Good free/cheap plugins for Macs?

DrewPeterson7

DrewPeterson7

Sage of the Order
Ok, so after years of contemplating it, and after getting very nervous about the starting-to-fail 9 1/2 year old hard drive inside my 6-year-old PC that a project I've now spent more than 3 years recording and is just in the final mix stage now, I made the switch from a PC to a shiny new i7. So far, it's awesome.

One problem - I have no idea if they're still well regarded around here (or if they ever will, really) as I haven't been posting much of late, but the Antress Modern plugins have increasingly become my go-to compression plugins of late/. I like the fact they're free, partly for budgetary reasons and partly because I just think it's cool that someone took the time to make them for the heck of it, and while I hear they're imperfect versions of some of the stuff they're loosely based on, they happen to sound pretty damned good in their own right, and I've used them long enough that I'm comfortable with them. Problem is they're .dll files and accordingly Windows only.

So... What's out there either as freeware or as relatively affordable stuff that I should check out? Compressors would obviously be a priority (especially a good opto - on the project I'm just wrapping up (on my PC, which is still set up on a corner of my desk) I've been using the Lost Angel on damned near every acoustic track and then a good chunk of my leads as well), but I like options so I'd be willing to check out anything. I'm using Reaper so I have all the Cokos stuff already. Any other suggestions? It's not super urgent as I'm just wrapping up this album and I'm not going to jump straight into the next, but I'd like to spend some time getting to know how the compressors I have to use, in particular, respond before I do any more serious recording.

Also, since I know a whole bunch of you guys and haven't been around lately... Hi! :D
 
I used the Modern Lost Angel for a couple of years under recommendation from several people. I recently bought the X2 Sonar plugins including the Concrete Limiter and the CA2A and I find it definitely worth the money.
 
I used to say digital phish phones, but I'm not sure if they ever made intel versions (EDIT, no they did not and they will not work on modern macs)

On the cheap (some of the mellowmuse stuff might be a bit pricey):
DDMF: VST/AU/RTAS plugins, audio software
Stillwell Plugins... | Stillwell Audio - It's About The Sound
Mellowmuse CP3V - Vintage Compressor RTAS, Audio Unit and VST plugin for OSX and Windows

And because it's on sale, for what you get I consider this an incredible deal:
Musicians 2 | Bundles | Waves

Free:
LePou Plugins
Audio Plug-Ins
Brainworx | bx_cleansweep V2
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/detail/spl_free_ranger.html
KVR: Wagner Sharp by Nick Crow Lab - Details

Make sure you read how this works, the "shell" is free and comes with very little but some useful tools. So it is technically free, but you don't get much of anything.
IK Multimedia | SampleTank 2.5 XL
IK Multimedia | AmpliTube Custom Shop

Native instruments has thier kontakt player for free as well as kore and reaktor. Again limited sounds but it's free so.

I actually went through my plugins to put together this list. Honestly most of what I have acquired was either free for a month kind of stuff that I watched out for, or I got on sale. The majority of my plugins are all purchased stuff.
 
Thanks - I've got a Roadster/4x12 and a fairly clean signal path so amp emulation is something I'm not terribly interested in, but I'll check out some of those, particularly the compressors.

Really, I would kill for a decent optical compressor. :lol: Doesn't have to be modeled on anything in particular as long as it sounds good.
 
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