Plug-Ins for Free

Many of the free plug-ins available (look for a continuing series here) are frankly not worth the disc space they occupy. iZotope's Vinyl certainly is. A simple VST, RTAS, MAS or AU plug-in that recreates the sound of old vinyl (and shellac I guess) by adding noise and filtering the audio. I've used it to do all kinds of tricks, including the old "voice on the telephone" sound. I really like the ability to adjust individual parameters to get effects far beyond the intended purpose. Using automation to "morph" in & out of an effect like this would be interesting too. iZotope's other products (particularly Ozone which I use) are unfortunately not free but still well worth a look.

LoFi Sounds

If you're into the LoFi bleepy-bloopy world of 8 bit, game system and Commodore 64 music you're probably already familiar with the likes of 8 bit bEtty (free album for download), Tobiah and the 8 bit Operators. Using Game Boy cartridges and the C64's SID sound chip many of these acts are producing sophisticated music.

Although these systems have their purists & devotees, composition can be a long and arduous task on these platforms. However, from LoFi Japanese band YMCK comes the free VST/AU plug-in Magical 8 Bit (demo'ed above). Now you easily create, from scratch LoFi music or just as interesting, incorporate some of these retro sounds into your exisiting songs.