Free Audio Plug Ins - Are they safe?

[the blues daddy]

hello there,

I am a newby using cubase SE and have been reading on tweakheadz.com about free plugs in. Tweak (as he calls himself) has mentioned that there are many free plug ins avaliable on the web but that they can be a potential danger to your application/computer and that he will only use ones he has purchased.

Does any of you agree with this caution?

Has anyone had any bad exeperiences with any free plug ins?

Does any one know of any free plug ins that are safer than others?

At my stage of homerecording it is definitly not worth me purchasing plug ins as I need to get the quality of recording 'dry' improved first - however some free but safe plugs could be interesting.

Any help on this is greatley appreciated.

cheers

[scrubs]

Anything you download could be potentially harmful, but there are plenty of stable plugs that are free. I have yet to purchase any plugins for Cubase SE. I use the included ones and many freebies. I have had a couple that did not work properly or caused Cubase to lock up, but everything was fine once I uninstalled them. Here are some of my faves:

Classic Series - these guys get a lot of use as they are some of the best sounding freebies I've encountered

Digital Fishphones - the compressor and de-esser (available in the fish fillets suite) are pretty darn neat

SIR Reverb - one of the coolest free reverbs, as it uses impulse recordings of real spaces. Can be a resource hog, and you must download Impulses of spaces to use within the plug. There are some available on that site, and you can get a lot more by googling "Impulse Responses"