Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Sound Modules


Hey a new Rompler is out this time featuring the VSCO2 Community Orchestra. Check it out on a new blog devoted entirely to VST Instruments.

VSCO2 Community Orchestra Sound Module

Do I ever get tired of messing about with the labor of Mattias Westlund? Apparently not as here is the entire (I'm pretty sure) Sonatina Orchestra in a single 1 gig VST module (650 meg zip). 20 instruments and over 50 articulations. Note that the piccolo is tucked into the flute instrument and a few other instruments are tucked around. This is based on the idea of a free Rompler by the great Sample Science who created the Orion Sound Module. While they may not be Sampletank 3 and Miroslav 2, they cost a lot less. Hopefully there is some fun to be had here.

Thanks to my friend at VST4Free for providing an alternate download site.

Some exciting news, VSTBuzz is hosting the Module and has a great looking page for it.

Just a note, Cantabile Lite seems to work pretty well for just plugging in a keyboard and playing any VST instrument like this one. I'm not affiliated with them, just looking for the easiest way to play digital instruments.



Sonatina Orchestra Module - Windows 64 - Backup Mediafire Link

Sonatina Orchestral Module - Windows 32

Soundcloud Demo

Entire Soundcloud Album by Mountn using SSO


OK thanks to advice by Samulis. Here is an experimental Mac VST. Hopefully I followed his instructions correctly and this works. I don't have a Mac so I can't test it, so please folks with Macs give it a try and let me know. Thanks.



Oops, thanks to Mr36 for finding a messed up articulation. Both the Violin and Cello Sustain problems are now fixed in the current version.

 Creative Commons Attribution: Mattias Westlund

Monday, September 26, 2016

Index

Here are some of the more popular pages on the blog

Big GM Order list of Kontakt instruments

All Keyboard Instruments - Piano, Electric Piano & Organ
Taylor Sampled Synths
Karoryfer Collection
Musyng Kite Collection
MSLP Collection 
Best of bigcat

The Orchestras
Sonatina Orchestra
Iowa Orchestra
VSCO 2 Orchestra
No Budget Orchestra
  
Standalone Maize VSTis for Win 32 & 64 & Mac

Necromare VSTis for Win 32

Blogs and Pages about freebies from around the net
Totally free no Kontakt required instruments
Best of Totally free instruments
Free instruments blog  including Kontakt instruments

Whats new?
I've been slowly making Kontakt versions of the No Budget Orchestra instruments.
Updated the Sonatina Choir VSTi and made an experimental Violin VSTi.
Added parts 3 and 4 to the Bender Roma Equator Taylor Sampled synth.
10 multi-velocity layer presets, drummy, guitary, all kinda stuff...

Thanks for dropping by and I hope you find something useful here.

Trying out this whole Twitter thing...

And Facebook too
www.facebook.com/bigcatinstruments/

Friday, August 26, 2016

No Budget Orchestra

Sometime ago Jeff Glatt started creating the No Budget Orchestra for SFZ.He's also been adding many band instruments and all kinds of cool things. Some folks have asked if this is the same as the Sonatina and it is not the same. These samples are looped for infinite play and some were created using physical modeling software.
Jeff explained over in a post on KVR.
"The solo violin I posted (Kake) is half-modeled. I didn't like the original bow sound. It was too low-pitched and brought out too many dissonant harmonics. Via lots of noise reduction algorithms and filtering/phasing, I removed the original bow sound. Then for each sample, I modeled a new bow sound with higher noise frequencies, and more harmonics related to the fundamental pitch. I also thought the violin itself had too nasal and harsh a tone. So I also modeled a violin with more of the fundamental pitch and even harmonics. By mixing the two modeled samples with the real violin sample, I created an instrument that had the characteristics I liked of the original, but with a deeper, richer, and smoother tone.
In fact, about 1/3 of the musicians in the No Budget Orchestra ensembles aren't real. They're modeled. (The other musicians in an ensemble come from a sophisticated process of "stacking" multiple notes of the one or two solo instruments, giving the illusion of multiple musicians)."

If you click on the strings or brass headings below, you get all the instruments in that section in a single zip file.


