Although we have all the tools we need to produce extremely clean and precise music without any unwanted artefacts there’s something about the imperfections of analog recording equipment that triggers certain emotions in us.
Each Instrument Rack features multiple articulations, including open, palm muted, slap bass, and more. Browse the included Construction Kits to get a feel for how Guitars & Bass can fit into your productions - or make your own remixes. Guitars & Bass was created in cooperation with e-instruments. The Glitch 2 plugin made Bass Gorilla's list of Top Free VST Plugins for Ableton Live, and audio website Cymatics gives Glitch 2 a 3.5 out of 4-star rating. They said, “ the infinite amount of presets and combined effects on Glitch 2 makes this plugin truly special.”. I'm trying to record some guitar parts onto ableton. I have the guitar rig 5 demo and a simple guitar usb interface. I know i should have to select guitar rig from the plugins, but there is nothing at all to be found when i click on plugins in live. No clue how to move forward, and im in the mood to try and record some guitar parts tonight. Any ideas on how to make this work?
So if you want to produce lofi music it’s important to pick the right sounds and samples from the start. You could, for example, sample old vinyl records or buy an old drum machine. It would however be easier to just get your hands on a decent LoFi House or Hip Hop sample pack.
Once you have a selection of cool sounds & samples you can further refine your music to sound like it was recorded a few decades ago. Luckily there are plenty of cool lofi plugins available so you don’t have to actually own an old tape machine. Free funk clavinet vst. Here are some of the best options:
Free LoFi Plugins
I want to start this list with a bunch of free lofi VSTs, because I know that a lot of producers are one a budget, especially when they’re still going to school (or music is their only income lol). That said, you don’t always have to spend money to get some quality software. The freeware in this list can easily compete with some of the paid stuff I’ll mention later on.
BVKER LoFi Rack
The “LoFi Rack” is a free Ableton Rack based on Live’s stock plugins. It comes with 8 macros allowing you to decrease the band width, add vinyl crackles, detune and distort the source sound. Unfortunately it’s only available for Ableton Live users, so if you’re using another DAW you have to pick some of the other options in this list. If you’re using Ableton however, hop on my newsletter and I’ll send you a free download link.
iZotope Vinyl
As the name suggests, iZotope’s “Vinyl” is a plugin emulating the characteristic imperfections of vinyl records. Since the freeware only comes with a handful of parameters it’s easy to use and setting it up won’t take much time. What I love the most is that you can adjust the year of your “recording”. A must have for every lofi producer if you ask me.
Spitfire Audio Labs
Labs is a free software instrument made by the London based sound design company Spitfire Audio. There are several extensions available, including pianos, brass, choirs and synths. Most of these instruments are rather unique and therefore a nice addition to the basic instruments libraries you probably already own. The cool part about Labs is that it comes with only a handful of parameters so you won’t spend 10 years trying to get everything perfect. The sound either fits your production or not.
Tritik Krush
Tritik’s Krush is an effect plugin with 3 different distortion types. A bitcrusher , a downsampler and an analog drive knob. It further comes with 2 filters and an LFO that can be used to modulate every parameter. It’s available for both Windows and Mac in VST, AU and AAX format so really everyone can get their hands on this.
HY-Lofi2
This one is a free bit quantizer, waveshaper & filter plugin made by Tadashi Suginomori from HY-Plugins. It’s meant to process “audio to give it a low fidelity sound”. Just like Krush it combines different distortion modes with high and low-pass filters. More precisely it has one drive knob and a quantizer, which can run in different modes and qualities.
Legowelt Ableton Racks
Legowelt is a dutch producer known for releasing samples from analog hardware units, but you’ll also find some Ableton Racks on his website, including the Smackos Tape Station, the Smackos Lemuria Vintage Sampler Simulator, the Smackos 808 Simulator and the Smackos Amiga 909.
Sound-Base Audio Retro Boy
The Retro Boy is a Windows only VST synth. It comes with one oscillator, 7 waveforms and controls for ADSR, vibrato and decimation, which makes it perfect for Chiptune or 8-bit music. Since there isn’t much processing going on, the synth is quite CPU-friendly.
Best LoFi Plugins
Although you can definitely do some cool stuff with the freeware I mentioned so far there are some paid options no lofi producer should miss out on. A lot of them do more or less the same thing so in the end it’s up to personal preference (and budget), which ones you should get. Luckily most of these plugins aren’t that expensive compared to some of the stuff by other brands.
XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color
Probably the most hyped plugin of this list is the R-c20 Retro Color by XLN Audio. It combines 6 different effect units, including noise, wobble, distort, digital, space and magnetic. Combining these options basically allows you to recreate any lofi characteristic you could possibly think of. If I could only pick one plugin of this list I’d probably go for this one, since it comes with the most features.
Baby Audio Super VHS
Considering that Baby Audio is a rather new plugin company, their products already gained quite much attention. Super VHS again combines multiple effects, including a distortion unit, a retro sounding VST reverb and detune knob labeled “drift”. All knobs sound surprisingly good and I really dig the design.
D16 Group Decimort 2
Decimort 2 is a bitcrusher on steroids. It offers two optional anti-alias filters, adjustable jitter, two quantization methods and controllable dithering. If you’re looking for a cool bitcrusher, this is definitely the one you should get your hands on. With less than 50 bucks it’s also pretty affordable.
AudioThing Vinyl Strip
The Vinyl Strip is just like RC-20 a multi-effect plugin consisting of 6 different modules: Distortion, Compressor, Bit Crusher, Tilt EQ, Vintage Reverb, and something they call Vinylizer. In contrast to most plugins mentioned in this list, you can change the signal flow simply via drag-n-drop. On their website is stated that you can activate your license without an internet connection, which is pretty cool if you still live in a cave 😉
Devious Machines Texture
Texture is a plugin I just recently found out about watching Virtual Riot’s production workshop he did for Cymatics. It allows you to add noise to any kind of source sound. The cool part is that unlike similar effects you can even load your own noise samples and can adjust the exact frequency range, amount, ADSR and stuff like that.
Cableguys ShaperBox
When it comes to beat making, there’s one plugin every FL Studio user slaps on their melodies: Gross Beat (you’ll find plenty of memes about this). The problem is that it can’t be used in other DAWs (at least on Mac). This is where the Cableguys come into play. Their ShaperBox combines different effects that can all be modulated. The Time one is especially interesting for lofi producers, because it allows you to play back your melodies in halftime, add cool pitching effects and mix everything in with the dry signal.
Initial Audio Analog Pro
Best Guitar Vst For Ableton
Analog Pro is once again a plugin meant to bring your digital audio tracks to live by simulating analog hardware. It comes with a variety of adjustable controls, including Noise Level, Noise Type, Impulse Type, Impulse Mix, Emphasis, Stereo, Lowcut, Highcut, Wow, Flutter and Amount. While I’m writing this the plugin is on sale for €26.10 (which is 64% off) so feel free to check out if this offer is still available.
Aberrant DSP SketchCassette
SketchCassette is a VST inspired by 4-track cassette recorders. It comes with most features the other plugins in this list have. Since it’s however available for only $20 it’s particularly interesting for producers on a tight budget.
Best Vst Plugins For Ableton
Goodhertz Wow Control
Wow Control focuses on the weird and random modulations of analog playback devices. According to their website Goodhertz has carefully studied the essence of three different tape machines to make sure their plugin is the most comprehensive tape model they ever heard. I haven’t tried it out to be honest, but there are some videos about it on YouTube so feel free to check them out if you’d like to learn more about it.
PSPaudioware VintageWarmer2
The PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool simulating the saturation of analog compression / limiting. It comes with classic compression controls, such as knee or release time, and since it can run in multiband mode you can further control the individual bands a bit. In contrast to most usual compressors it comes with a big drive knob. Since it also comes with a mix knob you can drive the compression / saturation quite hard and mix it in just a bit to make your drums or vocals or whatever a bit fatter.
Ableton Live Vst Plugins
Wavesfactory Cassette
According to Wavesfactory’s website “Cassette is an audio plugin that imparts the unique character and sonic imprint of an often maligned recording medium”. You can also get your hands on their free Cassette Transport plugin, which “simulates the sound of tape speeding up and slowing down”. Or with other words: it’s a pretty cool tape stop plugin.
Psychic Modulation EchoMelt
Echomelt is “designed for adding character, texture and warmth to your sounds”. It doesn’t look that stunning, but it comes with an echo and chorus unit, which sets it apart from the other options in this list.
