Alright, Dunno if anything like this has been topicated before, but what 5 plug ins would you choose if you only could keep 5?
My choice:
Sampletank 2.5
Classic Compressor
Albino
Electri-Q
Triangle2
Gliss
Marquis
Elephant
Bionic Delay
A distortion/saturation plug (not sure which one)
- NI Kontakt 2
- RCG Triangle 2
- Spectrasonics Trilogy
- MusicLab RealGuitar
- VST Nibbles (no, there is no VST Nibbles, as far as I know)
audiorealism bassline2
audiorealism bassline2
audiorealism bassline2
audiorealism bassline2
audiorealism bassline2
Synth1
EVM Bassline
STS
Delay Lama
Arppe2600va
Err… I can’t think of any free drum VSTi but I can use samples instead of plugins for that
FM8 (including FMfx)
GlissEQ
OhmForce OhmBoyz
Erm…
That is it I think…
Dont really use anything else.
Record my guitar, use the effects in FM8 and the rest is sample manipulation…
Stardust // best free multiband compressor
Waves RBass // best bass expander I’ve had the pleasure of using
BassChorus21 // best free chorus which doesn’t drain your bass.
Nexus // best “turn-key” trance/dance synth for instant gratification.
EDIROL Orchestra // best “turn-key” orchestral sounds which don’t reek of synthesis.
IF I did vocals though, I’d sub out BassChorus for ReaFir. This is the killer free noise-removal plugin. You can tweak the noise profile yourself, and if you manually smooth out a sampled profile, you can get low latency + no gurgling artefacts. Good enough results to run through a compressor and distortion unit without noise between words – WITHOUT a gate.
I could probably go a very long way with Renoise and:
Synth1
sfz
Bionicdelay
Sidekick v3
Stardust
I assume i cant choose reaktor or the like…
soooo…
highlife - little free sampler
Flatblaster - dynamics from reaktor
a free graphic eq i use and like (I forget its name)
Emulator x (though it doesnt really work with renoise and im having to look elsewhere)
a thing i made in reaktor to filter, layer and alter single hit samples in lots of ways, combine them with synthesised tones and resample them.
Actualy that last one and renoise would make me entirely happy on their own. Source for sounds… stunning sequencer/sampler… what more do you need. 
Drumatic is an awsome drum synth
Too bad I gave it up when I switched to mac 
I might buy the sonic charge micro tonic for drum sounds.
I’ve got Electri-Q, came free with a Computer Music magazine, but I think you can find it on the net.
Use it on almost every channel.
z3ta+, vanguard, v-station, synth1, attack
NI Absynth 4
NI FM8
NI Reaktor
Godkiller 3
Crystal
Hey, what’s the deal with SYnth1?
Everyone loves this VSTi, but it never really appealed to me…
Did I miss out on anything here?
I mean, what’s so cool about it?
Someone told me it was because it uses so little CPU, but is this the only reason?
battery
reaktor
overdubber
distroyr
rapture
Not just that. It’s extremely versatile, sports a good amount of features, is easy to use, and FREE.
Synth1 can do a lot. Try some presets at http://ann.sounds.free.fr/ Handy for people like me who are just too lazy to fiddle with all those knobs. 
hey, about about
five essential free VST effects?
five essential free VST instruments?
five essential commercial VST effects?
five essential commercial VST instruments?
Glitch ()
Cygnus/Cygnus SF (excellent synth for pads)
Voyager (another excellent synth for basslines)
That’s it, I think. I’m mainly a drums guy, not melody. So I rely on samples more.
synth 1
microtonic ( or drumatic as an alternative )
karmafx synth
polyiblit ( or iblit )
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