Old VSTs

[Progrez]

I want to know where I can get some RAW old VSTs that they used to use back in the day?

The current stuff doesn't really appeal to me and do you know what they used to do to improve the shelf life of the tracks compared to now?1990's - 2007 and 2008 sound is what I am looking for various style/sounds but not electro house or EDM or trouse mainly trance like Perasma - Swing 2 Harmony (Deserves An Effort Symphony Dub Mix), NUNRG sound, Space Brothers sound, Chicane sound or Kamil polner sound, MK-S sound and old Ferry Corsten and Fire & Ice and Airwave sound where both of them had those crisp percussions and basslines

Older tracks sound more addictive compared to the new ones

 

[Jetflag]

Torrents/ illegal downloads or forums like kvr are your best chance as most of what you want have been deprecated.

there are some good emulators out there though

 

[LostLegend]

To be honest you can recreate most of those synth sounds with modern software.
A free synth like Vital can get you most of the way there if you know what you are doing.

If you know how many oscillators, unison voices, what type of filter the synth you are trying to recreate has, you can get pretty close. There’s even free wave tables modelling the osc’s of some of these famous synths floating around the net.

The hardest part I’ve found is getting the filter sound right. Ableton has some great filter modelling built into it’s stock synths, but these require having Ableton in the first place.

@EnigmaState might have a better grasp of this than me!

Novation did put the legacy vst versions of the classic V-Station and Bass Station on their site a couple of years back for free, but have since sadly taken them down. You can still download them from some free plugin sites, but trying to get a license code for them seems to be an issue.

Personally I would recommend the JP6K vst for starters. It’s only 25 euro and is modelled on the JP8000 and is probably the closest to the sound of the actual synth you can get in software form.

JP6K - Adam Szabo | Official Website

Overview JP6K is a virtual synthesizer dedicated to emulating the famous Super Saw sound, first foun

www.adamszabo.com

Here’s my attempt at the Thrillseekers Synaesthesia lead I posted in Magdelayna’s remix thread:

synaesthesia lead 2

Trance/Progressive producer All socials, music & mixes: https://linktr.ee/lostlegend

on.soundcloud.com

Phoscyon 2 for that 303 emulation acid goodness:

Phoscyon

Bass Line

d16.pl

Diva by U-He would be a good all rounder for a classic sound as well as its different sound generators and filters are modelled on vintage gear. It is fairly expensive though.

Granted these are modern VST’s emulating older gear, rather than being old VsT’s

The Synth1 vst might be worth a look. It’s been around since the late 2000’s and is modelled on the Clavia Nord Lead. It’s also free:

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/synth1-by-daichi-laboratory-ichiro-toda

More importantly they’ve kept it updated with a x64 version as well.

If you do manage to source other older VST’s, you need to make sure they are still compatible with your DAW. Some newer DAW versions won’t let you run x32 vst’s without additional software.

 

[EnigmaState]

Most of these old VSTs are obsolete and unsupported so whilst I dont condone downloading them off torrent type places, its probably your only option.
Some of the challenges you may have is getting them to work on a modern DAW.

I have recently built a PC with Windows XP and Cubase SX to house as an archive some of these old VSTs. A fair few of mine I had kept from back in the day with my licenses.
Superwave plugins are decent SuperWave

I find with these older plugins you can see on an EQ analyser theyre a little more warmer and not a top heavy as modern plugins.

 

[Pulser]

Osiris (Free) for most of my 2000 - 2005 Pulser sound and Xenia (free) for some Insigma sounds The Usual Suspects - DSP56300 Emulation

Also used ReFX Vengeance a lot, NI Reaktor, Nexus 1 & 2, Synth1 and Sylenth1 (best ever VSTi for Trance IMO). Ohm Boyz effects (mostly free now).

2000-2005 was a transition so we still used hardware, Virus b (bass, pads and leads), JP8000 (leads and pads), Novation Bass Station or TB-303 (had a couple of those) for bass and arrpegios. Novation Supernova (used for the original version of Open Our Eyes), Roland, Korg or Yamaha romplers for pianos and pads (JV1080, Korg Triton, SY85 or CS6x etc). Yamaha TX81z (Lately or Solid bass - Olmec Heads Spiritualised basline). I also used NI Battery extensively for drums but before that it was an Akai sampler (S950, S1000, S3000). FX were usually cheap Lexicon reverbs (Reflex or Alex) or a Yamaha Rev500 etc.

