Guess what? It's that time. Music Producer Freebie Mag -- anniversary edition!
Why anniversary? Well, September marks the first birthday of this bad boy, back when I used to call 'em Montha-lists. Ordinarily I'd write fancy words here like I do for basically every issue, but today I feel like hitting the cutting room floor. We'll see how it goes.
Before you ask, I'm okay. Real life is falling apart around me spectacularly, but I'm fine. If you want to know how spectacularly, check my last couple posts. Suffice to say I'm anticipating a move, really busy, and tired. I didn't realize how tired until I saw I had been putting this off for a few days, when it was basically done. Still, I made a promise to get this out by the 20th, and I'm sticking to it.
So, in honor of a FULL YEAR of freebies and before this September ends, we're going to shake things up with a retrospective -- giving the good plugins the press they deserve and remembering those that have gone to the great beyond.
This is exciting for me, not just because I love digging up the past, but because in trying to write about the hottest producer fad plugins and giveaways, it's easy to forget the ones that are old but still gold. I've taken the time to write "Septemberlist in Retrospect" not because I felt lazy, but because I end up recommending things off this list at least once a week.
Also, in my re-research for this article, I wrote a verbal kick in the ass -- I mean an encouraging and thought provoking piece for jump-starting your music career that turned into a book. I saved a snip for you here. Once that's out of the way, we'll wrap up with some regularly scheduled programming, a few more freebies, and I'll go take a nap.
If you find this content useful, you can donate here and here. Everything you see is made possible by viewers like you, so thank you!
Now, onto to business. I found some really neat surprises this month that I think ANY producer could use.
Let's GO!
SEPTEMBERLIST IN RETROSPECT
Last September we covered 19 Freebies.
That's plugins, samples, websites, and even a couple discords.
In other words, A LOT.
Going down the list, the NG Audio Pub Discord Server (#Resource Channel, admin @Lich) and Phonk Guys Discord are still active with plenty of goods dropping to date. I can't tell you how many great deals and rare samples I've found! They are my top two deep dives for samples and plugins, as well as chat!
Further down, Kyle Beats' free samples page is still up. I think I see some new packs. However, perhaps more interesting is how I could have missed a free music production course (hip-hop), which covers "melodies, sampling, beat arrangement," "networking secrets, and how to get yourself known in the music world."
Let me rewind you for a second -- networking and getting yourself known... You may not even know Kyle, or you might hate him, but if you ask me, he knows a thing or two about getting press. He's famous, not just for the recent "stolen" beat clickbait he scandalized himself with but for years and YEARS of publicly grinding his ass off… (That came out wrong. Do over before I have to mark this post NSFW.)
You seriously don't know Kyle? White kid making beats in his room with the boys, upselling dicey VSTs like Drip and Spaz, has a lot of critics? Because now, he's kinda balling. (Source: Reddit)
Lemme summarize.
The bedroom producer everyone was laughing at has hustled his way to household name. He's making headlines in the producer community, landing loops in platinum singles, and sparking conversation outside the community as well; for a sample pack maker and producer, this is phenomenal.
Basically, his strategies for breaking through internet obscurity work(ed). Not only has he built a solid community; he's showing up in millions of households with Netflix-grade camera work. How did that happen? Well, it certainly didn't come from a vaccuum, and it wasn't overnight, so I'm willing to bet when he tells you how to promote your stuff, he knows what he's talking about.
side-bar: stolen beat scandal
A huge kick in publicity for Kyle was the viral video I linked above, in which he discovered a loop from his Nightmare drum kit was used in a song that became a platinum hit. Kyle and his team had no idea this song existed, and he contacted the team about royalties or credits or whatever.
This is not unusual, and I feel the need to make a PSA for the uninitiated.
Every sample pack that isn't Royalty Free is liable to land you on one end or the other of an awkward phone call with somebody's management.
