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I'm not going to define VST plugins because we have a whole internet for that, but there's been clamoring for a thread like this for a long time. I'll lay out the VSTs that I use most every day first and give them the most attention. I'm by no means the final authority on VST plugins, but that's what the thread is for. The vast majority of the plugins that work for me seem to be retail products although there is some good free stuff. I'm sure somebody has a bunch of experience with free stuff and will be willing to chime in. Instruments will be divided from traditional plugins. Let's get a more or less definitive list of good stuff going. Things I look for in a solid VST plug are smooth sonic response, good range of control, ease of use, speed of setup and how well it performs at the limits of it's operation. Hopefully we can at least get some good discussion started. I'll update the OP semi-regularly for newbs. Instruments Elysia mpressor ~ $199 http://www.elysia.com/software/mpressor/introduction/ This is by far my favorite compression plugin. It's smooth and buttery but can get pretty nasty. It doesn't create artifacts when it's pumping hard. By far the most analogue sounding compression plugin I've ever used, it's easy to dial in a sound that works in your mix really quickly. Shines on vocals, drums, and really dynamic sounds. You can really put a crunch on without throwing out the baby with the bath water. I can't imagine working without it anymore because it makes my life easier. It might be more appropriate for advanced recordists because of the large amount of control available, but even sticking to the basic knobs yields good results. Worth every penny even for an amateur. SoundToys Decapitator ~ $179 or as part of a bundle http://www.soundtoys.com/product/Decapitator/ These guys make great stuff and I'll be talking about more of it. This loving plugin is great. Really great. If you don't have a budget for boutique and vingtage preamps this plug can save your rear end. It emulates the distortion characteristics of five different classic analogue signal paths and it does it so gracefully and believably. From just a little bus distortion or warmth through serious noise it stays with the program. This plugin sounds like the real deal. The tone control is nice too and behaves as one would expect but does so cleanly and fluidly. Also worth the money even for an amateur. Sonnox Reverb, EQ, Dynamics, SuprEsser ~ $$ depending on what you want I find the plugins to sound very neutral almost to a fault, but when I have a problem it's usually the first thing I reach for. The EQ is transparent. It's what I use for surgery and other cutting duties. It can be a little clinical so it's best augmented with a character eq for warming duties. Sounds good at the low end and up top although it's not my first choice for mix bus eq. The dynamics section is really powerful and once again useful for trouble areas. It's brutal and totally flexible. The de-esser is just the best I've found, period. Probably my favorite natural sounding reverb plugin. It reminds me of a really nice old digital reverb when it's set to short decays and it's realistic with longer decay times. Really variable and subtle so you can push it up in the mix if the need arises. Can get a little ugly with weird settings which brings us to... Breverb 2 ~ $220 If you want to start to get weird, this is the way to go. It won't get you all the way there though. More interesting textures than the Sonnox verb and just more vibe. Perhaps a little more user friendly. It reminds me more of the verb found on later eventide multi-effects boxes. I expect a lot of people already use this one. Blends easily in a mix, few artifacts, sounds good for more diffuse sounds and gated Phil Collins drums. The motion controls are nice too. Sound Toys Everything Else They Ever Made And Will Continue To Make ~ $495 For all your multi-effects needs this is where you'll find it. The plugins get used all over the place by everyone's favorite engineers. Echoboy is the BEST delay plugin, Crystallizer is awesome if a little unpredictable but that's why these are so good. The built in saturation on the I/O is good all by it self. It's like a baby Decapitator is built into each plugin. Devil-Loc looks good but I haven't tried it. I'm quite sure it's fantastic. Stillwell Audio Plugs ~ $40-$50 each Great bang for the buck. If I was looking for value this is definitely where I'd turn. 1973 is a great character EQ with a great sounding 780hz setting. If you need a boost at that frequency it's awesome. Does good with the rumblies too and I'll use it on kicks a lot. It's one of those plugins where you can keep twisting the dial and you go way farther than you think you should be able to. Great High shelf. I use the Rocket as a drum bus compressor because it's pumpy and mean sounding. The over-sampling button makes a big difference here and I use it whenever I can get away with it. Impetus is a knob I'd like to see on more compressors. It's super fast so it gets ugly. Transient Monster does a lot of the same things a compressor does but goes about it differently. It's good for spicing things up or taming wild transients. (Imagine that!) Not