In all my years I honesty put that sound down to the summing and preamps of a basic outboard mixer (usually a Mackie 8 bus or Soundcraft Ghost). The separation you get from that alone is the sound you're looking for. Still not managed to get it in the box but trying

 

[Progrez]

Torrents/ illegal downloads or forums like kvr are your best chance as most of what you want have been deprecated.

there are some good emulators out there though

Most of these old VSTs are obsolete and unsupported so whilst I dont condone downloading them off torrent type places, its probably your only option.
Some of the challenges you may have is getting them to work on a modern DAW.

I have recently built a PC with Windows XP and Cubase SX to house as an archive some of these old VSTs. A fair few of mine I had kept from back in the day with my licenses.
Superwave plugins are decent SuperWave

I find with these older plugins you can see on an EQ analyser theyre a little more warmer and not a top heavy as modern plugins.

Can't get torrents here the federal government banned it here in Australia and Australia has become like China and Russia. I will have to see I want to know what kind of daw and everything they used back in the day. Thank you for spending the time to reply guys.

 

[erickUO]

Cheap alternatives:

Freshly Squeezed Samples has free soundbank for V-Station that replicates older sounds, these ones are included.
https://soundcloud.com/adamszabo%2Fadam-szabo-v-station
Z3ta+ is also popular in the 2000s and you can get it for free in a special edition of Computer Music Magazine.

I find many built-in synth presets didn't do justice. You may want to check their 3rd party soundbanks to hear its full capabilities.

 

[Jetflag]

Can't get torrents here the federal government banned it here in Australia and Australia has become like China and Russia. I will have to see I want to know what kind of daw and everything they used back in the day. Thank you for spending the time to reply guys.

Well, Australia isn’t just a colony of prisoners, it’s also a colony of prison guards.

fortunately there is a wonderful thing called TOR and another one called VPN

 

[Progrez]

Well, Australia isn’t just a colony of prisoners, it’s also a colony of prison guards.

fortunately there is a wonderful thing called TOR and another one called VPN

I will look into that, and I also want to know what kind of drums Airwave used back then. I just love his old sound. I did ask him about this when I was working with him, but he can't remember them and sold most of it because he was going through some personal issues at the time. He had to sell it off. I know he used Cakewalk back then. There is just something about that old Airwave sound I love from 1999 - 2004. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't degrade over time? So the rawness wouldn't be there because it's been copied so many times.

V-One - Clouds In The Sky/Dead Cities (1999)

I want to know how he made those percussion sounds. They sound so lovely and nostalgic.

www.trancefix.nl

 

[Subspace Jet Witch]

Worth noting that hardware was the norm in dance music production until around the late 00s, when Sylenth1 and Massive came about. And I'd argue, there's not really much reason to go back those days after the release of Serum (which by the way, just recently had an insanely earth-shattering update). Speaking of Serum 2, it can now play soundfonts, which were immensely essential for bedroom producers throughout the 90s and a bit into the 00s, so you may want to look into those for that authentically vintage feel, since there are a bajillion soundfonts out there online, available for free! It's also worth mentioning that when the Serum first came out, The Thrillseekers himself was so amazed by it he sold his Virus TI, probably the most widely used hardware synth among trance producers in the 00s

 

[Progrez]

Worth noting that hardware was the norm in dance music production until around the late 00s, when Sylenth1 and Massive came about. And I'd argue, there's not really much reason to go back those days after the release of Serum (which by the way, just recently had an insanely earth-shattering update). Speaking of Serum 2, it can now play soundfonts, which were immensely essential for bedroom producers throughout the 90s and a bit into the 00s, so you may want to look into those for that authentically vintage feel, since there are a bajillion soundfonts out there online, available for free! It's also worth mentioning that when the Serum first came out, The Thrillseekers himself was so amazed by it he sold his Virus TI, probably the most widely used hardware synth among trance producers in the 00s

Don't know to me the warmth is missing in his modern day tracks but I prefer how tracks used to sound in the past not polished but so warm and beautiful sounding.

