Special VST audio mastering

Don't waste your time to try to find the best Free FX mastering VST on the web. Here it is! A selection of 13 free VST plugins (Click on the plugs name for direct download)

1. Stardust

Stardust is a powerful 4-in-1 mastering VST effect plug-in for Windows.

1 - Bass Enhancer

• Bass enhancement around selected bass frequency, Q and gain control.



• 200Hz switchable pole phase rotator (off, 2, 4 or 8 pole).

2 - Stereo Enhancer

• Stereo enhancer with delay control for the applied stereo image.

3 - Multi-band Compressor

• 8-Band multi-band compressor.

4 - Wideband Compressor/Limiter

• Analog-like wideband compressor.

Global features:

• 32-bit stereo input/output.



• 64-bit internal maths.



• Detailed monitoring display:
  • 4 scalable VU meters to monitor the stages of processing.
  
  
  
  • Output oscilloscope.

2. Blockfish

Blockfish is a versatile compressor with countless ways to shape the incoming audio.
Unlike
many other digital compressors, Blockfish has 'soul'. It likes to bite,
but it can be tamed easily once you've learned how to use its
potential.

You can remove the front plate and make further adjustments on the circuit board.
Everything is possible: clean, transparent, loud, punchy, silky, subtle, fat. But still with a unique sonic character.

3. Dominion

If you were searching for a tool to shape the envelope of a signal,
giving you total control of the signal's attack & sustain phase,
dominion is certainly something for you!

Features:

• Envelope section.
  Adjust attack & sustain independently, regardless of input level.
  Plus, you have control over the envelopes' time constants. Imagine
  pulling a drummer up front or pushing him to the background by dragging
  just a single slider! Feel like moving the walls around him? Again, a
  single push enhances the room information or can make the sound really
  dry.



• Saturation stage. Following
  digitalfishphones tradition, the plugin can help to reduce harshness
  often associated with digital recordings, giving back some warmth and
  life to your source by modeling classic analog equipment. The tonal
  character stays adjustable within a broad range.



• High frequency details section.
  Similar to classic exciter circuits, this section allows you to
  brighten up a signal, giving transparency and depth by generating
  additional harmonics.



• Non-clipping output stage.
  Like the endorphin compressor, a brickwall waveshaper circuit ensures
  that the output won't exceed -0.1dBFS, while remaining sonically clean.

4. Endorphin

Features:

       

• Two independent frequency bands (low and high frequency processing).



• Switchable stereo or M/S mode operation.



• Two basic compressor designs:          
  • Modern
    VCA mode with soft-knee characteristics and manual time constants. This
    mode provides an instant response behaviour and deep compression, using
    a feed-forward circuit.
  
  
  
  • Vintage-style opto (photo
    resistor) mode, modeled after ancient opto-electrical compressors. The
    time constants stay manually set, but they are also affected by the
    signal's energy. This mode has the typical opto-style 'overshoot' on
    quick transients, this is one of the most gentle compressors you may
    find. Classical feed-back detector circuit.
           



• Adjustable high-level output stage with analog-style saturation.



• Global 'de-comp/sat' section. It's you who decides how the unit reacts to large amounts of gain reduction as well as when and how to saturate.



• Maximum output: -0.1dBFS. This is very helpful when using the plugin as the last stage before burning the CD.

5.  Floorfish

Floorfish is a simple expander / gate device, easy to set up and offers
a broad variety of processing, ranging from slight expansion,
background noise attenuation to extreme gating effects.

What's different from similar units is the ability to scan the source and adjust the transition curve accordingly.

6. PC-2 Psychoacoustic Compressor

Conventional compressors are based on peak or RMS-level estimation
to compute their time-variant gain or attenuation. This property of
most compressors often causes undesirable inter-modulation distortion
and pumping/breathing artefacts.

PC-2 Psychoacoustic Compressor
features a 'psycho-acoustic relevance' mode. Instead of using a peak or
RMS-level estimation, this mode employs a perceptual loudness model to
compute the loudness of the input signal. This perceptual loudness
model is combined with advanced attack and release stages that model
peripheral adaptation of the human auditory nerve. The result is a very
transparent compression characteristic, even with very short attack and
release times.

