Dance MIDI Samples: Free plugin guide

We've put together a guide to a few of our favourite ever FREE audio plugins for our users. What's best is that all the plugins we've listed are available for Windows VST & Mac OS X VST/ AU (Intel & PPC), which means everyone can join in the fun!

Destroy FX MIDI Gater - a great easy to use gating VST plugin, perfect for creating 'trance gate' type effects - simply insert the plugin over your channel as a MIDI effect then side chain MIDI Gater to the channel you'd like to send MIDI from. You can then use your MIDI keyboard or Piano Roll to enter your gate pattern.

Betabug's Crayon Filter - our favourite free filter! This little beauty is capable of some really nasty gritty sounds and goes crazy at high resonance settings. Great for genres such as electro house and psytrance that require dirty hi-pass filter sounds!

Camel Phat Free (Camel Crusher) - the free version of Camel Audio's versatile Camel Phat packs a punch of its own with low-pass filter, distortion and one-knob compressor all in one handy plugin!

Expert Sleepers Phaser & Ping Pong - need a ping-pong delay that really hits the stereo spot? We'd been looking for a free one for ages and has been a firm favourite on our studio Mac for a few years. Now ported over for Windows VST users too this simple to use plugin is capable of some great delay effects. The aptly named 'Phaser' really is a gem too, we've found Logic's phaser a little underwhelming for serious dance stuff and this one's really impressed us.

MDA plugin suite - this handy suite of VST's has been around for quite a while now but we still love it! Now ported to OS X Audio Units too this collection has some real gems, notably the Stereo/ Detune plugins and the excellent Bandisto, a multi-band distortion plugin.

Glitch - the ultimate audio mangler! If your stuck for a fill in your track or need a crazy variation for a drum loop then this free VST download is what your after. Sadly this is a PC VST only but OS X users fear not! Help is at hand in the shape of MDSP Livecut. This loop mangling tool while lacking some of the complexities of Glitch is still a great free tool for emergency random inspiration!