transparent but that's not what it's intended to be. Verbiage is my goto in the box outerspace reverb simulator. Great for big thick special effects. It has a built in gate that works reasonably well and it's easy to make the sound you hear in your head a reality. Works for general ambiance as well at less extreme settings. I use Event Horizon all the time too if I was that over compressed super hot sound. Major Tom is a reasonable compressor like you'd find in any decent DAW. Maybe a little nicer, it's at least a little different flavor. Being able to switch from feedback to feed forward operation is nice. Softube Emulations ~ $$$ These are kinda expensive. They are totally worth the money but perhaps a little more difficult to justify than the things that I've already mentioned. The Valley People Dyna-Mite is another plugin that's not like any othe VST available. It sounds remarkably shity in an awesome way. It'll handle your typical dynamic tasks including ducking which is awesome. Kind of a Joe Meek style box in character. A little dirty and a little nasty but scores big in the tone category. Sounds great on drums, guitars (gasp), and anything else you don't mind attacking a little. It'd be hard for me to live without this one. The Trident A-range is basically the same thing but in EQ form. If you want to add a little grit or dirt it works. I like to use it for cuts just for the benefit of the saturation control which is nice and different from the Decapitator. Before Decapitator I'd use this and the SoundToys stuff for saturation duties in the box. The Tubetech CL1-B sounds to me like an LA-2A in the box. Maybe not as much as the Bomb Factory ones but those don't really sound like an LA-2A either. I use it where I'd use one of those or an LA-4. If you just want thickening compression I find that this works well. It sounds good on breathy singers and bassssss. Abbey Road Brilliance Pack ~ $125 This is where I go for air. On a drum part, vocal or rarely a reverb return. They couldn't be any easier. My favorite is the one with only one knob that only goes up. I'd be wary of using these in conjunction with cheap tube mics. Other than that they handle the job dutifully with little fuss. Autotune, Vocalign, Stutter Edit, Uhbik, Glitch Everybody knows Autotune, but it's still the best at what it does imo. I don't use it as a vocal 'effect' just for subtle pitch correction. It does a good job on the automatic setting and that's why I like it. Vocalign is great. If you are layering vocals at all you can get that super tight 1000 overdub feel without TOO much fuss. It can still be a pain in the dick though. I use this on all the hip-hop I work on. Stutter Edit is fun to play with and better in a live environment than in the studio. That being said I have used it a few times for effects and it does a nice job. It's definitely a time saver if you want a preset break just like... Glitch! fuchermotkers. It's old and played out but you'll find a use for it. Each of the individual modules is useful in it's own right and being able to sequence them makes you skrillex overnight. Get it and be ready to kill yourself tomorrow. To Be Continued
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Jan 11, 2012 00:25
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reserved vvv I think everything I listed is available as an AU as well. Feel free to dig into those too. muckswirler fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jan 12, 2012 |
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Jan 11, 2012 00:25
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Yeah, Komplete 8 is insane. I've spent a little time with it and there's enough there for pretty much anything I can think of. The new version of guitar rig sounds about a billion times better than version 3 and it's got like 30 instruments or something. Definitely worth consideration on the soft synth/sampler side of things. I need the best string plugin. Which one is good? I'm not interested in 500 GB of samples though. Something that's relatively lightweight, with a few articulations and maybe some synthesis capability. I need it to sound good and be easy to program because I suck at keys. I'll probably add VST instruments and a few other things to the OP this weekend so keep an eye out for the edit.
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Jan 26, 2012 23:59
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mr_package posted:This is a weird list of requirements... good stuff. Thanks for the info. LASS sounds like my ticket, but it's easier for me to justify that kind of money if I use it frequently which I may not. I hate having to plug in extra drives just for large sample libraries and I'll never use 450GB of the stuff anyway. That's probably idiosyncratic though. 'Realism' in Rock, Hip-hop, Disco whatever is really all I care about, so the sounds aren't going to be terribly exposed. Not really trying to fool anybody just looking for 'easy' arrangement options and compelling samples. If there's an easy upgrade path on EW Gold I'd rather go that route (begrudgingly lol) or LASS First Chair + Lite. I really won't need solo performances, just basic bass, cello, two violins type stuff. In your opinion which of those two products would you buy?
