My Top 15 FREE Mixing Plugins for 2021

let's look at 15 free mixing plugins you need to know about hey what's going on chris selim here from mixdown online first if you're new here on the channel subscribe to the channel click that notification bell if you enjoyed the video share and like and you can also download my free mini training on how to build the perfect mix template and that will include some free multi-tracks and also some free cheat sheet so just click on the link down below okay so now let's jump in cubase we have a lot to cover and i don't want this video to last like for for an hour and a half all right so we're gonna jump and talk about the first one do just a quick test on most of them and i'm also going to leave the list of all of those plugins with the links in the description down below so the first one is called coffee pond by acoustica audio which is a poltex style eq that has a lot of character so it's a very good plug-in if you're new to uh to the analog type eq and you want to start mixing with those that is actually a very good way to start so like the original paultech this one manages the low frequencies and also the high frequencies so we first have a low cut frequency filter or a high pass filter where we can select the fixed frequencies right here at the bottom i'm going to put this one to 150 and we determine how much cut we want to have by turning this big knob and then we have the boost if you want to boost some low frequencies and the low boost frequency selector is right here again fixed frequencies so i'm going to bring this one to 50. then we have the high section the high frequency section which has a gain that we can uh reduce or boost and we select the frequencies right here down below again fixed frequencies that goes from a 3.9 k to 20k and we also have the q factor right here which ends up to be a high shelf there's a pre button here which i assume will emulate a preamp tone uh where we can then add a bit more input so we have the input trim and output as well the output level that we can manage afterwards so let's try this one out on these acoustic drums which is provided by emilydrums.com check her out [Music] all right so let me add a bit of 50 hertz [Music] and get a bit more control by just increasing the the cut level of the high pass filter let's add a bit of top end to the signal let's bring that to a high shelf [Music] i'm very gentle with it but you know it sounds very good so this is the coffee pun eq by acoustica audio the link is down below okay the next one on the list is from slate digital and this one is called fresh air this is a very cool plugin and this one is based on analog exciters and will add some shiny and brilliance to your sound so let's try it out on this on this full [Music] mix very cool so it does add some shyness and brightness to uh to the mix love this plugin that can be used in mastering on the mix bus on an instrument bus even on a single track if you want to very good quality plug-in and sounds very good and you don't need to add a lot for it to to shine your mixes you know so just a bit just a sparkle of uh of amount of this plug-in is gonna do the trick very well next let's look at some compressors the first one on the list is the tdr molotok by tokyo dawn labs that one is fairly new i think it was released back in the fall if i'm not mistaken it's a very nice compressor sounds very good and so what we have we have an internal side chain a threshold attack release you know all the basic stuff ratio makeup gain we also have a dry mix perfect for parallel compression you just need to balance the dry signal with the fully compressed signal to do so and we also have these three modes here that we're gonna look at right now so let's listen to how this compressor sounds like on the drums [Music] now let's look at this parameter and we're just gonna go from one to another [Music] so it seems to go you know from a relaxed compression to a more aggressive compression which is quite cool a very cool plug-in that could be a very good addition to your stock plug-in that you work with already the next one on the list is the dc-1a from klanghelm very good simple compression plugin there's only an input and an output as far as the main knobs main parameters but we also have different vibes you know different modes that we have at the bottom of the plugin that actually sound very good the first one will have an internal sidechain high pass filter the second one when activated is going to add more of a slow attack and slow release dual mono will compress the left and the right on the stereo channel independently from each other very practical i love dual mono compressors and negative is going to be like super extreme which will add negative ratio values and a way more extreme input also which is going to give you like that that very aggressive compression so let's try it out [Music] okay let's go negative now [Music] now i'm overdoing it but this is how i like to learn about a plug-in and what the plugin is made is made of you know so i kind of love how this one sounds like so this is the clam helm dc one a even if it's a simple plug-in there's a lot you can do with it okay next is a stereo bus compressor now this one is called the buster se it's uh it's a solid state bus compressor which is going to give you the ssl bus compressor vibe where we have the threshold makeup gain attack release there's an auto release also and also as far as the ratio goes it goes down to 1.5 to 1 and there's a mix knob right here which balances the dry sound the dry signal with the wet signal now when turbo is activated from what i've read on the website the compressor