No Budget Woodwinds

Solo Flute - Alm    Flute Section    Piccolo    Recorder    Pan Flute

All instruments are Creative Commons Attribution : Jeff Glatt.
Also Solo Violin - LDK: LDK1609@freesound.org
Solo Violin - Kake: Kake 85
Solo Cello - BWV: Bwv66
Double Bass - DS: Drogomir Smolken and Ludwik Zamenhof
Solo Trumpet Mute Samples: Mihai Sorohan
Solo Flute - Alm:  almudenagonzalezflute_8
Pan Flute: Timohanes
Recorder: Samulis
These instruments use the WIPS scripts by the late, great Kontakt scripter Robert D. Villwock

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Drummers Paradise

Nathan Sheeran sampled eight drum kits, 7 acoustic and 1 house, and kindly shared them. These are great for instant gratification as they load up really quickly and sound good. They are about 3 to 5 megs each and so are great for low RAM situations.


Drummer's Paradise for Kontakt 5

For SFZ versions hit the Karoryfer site


Samples by Nathan Sheeran
https://m.facebook.com/FLSTUDIO.IRISH.PRODUCER

This is a free download and royalty-free for use in songs. Please do not sell the samples or instruments or redistribute them without the permission of Nathan Sheeran.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Iowa Orchestra

I've scattered Iowa Orchestra variants all through this blog.  I'm putting them here in one blog post to minimize confusion (mine).

Thanks to the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios, we have the Iowa Orchestra with 15 orchestral instruments including 2 string, 5 brass and 8 woodwind instruments. I've created a WIPs version, an Ensemble version and an Electric version thanks to the generosity of Kontakt scripters..

While the Iowa samples have been criticized, they are the only multi-sampled, multi-velocity layer orchestral instrument samples out there for many instruments. With some editing, first by Blackhole12 and then me and some digital tuning, I think they sound quite reasonable. With a few exceptions they are all the basic sustain articulation.

The main negative at this point is that they are quite short with most samples coming in at about 2 seconds. Having tried my hand at looping samples, I'm both unskilled at the art and far too lazy to loop something like 2500 samples. If anyone would like to loop them please do and let me know.

The first set of instruments contain Big Bob's WIPs scripts allowing for scripted legato and vibrato, fake round robins and playing with wind controllers. The ensemble set of instruments uses Jay Bacal's script to emulate multiple instruments playing at once. The Mickaël Ménager Electric adds electricity, effects and amps to everything. The Basic has no additional scripts.




Public Domain samples by the University of Iowa edited by Blackhole12. Kontakt instruments are placed in the Public Domain except for the Kontakt scripts listed. The Electric Scripts and GUI are by Mickaël Ménager, The Ensemble Scripts are by Jay Bacal and the WIPS Scripts are by Big Bob with all rights are retained by their respective authors. Thanks to Matt McKay for heavily rewriting the bigcat GUI script.

The Iowa samples are Public Domain. Please credit LDK1969 for the Electric Violin.

Rest in Peace Big Bob and thank you.

You can add strings with the Cello and Double Bass here and the Violin here.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

VSCO 2 Kontakt

Latest and last (really probably) version on this page!
Live as free as you can.

Since a company issued an invalid take down order there have been issues with downloads. I just put up a complete 1.7 gig version using the generic name Chamber Orchestra which hopefully can be downloaded.


Sam Gossner had a dream. After creating the original VSCO which was nice little orchestra, he wanted to create something bigger and bolder. Collaborating with dozens of friends from both sides of the pond, he created a new chamber orchestra. Two years in the making this version at its largest (and most expensive but still quite reasonable) has 300 instruments.

However he didn't forget you and I, the freebie loving population of the world. He has put over 2000 samples under a Creative Commons Zero license which is similar to Public Domain. These include 16 string, brass, woodwind and keys instruments along with lots of handy orchestral percussion.This is called the Community Edition and there is a full SFZ version and an EXS24 version in the making on this page along with all the original samples. Thanks to Sam and his friends for this tremendous contribution to the world of free music.

Composer Steven McDonald made a nice video demonstrating some nice ways to get the VSCO2 sounding pretty solid for a free orchestra.

