Best Free VSTs: Pianos, Organs & Keyboards

Pianos! Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em! But did you know there’s another way? That’s right. You can replace them with robots.

Standard pianos

Piano character is a bit “to taste,” so if you’re not satisfied with these choices, especially for classic and intimate pianos, Pianobook has many more options (account).

Classic/grand piano

bigcat Instruments’ The Iowa Piano NKISFZVSTAU

Splendid Grand Piano is a lightweight option around at 80 MB. SFZ (Github)

Production Voices Estate Grand LE is a fully fledged bank for Plogue Sforzando. SFZ (Woocommerce)

Dance piano

mda Piano (or the less buggy but Windows-exclusive Dead Duck Software DPiano-A version) VSTWin VST

Yingchun Soul’s 4th House Piano SF2

Honky-tonk piano

FreePats Old Piano FB SFZSF2

Sample Modern Detuned Upright NKI

“Ice” piano

Christian Henson’s Triple Felt Experiment EXSdspreset (account)

Spitfire LABS Modular Piano may be useful for adding interest to your piano sounds. VSTAUAAX (Spitfire)

Nami Audio Midnight Upright has layered octaves and noise texture… perfect for that “single haunting piano note” moment in your next generic epic trailer. NKI6 (account)

Intimate piano

Spitfire LABS Soft Piano, my one and only! Confound you, Soft Piano! You make keeping that awful Spitfire download manager and LABS plugin just barely worth it! VSTAUAAX (Spitfire)

Ted Kocher’s The Lounge Piano NKIdspreset (account)

Sonic Atoms Novel Piano vstpreset (FastSpring)

Toy/baby piano

Audio Brewers Piano Toy Mini NKI (newsletter — scroll about halfway down the page for the form)

Precisionsound Red Grand SF2

Upright piano

Rudi Fiasco’s K18 Upright Piano (also as a plug-in) SFZVSTAU (none or email)

VCSL‘s “Upright Piano, Knight” patch (SFZ and samples) SFZ (Github)

Prepared/extended pianos

Prepared pianos and extended playing techniques.

Solo prepared + sustains/tremelos

Xperimenta Project Preparato Piano – Free Edition includes some sustains played by hitting a brush against the strings. NKI (FastSpring)

Solo prepared + sustains

Andreas Busk-Jepsen’s Are You Prepared (also as a Blofeld soundset) NKIEXSALPBlofeld

Jason Binnick’s Weber Upright with Wooden Mallets sounds more like a harpsichord, but it might serve as a good base ingredient for making prepared piano sounds with a bit of creative sound design… NKIdspreset (account)

Solo prepared + staccatos

Billy Palmer’s The Sneaky Piano NKI (account)

Solo muted

Christopher Scullion’s Tatak – Felt Piano is muted with a thumb on the strings, adding a little punch to the traditional “felt” piano sound. NKIdspreset (account)

Solo harmonics/body percussion

Matteo Pagamici’s The Quiet Piano has some natural harmonics and interesting piano hits in the “FX” patch. At nearly 4 GB, it’s a pretty large download just for those two things, but, y’know, art. NKI

Solo bowed sustains

Wandering Artist’s Ebow Piano sounds more like a synth pad. NKIdspreset (account)

Solo slams

HandHeldSound PianoBoom is made from the sounds of hitting piano strings with a gong mallet. It’s very dissonant and piano-slammy. NKI (Woocommerce + Pulse) (account)

Solo slams/glissandos

RSSD01 FREE Dark Piano Sample Pack has some really excellent horror movie-style scrapes. WAV (newsletter)

Electric pianos

Hohner Pianet T

Ritvars Garoza’s Hohner Pianet T NKIdspreset (account)

Jen Pianotone J-600

SampleScience Pianotone 600 VSTAU (email)

Rhodes Mark I

Vyacheslav Basharov’s Rhodesian Keys (direct link) NKI

Learjeff’s jRhodes 1977 Mark I SF2 (account)

NoiseAsh Sweetcase VSTAU

wavements Rose&Rhodes Free vstpreset (email)