will affect the full frequency range of the incoming signal otherwise it will only focus on the middle frequencies so let's have a quick listen do [Music] it does a very good job you know for a free plug-in it's pretty good if you don't have a stereo bus compressor that you work with already that can be a very good option before investing into a third-party plug-in so this is the buster se the next on the list is a saturation plugin and this one is called saturator by bedroom producers blog very simple plugin to work with straight to the point even the name of the plugin is you know is kind of straight to the point so what we see is what we get saturation that's it so tube tape saturation so let's have a listen to what i have here [Applause] [Music] [Music] very cool saturation plug-in if you need one or you're just looking for another type of color as far as saturation goes you know this one is very simple to use straight to the point and sounds pretty good now let's look at a very cool reaver plug-in this one from valhalla and it's called supermassive and you know it has that name for a reason so i'm going to try this one on a vocal it's too late now i remember every scene okay that's pretty cool now you know it's a reaver but it's also a delay depending on the parameters you use okay let's add a bit of feedback to this and bring this to notes [Music] okay i'm gonna try it on this guitar let's bring that super massive on again pretty cool let's look at the the presets we have now we have echoes reverbs let's stick to the reverb side and look for a small a small reverb let's go with this one [Music] so you can get something like super tight and a bit more roomy which is quite nice so let's go again and look for something large or massive let's go with the massive that's only the reverb listen to that it is massive let's try a delay on this one [Music] that's cool presets are good and you can actually learn by trying those presets and learn about those parameters and how you can just make this plug-in sound more like a reverb or more like a delay very very cool plug-in the valhalla super supermassive now the next one is a delay and it's called the baby comeback and this is the little brother of the comeback kid delay from baby audio which is a great delay plug-in very cool to work with a lot of cool stuff you can do with this plugin and the free version is actually very cool so you need to put your hands on this one okay that's with the saucy flavor let's try wide [Music] okay pretty cool analog okay a bit more mono okay kind of like that and there's cheap add some noise and stuff you know alright so i'm going to keep that too wide and let's add some ping pong delay on that [Music] and ducker is actually a very cool option let's try this one on the vocal okay i'm gonna show you what that does this is basically side chain compression on the delay you know triggered by the vocal so this is basically what ducker is gonna essentially do so this is a very nice plug-in for a free plug-in it's high quality it sounds very good and there you go so uh there's a there's some cool stuff like ducker that you can do with this plug-in the next one is the shower tape model plug-in which is a tape machine type emulation plug-in now it doesn't emulate a specific tape machine model but it will give you that type of sound and tone so what we have here uh we have all the the type of parameters we are going to find on a tape machine like if we look at the ips you know 7.5 and even goes down to 3.75 and then we have like the usual 7.5 15 and 30. but on top of that you can actually go into between those values or even higher up to 50 ips level which is not found on tape machines usually so this is what i'm saying it's not modeled after a specific tape machine model but it's going to give you that type of vibe and sound and tone so let's look at the presets that we have here there's not a lot of presets but you don't need a lot for this type of plug-in i just need the essentials so let's try the old tape preset okay i love to just load a preset to start working with this type of plug-in and work around from this point so i'm gonna try this one i'm gonna bypass it for now and try this one on the full mix that we uh we've listened to earlier [Music] let's add a bit of saturation [Music] i like that okay listen to this thickness this is going to adjust the thickness of the tape itself [Music] so it will dark up the sound now there's a lot to look at with this plug-in that i'm not gonna cover in this video so download it try it out experiment with it and let me know in the comments section how it goes okay next let's look at we're gonna talk about vocals and we are gonna try a vocal doubler plugin and this one is the vocal doubler by isotope so what i did i created myself an effects channel track and i'm gonna use it as a send effect to the vocal pretty cool it's too late now i remember every scene so if you want to just add a bit more width to uh to a vocal or as a special effect you can use vocal doubler that works very well this is the perfect candidate for the uh the doubling effect that i like to use in cubase you can use this plugin and get a similar type of effect now i remember every scene where you use it only in a very subtle way to add a bit more width to uh the vocal so this is vocal doubler by isotope the next plugin on the list is from again baby audio and this wall is called magic switch this is an 80s inspired chorus effect that actually sound very good it's surprising how good that one is okay i'm going to bypass it and let's add this one on this track here mono synth sound that is coming from this little guy the micro