TOP 5 FREE VST PLUGINS 2020 | Free Mixing and Mastering Plugins

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Welcome back. I'm Streaky. Today, I'm going to give you my five favorite free plugins. Hold tight. Let's dive in.

So the first plugin that I'm showing you is the Softube Saturation. This one is going to add some harmonics and thickness to all your sounds. You can use this on the mix buses I'm doing here. You can also use it on various instruments. So I love these one knob plugin. Just so easy, quick to use. Does it sound good? Does it not? Let me play you a little bit so that you can hear how it sounds in and out. (Music playing).

Different types of saturation, depending on where you slot this. This is cool because it looks like an old Hi-Fi from the seventies. Love that design. This is a cool little one to have more or less. Very nice.

Right next up is the Elysia Niveau Filter. Now this is basically, essentially a tilt EQ. When it’s at 12 o'clock here, that means it's doing nothing because there's 0dB. But if I can show you, so this is the diagram they show you. It's essentially, this is the crossover point here and here. And this is where you put the EQ. So wherever this EQ point is, you can times it by 10. So if you've got 2k times by 10, it goes to 20k. You can see that. So basically that is where the crossover point is for the filter.

So this is the crossover point where you set the EQ filter here and then the amount you want it. So as you push that way, if you have it going this way to the right, then it's going to do this way. It's lifting the top and lowering the bottom. And if you're doing it to the left, then it's going to lift the bottom and pull the top down. So I'll show you that. So you can hear exactly what he's doing. It's Epic. But the thing about this is, this comes off of their compressor. If you know their hardware, it's really good hardware, but this is a lovely little thing to have. Just a balance mixes. Just if you've got a little bit too much top on little bit. This is just a very swift way of doing that. So I'll play it and show you what it does. (Music playing).

So we’ll add some top first. So if we put that around 1k, then we're in the middle. So what I'll be doing, if I go this way, it's going to be adding top and lowering the bottom. If I go that it's going to be adding bottom and lowering the top. Hopefully you understand what I'm talking about by now. (Music playing).

So used in a really subtle way. This can add some really nice flavor to it. It's a good sounding filter. So definitely worth checking out. That's a really cool one.

Now the next one is a meter, which is by Youlean. It's Loudness Meter. Now I use this every day as my LUFS meter. This is perfect. And you can buy there's one. It has got a paid for version. You can buy the pro and that gives you a few more options. But I really haven't needed that because all I want to use it for is just to see these meters. So if I just play the track, then you can see exactly what it's doing. I use this integrated LUFS so I can see roughly how things are. You can reset it down here. I also like this true peak max here. So I can see what's going on. So this is a great little add-on for a freebie.

So that's really cool. You can see the levels going on there. So that's a great free meter for you.

The next one is from Klanghelm. Now, if you know me, if you've watched my videos, you'll know that I like their VU meter a lot. I use that every day as. That’s $4 or it might even go to $10 now, but it's still the best VU meter can get. Now this is their free compressor. This is really nice for doing on drums. Obviously, I'm not showing you on drums. Today I'm showing you across the whole track. But this is a really good sounding thing. And again, really simple to use. Just love these really simple plugins that you plug them in, you get a sound. Does it work? Does it not? Okay, fine. Move on to the next one. You've got them in your repertoire. You know that they're there in case you need them. Oh yeah, I know I need a bit of that. Does the job or it doesn't do the job? Perfect. I don't want to be messing around with loads of complicated little bits and bobs. I just want to in or out, or more or less basically. For me that's perfect. So I'll play you this. I'll play around with these. These are just some different settings, like the release and times and stuff like that. So they're just really simple. You can jam them all in as well, if you want to. But have a play, have a listen. See what you like. As always, I don't tend to take a lot of gain reduction out on compressors when it's across the whole mix. But like I said, if you smash it across the drum bus, it's really good. So, I'll play it now so you at least hear how it sounds. (Music playing).

As you can see as I was hitting those buttons at the bottom, you get in a lot more game reductions. So you need to just mess around with that. Play with it. It's good. Sounding bit of kit so definitely worth checking out. So that's the compressor.

Next up it's called Kotelnikov. It's a compressor basically. The thing that I like this, this is by Tokyo Dawn. Check this out. This is really good. The reason why I like this is because you can do it in mono stereo, sum or difference. So that's the stuff that's happening in the middle and stuff that's on the outside. It has a precise and an eco on the quality. That's just for how much CPU it's going to take up. Basically, it's like a standard compressor. Got all the standard stuff you see on it.

Ratio, knees, thresholds, attack releases, outputs, mixing. So you can mix it dry. The thing that I really liked by this, it’s got a little slope here so that you can have it working so that it's not working on the bass. So that's really cool, love that. But the main thing I like is this sensitivity here. That is like really focusing in, on the sum, on the middle channel that's happening. And then when you go like that, it does it on the outside. So I'll play with this as I'm doing this. And you'll see what I mean. Because you can get some really good focus on the center channels by just bringing this in and it doesn't sound as wide. So you get a really nice tight middle sound. But it's not just working on the sum, on the stuff in the middle. It's working on the sides as well. But just not as much. So it's really cool little thing for playing around and getting a bit of feel with. So, let me play this. This also got a Delta thing where you can hear the game reduction that's happening, but I won't bother with that. But let's play it. You can hear and I'll stop talking. (Music playing).

So now I'll play with the sensitivity so you can hear that. (Music playing).

So this can really get the mids working well. It's a cracker that is really cool. That little stereo sensitivity there. Definitely worth it for that alone. So that's the five that I've got for you. But there is another one. So as a little bonus plugin, I'm giving you my Smiley. This is made by me and you can have this for free. If you go to my website, all the links for all these are below. Now what this does, this is a smiley face EQ, but with a little bit more involved too. So we've added some more stuff in the background, the enhances in the way that I like to do it with a certain amount of plugins. So essentially the top and the bottom are going right up and then they go right down. So you can filter when it's down and you can really enhance it up. But I would say the best place to do it if you're doing it across your mix bustle doing it in a master scenario to give it a little cheeky smirk. And that usually works the best. So I'll just preview this and play it for you. (Music playing).

So you can hear it's a lovely little enhancer across the mix. Works really well on drums. On vocals it works particularly well. So there's the Smiley. You can have that one free. That is your bonus. So there was actually six free plugins that you can have. You can get all the plugins from the links below. So if you like the way the Smiley is sounding, now I've done a video on a really simple EQ for depth. Now watch that because that's really going to bring some depth out into any mix that you’re either mastering or mixing. So check that video out. That's coming up now. And if you have got a bad mix that you're trying to master, check the other video out and that'll show you exactly how to master a bad mix.