This is how they sampled back in the day I would love to do this as well even though it looks a bit time consuming. I will check out the demo as well.

 

[Super-Frog Saves Tokyo]

I can strongly recommend the OsTIrus emulator plugin.

Emulators

It's exactly the same as actually owning a Virus TI, and these Viruses have been a staple in trance production since the late 90s. Now the TIs are out of production, the legality of downloading and using this has become a little less of a grey area (you'll have to find the ROMs separately, but they're out there!!! )

Most of the old VSTs still have their DNA present in their modern equivalents (Spectrasonics' stuff, a lot of NI, Rebirth etc. etc.)

I think the other consideration worth making from what details you've provided is the ideas behind the music back then. I think people were a lot more open to less genre-specific electronic music, and different genres cross-pollinated a lot more, giving a lot more variety in ideas.

In latter years, now DJ culture seems to sadly exceed the actual production side, what's needed for the dance floor in terms of convention (starting with 16 bars of kick etc. etc.) can stifle creativity and tend to make a lot of the stuff coming out a lot more generic and similar, sadly.

Stuff like Splice also has an effect on it, as everyone's using the same sounds.

A couple of little hardware synths, less automation and more live twiddling, and doing what scratches your creative itch is most important: find your own voice with the tools available to you. There's a lot of misinformation on the internet from people who never produce full tracks or release, and though every contribution to the scene is something to be grateful for, there are a lot of grifters out there selling snake oil and sending potential talent down the wrong path!!

Try and find your own voice, and the gratification you personally get when other like minded individuals get on board with what you're doing is amazing.

Best of luck, buddy!

 

[Progrez]

I will look into it my house is being renovated at the moment

@EnigmaState and @Jetflag I dare you guys try this lol for your next tracks these were made on a PS1 game it's a Phil Collins remake.

 

[Progrez]

I downloaded the demo version of this Jup 8000 and I am going to see if I can get the ones recommended by other people here. I even asked Reasons Studio to see if they have the old version of Reason as well.

 

[Progrez]

@Pulser @Jetflag @Magdelayna @EnigmaState

This is more of the trance I would to replicate not copy but the techniques being used are phenomenal just the way it sounds and it sounds good on the ears and sounds so even even the vocals are so well balanced (I don't hear it in this modern day productions) I hear it on Psy trance from the likes of Ovnimoon but I don't hear it from any of the uplifting guys and even snares are well used which I can't say the same for modern day high bpm ASOT trance. I know it may sound similar to Quest - CSharp but I don't care about that.

 

[Pulser]

@Progrez

Less is more. Budget, deadlines, or even laziness meant we didn’t tend to stack endless layers like people do now. We were careful with compression and effects because we didn't have lots of gear. That’s why older tracks often feel a little raw, but they have depth. There wasn’t a mess of competing basslines or squashed sequences, and we weren’t obsessed with making everything as loud as possible.

Aside from individual drum tracks, you can definitely build something solid with under 10 elements. What a lot of modern Trance producers lack is knowing when to stop adding.

 

[Progrez]

@Progrez

Less is more. Budget, deadlines, or even laziness meant we didn’t tend to stack endless layers like people do now. We were careful with compression and effects because we didn't have lots of gear. That’s why older tracks often feel a little raw, but they have depth. There wasn’t a mess of competing basslines or squashed sequences, and we weren’t obsessed with making everything as loud as possible.

Aside from individual drum tracks, you can definitely build something solid with under 10 elements. What a lot of modern Trance producers lack is knowing when to stop adding.

What changed though? I miss the subtly and the fact that tracks used to have their own life and I miss those depth tracks. Older tracks were incredibly addictive in a good way too. I would love to learn those techniques.

 

[facade1984]

I used to be a huge sucker for native instruments pro-53, I think it was the first 3rd party synth I used. great synth.

also if anyone's unaware, Audio Damage have a bunch of their old legacy plugins available for free: Audio Damage Free And Legacy Products

 

[Jetflag]

native instruments pro-53

ooh in remember that one, loved the look on it also. it had this great gated down-sweep whitenoise sound that actually kept coming up in the Sarah Connor Chronicles and I kept thinking what an absolute Nerd I was for owning the same synthesiser/VST