Rhodes Piano Bass

Ken Harrison’s Sparkletop Bass NKI (account)

Roland JD-800 “Crystal Rhodes”

Elf of Happy and Love’s Crystal Rhodes SF2

Siel PX

Synth Magic Siel PX Electric Piano NKI

Yamaha CP-80

Greg Sullivan’s The Y Piano as a Kontakt or Gigastudio instrument NKIGIG

Yamaha DX7 E-Piano 1/FM Piano

4Front E-Piano VSTAU RTAS

Dexed is a Yamaha DX7-based synth. You can find a number of FM pianos for it in the Dexed Cart 1.0 collection, compiled by Jacques Prestreau. Select the “CART” button in Dexed, right click → “Open location” to get to the cart folder, and drag the Dexed Cart collection into it. One piano that works is under Godric/piano04.syx, “ElecPian 1.” VSTAULV2 (none, account)

Wurlitzer 200A

O’Grady’s Old Dirty Wurli NKI

Spitfire LABS Wurli VSTAUAAX (Spitfire)

boscomac WURLITSAR MK2 ENS

Organs

See also: free reeds (accordions, harmonicas, etc.).

Barrel organ

Rossignol-Studios Barbariz 3 NKI

Sonokinetic Carousel NICNT (Sonokinetic)

boscomac BARROUSEL ENS

Chord organ

AerocityMusic Vintage Chord Organ has the chromatic keys (C3-C6) but not the chord buttons, which seems to defeat the purpose… hmm… NKI (account)

Clonewheel organ

Planet Botch Clonewheel VXH Win VST

Combo organ

Martinic Combo Model V VSTAU

boscomac TRANZISTORG MKII ENS

Farfisa Mini Deluxe Compact

Martinic Combo Organ F VSTAU

Nord organ

Fanan ScandiClavia 2 Win VST

Vox Continental

Spitfire LABS Rare Groove Piano focuses more on the e-piano/harpsichord sound character. VSTAUAAX (Spitfire)

Vox Continental II/Super Continental

Planet Botch The Undercult Win VST

Pipe organ

VCSL‘s Pipe Organ patch (SFZ and samples) SFZ (Github)

Samplephonics The Leeds Town Hall Organ NKIALPEXSSXT (account)

Flowstoners Quilcom Rank Win VST

Positive organ

Kalen Smith’s Little Organ NKI (account)

Renaissance organ

VCSL‘s Renaissance Organ patch (SFZ and samples) SFZ (Github)

Spinet organ

Michael Picher’s ElecOrg SFZ

Tonewheel/drawbar/”Hammond” organ

CollaB3 VSTAU

Michael Picher’s HamOrg SFZ

Wrongtools Trapeze Organ can be played straight or turned into an ambient pad. NKI (Woocommerce)

boscomac ORGAMUNDO ENS

Hammond Extravoice F100

SynthMagic Extravoice NKI

Other keyboards

Hohner D6 Clavinet

2getheraudio Ticky Clav 2 is a physically modeled clav. VSTAUAAX (newsletter)

SASamples Freeky Free Clav has distortion and auto-wah on by default, but you can turn them off to get a regular clav sound. NKI (Wix)

Harpsichord

VCSL‘s “Harpsichord, English” patch as a SFZ (with samples) or a Kontakt instrument SFZNKI

Electronik Sound Lab Darksichord 2 VSTAU

Rock-si-chord (electric harpsichord)

Soniccouture RMI Rocksichord NICNT (account + Soniccouture)

Free virtual instrument series

View the main page or learn more about 📕 plug-in formats. licenses and download requirements.

• 🎹 Pianos, organs, & keyboards
• 🎤 Solo vocals, choirs
• 🎻 Orchestral strings
• 🎸 Guitars, harps, lutes, & zithers
• 🎷 Woodwinds & free reeds
• 🎺 Brass & horns
• 🔔 Idiophones
• 🥁 Drums, percussion
• Synths & drum machines – Coming soon! (❛◡˂̵ ̑̑✧)
• DAWs, samplers, & FX – Coming soon! (❛◡˂̵ ̑̑✧)