While you’re recording your guitar during your home studio projects there’s something you want immediately right: your guitar tone. You want it aggressive, evil, distorted with great saturation and right EQ. What more? Nothing, the problem is that you have to render it as you’re actually thinking about it. That’s the hard part. Let’s start saying that this tutorial is for those guys who are starting their first studio project and who are trying to have more from their guitar sound. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, this is how I like to do it, keeping it the simpliest I can. Moreover I use free plugin, not bad for your wallet, isn’t it?
Related: Here’s a huge list of the Best Free VST Plugins ever. Krush by Tritik (Windows, Mac) Krush combines the crispy taste of the digital realm with the warmth of its drive stage and analog modeled resonant filters. A modulation section allows you to quickly add extra life to the sound by modulating any parameter. VST 4 FREE - Free Audio Plug-ins and Archives Free audio plugins archive - Instruments and effects for audio software. Plugins for Cubase, FL studio, Reaper, Ableton and other VST/AU platforms. TSE X50 is a free VST clone of the famous and “evil” Peavey 5150, massively used in extreme metal. Even this plugin recently got a new release: a must. If your target is an aggressive distortion, it won’t let you down. Another solid free autotune VST on our list, Auto-Tune Evo offers two distinctive ways to deal with pitch correction. For basic pitch corrections and correcting off notes in live performance in real-time, Automatic Mode would suffice as it identifies closest pitch in a user specified scale (minor, major, chromatic, etc).

I’m not a guitar player, not at all, I play every now and then guitar just to remember some riffs and record them quickly, with my cheap SG guitar (I bought it some years ago for about 100€ on ebay), B drop tuned with some awesome strings: RotoSoundDarkZone. I recorded some chords and some palm muted parts for this tutorial and, I mean, remember I’m not a guitar player, so forgive me! I use Reaper but you can apply all the concepts to whatever DAW you like.
Let’s move forward: create a new track and insert these FREE plugins:
- TSE TS808(version 2.0)
- TSE X50 (version 1.0.2)
- ReaGate
Insert them following exactly this order in your VST chain. It turned out mandatory for me to add a gate at the end, Reaper’s ReaGate to be precise, because of the annoying noise coming from my SG cheap pickup, that was amplified by the VST chain. I just loaded the “rhythm guitar” preset tweaking a bit the threshold, the noise disappeared. Another really important point to stress is to remember to enable monitoring, otherwise you’re not gonna hearing anything from your speakers! On Reaper mixer find the little button on the right of the track volume fader and click it. Please remember to enable it, or it would be hard to hear you playing 🙂
Let’s have a more detailed look to the VST chain. The TSE TS808 is a good quality tube driver emulator, don’t think about it as a poor quality plugin just because it’s free, I found really few ones like this, moreover a brand new release has been recently released, and trust me, it sounds even better. This is exactly what we need to give to our tone the right amount of grit before sending the signal to the amp, on palm muting it will be a blast. For this tutorial I set it this way:
TSE X50 is a free VST clone of the famous and “evil” Peavey 5150, massively used in extreme metal. Even this plugin recently got a new release: a must. If your target is an aggressive distortion, it won’t let you down. If you remember my post on guitar amp simulators comparison, I used an old X50 version and it was already really good for me, then I modified the post with the new version and I realized how much better it sounded. My SG gets a badass tone with this settings:
Poulin LeCab 2 it’s a quite versatile cabinet simulator, if you already own some IR wav files it’s exactly what you need. What’s an IR? The Impulse Response is a signal that can be extracted (with a slightly complex procedure maybe someday we’ll talk about it in details) recording the signal of a real cabinet with a microphone. To keep it simple we can say that it’s the “fingerprint” of the cabinet and the related microphone. Why it’s important? Because you really can’t take just the output signal of the amplifier without the cabinet, try to think about it as if you had a real amp, would you record the direct output of your amplifier head without the cabinet? It would be awful and somehow dangerous for your recording system. Don’t do it. Neither with VSTs 😉 In this case I used God’s Cab IRs, they’re free and come with a detailed user manual, that explain the different techniques used to record the IRs. Load the WAVs files on LeCab, if you blend together more than one IR it would be like if you’re micing your cabinet from different point, experimenting different combination is quite interesting, this is how I like it with God’s Cab:
Here you are my final tone:
https://www.santoclemenzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/HeavyGuitarTone.mp3As you can notice the sound need to be enhanced: it would be nice to add an highpass filter to cut everything under about 100Hz, then, lowpass everything above the frequency you hear “frying” on the upper part of the spectrum, usually these frequencies give to your tone a very digital character, it’s better to reduce it.
