Free Worship Guitar and Keys Presets: Every Free Pack on SoundShop
Updated: Oct 1
Let me guess. The setlist just landed on Planning Center, one of the songs has a tone you have no clue how to recreate, and your gear budget this month is exactly zero dollars.
Good news. SoundShop has free worship guitar presets and free worship keys presets from working players, so you can start from their settings without spending a thing.
If you're anything like me, you love trying new sounds. I've had the privilege of playing guitar for Anne Wilson, Stars Go Dim, Bethel Music, Jason Upton, Worship Online, and others, and for over a decade I've been buying and selling used gear on Reverb.com just to try new things. A free preset pack is the only way I know to do that without listing anything first.
Every free worship guitar and keys preset on SoundShop
Not every artist on SoundShop gives a pack away. When one is free, it's because that player chose to hand it to you. For guitar:
Bethel Music Strymon Preset Collection by Michael Pope for the TimeLine, BigSky, and BigSky plugin
For keys, there's Ableton Stock Keys Presets by Christopher Wohrle. The live list always sits on our free presets page.
Free worship guitar presets from Michael Pope's Bethel years
This is the one most people come for. Michael Pope joined Bethel Music in 2010 and toured and recorded with them as a guitarist, music director, writer, and co-producer until 2019.
These are the presets from his board during that stretch. Nearly 200 of them across the TimeLine and BigSky, plus a full set formatted for the BigSky plugin.
The collection spans seven Bethel Music albums, including We Will Not Be Shaken and Have It All, and songs like "No Longer Slaves," "Lion and the Lamb," and "King of My Heart." Michael used to sell it on his own site. He brought it back with us as a free gift to the worship community, and that still kind of blows my mind.
Where to start
Don't audition all 200 on night one. Pick five, figure out what each one is for (the glue sound, the lift, the wash for transitions), and build your Sunday around those.
Then change them. Your guitar, your amp, and your room are not Michael's, so treat every patch as a starting point. Seeing where a pro set the deep parameters teaches you more about the pedal than the manual does.
Stephen Thompson's free BigSky and TimeLine presets
Stephen Thompson is a San Diego studio guitarist and music director. His two free packs are the presets he reaches for most, live and in the studio: six on the BigSky and eight on the TimeLine.
Small is the point. A short list you'll actually learn beats 300 slots you'll scroll past.
The one Strymon catch
These packs are for the original BigSky and TimeLine. Strymon has confirmed that original presets cannot be loaded into the BigSky MX or TimeLine MX.
David Kim's free Quad Cortex presets
David Kim is a Los Angeles guitarist who plays across CCM, pop, R&B, and gospel, with credits alongside Jackson Wang, Ciara, and Doobie Powell. His free pack is eight Quad Cortex presets.
You get a clean foundation with a compressor stack, a shimmer and reverse delay swell for slow builds, and a POG-style octave lead for hooks like the lift in Phil Wickham's "Battle Belongs."
Free worship keys presets: Christopher Wohrle's Ableton racks
Keys players, this one's yours. Christopher Wohrle is a keys player for Bethel Music, and he built this pack entirely with Ableton Live's stock plugins, so there's nothing else to buy.
You get four racks: an Instrument Rack and an Effects Rack for a piano sound, and the same pair for an upright. Drop in any piano, Ableton's stock Grand Piano or your favorite VST, and the macros do the rest:
Scale, to lock your playing to the song's key
Comp, two stages of compression on one knob
Punch, a little grit so the piano cuts through a full band
Chorus, for a wider sound
Delay, with 8th, dotted 8th, or 16th note timing
Verb, a warm vintage reverb, and Gain for quick level changes
How to use them on a Sunday
You bring the piano you already know, and the rack handles the compression, punch, and space that make it sit in a band mix.
Scale is off until you turn it on, and Chris treats it as a tool for tricky parts, not something to leave on all night. The Effects Racks also work on audio (without Scale), so you can put the same polish on a recorded piano part.
One honest note before you download: the racks use Glue Compressor, so you need Live Standard or Suite, not Intro.
How to load them without losing your Saturday
Each device loads a little differently, and every step-by-step guide is linked:
Strymon (Michael's and Stephen's packs): you need a USB MIDI interface with its own driver, both MIDI cables connected, and Strymon's free Nixie 2 or Nixie Legacy. Back up your pedal first. Full steps for the BigSky and the TimeLine.
Quad Cortex (David's pack): follow thesoundshopco in Cortex Cloud, then type your exact Cortex Cloud username at checkout. Full steps in the Quad Cortex guide.
Ableton (Christopher's pack): copy the presets folder into your User Library, then drop the racks onto a MIDI track with your piano. Full steps in the Ableton Live guide.
Strymon presets are not drag-and-drop, and that's the step that scares people off. Plug-and-play MIDI cables are usually the culprit when a pedal won't show up. Strymon confirms the Roland UM-ONE MKII, the iConnectivity MIO XC, and its own Strymon Conduit.
The first time I went to load Strymon presets, I went through two cheap Amazon knockoffs before I finally bought the Roland UM-ONE MKII that Strymon recommends. Save yourself the time and the hassle. You'll use it.
The best free upgrade on your rig is ten years of somebody else's settings.
Where to go after the free packs
If the free packs click for you, these are the ones I'd point you to next.
David Liotta's Quad Cortex preset
David Liotta is best known as a guitarist for Elevation Worship, and he played on albums like Graves Into Gardens and the Grammy-winning Old Church Basement. His Quad Cortex Presets are one preset, All Day Every Day, the one he uses live and in the studio. It runs in Stomp mode, so you step on the drives, chorus, delays, and reverbs like a pedalboard.
Cory Pierce's BigSky presets
Cory Pierce is a Nashville touring and session guitarist for Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes. His BigSky Presets are ten reverbs from his own BigSky, from the Classic Cloud he calls his usual starting point to a Carpet Pad Hall for pads under your playing.
Christopher Wohrle's Pro Keys racks
Christopher's Ableton Pro Keys Presets are 22 presets plus his own piano and synth racks, built around his settings for Waves, Soundtoys, and Valhalla plugins. You'll need those plugins and a Mac, since the racks use the Audio Unit versions. It's on his artist page.
No pressure, though. You can run the free packs for years and sound great.
Quick answers
Are these actually free?
Yes. You check out like any other product and the total reads $0. Quad Cortex presets are shared to your Cortex Cloud account instead of downloaded.
Will the keys racks work in MainStage?
No. They're Ableton Live racks, so they only open in Live.
Will I sound exactly like the record?
No, and that's fine. The presets get the effects and the settings right. Your hands, your instrument, and your room still carry the song.
A good preset gets the gear out of the way. Once the sound is handled, the only question left on Sunday is the one that matters: what are you going to play?
Go make something beautiful.
Grab every free pack in one place on the SoundShop free presets page.
