8 free experimental plugins

Is your latest production feeling a little boring? Shake things up with these free experimental plugins. 

1. Unplug.red - Prisma

Download Prisma

We're kicking this list off with Prisma, which one of the best looking plugins we've seen in a long time. Best of all, it sounds as good as it looks. What you have here is a modular multi-band distortion, which can distort incoming audio in four separate frequency bands using 16 different modules. It's perfect for both advanced tone shaping as well as more experimental sound design. 

The free version doesn't lose any features, instead it features a non-intrusive banner. The paid version is just £5, so if you like Prisma and have the means, it's a great opportunity to support an independent creator. Make sure to check out their other plugins too, which are equally interesting - both visually and sonically. 

Prisma is compatible with Windows, macOS and Linux (VST3, 64-bit only). 

2. Baby Audio - Magic Dice

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One press of Magic Dice's single knob transforms your audio source. Huge soundscapes, rhythmic modulation and reversed reverb were just some of the excellent sounds generated in our short experiment with the plugin. 

Generating ideas is lightning fast and with only a mix slider to play with you'll spend less time pulling open the various macro controls and instead really listen for the sound that resonates with you and build out from there with the rest of your toolset. So, if you're looking to get the most out of your next ideation session, we can't recommend this enough to spark some ideas.

Magic Dice is compatible for Windows and macOS. An email address is required to download the plugin and will sign you up to Baby Audio's newsletter, which you can unsubscribe from at any time. 

3. Puremagnetik - Expanse / Driftmaker

Download Expanse / Driftmaker

Released in tandem, these two plugins from Puremagnetik are excellent tools for some left-field sonics. Expanse is a texture generator that can be spectrally blurred, pitched and filtered. It creates filtered noise and layers a pitch shifted replica on top of itself, which then undergoes spectral blurring and freezing to create interweaving layers of sound. Creating these sounds is nice and simple, and is ideal for drones and textural soundscapes. 

Driftmaker is a delay disintegration device. Parsing incoming audio, it then lifts segments from the recording, granularly time-stretches them and adds analog deterioration effects to the signal. The end product is all down to what you feed into it, so you can really experiment with a variety of different recordings to create some interesting sonics.

Expanse and Driftmaker are compatible for both Windows and Mac (AU/VST).

4. AudioThing - The Orb

Download The Orb

When used in music, the human voice has the power to tap into something otherworldly, but we don't all have a great voice or a vocalist to contribute. This is where The Orb comes in; a formant filter that simulates the human voice using any sounds you give it. 

You can customise these sounds using three different LFOs, create your own set of vowels or hit the randomise button for an instant preset. 

The Orb is compatible with both Windows (VST2, VST3, AAX, 64bit only) and macOS (AU, VST2, VST3, AAX, 64bit only).

5. Insert Piz Here - Harsh Digital Noise

Download Harsh Digital Noise

Like The Orb, Harsh Digital Noise requires a source in order to do its job, however it's not audio - its images. Drag and drop - or draw in real-time - any two images, and Harsh Digital Noise converts that into two oscillator waveforms and mixes them in "various horrible ways". 

Some refer to this as a happy accidents plugin, but the sounds generated are anything but happy. If you're looking for raw and brutal sounds, this is a must-try. 

Harsh Digital Noise is compatible for Windows (VST, 32/64-bit) and macOS (AU, VST). 

6. Plogue - Alter/Ego

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If The Orb whetted your appetite for synthesised vocals then you're going to enjoy Alter/Ego. There are three voice banks to choose from, though you will need to download them first after installing the plugin. They are Marie Ork 2, recommended for death metal and monster voices for game/film; ALYS, which can sing in both French and Japanese; and Bones, a male vocal that can sing in French, Japanese and English. 

To get these voices to sing, you just type in your lyrics (there's space for 120 different lines) and use your MIDI keyboard to play each individual word. In mono mode, you can use a mod wheel to add vibrato or you can change to poly mode for a choir-like sound. You can tweak the vocal characteristics with an extensive array of effects, as well. 

Alter/Ego is compatible with Windows (VST, AAX, 64-bit only) and macOS (VST, AU, AAX, 64-bit only), and is usable as a standalone app or within a DAW. 

7. MNTRA - Rasa

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If you're producing music and/or sound design for screen then this next recommendation is for you. Rasa is, as MNTRA describe it, "a free gateway into our sound sculpture series". Bringing together four sample maps, Rasa includes the large Tibetan Horn (Orakle), the Morin khuur (Arca), Pitched Volcanic Rocks (Atma), and their "Viper" Death Whistle (UDW). 

Not only is the interface gorgeous to look at, it's an easy plugin to navigate in spite of its deep customisation. Within the MNDALA Engine you'll find a series of tabs including perform, matrix, samplers, arpeggiator and master, each of which allow you to tweak each of the four instruments. Rasa comes with 14 presets to start off with, but once you get the feel of things you can start building your own custom sonic palettes. 

Rasa is compatible for Windows and macOS, but you will also need to download the MNDALA Engine, which requires an account to download. 

8. Ableton - Microtuner

Download Microtuner

Ableton's Microtuner device opens up the world of microtonal music, a term commonly used to refer to intervals within music that are smaller than a semitone. Western tuning is made up of twelve equal intervals per octave - A to G# - or equal temperament. Microtonal music does not obey these standards and can therefore create a huge range of interesting and nuanced scales. 

With Microtuner, you can import, edit and generate microtonal scales for your productions; effectively removing the barrier to entry and opening up new and exciting creative possibilities. Scales can be drag and dropped into Microtuner, then edited live. Two individual scales can be morphed together to create complex and unique scales. Best of all, these scales can be synced across all instruments in your track. 

Microtuner is available for Ableton Live 11 Standard (v.11.1 or higher). 

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