String & Woodwind Demo
Soundcloud Demo
Demo of the Harp by WhiteNoiz


Percussion Demo 
Soundcloud Demo kindly created for me by Sam from the VST version.
Res Evil 3, Res Evil Main Hall Demos by WhiteNoiz 

VSCO 2 Community Orchestra for SFZ Here


Etherealwinds Harp CE for Kontakt 
Harp SFZ, VSTi, etc... page
EWHarp: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license: Versilian Studios

VSCO 2 Instruments: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal : Versilian Studios / Sam Gossner
Piano & Organ also : Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal : Simon Dalzell of Ivy Audio

Note the name VSCO 2 is used to give attribution to the sampling project from which these samples were taken. It doesn't imply any form of endorsement.

bigcat's Amazon ebook page


Friday, July 1, 2016

Suprise Piano

Reading David Byrne's book about music I was inspired to be weirder. So I tried to create something odd. In this case your hit a key and one of five pianos will play. Oddly when you just hit one key at a time it sounds pretty bad, but often it seems folks play several notes at once and in some sort of sequence. This tends to average out the various pianos somehow and sometimes creates some other piano sound. It is lets be kind and say experimental and you might significantly hate it.

Surprise Piano
 Soundcloud Demo

I tweaked the volumes just a bit on this nki and you can replace the old one with this one if you like.
Alternate nki

This uses the City, Iowa and Skerratt London Public Domain pianos and the Salamander and VSCO 2 Community Orchestra Creative Commons Pianos. The blame rest entirely on my shoulders.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International: Simon Dalzell and Alexander HolmFeel.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Karoryfer Collection

The man known as DSmolken and his group Karoryfer Samples have sampled and released an amazing amount of original instruments for the SFZ format. These are completely free instruments released under the Creative Commons banner. Fortunately for me, Mr. Smolken doesn't seem to object to me creating Kontakt instruments from his efforts. So here is a collection of those instruments thus far. Note that Karoryfer has many more instruments including interesting synthy and glitchy types that fall outside the range of this blog and others that I just haven't gotten around to Konverting.

Pasta Bass - Baritone Guitar


To start off here is are four different versions of a Squier Bass VI recorded by Space Coyote. The spaghetti has round wound strings, the rest are flat wound. The tagliatelle is muted, the linguine is picked and the fetuccine is fingered and I also included a mild version without the highest velocity layers. They are sampled every three notes, in three velocity layers (four for the fetuccine) and have three or four round robins.

Creative Commons 3.0 Unported : Credit Karoryfer Samples


Cute Emily Guitar - Solid Guitar


I redid the Kontakt conversion of the brilliant D Smolkin's cutest creation. It now has 4 velocity layers and release samples and a great script new shell from Mickaël Ménager that lets you kick up an amp right in the instrument along with other cool effects.
Thanks to FLWrd for spotting a couple bad notes. They should now be fixed.

Creative Commons 3: Credit Karoryfer Samples


WereSax - Alto Saxophone
 
A nice Sax from our sample man. Mickaël Ménager's script and GUI provide the Electrification of the Sax. For those who want a more traditional Sax, there is also a WIPs Kontakt version without an amp simulation on board. The version on the Karoryfer site is very adventurous and well worth picking up.

Creative Commons Unported 3.0: Credit Karoryfer Sounds


272 Merry Orks - Lady Death (Metal Vocalist)

One of Karoryfer's more interesting projects was this vocal sampling. Being me, I had to try Kontakting some of the samples of the nice lady. This is very experimental.


Here are the keyswitches. Each sound is mapped across 4 octaves.
B - C1, C - C#1, Ch - D1, D - D#1, F - E1, G - F1, H - F#1, J - G1, L - G#1, M - A1, N - A#1, Ng - B1, P - C2, R - C#2, S - D2, Sh - D#2, T - E2, Th - F2, V - F#2, W - G2, Y - G#2, Z - A2

A - C3, a - C#3, ah - D3, ea - D#3, E - E3, ee - F3, e - F#3, i - G3, O - G#3, o - A3, oo - A#3, ou - B3, ow - C4, oy - C#4, OO - D4, u - D#4, y - E4
Creative Commons Unported 3.0: Credit Karoryfer Sounds

 Karoryfer Cello

DSmolken and the lovely and skilled cellist Kamila Borowiak have teamed up to give us a great instrument. Actually they have given us two instruments. Mr. Smolken has reworked the cello to include things like vibrato and legato and all the sustain samples are looped for endless play. This download includes both the SFZ and Kontakt versions.



Here is the previous version if you want to use the 'Electric' Shell or the older SFZ version.


The Kontakt version uses the script and shell by Mickaël Ménager.It has all kinds of effects that usually would be used for an electric piano or guitar so you can 'electrify' the cello if you like or just let it be a nice acoustic cello for an orchestra.


