
Orchestral
Ample Guitar M Lite II
by Ample Sound
I reach for Ample Guitar M Lite II whenever I need to sketch an acoustic guitar part with MIDI. It’s the free version of Ample Sound’s Martin D-41 sampled acoustic, and nothing else in the freeware…
Home / Plugins / Orchestral / Klavir

by MNTRA
7/10 Klavir is a free upright piano for the MNDALA 2 engine, and it is the one piano on this list designed for extreme sound manipulation rather than realistic performance. The source material is beautiful. MNTRA sampled a Petrof upright at very high resolution using modern and retro ribbon microphones, and played straight, it has a lovely woody tone. But the reason I recommend it is what happens when you dig into the engine.
The MNDALA environment reshapes the piano into ambient pads, cinematic drones, and distorted sequence-like textures, and I often use it for layering on top of synths to add an organic edge. That power comes with a learning curve. The interface looks nothing like a typical piano plugin, and if all you want is to load a piano and play, the workflow will feel like overkill. An MNTRA account is required, with online activation on first launch and offline use afterward.
For composers and producers who treat instruments as raw material, Klavir is a free sound design playground with a piano at its center. Verdict: Choose it for the engine, stay for the drones; skip it if you just want a piano.
Links to www.mntra.io — the article includes the official download links.

Orchestral
by Ample Sound
I reach for Ample Guitar M Lite II whenever I need to sketch an acoustic guitar part with MIDI. It’s the free version of Ample Sound’s Martin D-41 sampled acoustic, and nothing else in the freeware…

Orchestral
Echo Sound Works released Vinyl Guitar 2 as a full overhaul of their original Vinyl Guitar. The first version is now deprecated on the ESW website, so v2 is the one to grab.

Orchestral
I love layering odd-sounding instruments in my music, and Somerville Sounds’ Rubber Bridge Plucks is one of my secret weapons for roughing up a guitar mix. It’s a parlor acoustic modified with a…

Orchestral
Multi-samples of a Yamaha Eterna classical guitar, recorded through a CAD E100 microphone, is what you get with PlastikGuitar by Audiolatry. The tone is deliberately a bit cheap and not perfectly in…

Orchestral
Every other plugin on this list is sample-based. Spicy Guitar is the exception — it’s physically modeled.

Orchestral
Most guitar libraries treat harmonics as an afterthought articulation buried in a key switch. Guitar Harmonics Essential, a free library for Steinberg’s HALion Sonic 7, builds an entire instrument…