Unfortunately for everyone, many people often confuse “illegal” plugins, plugins that have had their copy protections removed illegally (“cracked”), as “free” plugins. Those are not “free” plugins, those are “illegal” plugins. While you may be able to obtain these plugins for “free”, they are not, indeed, free.

Another instance of this is “receiving plugins from friends”, where “friends” provide you with a copy of their plugins directory. (just a heads up; most times this doesn’t work due to other missing dependencies). This is also illegal; you did not pay to use those plugins.

There are many actual free and useful plugins available. I’ve listed many of them here on this site, but there are many others that you can find on the net. Most (if not all) of the actual free plugins have user agreements that prohibit distributing them second hand, so I can only provide links here. However, many of the free plugins you might “find” on the internet are actually cracked, illegal copies of plugins that normally require purchase. I strongly discourage the use of these plugins for many, many reasons.

1. They are illegal.
2. The process required to “crack” the plugin for use actually requires altering the code. These plugins are often un-reliable and unstable because of this process and can turn your smoothly running DAW software into an unusable pile of garbage fairly quickly.
3. They are illegal.
4. The people who “crack” these plugins are, by definition, unethical. Many times exploits are included in the cracked plugins that can allow these individuals access to your system(s) and all of your data.
5. They are illegal.
6. The programmers who work on these plugins rely on the income of their sales for their livelihoods. These are real, hard working people, many supporting families, that deserve to be supported for doing their jobs.
7. Have I mentioned that they are illegal?

Many users have come across cracked plugins and have been tempted to use, or actually used them. I would like to plead with users not to do this. No matter what your reason for doing it is, no matter what excuse you give (“They’re too expensive”, “the Copy protection screws up my machine”, etc) they are still just that, excuses, and it is still just plain wrong.

There are plenty of alternatives:

• There are quite a few really excellent free plugins.
• There are quite a few really excellent low priced plugins.
• There are plugin rental programs.
• There are online stores with no-credit payment plans (AmericanMusical.com is probably the most famous of these).
• There are organizations that are dedicated to working with developers to provide authentic, low priced plugins to users:

So, getting to the answer to the question; what are free plugins?

• “Free” plugins obtained from the manufacturer’s website? Free.
• “Free” plugins obtained on a promotional disk from a different manufacturer or from a magazine or other publisher? Free.
• “Free” plugins obtained from a torrent site? Not free.
• “Free” plugins given to you on a disk from a friend? Not free.
• “Free” plugins that you know cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars normally? Not free.

Bottom line, don’t use cracked plugins. Ever.

Common examples of the techniques used by trolls include:

• flooding by excessive meaningless posting
• attacking regulars in a group
• attempting to “divide and conquer”
• making themselves the savior of the group
• trying to impress others with their knowledge, but ultimately only showing their ignorance of a subject
• childish name calling
• threatening people
• violating newsgroup policies
• posting under an alias (especially after getting kicked of for one or more of the above)

Trolls often have serious personal issues and will usually focus their attacks and aggressions on one or a few more active or long time members of the group. They will also be paranoid about other group members and/or administrators “ganging up on them” in support of the long time users, or when they are reprimanded (or even banned) for breaking the rules.
The word troll has gained popularity in internet communities because of its apt second meaning, drawn from the trolls portrayed in children’s tales; they are often ugly, obnoxious creatures bent on mischief an wickedness.

The best way to deal with a Troll is to completely ignore them.

The only real difference between them is that some files that claim to be ACID files aren’t sliced into beats, where all REX files are.

REX files are created using a program from Propellerheads called ReCycle. That’s how it gets it’s name; REX = REcycle eXport. The ReCycle program is dedicated to creating REX files for use in other programs, such as Reason’s REX player, or directly in an audio program that is capable of utilizing this functionality, such as the current version of Pro Tools.

ACID files are basically just WAV files that contain “extra” information about the WAV file. Information such as tempo, length, and a beatmap are usually included in the “extra” information. Some ACID files (especially older ones) exclude the beatmap information which makes them useful in other programs (like Pro Tools), and only include tempo and length information. ACID files are created using a program from Sony called, well, ACID. ACID can be used to create acid files, but the program itself is also a detailed and complex looping DAW of it’s own. There are other programs that can be used to create ACID files, such as Sony’s Sound Forge, and a few other third party programs.

What these programs do is turn a regular audio loop into a REX/ACID file by separating the loop into smaller pieces, usually on the individual beats within the loop. This process is called “slicing” the loop. REX files and most ACID files can be and are considered “sliced” loops.

REX/ACID file usage all depends on the functionality of the program you are using them in. Some programs, such as Reason’s REX player, allow you to trigger each slice in the files with a MIDI event.

Some programs (such as ACID and Ableton Live) do not require the slice data, and only go off the tempo and length information to “warp” the file to conform to a specific tempo.

Some programs, such as Pro Tools, allow you to use the file in a tick based audio track, where the slices lock to the beats in the track, and follow the tempo of the song if/when changed. Programs like this also allow you to cut/copy/paste individual slices anywhere you like.

Pro Tools uses this concept of “inserts”, both for plugin functionality, and hardware effects.

Another example of aux track use would be when using external synthesizers and/or sound modules with Pro Tools. The outputs of the synthesizers can be routed to and through aux tracks, and since you are controlling them with MIDI, and bounces contain any audio passing through the default outputs, there is no real need to necessarily record them to audio tracks.

There are many different uses for aux tracks.

But seriously, a “bus” in audio refers to the path between two points. It’s a holdover from analog hardware, where a “bus” is actually a physical wired connection. In fact, the school bus is actually a good analogy; the school bus carries children from one place to another, and the audio bus carries audio from one place to another.

There can be many different busses. You will probably hear the main outputs, the left and right components of a stereo signal, be commonly referred to as the “2-bus” or the “Master Bus”. It is the “bus” that carries the main two channel signal (hence “2-bus”).

Pro Tools, and other DAWs, use busses to route audio internally. Pro Tools uses the term “bus” for any audio path created and used entirely inside the software, and can use the busses to route audio from one track to another, or split the signal from one track to another, or any number of other uses.

s In very simplistic terms, you could refer to an audio bus as “how to get audio from one place to another”.