Computer Music – Free Plugin Library (Part 1) – Hard Work, Persistence and Passion . . . .

One of the gems of this magazine is the great curated libraries of plugins that you get access to with every purchased magazine. The instruments are well-reviewed, both in the magazine and elsewhere on the web so I am not going to repeat that exercise (save for the odd comment that reflects my own experiences) but I thought it would be a useful exercise to evaluate how “pluggable” these free instruments are, both in general top any midi controller and also to the two fabulous new keyboards that are aimed at FL Studio users:- the FL Key Mini and FL Key 37.

*The Shift+Plugin button on the FLKey opens the door to a wealth of plugin automation.*

Following the straightforward instructions provided in the magazine I downloaded a 1.7GB file titled “CM Plugin Suite PC Instruments” (there is a separate file for Mac users) and added each instrument to my plugin library in FL Studio.

At the time of writing, I was presented with over 30 plugin folders, each with a detailed setup and in many cases, guidance for their use:

*A typical extract of guidance from Computer Magazine on the use of each plugin – is invaluable!*

In addition, each month the magazine seems to be featuring some of the plugins and offering some great videos to accompany them (all available as free downloads when you buy the magazine!)

*Awesome explanatory and tutorial videos for free with the magazine*!

NB Having started work on this I have found that the high quality of these plugins means that it makes sense to split this article into sections, covering instruments that lend themselves to automation in this way on a group-by-group basis.

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