Here is a fun one for the vintage sampler nerds. Cyclone by Sonic Charge is a free plugin that recreates the Yamaha TX16W, a 12-bit rack sampler from 1987, down to the circuit level. Not a tribute act, not a sample pack of it. The real deal, emulated chip by chip.
The TX16W was Yamaha's first sampler and it was famously a pain to use. The original operating system was so rough that a bunch of Swedish programmers wrote their own replacement called Typhoon, and the guy behind Typhoon later founded Sonic Charge. Cyclone runs that exact same Typhoon software inside the plugin, on a full emulation of the TX16W's 68000 processor, its Yamaha DSP chips, its 12-bit sample memory and its crunchy non-linear DACs. That is why it sounds like the hardware: the grit, the aliasing when you pitch things around, all of it is really happening, not faked with a bitcrusher.
Fair warning, this thing is proudly old school. Sounds load from virtual floppy disks, the workflow is exactly like the 1987 original, and it will take you a little while to figure out how to load a bank. But once it clicks, it is a blast, and it is a brilliant way to get that late 80s sampler grime on drums, stabs and vocal chops. You can also sample straight into it from your DAW.
It is free, no demo limits, no expiry. The Typhoon operating system comes built into the plugin, so there is nothing extra you need to track down to get it running. Extra TX16W sound banks are floating around online if you want more sounds later.
Download it here:
http://soniccharge.com/download?~cyclone
More info on the plugin:
https://soniccharge.com/cyclone
How to install it:
Windows: grab the Windows installer from the download page, run it, and let it put the VST where your DAW looks for plugins. Rescan your plugins and you are good to go.
Mac: grab the Mac installer, run it, and it installs the AU and VST versions. Needs macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later.
There is no Linux version of this one.
Here is what it looks like:
And here is a video walkthrough of it in action:
Give it a spin and let me know what you make with it. That 12-bit crunch is something else.