Keyword being NOT royalty free, assuming your song makes any kind of money. And the problem in Kyle's situation in fact, was that the loop was from a royalty free pack. So there isn't DIRECTLY any money he can make off of it.
DJ Pain said it best, "When you get a placement from a royalty free pack, […] the only way to monetize and capitalize on that opportunity is by using it to promote another product that you're actually going to make money off of."
This is exactly what Kyle and his team did, because he knows this. We're so ready to jump on the next PVLACE stealing beats, "stolen beat went platinum" was bound to make rounds on the internet.
See what I mean? Check that course.
There are some other things Kyle could do in his situation, which might be relevant for y'all. For instance, if your sample features in someone else's song prominently, you can contact their management to see about getting put on the credits. Just don't expect much if you dropped royalty free, as I did with this TOTALLY PREDICTABLE SEGWAY INTO...
My flagship sample pack, Adreanaline!
ADREANALINE Sample Pack is of course still up for grabs on Beatstars. Because it's still in BETA, I plan to seed updates until otherwise specified. In fact, I just updated this week to add a few more doodads.
In general, it's a Japanese Ethnic, Contemporary Hip-Hop, and Industrial percussion fest, but there are also some vocal stems, loops, and odds and ends in there for your experimenting pleasure.
Demo:
PS: I might have renamed the 808s to the proper key, but if not, those are available in the left side panel on SampleFocus, My Samples!
Going back to the list, some kits have sadly passed away. Let us pay our respects for:
Here's an angry note from the guest list, courtesy of reddit user [deleted]. Totally helpful /s
[DELETED] says:
[this kit is recycled trash.] For kit recommendations I'd say both the Inteus kits, The Caspian Rose kits, the Goupil kit, the Mythic kit (killmythic) kit, the Ponsuda kit, the Sappy kits, both of Sunson's kits, and if you're new all of the Rich Beatz (Jason Rich) kits […] Basically any phonk kit uploaded to Reddit beside the candy boy kits to be completely honest.
Phonk sounds (especially good ones) are rare so the few that have been exposed are the ones that are reused […] Those kits are phonk artists' private collections and contain sounds that they or only a select people have because they were sampled directly from that person […]
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Let me say this. Even though I agree, r/drumkits is full of recycled sounds (kit), I still think they're useful. Take the good, delete the duplicates, and move on.
Sometimes samples like the amen break are carving out a familiar niche in our genre, the way that modes and chords associated themselves to moods without our conscious knowledge. Do you really think the cricket-hi-hats of hip-hop came from nowhere? Of course not. The 808 and 909 drum machines they were sequenced on conquered virtually EVERY genre of music, and it just so happens they really stuck for this one in particular.
My point is, the banshees on reddit might as well be screaming about Boogie amps in Metal, or chord stabs in retro jungle.
You can swim against the tide and chase your SPECIAL samples, but don't act like it makes your music more legitimate. No one is out here crafting ORIGINAL phonk 808s straight from samples of their anus. If they are, it isn't a hallmark of the genre. You could extend this to various combinations of every instrument typically heard in a phonk track, and it remains that if you stray too far from the standard across the board, you're going to end up making a completely different genre, which isn't always the goal.
To learn how something typically sounds and how to make it, you're kinda gonna need a TYPICAL SOUND.
So wait, if these less popular "direct" samples aren't associated with their main genre in pop-culture, how are responses like this helpful to anyone wanting to produce that genre?
They're not. It's just another rabbit hole. We producers are SO fond of falling into them, I think a stupid one is worth pointing out. If I want to make a specific sound, with a specific mood, why would I deliberately avoid the popularized version of that sound or mood I first heard? For no good reason, that's why.
Some hipster on the internet will not discourage me from sampling how I want. I'm going to download recycled trash whenever I feel like it, and I'm flipping that shit shamelessly, because one man's trash is another man's treasure!
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Moving on. Still extant from last year's list, this Glitch kit was a particular favorite of mine. I still use it on occasion!
