Free
The following plugins are a work-in-progress. They're my playground for experimentation. I love working on them and writing posts about them, but keep in mind that nyxfx is a one-man operation and this one man also has a full-time job. Right now, the builds target Windows only. That will change soon, however.
nyx.vfx
The VFX VST Engine. It's a multithreaded, real-time rendering pipeline for midi-based effects. It includes a way to export videos, so each frame is synchronized with the beats. Additionally, it includes a dynamic parameter registration system in order to automate effects.
It was originally built as a visual event map when importing my own music into DaVinci for synchronizing effects. I kept prototyping it out as my needs and interests changed. If you love tweaking and fiddling around, then you'll enjoy this.
Walkthrough 1
Walkthrough 2
nyx.vtheory
In Reaper, I find myself using ChordGun quite a bit for playing around with progressions to get started on ideas. It's a good tool, but it's also limiting, in that you can't easily switch from one key to the next. I wanted a tool that I could visualize the relationships and make fast-paced selections easily.
nyx.vgtr
The Virtual Guitar. It's not a sampler! It's a midi piano roll replacement. It annoys me to no end that there's no piano roll alternative in DAWs (that I've seen). As a guitarist, I feel especially frustrated because I want to interact with midi using a fretboard for documentation and learning reasons.
I started working on this when learning some NES tunes from midi files. I wanted a way to document how I was transposing it and found the piano roll completely useless in that regard. This project is still in development. A test version is on the way.