To start the new year off well, I'll feature two plugin pearls today. However, deviating from my usual procedure I am going to recommend two instruments today that I haven't been able to try out myself yet.

In the last few months, a lot of discounts were offered on music software (and I have to admit I made use of a few offers as well). Many of these ended on 31.12. If you missed out on these offers, maybe the following two free Christmas downloads can help you get over the disappointment. Native Instruments offers the Holiday Selection 2009, a collection of KORE and KONTAKT sounds that can be used with the free KORE Player plugin. EastWest/Quantum Leap provide you with Symphonic Orchestra Free, a light version of their orchestra collection Symphonic Orchestra if you fill in a short questionnaire. The LogicUser forum has a list of the 20 instruments included and suggests switching off the convolution reverb effect to reduce the enormouse CPU load.

For both offers, I'm not quite sure how long they will be available, therefore you should act fast!

Download Native Instruments Holiday Selection for free (ca. 550 MB).

Download EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Free for, well, free (3 parts, together ca. 2 GB)