The Best Free Music Software I Discovered While Working on a Super Metroid Tribute Album

I wrote a Super Metroid Tribute album, Ceres Station, live on Twitch using only free software.

Hans Zimmer has frequently said something along the lines of, “I could score a movie with a cardboard box and rubber band”. 

Maybe he’s glossing over some expenses: microphone, computer, software, ect. But I actually take his point pretty well. This is a man who has all the money, all of the professional help, and all of the equipment in the world at his disposal, and he is making an extreme effort to highlight that, at the end of the day, it’s the creativity that matters. It’s the music, that matters. 

So, why do we buy stuff? Why does Hans Zimmer have walls of synthesizers? Why does he have the best microphones that money can buy?Why do I have synthesizers? Why do I have microphones that are very medium, in terms of what money can buy? 

Sometimes our tools save us time. Sometimes they open up new sounds that we weren’t previously capable of making. And sometimes, some of these people… are just trying to spend money.

As a person who has used a lot of the tools out there, including some pretty expensive ones. What were my favorite free tools that I was able to find? 


1. Best Free-ish DAW: Reaper

So this is a no brainer. I already used this. And I might be bending the rules a bit. I used Reaper. Anyone can go online and download a full featured version of Reaper. You can use it forever, with no limitations. It’s the same as the one everybody uses. There is a little reminder that tells you that people work very hard on it. And that if you are making money, you should pay for a license. So hopefully, at some point the guilt outweighs the savings that you are getting from not paying. So you, should pay for Reaper. Although technically you can use it for free. 


2. Best Free Synthesizers:

I use a lot of synths in my music, software and hardware. I was very nervous at the prospect of losing some of my favorite tools like Serum or Massive. For the first half of the project, I was relying heavily on Odin 2 because it is a great sounding, full featured software synthesizer. But I got lucky, because halfway through the project a brand new, free synth came out called Vital, which quickly became the best that I used.

Vital

Vital, at this point is my favorite software synth, free or paid. I love it. I’m not sure that I would have learned it as quickly as I did. But because I was working on this project, I fell in love with it very quickly. 

Runner up:

VCV Rack

VCV Rack is an open source, modular synthesizer platform. It’s made to be Eurorack-like in it’s workflow.  It’s incredibly detailed, but once you understand how modular synths work, it is very powerful to use. 

I used both the basic VCV rack, and an unofficial port of it called VeeCeeVST. Which allows you to open a simplified version of it as a plugin in your daw. 


3. Best Free Samples

I’m going to have to break this part up into three sections. 

3A: Electronic Drum Sounds

BVKER Packs:

Most of the drum sounds that I used came from BVKER. Great drum sounds, they feel modern and very usable. Not overly processed so they layered with each other very well. 

Runner up:

EDMProd EDM Starter Kit:

This has some great drums, and also some cool sound effects and ambience samples, which I used a lot of.

3B: Rock Drum Sounds:

Slate Drums: These are great sounding, live drum samples. Packaged in an easy to use sampler. 

3C: Metroid-y Sounds

Florestan Basic – This is a little bit from left field, and very unique to the project but I needed those classic 90’s ROMpler sounds. I tried a lot of the free/open source ones, and these felt the most authentically “Metroid”. You need a soundfont player, and I used DSK most often for that. 


4. Best Free EQs

TDR Nova from Tokyo Dawn records.

Tokyo Dawn is a record label, but they alos make great and mostly free plugins. This EQ, Nova, comes close to rivaling my favorite paid EQ – Fabfilter Pro Q3, and definitely beats most stock EQ’s that come in DAWs. It’s great, I didn’t miss anything when I was using it. 

Runner up:

Another one from Tokyo Dawn is one I used a tiny bit. Slick EQ. It’s made to be a bit more of an old school workflow. But it has some cool vintage saturation algorithms that I used a bit on this project. 


5. Best Free Saturation/Distortion

Now we are in a zone where I actually started to miss some of my paid plugins. I wasn’t able to find my favorite Fabfilter Saturn. I tried a LOT of different techniques to crunch up the sound in ways that work for what I was trying to do. 

I finally found one that sounds great, and fits into my workflow: Trikik Krush

But I found it late in the project, so I didn’t get to use it as much as I would have if I had it all the way through. 

Runner up:

FerricTDS by Variety of Sound

Because I didn’t have Krush for most of the project, I wound up stacking multiple instances of this plugin together. The maximum is not as crunchy as I often needed, but when you put 3 or 4 on top of each other, you start to get what you need. 


6. Best Free Reverbs

Another place where I found myself missing my paid software. 

The one I used the most is: 

Orilriver.

Now, this is a great free reverb. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m picky about reverbs, and I wouldn’t say that it rivals some of my favorites. 

Runner up:

Valhalla Supermassve

Valhalla makes my favorite reverbs on the market, and the paid ones are actually very affordable. But this one is not meant to be a full workhorse effect. It’s does what it does very well. But if you are looking for more subtle sounds, it’s not the right tool for the job. 

Honorable mention – Tal Reverb 2 and Tal Reverb 4 are two free reverbs with great algorithmic sounds. One of these is actually inside of the Serum Synthesizer. And if I had one criticism of Vital, it’s that the reverb and delays don’t sound great. So I used Tal reverbs on Vital, and with that you basically have a free Serum sound more or less. 


7. Best Free Delays:

Sanford Delay – A clean and easy to use delay. Not too many bells and whistles on this one, but it worked when I needed it. 

Runner up: Nasty DLA Variety of Sound

This one has more chorus and color. I like the sound a lot. Why didn’t I use it more? I’m not sure, it’s great, I should have. 


Best Miscellaneous Plugins:

Wow and Flutter – Because of the nature of the album, I needed to simulate tape/vinyl WOW a lot. This saved my day on many occasions. 

Everything else: 

Melda Bundle:

I used the compressor a fair bit. Occasionally I needed some basic tools, which you’ll usually find in most DAW’s. I used the Tremolo, Tuner, Analyzer, and many others for basic sound shaping tools. I could see myself using these plugins a lot if I were switching between DAW’s a lot, and didn’t want to relearn their stock plugins.  


Recap:

Top Tier Free Software

Reaper (of course)

Vital

VCV Rack

Medium Tier Free Software:

TDR Nova 

All of the Samples that I mentioned in the sample section 

Bottom Tier Free Sfotware:

Saturation/Distortion plugins

Reverbs

Delays

That’s pretty much it. If you enjoyed this, you can check out the youtube video that I made about the same subject.

Also you can check out the album!