Figured I'd drop a little sum'n here. Freebies down below the diary. More to be added upon request! Latest updates will be italicized at the top of the list and dated! I will @ users who have reacted or commented with updates.

Last updated: 10/05/21, 6 additions. 36 unique links.

Now, if you don't already know me, I'm your local mod and Mixcraft legacy user. I've been making music almost as long as I've been on Newgrounds. Judging by the anniversary I missed this month, around 15 years.

In that time, I've seen plenty of plugins come and go. Tried about half of them since cracking my DAW turned into a developer gifting me a copy during my sophomore year of college. Since then, I've gone almost completely digital. It's the technological renaissance -- why not?

As you know, the digital era has its pros and cons. Instruments and FX are insanely easy to find if you know where to look, and hardware to run them is as simple as an average gaming computer -- cheap if you have a half decent job and your rent is taken care of. There are tutorials freely available on how to use any product you can imagine, not to mention music theory, and without paying for a masterclass, you can streamline the process to a fault.

Only one problem. Finding a truly inspiring plugin, enough to bother using it properly, is rare as all hell. I have lost, deleted or given away more software than I care to admit, some of it even bought with my hard earned money. It is so, so easy to drop thousands on plugins that end up a complete waste, especially if you're like me and only read manuals when your own user error has you genuinely believing that either you or it is mentally retarded.

I don't know what's worse, 99 dollars for a contrabass cello I only used twice, or sifting through fifty pages of 80's drum emulators and plate reverbs. And how about all the mass produced, themed bundles with pretty graphics -- wonderful quality, ease of use, just a hint of something missing to ruin your day. Never mind how many gigs it'll set you back to install. Cough, Omnisphere, cough.

Needless to say, I became more selective. My workflow is natural, finally. Pieces that I spend the least mental energy get the most hype, which is nice, if only I have the cojones to lay down the finished product.

It'd be nice if I ever felt like doing that. Most of the time I don't, but occasionally an idea strikes me in the middle of work, hanging out with my wife, or doing something else critically important, like taking a shit and watching paint dry.

It's usually finding a free instrument to utterly destroy. I don't have infinite money, but like everyone else, I get tired of the same old crap staring at me all day, so much so I started intentionally using the "worst" VSTs imaginable. Think Meow Synth and Delay Lama, which were perhaps rightfully mocked by more skilled producers like Composerily. Of course, not everything free you find is terrible. That just seems to be my niche.

Anyway, I started digging around, finding freebies here and there, and what do you know -- I got inspired. Some of my work even got frontpaged. I figured I'd share some of that energy, for anyone else out there like me whose eyes glaze over at the thought of using the same plugins day in and day out. And yes, I'm only posting the good shit. The bad is easy enough to find -- and is not necessarily limited to being free. ;)

Enjoy!

...... October 5, 21

Just got this hot off the press. FREE MASTERING at Mastering Studio, promo code FREE-MASTER-OCT. I have not sampled the service just yet, but I'm a fan of AI mastering in general as an alternative to hours of work at the master channel, just trying to get a test beat to perfection. Try it and see what happens :)

Plugin Alliance also is sending out loyalty vouchers, worth $25 for purchases of $32. That's $32 of stuff down to the price of $7. Worth a subscribe! New sign-ups get 6 PLUGINS FREE!

Free African Slit Drum for Kontakt from Xtant Audio. Free Haunted Music Box

Black Octopus Sounds offers 1 GB of free samples!

Modern Producers is now offering Anno Domini kit for free!

...... October 4, 21

Audio Plugin Deals has expanded their collection of freebies to include pianos, delays, chip synths, and more. Tab on over the options and check it out!

For the next 10 days, Aquamarine Lite Kontakt Library is free! As for other sales, the lowest price I've seen today is $8 for a spanking bundle. Worth checking out, keeping in mind that nickle and dime purchases throughout the year translate to cashback you can use on future purchases, effectively making your own sale.

RedSounds is offering their Ramwong drum and stratocaster loops as free Kontakt instruments. Other instruments on the site, such as the Vox and 808 engines, normal value $120 plus dollars, I got on sale for $19.99 (plus 100% cash back). Not free, but 1/6th the price ain't bad.

