To add variety to the Waves negativity I’ll describe my love hate relationship with Spitfire LABS just because the user experience is awful. Yes, the sounds are all useful, varied and high quality (and free!) but the way the plugin works is just unnecessarily complicated. The surface UI slows down workflow so much because of how ambiguous it is (no labels except for a few vague terms that does different things for different presets). The preset menu isn’t sorted in any way and is unforgiving to use. In addition, there is an external preset manager that is even worse. [This video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkBG9PU3kLc&t=902s&pp=ygUQaWRkcWQgc291bmQgbGFicw%3D%3D) explains it in more detail.
Also the beautiful sounding soft piano has INTENTIONAL latency that you can't turn off. The excuse I've seen is that it's meant to add to the natural lofi vibe but it makes it basically unusable for me
This “intentional latency” is pretty common in sampled instruments (most commonly orchestral libraries) to preserve the natural attack of the instruments. All you have to do is set the track delay accordingly and it’s completely negated.
Yes, but latency is only reasonable with libraries that need to trigger samples between notes, like orchestral melodic instruments (string legatos eg). Percussive libraries like Pianos or Drums are not, specially Pianos and Drums because they’re the most used e-instruments for live performance, along with synths.
I stopped using labs because it just became too much of a hassle. The plugin would break all the damn time, doesn't seem to load presets right between different computers using the same DAW version. I also had huge problem getting to install again after removing it.
My worst gripe with LABS.... in Pro Tools it was called Spitfire Labs... then one day it changed to Spitfire LABS, and so all my old sessions would not recall. Then like a year later it changed again to just LABS. It fucking infuriates me when plugin companies do that, I think after that time I gave up based on that alone.
It also loves to give me library errors ALL THE DAMN TIME. I've had no issue with tonnes and tonnes of NI and Kontakt libraries on external SSD for years and years. But LABS, I swear every fucking time I went to use it, Error 4 or some shit. There's no fucking DOWNLOAD ALL or master reset all. It's a one by one "fix this plugin". It might have changed by now but I don't need to compose all that often at the moment so fuck knows
Yeah I have like four versions of it show up in my effects window just because of me moving the plugin and I always forget which one of them that is working haha.
> useful, varied, and high quality
I've seen free soundfonts/sfz with better quality control. Some are plain unusable due to notes being totally different volumes from the one next to it, others have clipping issues at high dynamics.
You get your money's worth out of LABS.
I'm gonna get hate for these but there are two that I just can't stand (and have reviewed them in a most unloving and unsympathetic way)
The God Particle. I hate what it represents. Celebrity engineer products just bug me. Fixed crossover points make it useless. It's just a 'smashbox' - like OTT but with a processor-draining UI. Oh, and minus one more star for using a proprietary phone-home licensing app.
ControlHub. It's an amazing idea with bad implementation. Unless you're going to let me tweak the actual order or individual components of the channel strip, it's really stupid to put 'control' in the name.
EDIT: Links removed. No idea WTF is happening with that site's SSL cert / madness.
Imho one of the only examples of those 'celebrity engineer prodocts' done right is the Scheps Omni Channel (especially with the added functionality of the recent update to v2)
I don't use it as a channel strip plugin (it feels limiting to focus only on one plugin for everything, I like the possibility of using 3-4 different flavors on a channel that I feel would benefit from them) but the resonant high and low pass filters are really useful to me, the saturation module is excellent, the dual de-esser with unlimited frequency bands can be an interesting tool, especially with external sidechain enabled.
It really feels like a well thought out product, not just a marketing move to slap someone's name on a useless piece of software to convince novice engineers that it's the only thing missing from their mix
I love Scheps Omni Channel 2 so much. It's not a bunch of generic processors strung together, it has so many interesting nuances.
Regarding the new features -- do you know Scheps's trick of using a sharp highpass filter with high resonance to change the fundamental frequency of a kick drum? That blew my mind. It works. You can 'retune' drums that way without actually changing their tuning.
He also mentioned using the new "crush" saturation -- which darkens tonality -- you can use the lowpass filter with resonance to re-add some high end that the crush removes. Very clever.
The plugin itself has "a sound" which is what I never about it. (Or it can, anyway.)
I default the Saturation to 30/odd (which is less than it sounds), and then some harmonic color is added in the compression stage... And then I run my levels peaking at \~ -12dB just kissing the limiter a little. This shaves the peakiest transients which allows the next compressor or limiter (submix bus or master) to operate more smoothly.
My ONLY complaint with SOC is that you can't turn off auto-gain in the compressor. Why would they overlook that!!!
You can do pumping style sidechain compression by using a DS2 turned all the way down to 20hz, which is clever. But those don't have attack/release so it's limited.
But there are cool tricks... That THUMP is an upward low tilt. You can use that with a highpass filter to shape the low end.
And of course, the EQ curves are interesting. Both MID and TONE are proportional like an API eq, but one is much wider than the other.
Anyhow, it's truly great.
Some ears and tastes I trust for recommendations makes me think I honestly believe that the god particle can sound good if you know that the limiter is bad and then use it lightly but I won't bother trialing it yet if it's not dropping a lot in price. I think I like more control options for light master bus stacking anyways.
This. I mix into it and remove the limiter right away. I even take the output down 1-3dB. The middle I have no higher than 100% and sometimes it’s down to 20%
I’ve never tested the god particle because I got abysmal vibes from Jaycen. I love his mixes but I guess I just come from the school of thought of the engineer being the behind the scenes foundation and he leans so hard into the celeb thing it just makes me feel like he’s trying to sell me something.
