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I make music under the name "Digital Forrest". Even though I do try my hand at a lot of genres, most of it ends up being some variation of drum & bass. I mostly just do it for my own enjoyment; if you happen to like what I make, that's even better :-)
You can either follow me on Bandcamp or SoundCloud. All releases are available on the major streaming sites as well.
If you want music recommendations see the things I like.
updated 2025-03-03
As a thank you to all of the people I've collaborated with and have helped me get to where I am with music, here’s a bunch of (mostly) free stuff I use all the time as well as some tricks and tips.
P.S. if any of the links aren’t working feel free to poke me at my email: evergreen@[this domain name]
Here's a google doc put out by a windows user, so it includes some things I haven’t here (like Kontakt libraries): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xfN8OtrE36yor6XcH7RtdIb92thqelDA-ss_3Uhh9l0
Yet another person’s website that has a great list of free plugins (some overlap with this doc but very much worth looking at): https://zetvue.github.io/freepluginslist
Free:
Paid:
My personal samples and/or free samples that you can no longer download anywhere can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16-Z7zGbWR6yH8WflBsKvaPktQomQHg8w/view?usp=drive_link
Also here are some Vital presets/wavetables I made: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XC0Qh-_TWqdIvbcIxuRbpjxFb2c5wx4G/view?usp=sharing
Note: asterisks (*) indicates it is a plugin I use a lot
https://github.com/baconpaul/airwin2rack/releases/tag/DAWPlugin
This is a large collection of small plugins. There are so many that it’s kind of overwhelming, so here are some of the ones I actually use:
https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug/
See here for a download: https://nightly.link/robbert-vdh/nih-plug/workflows/build/master
The README describes the plugins better than I can, though I think the most useful one is the spectral compressor. Essentially think of it like a multiband compressor with a ton of bands. You can use it in sidechaining mode to help deal with clashing sounds in the mix or you can make everything sound like pink noise, up to you.
Diopser is also a pretty nice clone of disperser
Just a nice bread-and-butter collection of basic plugins (I tend to use the clipper the most): https://www.gvst.co.uk/packages.htm
I use supermassive the most. It’s technically a delay plugin but it has the controls to turn it into a MASSIVE reverb.
https://aegeanmusic.com/pitchproof-specs
Nice pitch shifter for guitar that I also use for tuning
https://web.archive.org/web/20150306041044/http://www.anarchy-rhythms.com/
A very eclectic set of plugins, mess with them and do weird things
I haven’t really used Grind but it looks like a nice distortion. RoughRider is a nice characterful compressor.
https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
Plugins from reaper. Reajs is very interesting and contains a large number of effects on its own.
The OG spectral plugin. Extremely jank UI but can do some very interesting things
https://freakshowindustries.com/
Technically paid, but they give you official means to “steal” licenses. Lots of very weird plugins.
* MISHBY is my favorite (especially the glitch box)
Simple oscilloscope useful for checking phase alignment and other things
Emergence and argotlunar are the easiest to use and are FX. Ribs is very powerful synthesizer but a little tricky to learn how to use. Haven’t given Oi-Grandad too much of a try yet but it also looks like a cool synth
https://polyversemusic.com/products/wider/
Useful for making things wide, simple. Should not affect the mono mix but it might if you put effects after it, so use with caution
https://www.tokyodawn.net/vladg-limiter-n6/
Precursor to tokyo dawn’s limiter, very useful as a last stage for mastering
https://www.tokyodawn.net/tokyo-dawn-labs/
Also, all of the non-GE versions of their plugins are very nice as well. There’s compressors, dynamic EQs, and most importantly
* SlickEQ which is a wonderful wide-band EQ that I use a lot
Come on down, get yer LUFs
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/it08to9l07mvx1k/AACZMrAmo3PlGx19TtOzIfCja?dl=0
Free limiters. The only one that is not linux specific is the one marked WIN
https://www.auburnsounds.com/products/Graillon.html
Nice free pitch correction/vocal effects
Air shelf is useful for controlling high frequencies and EQ analyzer is just cool to mess with
https://chowdsp.com/products.html
Very interesting delay plugin (ChowMatrix), guitar distortion, chorus, and most importantly CHOWTape for your lofi tape needs.
https://www.decentsamples.com/product/decent-sampler-plugin/
Kontakt competitor, best paired with https://www.pianobook.co.uk/. It's alright.
