Free Audio Effects (part I)

Posted October 3, 2009
Filed under: music software |

You need to have the a good set of ‘bread and butter’ audio effects.

This free set from Danish company Kjaerhus Audio is superb in every way:

very low CPU usage
excellent sound quality
analogue type sound
simple interface
consistent design
very helpful website

best free autofilter on the web: envelope following and LFO tempo sync. Sounds great.

nice chorus: good for fattening / wetting guitars, bass, synths, etc.

good compressor: easy to use, sounds good

excellent delay: syncable to tempo, ping pong, tape delay, the lot.

excellent delay: syncable to tempo, ping pong, etc. very good.

a nice 7 band eq with separate settings for both channels: this allows you to play with the stereo image as well as the eq. Sounds nice and warm.

flanger: my favourite in the collection because it actually sounds like a real analogue flanger, not like a horrible digital tube flanger. This is great.

limiter: useful but don't overdo it. There are better free limiters.

phaser. it works fine and sounds real.

cracking reverb - smooth sound with filters so that you only put verb on the bits you want to. Very nice and very low CPU.

cracking reverb - smooth sound with filters so that you only put verb on the bits you want to. You would probably want something more 'special' for a vocal or standout effect, but for general usage this hits the spot.

This is a wonderful set of plugins.

Get it here. While you are there, check out their ‘tips’ pages for each effect.

Pnoom