HornNet offers a page full of free plugins! Rhythm sequence generators, drum fatteners, compressors, chorus -- check it out. They're pretty great, forgoing the frustrating copy protection license fees and barriers to normal installation. Prices aren't in dollars, but there's a nice selection of under $5 FX pedals I saw, which are a score. Everything is 60% off for the next 3 days.

AmpliTube 5 Orange Dual Terror Is FREE Until October 31st! Works with Amplitube 5 Custom Shop (free).

Line 6 offers Allure IR pack free with signup! I also checked, and there is a discussion thread with more free IRs here.

The Highest Producers offers a sweet selection of drum kits and melody loops, free!

"MURDA BEATZ QUARANTINE" drum kit, free with YT channel sub -- lots of free kits on the channel. Check it out, search "kit" on the profile.

...... October 3, 21

Echo Sound Works' MASSIVE freebie collection - from drum samples, 808s, Kontakt instruments, all the way to presets, worth checking out!

So Southern - 14 Free drum kits as of October! Each of these has a promo code for downloads, 001-014

Plugin Alliance has reset their $20 off vouchers AGAIN! And everything is STILL up to 90% off! Go grab your second round of free plugins while they're hot. Offer ends tomorrow! (Oct 4. 2021)

Speedrum Lite free at plugin boutique. Also check out Kuassa's Amplifikation Lite free guitar amp sim

Heavyocity Punish Lite is free with any purchase -- the cheapest plugin I saw is $19 or so; you may use coupons, so long as they don't make the purchase ENTIRELY free

Black Sun amp is still free at Audio Assault. 80's presets, $3.99. This amp comes with some nice cabs already and can be supplemented with more free cabs listed somewhere in this mess. Plenty of other sales going on, $9.99 amps, $5 cab libraries and so on. FREE SEACOW CABS TEASER PACK

Audio Assault Druminator has been around for a while. Check out a review and see if it's for you!

Finisher Micro Multi FX free at Ujam!

VSTBuzz has a huge and expanding page of freebies, from 808s to live drums, cellos, vocals, and more!

Ferric Tape Dynamics Simulator :3 freeware

...... September, 2021 (Get 'em while they're hot. Something's gotta still be hanging around!

Hip-hop drum kits, UK Drill, several kits

BVKER - best hip hop and trap drum kits of 2021

Kyle Beats - Galaxy One Shots (hip-hop kit)

FreeDrumKits.net -- a whole page of hiphop kits, no bs, just downloads

Free drum machines, 808s, etc at Plugin Boutique

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention BPB's samples

LABS is literally the best free alternative to Kontakt instruments I've ever seen, with tons of instruments. Cinematic Percussion is the best out there. I recommend it for trap and hiphop, actually.

Pocket Blakus cello is a great addition and even alternative to many string synths, making use of Kontakt's pitch shift for layers

Bedroom Producer's blog has done it again with this months list of deals and freebies

WA Production is offering a free de-esser to users :)

Black Sun Amp is free at Audio Assault!

Additionally, there are plenty of great free IRs for Grind Machine (cab off + NadIR), or Grind Machine II and its native IR loader

Salamander Drum Kit

Free 4 string bass -- and a pitch shifter, or two, or three million, in case you like making metal

As far as I know, you can actually use the Plugin Alliance coupon twice -- I got like 4 free plugins, 40$ worth; check the $5-$19 section ;)

Gumroad is offering some free waveshaper plugins

Two Clicks, the folks behind Drip, are offering FX plugin SPAZ for free!

There's a lot more where that came from. This is just what I had the patience to type. Some places I typically look for freebies I'll list here, but a lot of them I found by just continually googling, once a week or so for things I thought I needed, and keeping a separate email for nothing but mailing list offers. When they come with free stuff, I promise, they're not that annoying!

VSTBuzz, AudioPluginDeals, KontaktHub, PluginBoutique are one of a kind hotspots -- Reverb occasionally has freebies too. You can even find kits on Archive.org. Just make sure you don't download a bunch of copyrighted loops. Don't want to get demonetized or your hard fought tracks taken down!