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Searching for some of the "non-recycled" primo kits mentioned by our friend [deleted] lead me down some interesting searches, with yet more freebies.
A LIST of PHONK kits, no links, like a Pokedex entry with a question mark. Grab your CL (collection), and LF (looking for) and keep them close -- because they are nowhere to be found outside of a DM, but people evidently like them.
Leading Trap Drumkits (all in one) -- does not include any of the kits mentioned, but does have quite a few sample packs I like, including one from Nick Mira, who is a legend in my eyes.
And THIS Phonk Kit (in description, mediafire)
I did happen on some good music and a BUNCH of (unrelated) kits under "MYTHIC", like this one also (free)
Link will send you to CVNVAS' $69 upsell, followed by the freebies to your email 20 minutes. If you can't find it and don't want to run through the junk folder, you might have less trouble ripping audio off YouTube. You know, the gold standard of sampling.
There are a LOT of free kits once you do get the email though. Worth a dive!
Also, when it comes to niche genres or a specific artist's kit you otherwise can't find -- don't forget, there's more than one way to cop a sample!
Forget spending hours going through comments and posts. That takes so much effort. We have so many tools these days, it really pays to do your own dirty work, and sometimes it's faster.
Here are some methods:
If you can't find a sound, isolate it from a source. I use RX10, my DAW, and Audacity (free).
Failing that, DM someone who posted "CL" on a subreddit. Usually free but sometimes shady, and occasionally illegal so watch yourself out there.
Study how the sample is made and DIY. If you can't, jump on a discord like Phonk Guys and ask if someone has the sound or can make it for you, or better yet, show you how to make it. Tutorials are great for this if you actually use them.
Example:
I was looking for a sample of something like a brake drum before I ever knew what it was called, for this track. Thought long and hard about what could make the noise. Then I found some videos of people hammering posts into the ground. Bam. There's your sample.
You can hear them around 1:12.
This is literally how I made half my drum library, cutting and processing samples, sometimes even splicing them into franken samples to make new ones!
There is no shame in this. The very nature of sampling is recycling!
Anyway, NEXT!
Speaking of phonk, metal, and like all of my other projects on Beatstars, CTK-2400 and Saudade Metal Drums for sforzando are still available and will remain FREE!
If you like nostalgic keys, freeware, and punchy drums, this is the pack for you.
I probably need to update the file at some point, now that I mention it. I think I accidentally uploaded 2 versions at once. >.> Let me know.
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Unison Freebies are still up, if you can tolerate a LOT of spam email from Sep and paid products like… Ass Dragon being rammed down your throat. Seriously, these guys are starting to piss me off.
The nameless marketing emails are seriously unending, so use your spam email!
DJ-Pain still has 3 free kits over on his website. As a veteran producer in the game for years upon years, his beats are great for inspiration and study! He also knows his stuff in terms of sample clearance, so you can trust that "royalty free" actually means what it says on the tin!
BPB's 2023 Collection is still worth a deep dive, and so is their beatmaking guide. I've discovered as I've gotten older (and more eccentric) I'm not ALWAYS a fan of their content style or picks, especially as someone who struggles to understand what she reads, but every once in a while there is an absolute gem, such that I would be remiss not to give them props!
Other plugins from the list that I still recommend to this day are Alpha Sampler and Omni Sampler (Mixcraft VSTs), Slampup dynamic processor, Cymatics Diablo Lite, KSHMR Essentials Kick, Cymatics Origin, REAPER DAW, and Cakewalk
Excuse the ugly ass graphic. I made it in 3 minutes because no way was I going to find all 6 of these images in the same collage.
Of these vsts, only one has aged in any considerable capacity, and that's KSHMR Essentials Kick. There are still instances where I would use it, but as a percussion processor, Diablo (full version) has taken its place.
I feel that Diablo handles sounds better in the genres I work in, which makes sense. My music is edgy asf, and Diablo is a very aggressive processor.