Creative Commons 3.0 Unported: Credit Karoryfer Lecolds 
Copyright 2016 Karoryfer Lecolds. Royalty-free for use in all non-commercial and commercial productions. If you want to distribute these in a different sampler format or as part of a larger sample library, please be kind enough to inform Karoryfer Lecolds.


Meat Bass - Double Bass

Karoryfer sample machine D. Smolken sampled and then re-sampled his Double Bass. You can find both versions here. The latest is the Karoryfer Meat Bass with over 400 samples of Arco and Pizzicato. The Arco has every third note sampled in five velocity layers with both up and down bowing which alternate as round robins. The Pizzicato is again every third note sampled with four velocity layers and four round robins. There are also some cool percussive noises from C3 to C4 if you use the G#4 key-switch. This version is definitely more polished than the original and sounds quite good in an orchestral setting.


The earlier version is the D. Smolken Double Bass, which was created before the Karoryfer name as best I can tell. It is rougher, but has its own earthy charm. The previous Kontakt version had some problems, so I fixed it up a bit. It has some great bass 'noises'.


Friday, April 15, 2016

More Freesound


I haven't done much lately and am messing with some projects that aren't very fun, so I decided to take a break and browse Freesound.org. I bumped into a few cool things so I stuffed them into Kontakt.


Sandyrb generally recorded with 11 different microphones and between 8 and 11 velocity layers. Each snare is in its own octave with the different mics next to each other. There are over 600 samples and it weighs in at about 150 megs. Some of the snares are variations.

Creative Commons Attribution: Sandyrb



This on the other hand is quite small, with nine samples and one velocity layer. But is a fun instrument. It was sampled by iternetcone from his hammered dulcimer.

Creative Commons Attribution: iternetcone


 FaireDesVagues sampled his Fretless Bass for Freesound. While we have plenty of heavily sampled basses (thanks Project 16), this lightly sampled one has a nice tone and a bit different sound. It has one velocity layer and about every other note sampled.



And now for something completely different. Sometimes in the middle of your Carnegie Hall performances you just want to break out some classic video game sounds. Now you can thanks to B_Lamerichs.

Creative Commons Attribution: B_Lamerichs



I really like these seven chimes that Selector sampled or created or something. They have a touch of magic too them.

Creative Commons Attribution: Selector



You never know when a sword fight is gonna break out at your concert. Be prepared with the foley work of Mr. Derp

Creative Commons Attribution: Christopher Derp

This is part two of Freesound instruments,  find Part One Here.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Necromare VSTs

An incredibly talented artist who goes by the name Necromare created an amazing amount of VST instruments a few years back. I was privileged to have an electronic chat with him and not only did he give permission to mirror the VSTs I was already aware that he had created, but also many I never knew existed. These instruments range from traditional pianos, music boxes and brass instruments to wild soundscapes and horror instruments that are perfect for Halloween. These VSTis are Windows 32 bit.

I made a mistake with the Recorder zip, if you got it earlier than 4/2/16 please download it again, sorry I put the receiver  mse in the zip instead of the recorder one.

These instruments are Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Please credit Necromare.