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Jan 27, 2012 22:14
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I wouldn't be surprised if you've already tried digital fishphones stuff, but if you haven't try those out. Otherwise give these a shot and report back if they're any good: http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/vst-effects/ If you want to make a small investment, I've always been happy with the compressors that Stillwell put out. I think they're like $30 or something. It sounds like Major Tom would be right up your alley, but if it's the same price I'd be tempted to grab The Rocket cause it's more versatile and has that Decadence button... Ohhhhh the decadence button. (I think it's just oversampling mode.) Also, the Impetus control is something I wish every compressor had. Actually consider this an endorsement for The Rocket. It's an all around good flavor compressor and it'll get gnarly as all hell. I think I could make do with just it and Mpressor. EDIT - gently caress you guys are fast. I'm gonna dick around with those VoS plugins today and see if they're cool. Anybody have any experience with them? muckswirler fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 03:37
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Alright so I spent some quality time with a few of the plugins from the guys that I mentioned in a previous post: http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/vst-effects/ I think there's some good stuff here. I don't know if it's necessary the sound of the plugins or the controls specified and the layout, but a few of them are really nice. These are plugins with things you want/need and few parameters that you don't (although I grabbed the less busy looking ones). Setting them up was super fast. Although I found it easy to overdrive the meters on a few of them they still sounded silky and correct. Baxter EQ - Seems smooth. The shelving filters sound good and I had no trouble dialing it on on a drum bus. As soon as I flipped it into m/s mode, I knew I'd like it. Immediately focused the kick and mated it to the bass. Totally gluey. Get it. Density mkII - Tried it on backing vocal and drum bus. In both cases, it thickened things nicely with less gain reduction than I had imagined if the meters are to be believed. This is not SSL 4000 series compression. Think tube based program compressors or older Neve stuff? It's free and it works and it has m/s mode. Go for it. FerricTDS - I love tape simulators and this is one of my favorite so far. Totally gonna grab the transformer emulator and give it a go. There's going to be a lot of decapitator>tape>trans in my future. If you like that sort of thing, it's worth grabbing. NastyDLA - Sounds like a Lexicon Primetime without the weird LFO effects. Old and lovely and terribly lovely. It's seemingly free from the undulating craziness that those things tend to exhibit these days. I only played with it a little, but it seemed perfectly capable and just unpredictable enough. These plugs are worth money. They are generally predictable and err on the side of warm and gentle (they don't get really 'digital'), kinda like the SoundToys stuff but free. Totally worth further investigation.
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Mar 7, 2012 23:32
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Totally echoes my experience with the Polysix. It sounds like the hardware and the controls operate in much the same way. The MS-20 not as much imo. The hardware sounds more rubbery and alive. You touch a knob and it's immediately satisfying. It could just be that the originals are less well behaved and the filters are generally gnarlier. This is based on my memory of the plugin, but I do play with an original with relative frequency. Still a good plug though. All the Waldorf plugins sound amazing, including the PPG Wave. Might want to check that out if you're interested in wavetable synthesis. Aren't original wavestations pretty cheap these days?
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Apr 2, 2012 21:01
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In order for an instrument to be fully compatible with the free Kontakt player, the company has to pay for a license from NI. That's why so many random instruments only work in the full version. In other words it's pretty loving stupid.
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Jan 19, 2013 00:23
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The cool thing about Live is the warp function. There are so many schemes and adjustments available that it makes resampling really really easy. Learn how to use warp markers and it'll be hard to live without it. I spend half of my time in Live playing with warp markers and music just falls out. Play things live, resample them and play them again until you like what you hear. That being said, Maschine is just icing on the cake.
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Mar 9, 2013 05:58
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Give me three stepped bands and two fixed filters then crank the mojo factor. Keep the other two bands for ya momma. For serious though, those both look really nice. The Sonoris one looks great too and potentially more useful with linearity selectable on a per band basis. Suddenly EQs!