Besides that, I would be very mindful of input volume going into either plugin (or any plugins performing the same jobs). Hot input really affects the compressor's response and sometimes in a way you don't want! I find that lower input is generally better for most plugins.
For KSHMR E, you will have to achieve this externally, before the FX rack. Diablo has an input knob in its full version, but I still prefer to use the instrument volume knob (not mixer knobs or faders), so that everything is appropriately staged pre-FX.
For all of my sampling needs outside of sforzando or Decent Sampler, I still use Mixcraft's default Alpha and Omni Samplers. They're basically olskool single shot and MPC knockoffs, with a nice little drag and drop function that makes me rave and a rubberizer that keeps things interesting.
SlamPup occasionally makes its way into my compositions as a drum trasher or bass fattener. The interface is stupid simple, easy to understand, and most importantly has a big fat dry wet slider you can't miss.
Origin -- hands down my favorite downsampling plugin, not for its vinyl noise feature, wobbly chorus and movement, or saturation, although it all generally sounds good, but for what you can do with it by turning off the pre and post filter images and applying an LFO to the frequency cutoff. You heard that earlier ALL over No Propeller, and it bangs.
AND THAT ROUNDS OUT THE RETROSPECT PORTION OF OUR LIST!
Were you here for last year's issue? How do you like the format of this one? Drop a comment!
On to entirely more personal matters: the nuggets of wisdom section.
Cue hustle hard cliché montage as the stage goes black, and the theatre quiets to a hush. Suddenly, the screen before you lights up with a single ambiguous figure, silhouetted in bla-
Okay, I'm losing the plot and I swore I would edit this. I'll cut the theatrics, just bear with me. This is the beginning of a letter to my past self.
Dear self,
If no one has told you this, color me shocked,
but do you ever stop to wonder why you're here?
No, not on this planet, silly.
I mean, doing what you're doing.
In fact, what ARE you doing?
Lulz aside, why does what you're doing always feel like getting nothing done? That you're one click away from the endless scroll of producer tutorials but ten feet from the completely unrelated problems in your DAW? Why is it that despite all your efforts, you're not nearly as productive as you know you could be, when you spend most of your time "learning" how to do whatever it is you want?
Here's the cold hard truth. You're wasting your time.
What do you do most of your day? Spend time in the music producer community. And what's wrong with that community? It's absolutely rotten -- infested with too much of the same type of content, things you're probably guilty of saying yourself, like: "be better than yesterday," challenge everything, get these plugins.
There's so much "fix it" messaging, it's easy to forget what's the problem in the first place. And how could you not, when once you start scrolling, you can't stop.
The problem is that EDUCATION has become ENTERTAINMENT, or, Edutainment.
And before you start, I'm not saying cut off the internet and go live in a hut with your laptop and interface to make an album. Edutainment is great. It's a solid replacement for dead silence in line at the airport or roaring asphalt on the way to work, but it's not a substitute for ACTUALLY WORKING ON YOUR CRAFT.
You can "study" a million youtube videos, memorize them even, and none of that will make you a better producer if you don't take those lessons outside of class.
No, I'm not accusing you of being lazy. I just know, if we make a habit of giving into the scroll, sooner or later we end up telling ourselves things like:
I don't have the time to sit down and make a track today. Yes, I watched 3 videos on how to start a dubstep banger, but those great ideas never made it to a new project, or if they did, it wasn't what I was learning about. It's just too hard to understand the instructions. It's getting late. I should go to bed.
Or how about: I never post about my music. I'm too embarrassed. I don't know how to promote my work, despite watching 5 promotion ideas that don't suck a day.
My personal favorite goes something like: I'll be working along just fine until I see a notification pop up, or an interesting thumbnail, whereby I invariably go through a wormhole to retro-reese-bass tube, coming out the other side without having taken any notes -- and sometimes without hearing most of it because I was reading up on a plugin listed in the video.
