Good free soft synths (not the same old question, I promise).

Alchemy player free
Crystal
Superwave P8
http://krakli.com/krakli-free-synths/

GSi (Genuine Soundware and Instruments, formerly known as SoundFonts) has produced some great and unique softsynths and effects, some free and some not.

http://www.genuinesoundware.com/

NI has a few free synths with some pretty impressive sound packs that are not part of the K7 package.

Just look at their site. I browsed it just now and they have 7 things with a big FREE sticker on them. I have used the NI free stuff in the past (before I bought K6) and have found it to be very good stuff. Totally functional.

Also... about twice a week (at least) check in on the software forum. People will find all sorts of free things on the web and they come back and post that news.

I have picked up a bunch of free synths and sound paks by doing that.

The latest one was the camel audio synth & sounds. Just about to slide off the bottom of the page...  Alchemy Player

Kev999

SampleTank Free... a smattering of ST content for free... http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletankfree/features/

Although a bit limited, the free version of SampleTank it is certainly worth adding to your synth collection if you don't already have the full version.  There is also a similar free version of Sonik Synth:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1478.html

Thanks for pointing that out! Both are great bread and butter VI's. I LOVe the EP's in Sonik Synth 2 and its not even known for those types of sounds!

Triangle and Square, available from Cakewalk are old but decent traditional synth VSTis.
 
As a sample player Yellowtools Independence Free is worth a look. IMHO the bundled sound set is a bit more useable than the one that comes with Kontakt player and it has some facilities for loading and mapping a limited number of your own samples.
 
 

Serenarules


Thanks guys! You gave me a lot to go through. But if I may ask, any specific drum vst's I should look at? I'm familiar with th KVR GET page, but there doesn't really seem to be a way to tell without downloading them all and trying them which is the best. I mostly do trance, so good tight snares, hi-hats and kicks are my staple.

SampleTank and some of the other VI's mentioned already have some great drum options. :) Otherwise you can also expand that by using a Sampler and drum samples. There are tons all over the web, I have a decent collection on my site as well.

Serious Noize!


  This is the best list I have found to date. Several pages of free Synths to be found here, a lot of them have sound samples you can listen to for certain ones also. Make sure and check out all the pages.

Hope this helps. Here's the link :    http://lesitedeburnie.fre...listedeburnie1-en.html

Thanks Bobby that's a great list.

That's a good list, seems to need a bit of an update though... e.g., I don't see Noisemaker and a couple of others that have come out over the last year or so. 

BTW, grab "the last free beta of Helix" linked on his site. I have a commercial license and it's a monster of a hybrid. Don't know if he should be redistributing the beta from his own site like that, but...

For electronic drum sounds, I agree with IK Obi about grabbing some sort of sampler. This KVR search will give you a bunch of free drum synths and samplers:  http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=results&st=adv&soft%5B%5D=i&type%5B%5D=3&type%5B%5D=31&f%5B%5D=vst&win=1&free=1&sf=0&receptor=&de=0&sort=1&rpp=100

I recommend something like SoftDrum LTD from Fretted synth Audio for loading your own drum samples. Supports up to 4 velocities per note if you have a need for velocity switching.  

Also, check out the freebie "drumsyn", which is a simple WAV factory type proggy useful for producing your own WAV files... particularly for synthesized drum sounds, but useful for all sort of blips, boops, bangs, and booms...  http://mda.smartelectronix.com/drumsynth.htm

Has a bunch of presets for 808, 909 type sounds. You can load the resulting WAVs into sampler, like SoftDrum LTD for example... Plus understanding how to create your own sounds will help you down the road when you get tired of all of those free synth presets and want to program your own sounds...

Get a copy of Computer Music Magazine. There's nearly a dozen very decent synths (ZebraCM, Astralis, Junglist, Dominator etc) on the cover DVD, plus other interesting material.
At least you know they are "filtered" somehow, so they are not just random  crap.