I've never tried that before in Maize.
Creative Commons Attribution : Jeff Glatt & Kake 85
City Piano
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
City Piano Lite
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
The full version is a 500 meg download while the lite version is 200 megs.
The City Piano is a Baldwin. It is fairly heavily sampled (almost every note, 4 velocity layers) and quite a big file. It is decades old and sounds fairly warm to me. I've digitally tuned it so it should mix well.
The Whisper
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Derived from the City Piano, the Whisper is an intimate experience. Think moonlit nights in Paris Cafes. Or not.
Iowa Piano
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Piano Take 2
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
The Iowa Piano is based on the free samples from the University of Iowa. Its a Steinway with almost every note sampled and 3 velocity layers.
To address consistency issues, the samples in Take 2 have been normalized. This does somewhat alter the sound however.
Skerratt London Piano
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
KungKrill sampled his parent's Skerratt London Upright Piano. It is slightly sharp (usually) and sounds like an upright that was in my house when I was growing up.
Karoryfer Cute Emily Guitar
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Karoryfer Cute Emily Dirty
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Kaororyfer and Ivy Audio are the best makers of free digital instruments in the world today.
MF Natural Concert Guitar
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
A pleasant sounding acoustic guitar.
License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Recordings of the sound library may be used for commercial music productions.
Sampler / Original Author:
Markus Fiedler
Flame Studios has been a go to source for free guitar and bass instruments for years.
FS Blues Steel Guitar
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Released under
GNU GPL license which means you can do anything you want with this instrument.
Project16 Fingered Bass
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Project16 Picked Bass
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Project16 on the KVR forums did an awesome job of sampling his Rickenbacker 4001 bass. Thanks to him for sharing it with us.
Open Source Drums
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
A light drumkit with five velocity layers.
Real Music Media placed these samples in the Public domain.
Musyng Kite Merlittzer
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Musyng Kite Drums
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sarcyan created the great Musyng Kite Soundfont. It includes about every instrument known to mankind. The magical electric piano is named after legendary mage Merlin and great medical missionary / organist Albert Schweitzer. Who did you think it was named after?
LDK1609 Violin
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Creative Commons: Credit LDK1609
Sonatina Orchestra is a public domain orchestra assembled by Mattias Westlund, http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/. While lightly sampled, the samples were well chosen and its likely the best free orchestra around.
Sonatina Violins
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Violas
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Cellos
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Basses
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Trumpets
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Trombone
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Horn
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Tuba
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Flute
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Clarinet
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Oboe
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Bassoon
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Percussion
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Timpani
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Xylophone
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Glockenspiel
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Chimes
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Harp
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Sonatina Choir
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Orchestra - From samples by the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios.
This will be an ongoing and fairly slow project to edit samples and create these instruments. They are multi-sampled generally with three velocity layers and almost every note sampled.
Iowa Trumpet
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Alto Flute
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Flute
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Bass Flute
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Alto Sax
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
Iowa Soprano Sax
Win 64 Win 32 Mac VST Mac AU
By downloading and using anything on this site you agree to this
Limited Warranty & Liability.
bigcat's Amazon ebook page
Greg and I had a conversation about key switching in which I realized I need to explain it. Usually an octave or two below the last note on an instrument are key switches to change articulations. They always start on the C note for the first articulation. however they do not change what it says on the GUI. This is clearly a glitch, but sadly one I can't fix. The keys should switch articulations in the same order that is listed on the drop down menu. So if pizzicato is the third thing on the list then the third keyswitch (D) will give you pizzicato.