Guess I must've spent a lot of time gaming with podcasts in a past life… my literal past life, skipping Music Theory at 8 AM and making beats in Algebra. Really shot myself in the foot with that one.
Another personal best of ours is how long we've sat staring at the screen, finally having posted content after a great while and now routinely checking for notifications -- but only replying thanks to all the comments.
We'll keep at it until we hit a tough one, which we'll sit on for days without proper response. Or better yet, we'll go dark and ignore all the notifications that come in after they get to a certain number because, well, I don't feel like answering comments all day; we have social anxiety, and I'd rather listen to Weaver beats' plugin police for VSTs I wasn't even considering buying until now.
We probably won't buy them btw, if we're smart.
We do this because what we really seek is dopamine, which may or may not be in short supply (pretty sure most of us have ADHD), not realizing that we are in fact spinning our wheels in the very thing we love -- which gives us dopamine.
As long as the cycle continues, we start to feel guilt, which turns to shame. Even if no one else sees it, we feel like we've been sitting in place, chasing our own tail for far too long. We think we aren't good enough, or that the forces driving our behavior and lack of motivation are supposed to be within our control but aren't.
Maybe we even feel like they are caused by something else outside of ourselves -- like genetics. I.e., we just weren't born good at this. But that's a lie.
You could be stuck in place for any number of reasons, but I'll tell you a few that have absolutely nothing to do with it:
It isn't because you aren't good.
It isn't because your music sucks.
It isn't because you don't have thousands of dollars to spend on advertisements.
And it surely isn't because you don't make the right genre of music. (Otherwise noise artists would be out of a job.)
Now if you feel the need to fix any of these things, by all means do it, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.
The only problem with your music career, is you.
What you chose to do with your time.
What you consider practice.
How you study.
Do you even take notes? Stop scrolling through YouTube like a 14 year old on TikTok after school, and do something with your life! Get up and GROW!
Incoming mood whiplash, where my editing ends. If you were actually sad that this veritable tome of text ended and want to read my book, the draft is available for any of my ko-fi and patreon supporters. Just ask! Otherwise, comment "waiting list!"
SPECIAL THANKS: @MATRVG, @MariogD, @Cyberdevil, and @JimmyTheCaterpillar. This book will be available to you free of charge, now in its draft form and in the future!
NOW, speaking of growing, let's talk about growing our sample libraries one more time, because I just cut like 40k characters off of this, and want to bed on time!
First up, I stumbled back upon ghosthack with this video:
How to Make Your Own VITAL Wavetables | PLUS Heavy Metallic Growl Bass Preset
Got major gearlust, so of course I bought myself a pack or … 7 on layaway. The packs are smallish, but a pretty decent price. And out of curiosity, I went to see if there were any freebies. To my surprise -- they were well hidden, but there were!
These are actually previews of related packs in most if not all cases, and they require enduring some email marketing, but the kits I've heard so far are banger. Worth checking out!
Vital Freebies
https://www.ghosthack.de/Service/Free-Sample-Packs/Vital/
Dubstep Freebies
https://www.ghosthack.de/Service/Free-Sample-Packs/Dubstep/
These are just a few of the goods. Plenty more to be found here!
https://www.ghosthack.de/free_sample_packs/
Summerville Sounds has released a lo-fi key plugin, Dusty Felts
And I happen to have a private collection that I just found on my old hard drive, if anyone wants to take a look. Just PM me to be safe.
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I had a small video section planned here, but in the interest of saving time, I'll leave the unfinished stubby tail here as links!
Video Section
Totally new concept in this digital age.... Is mastering... useless? I don't really think so, but I've been mixing in 32 bit floating point for a while and it is certainly superior.
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And that's really it. I'll see you guys in the next few weeks with some more music releases, aiming for Fridays. Be working on the book meantime and a SLEW of commissions.
Say a prayer for me. I could use some Jesus in my life.
Send a dollar if you're feeling feisty.
That's all I got for now. Peace!