freak on my side that i recorded straight in cubase now i want to add more width to this sound i'm going to use magic switch to do so um now the channel is a stereo channel because those types of chorus plugins needs to be inserted on a stereo channel for better results and this is what i did here so i have my mono signal on the stereo channel so i can use that stereo effect and this is what it's going to sound like using magic switch now i'm overdoing it you know it's at the max maximum level but it gives you a very good idea on you know what that effect sounds like and you don't need to add much for it to sound good [Music] very cool so you know check it out magic switch from bb audio okay next we're talking about sub frequencies you know you want to add a bit more subs to a base or to a kick or a drum loop you can use this little guy from brainworx that is again 100 free high quality plug-in and this one is the bx sub filter so with this plugin i'm going to add some low end to this drum groove [Music] so we can add some tight punch more low end and then the resonance you have the choice between low high and [Music] extreme [Music] so it can be very extreme with this type of plug-in to be careful with so let me bring this down and you know balance that out a bit pretty cool so it does the job very well so the brainworx bx subfilter again 100 free the next plugin on the list is spam from voxengo it's one of my favorite graphic analyzer plugin it's free i've been working with this one for years the way i like to set it up is to put the mode to master with this mode i get a more smooth frequency reading [Music] so cool we have the correlation the meter on the bottom on the bottom right of the plug-in very simple plug-in love to work with it that's how i use it and it's my go-to spectrum analyzer what i usually do though is to insert this plug-in straight in the insert section of the control room this is where i insert all of my all of my reference plugins if you're looking for a free vu meter i actually found one for you and this one is from a tb pro audio and it's called the mv meter 2. very cool vu plug-in looks nice and works very well on top is where you set your reference level so when i'm gain staging and i want to use a vu meter i can set that up to 18. so in that case 0vu is going to be the equivalent of -18 dbfs so this is going to give me an idea on on that level range that i'm at using this plug-in so this is what i like about using a vu meter and this can be practical also when mastering you can monitor your levels with a vu meter a lot of mastering engineers do so so this is a very good free alternative if you want to put your hands on a vu meter okay next and last this is the last plugin for this video and it's actually it's a different plugin and it's an amazing tool okay this is it's not like sound related but it's more a time management tool look at that i created myself a time attract time channel where i insert this following plugin and this one is from hofa and it's called the 4u project time it's an amazing plugin it's a it's a time tracking plug-in time management plug-in uh where it's gonna track the time when your project is open so every time uh if you have like this plugin inserted on the track on the channel in your project every time you're gonna open the project and work with it it's gonna it's gonna just track the time so this way you can know how much time it takes you to mix a song or to work on an arrangement or whatever you're doing in your day w so if you're planning on tracking your time especially when you run the business or you're working with a client even as a personal thing you want to know how much time it takes you to mix a song you can just use this plugin it's going to tell you right away you can pause if you're going on a break you want to keep your project open you just pause the timer you do what you have to do you come back you continue and that's it and every time you shut down the project that clock is going to stop running that simple that plugin was suggested by one of my students ivy so shout out to you my man thank you very much very cool plugin i'm actually gonna start using this plugin a lot so there you go my friends those are all 15 free mixing plugins that you need to know about i'm gonna leave all the links down below okay all the names of the plugins uh there are some time stamps um for every plugins in the video so if you just wanna watch one section of the video i'm gonna leave all the time stamps down below with also the links to all the plugins i covered in this video so check them out let me know in the comments section what you think of them which one you like the most and if you have any other suggestions because i'm going to tell you there's a lot of mixing plugins and all sorts of plugins that are free out there it's unbelievable and i had way more to be honest with you to talk about but i just needed to bring that down to those 15 plugins so leave all of your comments down below and also your questions if you have some until next time take care and see

Channel: Chris Selim - Mixdown Online

Views: 48,954

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Keywords: audio, audio engineering, audio mixing, chris selim, cubase, cubase 9, cubase pro, home recording, home studio, home studio mixing, home studios, mixdown, mixdown online, mixing, mixing audio, mixing tip, mixing tutorials, Free plugins, Free mixing plugins, free mixing plugins 2021, free vst plugins, free vst plugins 2021, best free plugins, best free vst plugins, best free vsts

Id: 1bnuiCiS3FA

Length: 24min 35sec (1475 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021