I have been a renoise user for almost 3 years now but I have not updated my vst/au libraries in many years. I am mainly a Linux user but I use my 2011 13 inch macbook pro with Lion for music making/creative stuff. I have found many apps and vsts I used to use no longer work because Apple no longer supports rosetta. I mainly write noisy, avant-garde, glitchy stuff. Mainly looking for fairly complex drum synthesizers, granular synthesizers and also synths like crystal synth. For effects I’m looking for beat and sample mutilation like 'crazy ivan’or ‘geometer’ by smartelectronix. I was doing some searching for plugins and found many links dead or obsolete. My main concern is recently I have run into some vulnerabilities using a mac that I hadnt previously really had to worry about before. Also many vsts are not compatible with Lion.
I found this site recently: shuriken vst and aus http://www.shuriken.se/
I have not tried these yet but I’ve read the descriptions and watched the videos and these look like something I might use. Have no idea if they still work or are safe though.
obviously I know how to google, and I can figure out if a link is dangerous or obsolete… but I’m thinking other renoise users will probably be using similar vsts/aus.
I’m really in love with Crystal Synth and Alchemy, however Alchemy is not free and as far as I can tell not very tweakable unless you pay for the full version. I really like these two apps because I can work on patches for crystal synth in iOS and I can control Alchemy with my iPad.
Anyway long story short, I’m very out of date. If you use any free VSTs or AUs for mac that are really great and stable/reliable, please share. I would greatly appreciate it.
When I had a Mac there was one free vst/au that really stood out. http://www.alphakanal.de/ " Automat " its awesome! and the webpage says its working on lion. I was only a macintosh person for 3 1/2 years… so… I’m not a good person to suggest all of what might be out there… automat definitely rules!
Methinks not. If I’m not mistaken, it already seems you’re running all of your VST effects as 32 bit versions. I think that arrow in parentheses after the vst name means that it is bridged either from 64 to 32 or 32 to 64.
About the topic: I’ve never gone Linux, so I don’t really know what the plugin situation is on that side of the fence, but switching to osx from windows was a big drop in free vst availability. Did that a couple of years back. Basically I’m in the same rut as you, but I’ll go through what I’ve got installed and report back.
I’m also going to add this thread to my watchlist.
I will give the 64bit version a try then, after I do a backup though.
As far as linux, last time I tried a couple of years ago I didnt have any luck getting vsts to run, but I thought I heard something about renoise working with someone to port vsts to linux or someone from renoise working on ports. Something like that, but dont quote me on that because it was a while ago and I’m not sure if it came from a reliable source. I’m sure someone might know in this forum. But I ran into this today:
tonespace, a vst for windows, mac and linux tonespace site
it’s like soundprism (iOS), sort of, except with more options. You can control other vst instruments through midi and easily stay in key by limiting notes pressed (chords). My description is probably crazy and actually probably completely wrong (I’m on 5 hours of sleep for the past 2 days), but the point is I was surprised to see linux support. So maybe there is some real Linux support that has come about in the past few years. I’m sure the popularity of android has helped a bit. Back around 2005-ish I used to run FL Studio with wine in Linux, I’de run scripts that would use windows vsts in Linux, I heard it worked for some but for me it never fully worked. I had the gui for the vsts but no audio. I am going to try tonespace in Linux, just to see if it works… and how well it works. I would love to someday mainly use Linux for music.
Flux BitterSweet II
A ‘transient designer’. One knob to add punch or remove it.
Sónimus SonEQ
A frequency boosting EQ. Probably suits some final stage eq purposes very well.
ndc Plugs SoulForce
A special wave shaping distortion. This one’s my absolute favorite for some weird reason. It’s not that special in any way, but the sounds it generates just fondle my ears in a special way. I tend to put this everywhere. NOTE: It can really DISTORT, so handle with care!
Ambience
Oh, an add: Seemed like OP didn’t have this gem installed. This is IMO one of the better free VST reverbs for mac. Edit:strictly speaking, this isn’t a VST, it’s AU…
I have the shuriken Bertill VST installed too, but that thing is just too hard to handle … I rarely use it.
Soundhack freeware audio units are amazing. The +delay has a 200% feedback, LFO’s, nice filter, phase params… It’s huge. The +decimator… he’s… he’s… decimating, yep. I tried their payware plugins, it’s absolute quality or absolutely unusable, like “god it’s awsumm but hey how can I make it fit in a track ??”