Drum Berry
Price: Free
A sixteen-pad drum instrument: synthesis machines plus a one-shot library.
Instrument
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Free Pickings
Free drum and instrument plug-ins
These are instruments you play, not processors you place on a track. One builds drums from synthesis, one crossfades recorded microphone perspectives, and one is a brass instrument assembled from recordings and driven per voice. All three are free with an account.
Free with a Fat Berry account. Each plug-in has its own perpetual licence; no card is needed.
3 plug-ins
In this group
Every product below is active, free and available as its own download.
Fidelity
Price: Free
A drum instrument with one macro that moves through recorded mic perspectives.
Instrument
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
Mutant Brass
Price: Free
Turn a brass source into a playable hybrid instrument with a breath of its own.
Instrument
Windows VST3 · Mac VST3 / AU
How to choose
Pick by the job, then compare
These are different tools, not 3 versions of one.
- Programming versus performance
- Drum Berry is a 16-pad instrument with 32 kits, five synthesis machines and a browsable 489-clip library. Choose it when you want to program a kit; choose Fidelity for recorded microphone perspectives of a performance.
- Recorded perspective as a control
- Fidelity crossfades between seven recorded microphone perspectives of the same performance with one macro. It is the choice when the drum sound should move in space rather than change identity.
- Brass with a real source
- Mutant Brass is built from recordings of a war tuba, baritone and alto saxophones, squidpipes and chamber brass, driven through per-voice processing. It is not a generic sample bank, and it will not sound like an orchestral library; it is its own instrument.
Listening check
Build a four-bar pattern with only the instrument and no processing. If the raw voices already sit together, the instrument is doing its job; if every part needs rescue EQ, try a different member of the hub.
Also free