3 FREE Plug-Ins I Use For Music Production

Tutorial | Jul 29, 2022

In this video, I show how I use three free plug-ins to achieve my desired loudness target for my production. The first one is DbMeter5, which I use on my master bus to match the loudness peak. The second is Glitch, which I use on my drum bus to add texture and glitchy percussion. The last one is Piano Tech 7, which I use to generate drones by stretching the buffer and making adjustments.

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Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What plug-ins do you use most often in your productions? #

I use three main plug-ins most often in my productions: DbMeter5, Glitch, and Piano Tech 7. DbMeter5 is a loudness analyzer and auto-gain plugin that I use on my master bus to hit my loudness targets. Glitch is a pattern sequencer and FX chain plugin that I use on my drum bus to add glitchy percussions to my tracks. Finally, Piano Tech 7 is a piano plugin with a Paul Stretch buffer that I use to generate drones for my tracks.

How do you use DbMeter5 to target your loudness targets? #

I set the reference level to -8 and let the track play through, then I hit the match button and the gain is changed to match the reference level. I then use a DSEQ3 and Newfangled Audio limiter to reduce any frequencies that are above 0 dB.

How do you use Piano Tech 7 to generate drones for your tracks? #

I use the pass-through to disable incoming audio streams and hit record to capture the sound. I then adjust the buffer

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00.000] Hey folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:03.120] It's about three plug-ins that are completely free, and I use most of the times in all of
[00:11.400] my productions.
[00:14.120] And the first one is called DbMeter5, already in version 5 here.
[00:20.280] It's nice and resizable, and it's an loudness analyzer, but it also has some auto-gain functionalities.
[00:28.280] And I use this here most of the times on my master bus, as you can see as the first plug-in,
[00:34.520] and this basically changes the gain of the master channel and drives everything into
[00:42.560] a DSEQ3 here, which gets rid of some harsh frequencies, and then also in the newfangled
[00:49.920] audio elevate mastering limiter.
[00:52.720] And I don't use here the gain of the plug-in itself.
[00:56.720] I basically just use DbProAudioDbMeter5 as a gain tool.
[01:04.680] And I change at the reference level to minus 8.
[01:09.120] That's what I usually target for this type of music genre.
[01:15.560] And then I analyze and use the matching feature here.
[01:18.720] So I just click on short-term loudness max, match, and then the gain is changed as you
[01:24.840] can see here, reduced by minus 1.5 left to match this reference level here.
[01:34.600] And then everything that's above 0 dB gets basically pushed down by the elevate limiter
[01:40.840] here.
[01:42.880] And yeah, that's how I hit my loudness targets basically as well.
[01:47.720] And it's an easy way of doing this.
[01:50.320] I can show you how this looks like here, just play this.
[01:56.520] As you can see, nothing changes here, but when I push reset, it basically tries to find
[02:06.680] the maximum loudness peak.
[02:12.280] So I usually let this play here for the whole track or maybe for a sequence of pretty loud
[02:17.400] passages in my track.
[02:19.400] And then when I think it's good, then I hit this match button here, you can see the gain
[02:26.480] changes then.
[02:28.480] So it pushes the loudness a bit louder now.
[02:35.160] When the vocals come in, it's a bit too loud.
[02:38.320] As you can see here, we are already below 8 lbs.
[02:45.560] So when the gain then is finally changed to a correct loudness level, as I said, it goes
[02:56.560] in the DSE Q3 here, get rid of some harsh frequencies from the hi-hats, this is how
[03:04.160] it sounds without.
[03:21.120] So it's a lot of stuff that gets removed here.
[03:26.440] I also like to use here normal liters in normal mode instead of higher, and this basically
[03:35.520] changes the latency pretty heavily.
[03:40.160] Okay, but I don't want to go more into detail with that here.
[03:44.880] Then we go into the new fangled audio limiter here, and there's also of course filter bank
[03:48.960] changing the frequencies here to make it more evenly balanced, and there's also a transient
[03:58.000] shaper and a clipper at the end, so it's basically three plug-ins in one.
[04:03.520] And that's how I basically balance my loudness target, or how I target my loudness target.
[04:12.160] Okay, so that's the first one.
[04:15.480] The next one is on my drum bus here, and it's called Glitch, you probably already know this
[04:24.400] plug in it for so long, and that's already version 2.0 out, which is of course paid.
[04:31.480] But I just use this here, and I know you can do all of this probably natively in Bitvec
[04:38.920] Studio, but I just enjoy sometimes to put a VST plug-in on and press this randomize button
[04:45.600] because you can randomize the steps, which is the pattern sequencer here, and the FX
[04:51.760] itself here, so you have nine FX chains, different effects, and then you can sequence
[04:58.760] these effects here when they are played back.
[05:02.160] So I usually just hit here this both button so you randomize the pattern sequencer and
[05:06.800] the effects itself, and then I use your Bitvec Studio to switch to the Glitch plug-in only
[05:12.880] at the end of the drum bar or at the drum pattern, and this is how it sounds.
[05:22.240] So it glitches out at the end of the pattern, and you can see I have here some automation
[05:37.440] in there, so I don't want to have this glitch alternation here, only happening in this region
[05:44.760] here.
[05:45.760] It's not throughout the whole track, it just alternates between having the glitch on the
[05:50.040] drums and sometimes it's going away, so it's not all the time.
[05:54.160] So I'm used to this here basically to get a bit more nice textures and glitchy percussions
[06:01.520] in between the drums with this plug-in.
[06:04.920] So it's also completely free, link is in the description of course.
[06:10.200] The next one is not in the track anymore, but I bounced the drone from this.
[06:25.400] And I made this basically with this Piano Tech 7 here, which is a nice piano plug-in.
[06:34.520] I just used here Paul Stretch, that's how it's called, and that's also VST3 version,
[06:43.440] I think that's also VST2 version, and Clap, and I always use Clap nowadays.
[06:50.520] And yeah, what I do is I use here the pass-through, so I can hear the plug-in output, disable
[07:01.000] this, basically this plug-in blocks all the incoming sound or audio streams, and then
[07:07.680] I just hit record here, and then let this play back here, stretch it a bit, you get
[07:19.320] this nice droney feel.
[07:23.720] You can also use the pitch shifter here, and pitch this down.
[07:41.240] And this is how I generate my drones nowadays, it's pretty easy to do, and you don't need
[07:46.320] to resample anything, put it into a different sample or anything, you just hit record, use
[07:52.520] the buffer, stretch the buffer here, make some adjustments, and you're ready.
[07:58.960] Also nice that you save basically the buffer here with the project.
[08:04.560] So I did some projects where I just resampled here something, hit save on the project, and
[08:11.520] when you recall your project, the buffer is still in there, so it's saved with the preset,
[08:16.320] which is really nice.
[08:17.320] So it's basically a sampler, a sampler with some stretching, and I really like using this.
[08:24.320] So it's also completely free, link is in the description below, and also the track and
[08:29.360] the background is just released on Bandcamp and Spotify and all the streaming services,
[08:36.520] so there's also a link in the description where you can listen to this for longer.
[08:45.520] Thanks for watching, and leave a like if you liked the video, and see you in the next video.
[08:53.880] Thanks for watching, and bye.