Well... In that case I have some other excellent instruments to suggest.

 

If you're after good guitars you can find these two free guitars: Revitar 2 and Spicy Guitar.

Asseca & CutterMusic (open source) Revitar 2 - Excellent openSource freeware guitar based on physical modelling. Absolutely not the least sample. And better than round-robin, the process is developed so that several consecutive notes will never sound exactly the same, exactly as a real guitar. and many parameters are tweakable by the user, even body types, position of the bridge, shape of the pick, etc. Here you download it from my own webspace, and with the source code.

There is also (but not on my webspace), another excellent free guitar emulation : Keolab Spicy Guitar

Used with excellent free amps and stompboxes (from Audiority or from AXP or from Ignite Amps (Emissary is probably the best amp ever made) or from LostIn70's or from Voxengo for example) both do true wonders!

 

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For those who love keyboards of the 70's, I remind that the two wonderful émulations of the Farfisa Mini Deluxe Compact and of the Vox Continental UK Version 5 Combo organ are still available on the original owner's website : Martinic.

Martinic Combo Model F - The perfect emulation of the Farfisa Mini Deluxe Compact organ v2, 1966 edition, used by many bands of the end of the 60's and by almost all the first prog-rock bands and krautrock bands (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc.) in the first half of the 70's.

Martinic Combo Model V - The perfect emulation of the Vox Continental UK Version 5 Combo organ, 1966 edition, made so famous by The Beatles, The Animals, The Doors, etc.

 

In my list I also have an excellent harp:

Versilian Studios Etherealwinds Harp - Want a beautiful classic harp but don't have Kontakt? You can with this splendid harp with articulations. All in adedicated VST/AU plugin. You can also use the sfz&wav files in any sfz (or wav) compatible rompler. With a harp you don't need as many articulations and round-robins as with strings, winds or guitars to create a valid illusion, only the sound quality of the tone is really important. And in EtherealWinds this is the case, for a free product the result is quite decent.

 

All that can be added by our friend Beat16 on his list if he agrees...

 

Hello!

Dexed is not hosted by KVR Audio.
It has its own website: https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/

 

Thank you for the information. I have added the correct link to the list.

 

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Is already included in the lists...

Keolab - Spicy Guitar v1.3 VSTi (64 Bit)
https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1065/

 

Odin is one the best sounding free synth actually, even so, it's a bit heavy on cpu, but it sound very full, and present, a bit like analog gear. It's also very intuitive to program.

This thread is obviously a list, to speak about THE BEST, there should be arguments, reasons, this is just another list, so dont worry about what's not mentioned.

 

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Do you know somewhere a really good convincing free 64-bit Mac/PC emulation of an electric bass guitar?

All those I have tested were not convincing at all. And those which are... are not freeware. Except ABPL II, but which is quite limited in tessitura on the neck. For the moment it seems at my knowledge the only one you could add to your list.

 

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I play both bass and guitar, and honestly, no, there is no plugin actually that can correctly emulate a guitar or a bass, unless it does very simple and limited things.
If you dont play them, better use samples loops, at least they are played by someone.

 

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Myself I use a Squier Affinity Stratocaster LH (I'm left hand) with a Boss GP-10GK multi-effect pedal (very expensive) and a VOX VT-20X amp (quite good in my opinion for home music) for my guitar works. But it's for the bass that I really miss some good solution. For the moment the only solution I have found is to use a good sounding bass synth plugin (Korg Polysix or Miniverse or PolyKB III, but none is freeware) in replacement.
It seems even more difficult to make a really good sounding bass than a quite good guitar in plugins. Especially for the kind of music I like to play which is rather cool music, Ambient or New Age, where it is required to have very clean sounds.

 

Perhaps I should try Martinic Kee Bass...


EDIT: Well.. Hem... No.

 

Last edited: Nov 8, 2022

Man, thanks a lot @BEAT16 for your efforts! Very much appreciated!

Also thanks to the other great suggestions, now I'm blown away by Odin

 

That would be for a different thread anyways.

 

Yes, it was just a small parenthesis about a possible new instrument plugin to add to the list. Bass guitars in plugins are quite rare, and even more rare as freeware, and really good ones seem inexistent.

 

Another instrument: a drum set that I love a lot. It is this one that I use almost everywhere when I need a good free acoustic drum set:

Manda Audio MT Power Drum Kit 2 - A professional quality acoustic drum kit. The website provides also presets... and drum maps for several common DAWs (Cubase, Magix Music Maker, Mixcraft, Sonar/Cakewalk, Reaper, Studio One).

 

Thanks @BlackWinny for the Manda Audio MT Power Drum Kit 2.