Aphex Vintage Exciter
The Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter by Waves is modeled on a tube-powered hardware unit. It allows you to increase high frequencies without raising the level too much.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are plenty of lofi plugins available that make your productions sound like they were recorded with a toaster (or something like that). The free offers, especially Vinyl and Labs are no brainers, since . well, they’re free, so make sure to download them straight away if you haven’t done so yet 😉
Delicious Audio Software and Plug-ins
ProductsInternet Radio Broadcasting
Rocket Broadcaster
Internet radio broadcast encoder.
Rocket Streaming Audio Server
Deliver streaming audio over the web.
Radio Mast
Streaming audio cloud platform.
Music Production
BeatCleaver
Audio editor and sample slicer.
JamDeck
Organic music sketchpad.
VST Plug-ins
SodaSynth
Classic mellow synthesizer.
Analog Extracts
Raw analog synth samples.
Our SodaSynth and Analog Extracts plugins are both available as VST plugins on Windows, and compatible with Ableton Live. Here's some instructions to show youhow to use VST plugins in Ableton Live:
Ableton Live
Setup your VST Plug-ins Directory
Mac OS X users can skip this step!
In the Ableton Live preferences, go to the 'File Folder' tab.Ensure 'Use VST Plug-In Custom Folder' is ON, and click 'Browse' to choose the folder where all your VST plugins are.After that, click 'Rescan' to make sure Ableton Live has refreshed the list of installed plugins.
On Windows, Oscillicious VST plugins install to 'C:VST Plugins' by default, or 'C:VST Plugins (64-bit)' for 64-bit plugins.
On Mac OS X, Oscillicious plugins install to the system-wide standard VST plugins folder, so no configuration is required (/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST).
Open the Plug-in Devices Tab
Back in the main window, click the icon to open the Plug-In Devices tab. This tab displays a listof all the plugins Ableton Live has detected on your computer, by looking in both system-standard paths and your custom VST folder that we set up in the previous step.
Add a Plug-In Instrument to a Track
Double-click on one of the plug-in instruments in the list to add it to a track, or drag and drop it to the specific track you'd like to add it to.For example, you'll if you double-click on SodaSynth, you should SodaSynth added to a track in the Sesion or Arrangement view, and appear in the bottom panel.
Select a VST Preset
VST presets (synth patches or programs) appear in the bottom panel, and have been circled in red in the next screenshot. Clicking on that combobox allows you toquickly select any of the presets bundled with the VST plugin.
Open the Custom VST Editor
Most VST plugins come with a built-in custom editor screen, with knobs and extra help. Clicking the iconbeside the SodaSynth label in Ableton Live will open up the SodaSynth editor, which gives you access to our extra help screens.
Adjusting Parameters inside Ableton Live
Clicking the icon beside the SodaSynth label will open up the parameter area, allowing you to adjust the VST plugin'sparameters directly from inside Ableton Live. Right-clicking on a parameter allows you to set up automation curves and MIDI mappings for that parameter.
Compose!
Create a MIDI part and in the track that you added the SodaSynth VST instrument to, and either record from your MIDI keyboard or start writing a melody in the MIDI editor. If youwant to fatten up SodaSynth's sounds a bit, try adding a little bit of chorus or delay using the built-in Ableton Live effects.
That's it! This tutorial covered how to setup your VST plugins folder in Ableton Live, how to find plug-in devices and add them to a track, and how to change VST presets and paramters using both the Ableton Live and a plugin's custom VST editor. From here, you can use VST plugins as instruments in tracks, and create MIDI parts that trigger them.
We hope this tutorial was helpful, but if you need extra help or have suggestions on how we can improve this tutorial, please let us know!
Oscillicious VST Plugins for Windows
Analog Extracts is a sample pack containing 227 samples produced from a legendary analog modular synthesizer, capturing a range of 100% original synth sounds.
These raw analog sounds can be triggered by the included bonus VST plug-in that instantly transforms each sample into an instrument mapped to the entire keyboard, to save you the hassle of mapping them into a sampler. The plug-in works with any VST host, and doesn't require an existing sampler!
SodaSynth is a pristine, clean sounding synth that's easy to layer and mix.
Starting with an ensemble of oscillators, SodaSynth smoothly adds or subtracts harmonics whilemodulating the frequencies of these new components in novel ways.The results are clean harmonies that sound familiar, yet can morph in new ways.