Dimensions in Dreams and Deep Space

includes 11 instruments

includes 4 instruments

includes 5 instruments

Keyboard Instruments




 Harps



Guitars & Bass

Acoustic Guitar Version 2

Nylon Guitar Version 2

Simple Acoustic Guitar

Open Electric Guitar

Electric Bass

Tremolo Guitar

Bowed Guitar Version 2

 Dante's Power Chords

Country Strings

Mandolin

Southern Banjo

Hammered Dulcimer  

Percussion / Idiophone

Bang 1

Bongoes

Clanger

Soft Mallet Xylophone

Waterphones

World Instruments

World Percussion

World Percussion 2

Gamelan

Didgeridoo

Kalimba

Koto
Cool Song from Yeska with the Koto

Oud

Pan Lute

Sarod

Shamisen

Singing Bowl
included 3 instruments

 Tibetan Monastery

Wood Flute

Brass / Woodwinds / Orchestral

Small Maestro
includes Clarinet, Angelic Choir, Orchestra Section & Hit

Jazz Trumpet

Classic Tuba

Tenor Sax

Recorder

Vocal

Mixed Choir

Phoneme

Toys

Kazoo

Toy Piano

Bent Furbie

Broken Toy

Vintage Electronic Sounds / Synth 

Wave-Stone
an amazingly fun draw your own sound instrument

Poly-Slop
32 presets and lots of synth functions

Bit Chip
includes 10 instruments

Bit Chip 2
includes 9 instruments

Tech Bin

Pong

Sinsonic Drums

VL Drums

Sound Effects / Found Items / Body Instruments

Receiver
includes 5 instruments

Old Candle Jar

Singing Glass

The Audience

The Office
contains 6 instruments

Turntable

War Machine

Whale Song

Fartburpatron3000

Fingerpop

Twisted and Horror Instruments

Chronosfear

Horror Movie Soundtrack
contains 5 instruments

Limbo

Satan's Fiddle
recorded one day when he went down to Georgia

Vampire Violin

Voices of Darkness

Zeebo Drum Kit

Zombie Electric Version 2

Monday, February 29, 2016

Pablo Project

Here is the Pablo Trumpet with samples by rcasamajo.





It comes in a standard and a mild version. The mild version cuts out the loudest sample group which can get a bit funky at times. There are two or three velocity layers and almost every note sampled, about 80 total. I edited them by hand so they should be nice and tight.
I used the Big Bob WIPS scripts, which adds fake round robins, legato and vibrato and if you have a wind controller, you can play the trumpet using it!

Creative Commons Attribution: rcasamajo
Creative Commons Picture by Derek Gleeson.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Recut Pianos

After a few complains about latency and other issues, I have reworked a couple pianos. First up is the Skerratt London piano by Kung Krille. I just hand edited the samples this morning and they should now be nice and crisp when you tap your keyboard.


Maize VSTi
Windows
Mac
Skerratt London Piano - AU


The Iowa is one of the most popular pianos, but has a few problems. I tried to do a better version by dropping out some samples that in the upper mid register at medium velocity that somehow came out almost mono. I also stretched the lowest C to go down to A as some of the lowest notes were pretty wonky. I wouldn't normally stretch notes this far, but bass samples are less noticeable.

Iowa Piano - Kontakt
Great Soundcloud Song by Reasy

Maize VSTi
Windows
Iowa Piano - 64
Iowa Piano -32
Mac
Iowa Piano - VST
Iowa Piano - AU


This is cool. Glyn Barnes from the Cakewalk forums has made these pianos compatible with the new Komplete Kontrol format. 

Komplete Kontrol

 
I don't understand all the details, but fortunately Glyn gave me the details on what you need to do to get everything up and running.
"The NKI should be copied to the same folder as the original NKI
The folder with the NKSN file should be copied to C:/Users/[user name]/Documents/Native Instruments/User Content/Kontakt
The NKSN should appear in the user tab of the Komplete Kontrol Browser.
When you click on this you will see the Kontakt Missing File dialog. Use the “resolve manually” option to locate an load the missing files, you will need to do this twice, once to find the NKI and once for the samples. Resave the NKI. Next go to the Komplete Kontrol file menu and re-save the pre-set.

On no account rename the new NKI or the pre-set file will not be able to find it.
If Komplete Kontrol cannot see the NKSN file check the folder is in the scan path."

Friday, January 1, 2016

Karoryfer Alto Sax

 
From the same mind that brought you this nice Cello, comes the Karoryfer Alto Sax. You can find it for SFZ at the Karoryfer site. Mickaël Ménager's script and GUI provide the Electrification of the Sax. For those who want a more traditional Sax, there is also a WIPs Kontakt version without an amp simulation on board.

Creative Commons: Karoryfer Sounds

Jasper Blunk

Jasper Blunk Orchestral Instruments for Kontakt

Jasper Blunk has returned to sampling with some excellent instruments.
He has released a free Solo Legato Violin instrument and a collection of legacy freebies.
His paid instruments are an inexpensive River Piano and a more expensive but impressive Oceana Choir. Mr. Blunk has been kind to our community across the years and I encourage everyone to take a look at his excellent instruments.

Maestoso 18 Violin Ensemble

Fortissimo Trumpet Ensemble
Alt Samples for Trumpet - Fortissimo Gently Tuned Sample Pool
Vibrato Trumpets

Fortissimo Horn Ensemble
FFF Horn Samples Tuned by a  Noah Horowitz.
8 Horns FFF Bells Up Sustains   

Fortissimo Trombone Ensemble

Jasper Blunk created these instruments. I did not, but he kindly allowed for redistribution as long as there was no charge.
The readme says "Can be used for commercial and noncommercial purposes."
See the included readme for more information.