To summarize you can reach every sound you need just using free plugins you can find on the web, this is how I record my ideas and riffs, quickly and for free, I couldn’t ask for more 😉
Please note: this post participate to the “Group Writing Project: Write a ‘How To…’ Post” by ProBlogger, have a look to the project!
Related posts:
Autotune and pitch correction plugins have become massively popular in modern music production. After all, they can fix subtle imperfections and boost a vocalist’s performance. Heck, you can even record organic instruments and fine tune them to attain a natural, smooth, and gliding sound! So, there are a smorgasbord of possibilities that autotune VSTs can open up. Now then, you could either shell out hundreds of dollars or simply snag some decent free autotune VST plugins which can overlay vocal effects popularized by Daft Punk, T-Pain, Cher, to name a few.
But, the quandary is there are tons of free autotune VSTs lingering in the depths of the internet and finding the right one can be overwhelming. So, if you are looking for a list of decent free autotune VST plugins then we have got you covered with some great autotune VSTs that provide incredible functionality!
14 Free Autotune VST Plugins List 2020
1) GSnap
Arguably the finest autotune and vocal harmonizer VST effects plugin that one can snag for free, GSnap subtly corrects the pitch of your vocals or instrument(s). It can be further tweaked with more extreme settings to replicate the famous robot-voice effects popularized by Daft Punk.
The nifty GSnap VST can correct individual notes that need to be fine tuned by switching between automatic mode and manual treatment. Just remember to add stereo effects after the GSnap VST since it requires a monophonic input signal to operate and you are all set!

2) Fine Cut Bodies La Petite Excite
Exciter plugins are renowned for adding subtle harmonics to your vocal tracks for some super sonic excitement in the higher range. With the free La Petite Excite from Fine Cut Bodies at the helm, you too can have a gala time fine tuning high pitched vocals.
Throw this beast of a VST on your vocals and tweak it all you want to attain subtle harmonic distortion. Albeit you will have to sign up to snag La Petite Excite for free.
3) Son of a Pitch (S.O.A.P)
Saltline’s Son of a Pitch is an LFO-controlled pitch correction VST that can be deployed for a gamut of extreme pitch bend effects. This nifty free VST features a pitch knob that can be tweaked from a range of +3 full octaves to -3 octaves of the original pitch.
There is more tweakage to be had as the pitch of the incoming signal can be controlled via a pitch knob or a sync to host LFO. Interestingly, it can be used as a virtual whammy bar for other instruments although you can adjust the pitch response to suit diverse vocal styles.
4) Graillon 2
Relatively new on the radar, Graillon 2 sports a retro-futuristic GUI and offers a ton of quirky settings to get you started. Simply insert its correction module in one of your vocal tracks and see the effects kicking in. Not to mention, Graillon 2’s lush bitcrusher which can add digital distortion to your vocals.
It can also alter formant controls and change the tone of an instrumental or vocal track with ease and grace. If you are a fan of bitcrushed robotic voices, this one’s a surefire no-brainer.
5) Alex Hilton A1 Trigger Gate
Wanna push the limits of your vocal range? Alex Hilton’s A1 Trigger Gate is a great free autotune VST plugin that lets you try out cool effects on your vocals. You can use its step-style sequencer that packs in a gamut of effects suitable for multiple genres, right from baroque pop to metalcore.
All in all, the A1 Trigger Gate panders to the needs of producers who like experimenting with vocals a lot.
