Free Audio Software for Windows/MacOS

[iococoi]

seems to be free but wtf...

https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument

[th555]

Reminds me of that ambiance sample player from tweakbench. Had rain and city sounds and whatnot.

[logakght]

https://neutone.space/

[ignatius]

free samples:

 

4ms released a firmware update for the STS sampler and w/that comes a bunch of new samples. if you go to the link and click on "manuals/firmware" tab the "samplePack 2022" is there w/other samples and that will take you to a drop box where you can download all the samples. some contributed by me but others from some more well known artists.  it's a nice selection of one hits and loops and field recordings. 

https://4mscompany.com/sts.php?c=5

[thefxbip]

Might have been posted before but Vital.

The synth i use the most these days.

Absolute powerhouse. Superb layout and sound engine.The best VSTi currently imho.

(additional wavetable needs to be bought tho but fully usable with free version)

https://vital.audio

 

/

Edited June 10, 2022 by thefxbip

[iococoi]

Quote

MlsTool is an application used to measure impulse responses. You can use MlsTool to measure the room reverberation of acoustical spaces, or to measure digital effects units, speaker cabinets, spring or plate reverbs, etc.

https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/mlstool/

[TubularCorporation]

May have already been shared but it's a new one to me:

https://sonic-pi.net/

 

Aimed at livecoding on the Raspberri Pi, but it's available for Windows and MacOS also.

[tbf]

On 6/10/2022 at 1:06 PM, thefxbip said:

Might have been posted before but Vital.

The synth i use the most these days.

Absolute powerhouse. Superb layout and sound engine.The best VSTi currently imho.

(additional wavetable needs to be bought tho but fully usable with free version)

https://vital.audio

 

/

honestly, the built-in spread parameter is a touch of class. that alone makes trying it worthwhile

Edited August 1, 2022 by tbf

[iococoi]

Quote

stemroller enables anyone to make karaoke, vocal, and stem tracks from their favorite songs. Simply type the name of a song into the search bar - StemRoller will find the song online and split it into four stems: vocals, drums, bass, and everything else.

https://www.stemroller.com/

somehow searches trough yt for the song and then stemming it with ai..

 

 

 

 

[TubularCorporation]

Windows 95 physical modeling synthesis, compatible with a DIY-only hardware DSP platform that is only documented in a 1996 back issue of a German computer music magazine.

 

http://www.markwhite.com/vsp/phymod.html

[mcbpete]

Agreed, needs to at least have the download link pointing to a USENET binary newsgroup in something like a .lha.arj compressed format (preferably to just the pascal source code)

[rek]

this DDSP thing works! (free)
It's an a.i. trainable audio transmogrifier, either a synth or an effect. turn a voice into a violin for example:
https://magenta.tensorflow.org/ddsp-vst

This next dev, Uhhyou/Ryukau is doing some promising (free) xoxos-like physical modeling, esp: cymbals:
https://ryukau.github.io/VSTPlugins/

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by rek
removed a link because it was suddenly discontinued

[marf]

 

EMISSIONCONTROL2

Curtis Road's main software updated

https://www.curtisroads.net/software

 

[iococoi]

On 8/15/2018 at 9:26 AM, iococoi said:

 

Tracktion T7 is free now.

https://www.tracktion.com/products/t7-daw

some iterations later and still free.

Waveform Free 12

https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform-free

 

[rek]

DSP56300 Emulator currently runs the Access Virus Synth in a vst but it's a cpu chomper.
 there's a thread about it on KVR 

but the DSP56300 emulator authors don't distribute the roms. Just the framework. It's like MAME I guess.
The roms are usually found in MAME rom bundles that seem to contain every rom in existence for some reason.
If a toaster or a refrigerator runs on a rom, it's probably in some MAME rom pack.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by rek

[TubularCorporation]

The ROMs are on archive.org.

 

I wonder how this runs on a Pi 4. 

At first I was thinking it would be pretty great to run it headless with a purpose-built MIDI controller, but looking at the used prices of a real Virus C, the cost of making a one-off, DIY clone wouldn't be that much lower than just buying a Virus. Assume $200-$300 for the front panel, another $100-$150 for a custom PCB big enough for all of the controls 9unless you wanted to do all of that off-board), $20-$30 for an Ardiuno Nano these days, at least $100 in other parts because encoders and switches add up pretty fast, over $150 for a Pi 4 because of the supply chain issues, and that's assuming he enclosure was made free from salavge plywood or something.  So let's say conservatively, if everything went perfectly and you were good at scavanging materials, minimum $650 but easily closer to $800, plus a lot of time and effort designing it.  You can get a virus C on reverb right now for just over $1000 shipped, so DIY would only be worht it if it was because you wanted the challenge.

 

But running it on a Pi 4 with a touchscreen would be great, and now I kind of regret returning the 11" touchscreen I bought with my last tax return and decided was too small for making a dedicated ReNoise box.  A standalone Virus clone would be really handy for me right now.

[rek]

the devs/scene around the emu are cagey about discussing where to find the roms, back when i first tried to use it i had a hard time finding one. it's probably much easier to find one now. back in the day, the roms were simply distributed openly as hardware updates i suppose, they probably never imagined there'd be some geeks who could build a plugin container for them, which is kind of amazing. similar to how they chopped open the yamaha FM chips to create software emulations (and even just hardware controllers)

Edited September 2, 2022 by rek

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, the archive.org download was literally my first search result.