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/orilriver-by-denis-tihanov/downloads
Just a very nice reverb
https://jonvaudio.com/fircomp/
Limiter/compressor. Haven’t used it too much since I got limitless but it seems very nice
https://kilohearts.com/products/kilohearts_essentials
A bunch of basic but very useful utility plugins. Especially useful if your DAW doesn’t come with a lot of stuff (like GVST)
https://www.birdsthings.com/ (rolling sampler)
Possibly the most convenient way you could possibly do resampling. Throw it on your master and grab audio retrospectively when cool things happen
https://klanghelm.com/contents/freeware.html
Character compressors and distortion
Makes your stuff sound like crap in a good way
https://www.meldaproduction.com/MFreeFxBundle
Large collection of useful basic-ish plugins. Don’t use this quite as much but it has a lot of useful stuff
https://www.tbproaudio.de/products/gsatplus
Nice little saturator
https://vst.unplug.red/ (all free but have paid versions to support the creator)
Prisma is a very nice multiband distortion plugin, and Pisstortion is a very unique sine folding distortion plugin I use too much
https://www.voxengo.com/group/free-vst-plugin-download/
SPAN is a great spectrum analyzer, but there are also a lot of other effects and utilities to try out (such as a stereo correlation meter, tube distortion, delay, and more)
My most used ducking/sidechain plugin. Might be a little tricky to set up in some daws since you have to give it a MIDI input to sidechain with. There’s also this plugdata plugin if you want another option: https://borrasca.gumroad.com/l/borrascasidechainer
Very simple limiter/loudness maximizer
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-magnus-lite/
Brickwall limiter/clipper
https://github.com/tote-bag-labs/valentine
https://github.com/mzuther/Squeezer
https://demanddystopia.su/plugdata/plugdir/
TODO: which of these are good. Ewan Bristow is goated https://ewanbristow.gumroad.com/
Neat handful of plugins written in rust.
https://audiostellar.xyz/lang/en/index.html Very cool sample explorer (similar to XLN XO, though unfortunately no sample drag and drop which makes it not that useful)
https://github.com/bespokesynth/bespokesynth Full on modular DAW that is very fun to play with
While messing around with a plugin or a sound design session, make sure to have an audio track set up or use a plugin like Rolling Sampler (highly recommended). This makes it easy to capture happy accidents
Set a delay’s feedback to 100% and mess with the delay amount knob while recording to another track (see previous tip). This creates some really interesting glitchy effects that are great for fills. Valhalla Supermassive works particularly well for this
Use some kind of delay based plugin (such as reverbs, choruses, etc.) and a bunch of limiters with the input gain cranked. This will bring out the normally inaudible tail end of the reverb/chorus/whatever plugin and results in some very interesting distortion as well
When layering drums, it is generally better to not just stack samples on top of each other with no regard as it can sound messy. For instance, snares consist of a transient (initial hit), body (the pitched part of the snare), and tail (usually noise trailing off). Kicks typically just have a transient and body. Use volume envelopes on the samples you are combining so you don’t have overlap on one of those parts (i.e. use one sample for the transient and one body + tail).
This is not a hard and fast rule especially for things that aren’t percussion/drums. However, adding a layer whose only purpose is the transient can be a very useful way to add punch to things
This is specific to STFU, but sidechain compression generally lags a bit behind the audio that is triggering it (by design). If you want much more precise ducking, set up a MIDI track with notes at every point you want to duck and place STFU on whatever tracks you want to sidechain. How to set up STFU for receiving MIDI varies a lot from DAW to DAW, so I won’t list how to do that here.
I record audio samples on my phone all the time and I use them in my songs extremely frequently. I personally have an android phone and use https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.audiorecorder/ to record stuff, but I’m sure there is something equivalent on iOS.
Get creative. Even the sounds of the phone rubbing in your pocket can be useful.
If you’re exporting for Soundcloud, make sure you export at a sample rate of 44.1khz. For some reason Soundcloud will make your track sound slightly quieter if you export at 48khz. Don’t ask, I don’t know.