6) Melda MAutoPitch Auto-Tune
Considering how much invaluable Auto-tune has become in the modern music production landscape, MAutoPitch is one of the best free autotune VST plugins around for producers dealing with vocal melodies.
It can do pitch corrections, fix off notes, and gives you the legendary T-Pain/Cher effect as well. All in all, MAutoPitch is a vocal mixer’s secret weapon.
7) Acon Digital Multiply Chorus
Do your vocals sound dull and uninspired despite every possible EQ setting? Add a dash of colour and bring your vocals to life via Acon Digital’s Multiply Chorus VST. An out-and-out chorus plugin, Multiply Chorus thickens up your sound and makes your vocals stand out in the mix.
What’s more, it offers a smorgasbord of tiny delays (running up to milliseconds) that fill out your vocals and liven them up by a notch.
8) X42 Autotune
With a GUI that’s reminisces early-2000s VSTs, many users would be surprised that X42 Autotune can fix out-of-tune vocals with zero fuss. Although you cannot alter a sound’s formants, this free autotune VST utilizes its bias and offset features to help you retain vocal texture.
For instance, Bias can keep a note natural even if a vocalist alters the pitch of its sustain. A little dated, X42 Autotune nevertheless brings in great functionality to the fore with MIDI and audio side-chain inputs.
9) Auto-Tune Evo
Another solid free autotune VST on our list, Auto-Tune Evo offers two distinctive ways to deal with pitch correction. For basic pitch corrections and correcting off notes in live performance in real-time, Automatic Mode would suffice as it identifies closest pitch in a user specified scale (minor, major, chromatic, etc).
For fastidious tweaking you can revel in Graphical Mode where you can specify the desired pitch using a gamut of graphics tools and modify or correct the most elaborate pitch variations.
10) Autotalent
Renowned as a slick vocal harmonizer and autotune VST, Autotalent provides immaculate real-time pitch correction and ensures that only the specified notes are hit.
You can use this auto-tune VST as a straight up simple pitch shifting/pitch correction audio effect or use it to recreate iconic Cher-like vocal effects as well as chiptune style-effects and full-blown robotic mashes. There’s a lot of creative tweakage to be had with formant controls. All together, one of the best free autotune VST plugins on the market.
11) KeroVee Autotune
A classic autotune and pitch correction VST plugin to the brim, KeroVee provides simple pitch correction to audio signals. It also offers the quintessential T-Pain/Cher autotuneeffect when the Tuning Speed is set to Max.
What’s more, you can also mix two independent transposed outputs of pitch-corrector or bypass output with KeroVee autotune VST plugin at the helm.
12) 4 Band Shifter
A classic 4-band pitch correction plugin by Bitterspring, 4 Band Shifter can independently shift the pitch of four adjoining, user-definable frequency bands. Better still, its formidable pitch correction range goes from -12 semitones to a solid +12 semitones.
13) AAS Autotune
Quite an oddity on our list of free autotune VST plugins, AAS Autotune doesn’t boast a GUI or interface. Simply set this “invisible” VST on a track and see the magic pour in to your vocal track(s).
Death Metal Vst
Very easy to use (of course), and easy on the CPU, AAS Autotune is a force to reckon with if you are seeking that digitised hip-hop, trap or EDM-driven vocal flair.
14) Acustica Ochre EQ
Death Metal Guitar Vst
A keen sense of EQ is pertinent for good mixing right at the outset. And, vocals are no exception. Which is why, Ochre EQ by Acustica is a useful VST that is just perfect for sculpting out the best vocals you can in a short span of time.
And..that’s a wrap! Did you like our list of the best free autotune VST plugins? Sound off in the comments!
SEE ALSO: 15 Best Free Piano VST Plugins
SEE ALSO: 20 Best Free Drum VST Plugins
Free Metal Guitar Vst
SEE ALSO: 55 Best Free VST Plugins
Free Vst Metal Tone Download
SEE ALSO: 40 Best Free Synth VST Plugins