Other sites I like to check are literally ANYTHING that comes up as the top result for free vst in whatever search engine you prefer. Subscribe to mailing lists, rss feeds, and check it every couple days. Honestly, just check whatever developer you come across and see if they have any free stuff. Your patience will be rewarded.

Don't forget to back up your installers, license keys, and samples to a USB, label it, and keep it somewhere safe -- you never know what could happen to your hard drive. Stay away from sketchy sites and be sure to virus scan before running an installer. If you're running out of space, external hard drives and USBs are an option, but be mindful that they are slower to read than normal drives and are dependent on the speed of your USB ports -- and also never unplug them without first ejecting them. Label them so you don't forget like me what's on them for a couple years, lol.

And lastly, never give out your payment information for anything that purports to be free! Happy hunting!

If this helped you, smack that follow button and drop a reaction. Enjoy the freebies, and feel free to leave your own in the comments!

EDIT: If you are here for Geometry Dash, please scroll down to the last paragraph. For sale, see below. For artist news, recommendations, and thanks, somewhere in between 2/3 down. Thank you :)

For the rest of you nerds like me who dig 80s music, Synthwave, and Blade Runner vibes, BEATSKILLZ is having a 88% off sale. Found it in my email today and thought I'd share.

Here's what I got, Super 80's Bundle, $54 for 6 instruments, including various drums and keys. The instruments themselves have been marked down to $9 a piece, some of them for 5GB of samples, the keys, for instance. The drum libraries look pretty expansive, and the demos sound like it will be a lot of fun to work with. I'm especially stoked for the drum wavs, as I've begun extracting and processing my own samples.

Here's one of the demos.

Upon first glance, the plugins do not seem to have any sort of tomfoolery or complicated installations outlined in the manuals. Those of you who know me, know I love weird, retro, and otherwise odd sounds. I'm excited, expecting to be inspired and see how these can be used in a creative way. Just wanted to pass along my curiosity. :)

While I'm here, to fans old and new, long time no see! Please drop by and tell me how you're doing.

Currently I've been working on new projects, using a mixture of MeowSynth, Elsita, CS One Bass, SQ8L, 99Sounds Drum Machine, and Kawai KV1 for strange, retro inspired tracks. I've been thinking about an album, in between the occasional experiment with MuseScore sound fonts and extracting and processing some of my own samples to share. There was some other works I had but currently don't have the inspiration to sit down and figure out where to go. I'll go days without wanting to make anything, sitting at the DAW with my thumbs up my rear, and then suddenly in the middle of dinner or in my sleep, I'll have an idea, and I can't stop until it's done, whatever wild goose chase it takes me on.

Here's a playlist for the tentative album I'm thinking of releasing later this year. Suggestions for track order or new naming convention appreciated.

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/c7319d4726978a3f5f899407092f780d

And while I'm talking about all the crap I use, I give big props to KSHMR Essentials for processing my percussion as an ALMOST one-stop shop now that I've learned to use it, though it has options for various instruments. There's a free version out there for kicks, though I've found it also works well on just about any instrument for transient shaping, saturation, compression, etc. It is literally a quantum leap in time saving out of all my plugins. Check it out here

Also, to Izotope RX7 for lifting up the percussion in my old work and allowing me to remaster it at *almost* the click of a few buttons, not to mention making it easy to denoise and process samples from live recordings.

To eMastered for being better than SoundCloud mastering and slightly less time extensive than most work I'd put in to a master, especially now that I'm just too damn depressed to finish a song, mix it as well as I can, and then spend 4 more hours at the bus when I just want to post my crap. Get a subscription using that link if and only if you think I deserve to wait one more month before I pay for another year, lol. It worked pretty nicely on... whatever genre this is.

And finally, to you, Newgrounds. Thanks for frontpaging my crap sometimes when you think I deserve it, though I most of the time don't think I do. Thanks for telling me when my stuff sounds like shit, so I know what to do and what not to do. Thanks for having me judge your competitions every now and then, even though I don't consider myself entirely a professional. Thanks for being my friends, fans, and entertainers, 14 years strong. You will always be my inspiration. I can only hope to bring half as much value to you as you do to me in the years to come. Hopefully this is a start.

