The Best Free Guitar Plugins: Epic Guitar Effects For Zero Budget

If you’re a guitarist who is open to working in the box (if not, what on Earth are you doing here?), one of the biggest pitfalls is the sheer number of guitar effects plugins available, some of which range from pricy to ultra-expensive. So, Headliner has thought up a way to whittle that list right down — with the best free guitar effects plugins that won’t cost you a single penny!

Whether you’re seeking free guitar pedal plugins, software guitar effects, or plugins which work with GarageBand (a free DAW, if you like to keep things free), let’s zip through the 10 best plugins that can go toe to-toe with their expensive counterparts. Being a guitarist and all the accompanying gear can be a bank account drain, so let’s save some pennies together!

Blue Cat Audio Free Amp

A guitar amp can cost hundreds, but Blue Cat Audio said ‘hell no’ to all that business and created this free guitar plugin — thus giving you fantastic guitar amp simulation when you’re guitaring in the box. Take your pick from ‘classic drive’, ‘modern drive’, and ‘classic clean’ modelled sounds. Take your pick from metal sounds or cleaner vintage tones, all of which sound far too good at this nonexistent price.

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Schrammel OJD

Created by its namesake, Janos SChrammel, this open-source, free guitar plugin puts a fantastic overdrive guitar pedal at your fingertips. The modern and intuitive interface allows you to create gritty tones without breaking a sweat. In terms of DAWs, it currently syncs up with Cubase, Reaper, Ableton Live, Logic Pro and Magix Music Maker. As mentioned, it’s open source, so if software development is your bag, the files are provided to let you dive under the hood.

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Valhalla Supermassive

This effects plugin is of such quality, that you may end up believing downloading it for free was a distant fever dream, and perhaps you’ll find yourself begging Valhalla to take a voluntary donation for it. If you want to create huge reverb sounds for your guitar, here is a free guitar effects plugin that sounds distinctly better than a lot of those that cost. Valhalla is well established as a go-to name for reverb plugins, and the rest of their lineup is very affordable. There are 18 modes to toy around with, and it also provides epic delays.

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Mercuriall Metal Area MT-A

It’s pedal time again, and if you’re searching for some tasty distortion, Mercuriall’s free offerings are very much worth browsing. Their Metal Area pedal, modelled after the legendary Boss Metal Zone MT-2, is arguably the best in the free offerings section. While the aggressive tone of this pedal might test non-metalheads, Mercuriall has done a fantastic job capturing its essence, giving you plenty of options to dial in the grit factor to your heart’s content.

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Impact Soundworks Shreddage 3 Stratus Free

With a name like Shreddage, you just know this free guitar effects plugin is going to add some serious grit to your performance. Syncing up with Kontakt Player, this plugin does far more than just add distortion to your tracks, it’s almost like having a session metal guitarist before you on your screen. Shreddage Stratus can techniques such as palm mute, three octaves of playing range, deep-sampled sustain, and choke articulations, without requiring you to have the ability to do these things yourself. Rad, dude.

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Ample Sound Ample Guitar M Lite II

And now one of the best free guitar VSTs enters the fray, one with ample quality despite not costing the gargantuan price that some of the big name sample libraries do. This is the free version of their Martin D-41 acoustic guitar simulator, and places at your disposal samples of guitar strumming, and plucked notes, or you can load tablature for playback. There are lots of options to add human touches once editing or to add any pesky robotic feels that can be a pitfall of software instruments.

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Acon Digital Reverb Solo

Not to be confused with Senegalese-American R&B star Akon, the Reverb Solo from Acon Digital is available on the Reverb website — which is handy if you often peruse that site for second-hand music gear. Reverb can be a tricky beast when it comes to guitar, as many players try to find their personal balance between unnoticeable and sounding like they’ve entered a black hole. This free guitar effects plugin streamlines the tweaking by stripping down to the essentials with a one-knob solution.

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Native Instruments Guitar Rig 7 Player

If you’ve ever considered buying the full version of Guitar Rig Pro from Native Instruments, don’t be a silly billy and forget to try the free version first. Of course, the number of features is stripped-down, but you still get plenty of exciting sound-shaping tools from one of the biggest names in audio. There’s the Jump amp and cabinet simulator, featuring modelling on the British tube amp style. There are 13 effects, comprising distortion, EQ, delay, reverb, filters and more.

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ML Sound Labs Amped Stevie T

This is the one for those who like to Djent. Taken from ML Sound Labs’ Stevie T collection (he’s a metal music YouTuber), this free version of the full plugin gives you the tools to create Djent sounds, the mathematical subgenre of metal characterised by ultra-low tunings with high gain, often credited to Swedish band Meshuggah. If you’d like to recreate these sounds on your guitar and in your DAW for free, meanwhile pulling the legendary grimace face of Meshuggah's lead singer, dive into the four different cabinet models found in DjentGod, offering plenty of tones for you to edit. And, if you need a break from the sludgy sounds, the clean channel sounds excellent also.

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Softube Saturation Knob

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. We have one more of the best free guitar effects plugins for you, and this time we’re getting saturated. When lining all your tracks up in a mix, you’ll often find a bit of saturation can really benefit both the tracks you apply it to and the mix as a whole. Softube’s utility plugin offering makes saturation a breeze without too many bells and whistles, instead allowing you to dial in the amount you require with ease. It also syncs up very nicely when used alongside gain, stompbox and amp simulator plugins.

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Free versus paid plugins

Perhaps you’ve read through this and now wonder if you can get away with just using free plugins forever. We certainly wouldn’t rule that out or say it’s impossible. Bear in mind that the plugins above come at a wonderful price or lack thereof, but the compromise is a much stricter set of features. So it really depends on the effect you’re after and how far a free plugin will take you. For example, I almost exclusively use the Valhalla Supermassive for reverb. However, there are other effects for which I have needed to pay for an affordably priced plugin to achieve certain sounds.

So there you have it — if you’re a guitarist on a budget, there’s no excuse to not dive in and create some incredible sounds without dropping a penny or a dime. Get to shredding, and enjoy yourself.