 

Sounds really good, and I wouldn't want to use it in a session with other plugins on the old laptop I have but on its own it's performs really well.  One instance using 3-4 voices of polyphony uses about 16% realtime CPU and 1.5% total CPU on a laptop that's about 6 years old with a 2.5gHz, Core i7-6500u CPU.  Not bad at all, you could definitely get a secondhand mini-ITX PC with similar specs for like $75 on eBay and use it as a dedicated machine for this.  I'll try it on the Pi4 eventually.

 

Only thing not right so far is that whenever I open the GUI in Reaper, it's scaled to 200% (even though the menu says 100%) and when I change it the window scales proportionately, so any time I open it I have to manually change the scalingto something other than 100% and back to 10%, then drag the window so I can see the whole thing.  No big deal, if I could remember my KVR password I'd post it in the thread.

Edited September 2, 2022 by TubularCorporation

[tbf]

On 9/2/2022 at 9:36 AM, rek said:

DSP56300 Emulator currently runs the Access Virus Synth in a vst but it's a cpu chomper.
 there's a thread about it on KVR 

but the DSP56300 emulator authors don't distribute the roms. Just the framework. It's like MAME I guess.
The roms are usually found in MAME rom bundles that seem to contain every rom in existence for some reason.
If a toaster or a refrigerator runs on a rom, it's probably in some MAME rom pack.

did you get the emu?

[tbf]

don't mind me, found it

Edited September 4, 2022 by tbf

[rek]

On 9/2/2022 at 9:47 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Only thing not right so far is that whenever I open the GUI in Reaper, it's scaled to 200% (even though the menu says 100%) and when I change it the window scales proportionately, so any time I open it I have to manually change the scalingto something other than 100% and back to 10%, then drag the window so I can see the whole thing.  No big deal, if I could remember my KVR password I'd post it in the thread.

at their Discord they are more likely to use your feedback than on KVR.
also, with cpu Reaper doesn't report all the chomping it does. it can consume a whole core of your cpu during operation.

Edited September 4, 2022 by rek

[TubularCorporation]

2 hours ago, rek said:

it can consume a whole core of your cpu during operation.

You can monitor that pretty well now, it's been a couple years since it was as minimal as it used to be.  It still doesn't let you monitor the laod per core directly, but it's close enough to give you a good idea. 

Anyway, I mistyped.  It's about 1.2% realtime CPU and 16% total CPU, which is the opposite of what I usually get.

[rek]

5 hours ago, TubularCorporation said:

You can monitor that pretty well now, it's been a couple years since it was as minimal as it used to be.  It still doesn't let you monitor the laod per core directly, but it's close enough to give you a good idea. 

Anyway, I mistyped.  It's about 1.2% realtime CPU and 16% total CPU, which is the opposite of what I usually get.

here's an example of what I mean, i just quickly threw together a midi loop with a bunch of random notes on the init preset, and the numbers seem to look kinder in Reaper than in HTOP. nothing else but Reaper running, mostly. There's an option in DSPEMU in the upper left corner that says "report true cpu usage" or something. but i leave it at default, seems to work better. but there's a hidden cpu tax with this one.

[TubularCorporation]

Do you have anticipative effects turned on in Reaper's buffer setup page? That makes a huge difference.  Like, under 10% CPU without spikes vs. 80%-120% with spikes above 200% for the same project depending on whether it's on or not. The older computer I use for recording is almost unusable without it and can handle low three figure track counts with it.  I ask because one of the big differences is how consistent the CPU load is with it on, that could be the difference we're seeing, if it isn't that we're using different operating systems.

 

I do wish Reaper let you directly monitor the load per core.

 

Anyway, this is what i got.  The dropoff in the Process Explorer grapsh are where I stopped the sequencer, to give a reference to idle.  Also, in the third image, the spikes up to 40% CPU in Reaper are when I opened Irfanview to paste and save the second screenshot.  I also had some similar spikes when I had Process Explorer running alongside Reaper for the first screenshot, but those didn't happen when only Reaper was running.  With reaper alone I was getting a pretty consistent 16%-18%/0.7c-0.8c CPU load, with occasional spikes up to 1.0c-1.5c when Process Explorer or Irfanview were also running, but not with Reaper alone. 

Edited September 5, 2022 by TubularCorporation

[rek]

On 9/5/2022 at 2:13 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Do you have anticipative effects turned on in Reaper's buffer setup page? That makes a huge difference.  Like, under 10% CPU without spikes vs. 80%-120% with spikes above 200% for the same project depending on whether it's on or not. The older computer I use for recording is almost unusable without it and can handle low three figure track counts with it.  I ask because one of the big differences is how consistent the CPU load is with it on, that could be the difference we're seeing, if it isn't that we're using different operating systems.

 

good question, I'm usin' Linux with Yabridge to run win dlls. I've both used Anticipative Effects and not, in a trial and error process to get the best functionality. Just checked now and it's disabled, but it's running relatively well at the moment. been struggling for many moons to find a sweet spot, trying and untrying every combination of settings. The creator of Yabridge recommended to try disabling it. I spent time dong stress tests with DSP56300 , loading a bunch of instances with lots of voices running, and seeing how long it took to choke the audio output buffers, and got better performance from anticipative effects, but running win dll's on linux introduces its own kind of problems that caused a lot of lockups and crashes that have currently went away for me as a result of disabling the feature, in my particular case.