by Vital Audio
Spectral warping wavetable synth with drag-and-drop modulation.
Main screech and lead source; spectral warping gets the metallic edge.
VST3 AU CLAP LV2 Standalone·Windows macOS Linux
Free plugins for the harder, uglier side of hardstyle: distorted kicks and zaag screeches.
Covers the technique side: staged kick distortion, FM screech sources, OTT squash, and surgical EQ.
by Vital Audio
Spectral warping wavetable synth with drag-and-drop modulation.
Main screech and lead source; spectral warping gets the metallic edge.
VST3 AU CLAP LV2 Standalone·Windows macOS Linux
by Digital Suburban (Pascal Gauthier)
A free, open-source six-operator FM synth closely modeled on the Yamaha DX7 that also works as a patch librarian for the hardware.
DX7-style FM, the classic screech starting point.
VST3 AU CLAP Standalone·Windows macOS Linux

Deep open-source hybrid synth with two scenes and a huge mod matrix.
Second synth voice with FM and wavetable oscillators plus heavy onboard effects.
VST3 AU CLAP LV2 Standalone·Windows macOS Linux

by Softube
Free one-knob distortion from Softube with three saturation modes, useful anywhere from bass to drums to vocals.
First distortion stage for kick tails.
VST3 AU AAX·Windows macOS

Open-source reel-to-reel tape emulation from Chowdhury DSP with deep control over tape saturation, wow, flutter, and playhead loss.
Tape drive and low-end weight on kicks.
VST3 VST2 AU AAX CLAP LV2 Standalone·Windows macOS Linux
by Xfer Records
The multiband upward/downward compressor behind half of modern EDM.
The up-down squash that glues screeches together.
VST3 VST2 AU AAX·Windows macOS

Dynamic parallel EQ that doubles as a multiband compressor.
Dynamic EQ to carve kick punch and tame screech resonances.
VST3 VST2 AU AAX·Windows macOS

by Thomas Mundt
Free look-ahead brickwall limiter with just threshold and output sliders, still actively updated (v1.47, June 2026).
Ceiling for the kick bus.
VST3 VST2 AU·Windows macOS

by Voxengo
Free real-time FFT spectrum analyzer with RMS, true peak and EBU R128 loudness metering.
Check the kick spectrum against references.
VST3 VST2 AU AAX·Windows macOS