Sonatina WIPs

Mattias Westlund did an amazing job putting together the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra for SFZ. While lightly sampled, the whole thing hangs together amazingly well given the wide variety of sources. This is thanks to layering, clever use of IR to place instruments in artificial space and other things I don't understand.

I have Kontakted the orchestra and added Big Bob's WIPs scripts. This should let you use legato, vibrato and breath controllers. The main problem is that with so few samples, you tend to get the 'shotgun' effect on solo instruments and there aren't many, if any, articulations. However for sections and background it works very nicely. Many of the multi instrument patches have a staccato articulation and most strings have pizzicato as well.





"SSO is a free (as in speech, and beer) library released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 license."

Electric Iowa Orchestra



I've been messing with the University of Iowa samples for a long time now. My latest toy has all of those sustain samples plus the sustains from the LDK1609 Violin packed into Mickaël Ménager's script and GUI. You can add all kinds of funky effects and amp sims to your orchestra from inside the instruments.
The Iowa samples are Public Domain. Please credit LDK1969 for the Violin.
The only thing missing is a Cello, which you can find here. Thank you D Smolken.

G-Town Church

G-Town Church Samples for Kontakt

G-Town Church Piano
G-Town Church Organ
G-Town Glockenspiel
G-Town Glass Harmonica
G-Town Church Mandolin

G-Town Church Drumkit
G-Town Church Cymbals
G-Town Church Hi-Hats
G-Town Church Dual Snare
G-Town Church Ensemble Snares
G-Town Church Orchestral Snares
G-Town Church Orchestral Snares Open
G-Town Church Percussion Toms
G-Town Church Orchestral Toms
G-Town Church Bass Drum
G-Town Church Anvil
G-Town Church Woodsticks
G-Town Church Woodsticks 2 
G-Town Church Bongos
G-Town Church Darbuka
G-Town Church Eggs
G-Town Church Overblown Flutes
G-Town Church Stomps
G-Town Church Tambourine
G-Town Church Waterbowls 
G-Town Church Wood Pipes 
G-Town Church Plate

There are lots of great samples recorded in his local church in Grebbestad, Sweden by music producer Tobias Marberger. If I understand right he made EXS24 instruments which some kind soul turned into old school Kontakt instruments. This makes my life making new Kontakt instruments much easier. Thanks to a buddy of mine for getting them to me.
I tried to make a basic GM drumkit from various elements.
Creative Commons with credit to Tobias Marberger.

Taylor Sampled Synths

Taylor Sampled Synths for Kontakt


Bender Roma Equator
Part 1    Part 2    Part 3    Part 4

Axis 80   Part 1    Part 2    Part 3

King 1 Many   Part 1  Part 2
Soundcloud Demo

 Janssen Havoc

Payara psia

  Newtron V    Part 1   Part 2
Soundcloud Demo

I've edited these synths to make them much tighter and more responsive.

Richard Taylor did a great job sampling analog synths and the nice folks at Freesound.org are hosting them. They were placed in the public domain which was very generous of Richard Taylor.

I'm calling the first one Axis 80 so as not to get sued, read about the real thing here. It has over 30 presets and weighs in at a touch under 2 gigs.

The King One Many is a classic synth from the early 80s. Check Wiki for the real deal. This one is more 1.5 gigs, 3000 samples and 50 presets.

The Newtron 5 is an interesting modern synthesizer. This almost 2 gig download
has 19 presets including interesting arps and sounds that seemed designed to stack in interesting ways.

I used Mickaël Ménager's great script and GUI, so you can add effects like Tremolo, Phaser, Reverb and Distortion along with using half a dozen amps.

As a bonus:
AKWF The First Attempt
Adventure Kid is Kristoffer Ekstrand and he has sampled many wave forms and placed them in the public domain because he is cool like that.
As with the previous synths, the script and shell are by Mickaël Ménager.

Flame Studio Guitars

Flame Studios Guitars

These are fairly simple versions of the Flame Studios guitars. The main instrument in each has three velocity layers with every note sampled. The mild version drops the most aggressive sample layer. Finally there is a mute layer. The Mickaël Ménager scripting & GUI work really well here as you can add some cool effects and amps right from the instrument.
Samples are from the fine folks at Flame Studios. You guys rock!
The license is GNU GPL.  Which means that I or anyone else can't charge you for a Flame Studios instrument, but you can use this instrument for any purpose you like, including becoming a millionaire with a hit song.