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Apr 1, 2013 07:00
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Synthedit is awesome and you're awesome for building stuff with it. Paid beta audio software is stupid as hell. It's not like there aren't a million other options that are just as good for the same price or less. Also they're finished and stable. When a recent patch note is 'fixed multiple instances causing crash', it doesn't inspire confidence. Actual tools need to work 100% of the time no questions asked. I'd rather use stock DAW plugins that I know are going to work than risk the vibe of a session by using something that's untested. You can't get vibe back. It depends on how you use your rig and if people other than you depend on its stability, but why not either just buy something else that's complete or just wait? Also, they integrated 'the glue' into Live. Ugh. It doesn't sound ANYTHING like a G or E series and it's grainy as heck. Please do not use it. Thanks.
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Apr 2, 2013 15:31
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Quincy Smallvoice posted:Artifacts? really? Did you compare the normal version with the same material? How hard are you hitting it? To me it feels sketchy beyond -4-5 so I try to deploy a few of them doing different things on my drumbus. I will say that its not seen much use since the big breakthroughs in nebula compression in the last 6 months. I'm familiar enough with quad compressors that I can mentally apply the compression character to anything I hear whenever. I have beaten/monitored so much material through those things it isn't even funny. There's a sweet spot on the hardware that sounds really nice. Also, I was taught to never makeup gain on it. That's harder to do in the box and could be the issue that I have with the plugin. It's one of those plugins that just makes me go ewwwwwwww and it doesn't really fit my workflow. I look to a 4000 series compressor for a few very, very specific things. IMO that plugin doesn't do those things and there are other plugins that do what it claims to do better. On drum busses I'm usually looking for distortion and/or funk not more bite or whatever ESPECIALLY ITB. Hope that makes sense.
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Apr 2, 2013 17:18
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You mean trigger a hardware sequencer or play slices in a sampler or do the 1-16 follow the beats light up thingy like an 808? First two for sure, easy, just tell us your software/hardware of choice. The last one is something that I've never seen before but probably exists. I'd imagine it's unwieldy as heck too. You could probably do it in Max. If it exists that's where you'd find it. Actually, go talk to the guys in the Max thread. They might be able to help you write it if you can't find it. Because ML is deader than a pile of dead things. vvvvvvv muckswirler fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Apr 10, 2013 |
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Apr 10, 2013 00:38
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Echoboy has a rushing/dragging control that's effectively a ms delay adjustment to the tempo locked feedback signal.
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Apr 18, 2013 14:45
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A cooking analogy! It's the difference between knowing and following a recipe in a free cookbook to the letter vs being able to create and improvise killer dishes through sheer know how/experience. One is a lot more art than the other.
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Oct 5, 2013 16:18
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That's kind of a *beep boop* post and the worst defense of 2-bus limiting that I've ever heard. I like the way noise sounds. I like reduced headroom. I like saturation and I like clipping. Are they appropriate for everything? No, but nobody really thinks they are. Will I argue to my dying breath that bad masters are bad? Hell yes. The way an 1176 sounds isn't objectively better than anything else, but it sure is imprinted hard into our cultural history. Why reinvent the wheel? If you want clean you use clean. If you want dirty you gently caress it all up. Isn't that like the most obvious point ever?
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Feb 20, 2014 03:22
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Unnnnnnnnnnghhhhhh that's some tasty news.
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Mar 3, 2014 23:58
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it's fine on the cpu. overdriving any of those plugins is a little like decapitator lite. if you want something to get you in the neighborhood for 30 bucks that's a great opportunity.
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Jun 19, 2018 20:20
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You want to dump it to another track in the session or something? Just crank up your buffer.
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Aug 3, 2018 21:06
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If I had to guess I'd say you have some sort of 'key listen' or 'gain matching' mode turned on which reverts all your settings backwards when you hit accept or you're doing something weird with an m/s decoder? Idk I don't have ozone 8. Did you rtfm?
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Aug 7, 2018 20:56
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yeah it's called bandlab now
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Sep 12, 2018 17:09
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i dl'd it a while back just for kicks and cakewalk's pretty convoluted for that type of daw. i'm just too used to live these days i guess. idk if it's better than, say, reaper or whatever. the per channel tube emulation is nice but yeah the mobile version of bandlab is not great.
