Get FreePiano. If your MIDI interface is working, FreePiano will make a sound when you press keys. It's piano sound isn't the best, but it's decent enough for testing and learning to play. It can also use VST plugins. Source: over 1 year ago

Freepiano. On top of being free and letting you get started right away, it is also a VST Host (VST 2 only!) Watch out for the volume, though. It starts up with the volume at MAX, and with the sustain pedal On. Playing that first note can be quite annoying. Just click once near the sustain fields (can't miss them, right above the keyboard) and then turn the volume down to about half. Source: over 1 year ago

If you're on Windows, FreePiano. It's a piano all by itself, connects to MIDI devices, and can use VST2 plugins (32 or 64 bit, depending which version of FreePiano you download). It's own default sound is actually a VST you can use in other VST hosts. And it can use ASIO4ALL to get rid of that nasty Win Audio Latency. Source: over 1 year ago

You don't really need much. Windows 10 still has the Wavetable Synth installed. Freepiano 2 is pretty much just what it says - a free piano application that takes MIDI input. It comes with it's own piano sound, but also can use any VST2 plugin (make sure if you get the 64 bit version, your VST2's are 64-bit as well). You can point Freepiano at the MS Wavetable Synth, but it's not a great sound. Source: over 1 year ago

There's a thing called FreePiano. It's nothing great, but the default piano sound leaves a lot to be desierd, but you can use standard VST plugins to replace it's default piano sound, so you can 'upgrade' to a better piano sound later. Super simple to set up and use - just remember to turn the volume down and click on the Sustain field when you first start it up. It's always max volume when it starts, and the... Source: about 2 years ago

My U-HE synths.. For a long time have I wondered what the big 'fuss' was all about, I've read & seen so many people talking highly about these. And then NI had a nice Holiday season sale. So now I too have Diva, Hive (and a bit more) then also grabbed Bazille shortly after. Yah, here's the next person sharing his admiration for U-HE :-). Source: 11 months ago

If you need sampled sounds of acoustic instruments Kontakt is the industry standard. Particularly to create soundtracks the likes of Berlin strings, Cinestrings, Cineperc, etc etc all run in Kontakt. V-Collection shines in modelling synth hardware. The advantage is that you can modify the parameters live and they are not (although they may be sometimes) effects applied directly onto sampled sounds. This collection... Source: over 1 year ago

This is true. I use Bitwig Studio which is native for Linux and has a bunch of great stuff built in. A couple of companies I've found that have great native Linux VST plugins are Audio Assault, these are also a very reasonable price, and u-he. Not to mention you can use SFZ instruments with Carla from KX Studio. But I've found that I prefer the raw samples and using Bitwig's own multisample file format. Linux... Source: over 2 years ago

The U-he https://u-he.com/ guy/owner Urs Heckmann is basically Han's personal engineer who collaborated with him for years. He designed the Dark Zebra for the Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises for example. Source: over 2 years ago

Also, most of the big VST development companies release at least one product, or a entry version of their paid-for products, for free, most of the time you just need to sign up for an account with your email address. Some examples I use: Https://u-he.com/ Https://labs.spitfireaudio.com/. Source: over 2 years ago