Almost the same second you start producing music, you start craving material to work with. New samples, new loops, new effects. You get tired of using all the same sounds and effects in your productions, and you want more control of your sound.

VSTi Instruments, or softsynths, are programs that allow you to create your own sounds, based on many combinations of variables and generators (more on these later) depending on the type of instrument you are using. VSTi instruments have to be ran from within a host program, such as FL Studio, ACID Pro, Cubase, Logic, Reason, and the list goes on. Some VSTi instruments are huge, others are very small. They all allow you to create original sounds. That coupled with the fact that you can find many high quality softsynths for free make them a great solution for aquiring new material to work with.

 

VSTi's can be made to create custom synth, bass, kicks, percussion, and pretty well anything you can think of. Real instruments, sampled and simulated. Guitars, pianos, organs... you name it.

Not only do you gain more material, but original material, in that you program and tweak the sound until it's just the way you want it. These settings can then be saved, and the saved settings file is refered to as a patch. For instance you create the perfect bass sound, save the settings, and you can use that patch anytime you want. It gets even better, patches can be shared, and the more popular VSTi's have available patchbanks - groups of patches in bulk that you can use and edit.

To get started, download a VSTi instrument, download as many as you like. You can find many here on my website, and many more at KVR Audio. There are a wealth of sites online hosting free VSTi. Most VSTI instruments come in a .zip format, if this is a problem for you please email me and I'll show you how a zip file works. Afterwards, create a folder on you're computer:

1) Go to My Computer 2) Double click on your "C:\" drive 3) Create a new folder called "VSTi", or something similar.

Then, unzip the contents of the VSTi .zip files that you've downloaded into the folder that you have just created. Then you simply define that folder within your editing software as have VSTi instruments, load them and start playing. If you have FL Studio, please read on, otherwise start reading your software manual or help files to figure out how.

Now to get started, open FL Studio. Go to the options menu at the top, and then go to file settings. Toward the bottom of the file settings page you will read "VST plugins extra search directory".



Click the folder to the left of this section and choose the folder we created earlier, which contains your VSTi instruments.



Now, return to the step sequencer. Right click one of your channels, go to insert channel, and then select "More..." . At the bottom of the Select Generator Plugin screen that will appear, click the refresh button, and then choose fast scan.



The VSTi(s) that you placed in the folder will be highlighted red. Double click the one you want to use and start learning...