Free soundpack from Native Instruments and a free Live Pack from Ableton

via CDM, NI have released a free soundpack for Kore Player (which is free also) or Kore 2.
There is also a 400MB free Live Pack from Ableton, and a few more from them here.

Stylophone VST

The Stylophone has recently been recreated for the Ipod Touch (via CDM) but you can also get some free Stylophone VSTs such as these:


de la Mancha Styrofoam


Sparque Stylophone, and there is help here about installing it.

The Conet Project

If you're looking for something interesting to sample check out The Conet Project. They've compiled recordings of numbers stations. You can get these as mp3s from the Internet Archive, there is also a pdf booklet. The official site is here.

Sputnik : Free circuit bending ensemble

Laptop Noise have a free circuit bending Reaktor ensemble called Sputnik which you can grab from there site. They also have another called Laptop Hell.

Also, Martin Brinkmann has a heap of free ensembles for Reaktor on his site.

Roland Emulators

Rebirth - 303, 808, 909
AudioRealism Bassline - 303
AudioRealism DrumMachine - 606, 808, 909
Tau Bassline MkII - 303
Arturia Jupiter-8V - Jupiter-8
TAL-BassLine - SH-101
TAL-U-No-62 - Juno 60
mini DrumZ - CR-78, 606, 727, 808, 909 (plus some Korg stuff too)
Superwave p8 - JP8000

Most of these are free or have free alternatives.

Free "mnml" loops and samples from mimu

mimu have a stack of free sound packs for those who need loops and samples to play with. There's glitchy stuff and circuit bending noises too.

DSK free VSTi's

I've mentioned them before but DSK have heaps of really great VST's. They even make specialist VSTi's, like this one for Asian instruments, and this one for Indian instruments.
There's another called Darkness Theory that sounds good, it's for making ambient music. But they've got everything from guitars and drums to a heap of different synths. They are all free too so well worth checking out.

FM give away 1000 Soundcloud invites

Future Music Mag are giving away 1000 soundcloud invites, get them here.

Free plugins from Audio Damage

Rough Rider is a free vintage compressor, and FuzzPlus is a free vintage fuzz pedal.

Free Drums for Abelton's Operator

Designer Drums has been out a while, you can listen to samples, or just download it as it's 2MB.

JamStudio

Wired has a small write ip about JamStudio which allows you to make music online and save it to play back later.

Darkware now freeware

I found this via ThisIsNotALabel, Darkware Studio is now freeware.

Free Classic Drum Machine Samples

KB6 has over 100 classic drum machine samples for download. They're having some bandwidth troubles so they're not all free now really.

Virtual MIDI keyboards

Tanager Audio Works have a nifty little product called Chirp (above) which lets you run a Virtual MIDI keyboard in any program, which would be handy for use in Reason. It's $39.99 but there are free alternatives too...



like this one (above),


and this one (above), and these too.

Free Reason Refills

Peff.com have a list of sites that provide free Refills for Reason, they also have assorted patches and what not as well.

ccMixter

ccMixter is a "community music site" which has heaps of Creative Commons stuff, such as samples and vocals, and it also has some stuff to remix by 'name artists' like Chuck D and Beastie Boys.

Ugo Free VSTs

Ugo have a few free VSTs (there's also some you can buy), but I really like the sound of String Theory (top pic) and Texture (bottom pic). There's some audio demos on the site so you can hear what's possible.

Read Electronic Musician for Free!

You can read EM for free on their website. And not just a few past issues, but everything from September 1999 - August 2008.

Prophanity: Free Prophet 5 clone

The Prophanity is a free VST clone of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5. If you'd prefer to buy something though there is always Native Instruments' Pro-53.

EMS Synthi A clone: EFM-Synthia 2

If you have heard 'On The Run' by Pink Floyd then you will have heard the EMS Synthi (top pic). Well EFM have made the EFM-Synthia 2 (bottom pic) which is a free VST (PC only) clone.