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Sep 13, 2018 21:45
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Which brings up a fair question - Why is windowed plugin gui so notoriously laggy and poo poo? MacOS or Windows there are plenty of plugs with bad UI performance. Half the time if a plugin is crashing I wonder if it's the ui implementation.
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Nov 19, 2018 23:18
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Crystallizer is like all the weird presets in an eventide harmonizer. Really useful for just filling space. Primal tap owns hard but the prime time delay is one of my favorite pieces of gear ever so take that with a grain of salt. If you don't have decapitator get that first. And like peeps have said, the envelope trigger in filterfreak is really useful for cool stuff.
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Nov 20, 2018 18:24
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Stutter edit is the loving poo poo and you should totally buy it if you make electronic anything or DJ and don't have it.
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Nov 24, 2018 01:22
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How's it do early digital delay sounds? Can you get it artifacty and does it sound lush or sterile in that mode? Curious if you can get it to sound like a primetime or BEL and if it's better than primaltap.
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Apr 18, 2019 14:04
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The Elysia Mpressor is one of my fave ever boxes and the software emulations are really good and will kinda do everything cleanly. If you're looking for something cleaner and more flexible to augment a cool character comp like the Devil-Loc or whatever. The EL Arousor is another one that's really flexible but easy to get good sounds out of. I'd take good hard looks at both of those.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:05
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In that case the UA distressor might be good too, but it really depends on if you want more of an iron/transformer vibe or something that will go completely invisible if necessary with a few more interesting options. The mpressor will get clean and punchy in a different way than the distressor.
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Apr 18, 2019 19:36
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In a lot of cases it's because a software compressor is a software compressor and they only get interesting around the fringes. In hardware you have trannies and tubes and transistors and layout and vintage chemistry issues and dirty pots and design quirks. The way those things add up in hardware make things like the 1176 or LA-3A different from a Fairchild 670 or Manley Vari-Mu. When you're emulating those things in software it's the opposite type of process. You start with a 'perfect' algorithm and trim away at it and add nonlinearity. Compressors are frequently used with very little compression just for the overall vibe more than for actual corrective work. If you want to figure out how they sound different you really can't beat crushing a drum subgroup or room mic. It'll give you an overall flavor for the compression of that particular plugin. Then just use them to shade different parts the way you like. Limiting loudness is a whole different thing and pulling a few dB from every track to boost the overall level is best done with simple per channel clean compressors. It's why you have consoles with a dynamics section by channel. Follow the attack and release of your source, make sure you aren't too noisy and remember that high frequency transients develop quicker than low frequency ones and adjust your attack times accordingly to let through what you want to let through. The other thing with hardware that you can't do in software is hit the input of the compressor over unity and come out at an appropriate level without a makeup gain stage. That makes it easier to hear the sound of the box because you hear the either slight overdrive character or the input headroom in action. So for a per channel compressor something clean and flexible and predictable. For something you're trying to make a sound with, either abuse the plugin or find a dirty plugin that you like and just barely kiss it.
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Apr 19, 2019 10:41
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You want to give yourself a few db of headroom all the way through and into the mix bus until the final stages itb. Also smarter automation programming makes mastering easier, don't make the compressor do all the work. The first thing a mastering engineer will do is automate the overall level of the track so it hits the comp a little nicer. If you aren't banging up against full scale it's easier to hear the effect of the compression imo. You should be able to come in at -4db or whatever and finish it off in ozone. If your poo poo isn't slamming after you limit it, it's generally not a mastering issue, it's a mix issue. As you mentioned, multiple stages of compression are often required to get the desired effect so feel free to use a couple inline mixbus compressors to square things up if necessary. In a studio setting you might got through the console mixbus comp then through a comp (or two) and a limiter during mastering. Really low ratio, low threshold on multiband compression if you don't want it to sound squashy. Bring the threshold down until you're clearly triggering a bit on all the peaks and then bring up the ratio until it sounds how you want it to.
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Jul 23, 2019 21:05
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I'll second that, the Waves convolver can go screw.
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Aug 6, 2019 21:22
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Trig Discipline posted:I use Tremolator, Stutter Edit, and Effectrix for that sort of thing if I want something more than Bitwig's built-in modulators can do for me. Trig, please do not tell people to use stutter edit, it is too good and saves too much time.
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Aug 20, 2020 13:49
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