Love,

Adrean

PS, thank you @BrandonMusic for using my song a geometry dash level. My wife now hates it, but I'm happy and kind of honored you liked it enough to spend time making something so frustrating. It suits the mood. Previously I had a really negative association with the game, being an audio moderator. It's been a nagging source of stolen songs for years, literally the reason I was modded, but I'm personally reminded now that people use it legitimately and charitably, like you. This made my night.

Those reading, please feel free to use my music. They should all be enabled. :)

For those interested, level ID 71148716 :3

"Is the US in your opinion a NORMAL country? SATAN became the mayor of one of the cities there, and by the way, even WORSE people lived there. They certainly deserved it." x2

Сша по вашему нормальная страна?

Там мэром одного из городов стал сатана

и там между прочим еще хуже люди жили

они действительно это заслужили

"And here in Russia, houses are falling apart, very excellently, falling apart well, pleasantly. Whoever there that isn't pleased, I will find them personally, and... you know what I mean."

А у нас в России...

дома рушатся очень аккуратно

рушатся хорошо, приятно...

кому там что не нравится, я лично всех найду и

вы понимаете что я имею ввиду

Just came here to drop some metal and let y'all know I'm alive :*

Subtitles in English and Russian <3

Translation of album art:

"Disabled people are born that way -- and die that way. They don't know what it means to be human. They are facsimiles in human form. They have legs, arms and other body parts, outwardly indistinguishable from people, but DISABLED PEOPLE do not live. Rather, they function. Their functions are described by mechanical laws and four additional hallmarks: cruelty, stupidity, greed, and spite. CSGS. Any of their deeds is effective, predictable, shady, and destructive. All bad, terrible, and horrible events are the result of the actions of DISABLED PEOPLE. We live among them and rarely notice this huge human fake..." - t.A.T.u, Lyudi Invalidy

So, recently I had an oopsie, and by recently, I mean, five minutes ago. I accidentally deleted my first page of incoming messages, trying to clear my outbox so I could send outgoing messages.

So, if you sent me a message within the past month, please resend it. I'm an idiot.

Thank you!

I realized I never posted this after I recovered it off my computer. Can't upload it to NG for obvious reasons, so you can download it here!

Visualizer

Instrumental:

Like what you hear? Follow pls

Support me on ko-fi!

Also, some of you might have seen I have a new icon. A friend drew me a portrait. Might be able to entice her to come over to NG some day. Here's a better look <3

Хорошего дня ;*

I dunno who frontpaged it, but I really didn't expect anything out of this track. Thank you!

Run through of some production bs

https://youtu.be/iBPOwv-BGiM

@larrynachos, you might be interested in some of those synths if you can glance and see what's going on there <3

See if I can't make a visualizer some time and throw the sucker up on YT. Unless somebody wants to make 5 bucks on venmo, haha.

Hope everyone's having a good Christmas holiday!

Just wanted to post the shitty visualizer I forgot I made

DL: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/987070

Wanted to poke my head in and say hi even though I can't technically release this on NG last I checked. I'm on vacation for the Christmas holiday, disorganized sorting through notifications as usual. Anything I release for the next couple months is probably gonna be backlog I found from old projects. That's what happened with this one. Unfinished project worked with an acapella I made of Fairuz - talj talj... which just means snow.

It's my roommate's favorite song and I can't get it out of my head. Dig it!

<3

Heya, nice little PSA for you hardware emulated plugin fans. Audio Assault has compressors and amps going for $7 a pop. Check em out below.

T-Comp parallel compressor is practically being given away for $7, with a special offer of D-Rez drum de-resonator for $5. Just copped these babies yesterday.

T-Comp manual:

D-Rez Manual:

Bass grinder is also up for 7 bucks here

These are just a few of the plugins on sale cheap. D-Rez in particular I see myself getting a lot of mileage out of for nasty resonating verbs. While you're at it and now that I've had a sec to try it I highly recommend checking out Grind Machine II! Might even still be free -- when I copped it, the 7$ defaulted to zero in the cart.

The predecessor is available for an absolute steal of $3.99 for a limited time. This is the amp I started using after Emissary free amp sim and has seen tracks like:

Plugin video:

Check 'em out, tag a friend, and enjoy!