The community in the Audio Drama Lab Discord server is constantly compiling incredible resources to help each other create incredible art. In an effort to make these lists more accessible, we’ll start posting these here on the site, starting with 8 free VST instruments that don’t suck. In the meantime, if you’d like to see it faster or contribute yourself, you can always join us on Discord. To be clear, we receive nothing in exchange for mentioning anything we post, it’s just a collection by the community, for the community.
Spitfire BBC Orchestra
“Literally the BBC orchestra fully sampled, totally free. This was what started me on a path of orchestral composition over lockdown. Now I’m an addict. It’s an incredible freebie. Whilst it’s lacking legatos and has fewer round robins and dynamic layers than the more expensive versions, it is incredible in its own right. Highly recommend.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
Get Spitfire Audio Discover BBC Symphony Orchestra
Spitfire LABS
“All kinds of instruments ranging from orchestral through to folk music, synths, classic rock drum kits, and a foghorn. Yes, you read that right. They require the free Spitfire downloader which you can get on the page.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
“Okay, but fr, the Foghorn in Labs SLAPS!”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
Get Spitfire Audio LABS Collection
Pianobook
“This is a sampling community and has its roots in Spitfire Audio. All sounds require a sampler to use but many are made for specific free samplers, such as Decent Sampler [Editor’s Note: there’s a free bonus plugin for ya!]. There’s all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff here from samples tin whistles to muttering voices turned into synths. Some great sound design kit, too.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
Dexed
“This is an absolute beast of a synth but is incredibly overwhelming if you’re not familiar with this sort of stuff. However, there are tons of great presents and you can often use them as a starting point and tweak them. It’s great for atmospherics, sound design, leads, everything.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
Komplete Start
“Native Instruments’ free bundle features all kinds of instruments and sound design tools. A full sampled band, several acoustic instruments from around the world such as ouds, ocarinas, flutes, plenty of synths from spooky 80s horror sounds to fat bass to atmospheric pads. It also features a guitar amp/cab plugin with effects and a whole section of loops and samples.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
Get Native Instruments Komplete Start
Vital
“Another amazing synth and much more intuitive to use than Dexed. Tons of presets and tons of flexibility. Create everything from lush strings sounds to Stranger Things spooky goodness.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
u-he TyrellN6
“It’s a subtractive soft synth with tons of useable presets. It’s easy and fun to use and great for warm ups or when you have musical writer’s block. Boot it up, mess around, and find inspiration in minutes.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
Ample Guitar M Lite II
“A decent sounding acoustic guitar. You can also import guitar tabs I believe, which is a neat feature.”
– Audio Drama Lab Community Member
We hope you found this list useful. Either way, feel free to join the community of audio drama creators including actors, writers, musicians, directors, graphic designers, and more on the Audio Drama Lab Discord server!