Alternatively, the simple, classic compression behavior can be engaged too by simply switching off the complex loudness model.

7. Bass Manager

The Bass Manager VST Plug-in is especially designed for Cubase SX and
Nuendo. It simulates the bass management systems found on most Dolby
Digital and DTS surround sound receivers. This allows surround sound
engineers to hear what their 5.1 surround mix sounds like without
having to burn a CD-r or DVD-r and then play it through a consumer 5.1
surround receiver.

Please Note that DVD-Audio 5.1 bass
management isn't really standardized. There are some DVD-A players that
don't use bass management or use it in a new and very different way.

8. Dither

Apply all the standard dither types with fine adjustment of dither
level and noise noise shaping, and a "zoom" function for auditioning
the result. (for mac users)

9. Stereoplacer LT

Stereoplacer LT is designed for direct manipulation
of frequencies in the stereo image. Each of the three channels can be
tuned to affect a specific frequency as with a traditional parametric
EQ. Once tuned, the frequencies can be moved within the stereo field.
Useful for adjusting an existing stereo signal or adding stereo depth
to a mono signal; the tunable nature makes this especially suited to
adjusting percussion signals.

Key features:

• 3 band parametric EQ.



• Stereo position control for each band.



• Tune/Place mode.



• Large LED meter.

10.  C3 Multi Band Compressor

Features:

• Three stereo compressors.



• A master limiter.



• Flexible dividing filters(ButterWorth Filter or LinearPhaseFIR Filter).



• Sampling Rate: 44.1k, 48k, 88.2k, 96k support.



• 32bit float internal precision.

11. Fre(a)koscope

Fre(a)koscope is an FFT-based real-time spectrum analyzer featuring:

• Lin/log/semitones/third-octave/Bark scales.



• Window size selection.



• Frequency zooming.



• Freeze.



• Peak hold.



• Cursor information (amplitude+frequency).

Planned:

• Mel/Erb frequency scales.



• Spectrum averaging.



• basic information like spectral centroid, dominant pitch...

12. FreeG

FreeG is a Gain / Fader plug-in that can be used
for a variety of applications to increase the control and flexibility
of the signal flow in the insert chain of the host - FreeG provides
extensive, customizable metering features and settings.

Main controls:

• 
  The meter displays a current indication of signal level. The main
  display is a classic Peak-type level meter, which follows the signal in
  accordance with the metering type selected on the Preferences panel.
  The superposed red bar displays the current instantaneous signal RMS.



• Selecting 'Pre' switches the fader to display the pre-fader, pre-pan, pretrim input signal.



• The fader is the main plug-in control, and allows you to adjust the level of the incoming signal.



• 
  PEAK: This box, and the red arrows on the meter, displays the current
  highest peak value recorded (using the metering law configured on the
  Preferences panel). Click boxes to reset.



• RMS: This box, and
  the yellow arrows on the meter, displays the current highest
  instantaneous RMS value recorded. Click the boxes to reset.



• The Trim dial provides a course input level adjustment. The Trim range can be configured using the preferences panel.



• 
  The Pan dial allows a stereo signal to be panned to the left or to the
  right. The Pan law is configured using the preferences panel.



• The Flip Phase button inverts the phase of the signal, for mixing applications.



• The Bypass button provides a soft-bypass for the plug-in.



• The Mute button will mute the signal.



• 
  Fine mode allows for an alternate method of fine-calibration of the
  fader. When the fader is set approximately, pressing 'Fine' will 'zoom
  in' on the fader, and offer a linear-law fader, which you can adjust
  with greater accuracy. The range of the Fine scale can be configured in
  the Preferences panel.

13.  Starplugs VU2

VU2 is a 2 channel high precision meter. It can be
used as Peak meter, Program Peak meter, VU meter or Power meter with
integration times from 1 sample to 1 second and decay times from 1
sample to 10 seconds. The meter headroom can be adjusted in 0.1 dB
steps from 0 to –20 dBfs. Each VU meter comes with an over-hold LED and
features a second peak-hold needle. The VU2 also features a correlation
meter.

Features:

• Peak Meter.



• Program Peak Meter.



• VU Meter.



• Power Meter.



• Correlation meter.



• Over LED.



• Peak Needle.



• PDF Manual.