Apparently Vlad G of TDR fame has made some clones of popular plugins in JSFX format! What a time to be a Reaper user. And there’s good news for you who use a different DAW. You can read about these plugins and get ’em here. Don’t be deterred by the lack of GUI—these are the real deal.

As I’ve been playing with these, my favorites have been the AC2, which seems to be based on the McDSP Analog Channel, and the Phoenix, after the plugin of the same name developed by Crane Song. These and many others on the list are classics and mainstays in many engineers’ workflows. It’s amazing to find these free alternatives (especially since an official Phoenix will put you back $400).

The whole suite adds up to a total of 18 plugins, covering compression, saturation, and more. Other standouts include OInflator, L2, and O3_Maximizer, each of which might sound familiar to you.

If you’re a Reaper user, installation is easy once you’ve got ReaPack.

1. If you don’t have ReaPack installed, first follow this video.
2. Once you do, go to the Reaper action list and search for the action “ReaPack: Import repositories.”
3. Paste this URL into the text box.
4. Go back to the Reaper action list and search for the action “ReaPack: Browse repositories.”
5. Enter “JClones” into the search bar and right-click and select “Install” on any plugins you like.
6. Click “OK” or “Apply” to confirm installation.
7. You may need to restart Reaper for the new JSFX to be available in your plugin browser.

If you’re not a Reaper user, you can use JSFX in other DAWs with either the ysfx or ReaJS plugin wrapper. I’m not familiar with using these, but these two videos on ysfx I hope will point you in the right direction.

Spread the good word. And let me know what your favorites are too. (I’ve yet to try the compressors!)