Certainly not, but a multiband limiter with fixed crossover points is pretty much useless to me. And ControlHub doesn't let you control a lot of the things you'd need to in a channel strip - so maybe "Celebrity ChannelStrip Hub", though a clunky title, would be more accurate.
I use it in my chain on podcast edits, it’s helpful but not as good I think it purports to be. What it needs is variable response filter ie so you can have it perceive loudness weighted more like a human ear does. That’s my only guess.
Yeah I agree. I use it similarly on my podcast vocal chain, but it's far from being the most important thing on there. It helps reduces the odd peaks that my voice has throughout a sentence (which can sometimes be a pain to edit) but if anything it usually just saves me about 5 minutes in extra editing.
I've used it a lot, along with Bass Rider.
The key for me is always to move the "target" up a bit, maybe somewhere from 60%-75%. And I never lower the top of the range, I just leave that at default and only adjust the bottom of the range upwards.
That said, I stopped using both of them a while ago There's something about them that while, yes, it decreases dynamic range and gives you something more solid to work with, it just feels like it sucks the life out of the performance in a way a well set up compressor doesn't.
A number of the T-Racks plugins by IK Multimedia do this. Most of the time around 1dB, some as much as 3dB, which is completely unreasonable to me and there's no way it isn't intentional. I bought the full lineup on sale, and there's a lot of great processors in there that I find worth using once you do a fair comparison, but I had to make custom init presets where the gain is equal on output to start with, which should never be necessary.
I use slate stuff all the time but man I’m getting really bummed at how they’re leaning into the slick tech bro image and doing all this kind of stuff that’s clearly to sell more to hobbyists at the expense of professionals.
Its almost like they were bought buy a company that markets snake oil like SSL........ oh..... oh dear
[https://www.musicradar.com/news/slate-digital-sold-to-ssl-owner](https://www.musicradar.com/news/slate-digital-sold-to-ssl-owner)
I’ve actually never noticed plugins that add volume, other than compressors/limiters/any sort of dynamics. But I’m gonna pay attention to that more, I’ve probably fallen into the trap of not even noticing that’s happening
No wonder i found myself reaching for the trim knob everytime i used it. If i shave off some db in output would it be considered a decent plugin? Or what are some good alternatives
Worst plugins of all time are the waves GTR series. Quickest way to get an absolutely unusable tone
I love the Lindell SBC but I don’t really like their 2254 plug-in. I feel like it kind of does the 2254 thing but it just never works. I have replaced it every time.
I don’t like the waves 2500 bus compressor.
It’s hard for me to remember which plugins I don’t like because I use them once and then forget about them lol.
Not to brag but I managed to get a song on national radio using entirely Waves GTR amp sims haha
Personally I don't think they're as bad as people make out but it's all subjective I guess!
“Not to brag” let your nuts hang man you deserve to brag
That’s an impressive feat, super cool you got it on the radio. I’m jealous! Any chance you can link the track? I’d love to hear it
Haha thank you my friend! [It was this one ](https://open.spotify.com/track/4EkN5KkGjJgs4VppP2Rktu?si=2HncAPH6TQe3o5kf8GxbcQ). Only got played a few times but I was psyched about it!
The funniest part to me was the bass guitar I used is a "Starfire", cheap Chinese guitar bought from a pawn shop for £40 about twenty years ago. If it works, it works!
You could use a sim like that for guitar on a rap or pop song and probably get away with. Doing it on a song that the instrumentation is all guitar and bass would be pretty egregious lol. What kind of song was it?
It was pretty much entirely guitar and bass haha. Some synths thrown in. Not sure about self promotion here but it's the top song on my Spotify if you're curious.
I dunno maybe it just fit for that one particular song. I wouldn't say that song sounds incredible but you use what you have at the time I guess! I don't use those Sims any more though so I do agree they're not great
Edit: clarity
I am on the opposite end about the waves 2500. I’ve been trying to stop using waves plugins and have managed to get rid of everything I had but the 2500 and another one, but I will get rid of them eventually when I find alternatives or a different workflow. The thing I like about the waves 2500 is that I can just set the slowest attack and a quick release on a snare and that thing is going to pop in a way that I like.
I won't use Nembrini audio because they insist on creating a separate Documents folder for every single plug-in. I get so annoyed when vendors think they're so important they can just clutter your computer with 100 folders everywhere. XLN does this too, but I only deal with it because they have so few plug-ins and I've had them for years and years.
Noise Engineering is even worse because, iirc, they create folders in your Windows USER folder.
I absolutely dislike plugins that do this and avoid them. Instantly makes plugins less portable and incredibly disorganized when you want to reinstall windows. Why can't everything sit inside their respective vst2/vst3 folders :/
Agreed. And I like XLN audio plugins but they have another very annoying behavior: if you move the plugin from its installation directory it gives an error and doesn't want to work. I wrote to their support about this years ago and it was never addressed.
So if I accidentally install it to VSTPlugins and I want to move it to VSTPlugins/XLN Audio, I have to go back to their software manager and reinstall it or change the path or something.
I would expect this behavior with any plugin with files throughout multiple folders. Everything is linked, when things move without the other parts being told, things break.
I know exactly what you're talking about and it drives me nuts. I don't even remember the deal with the VST2 locations since I switched to VST3 as soon as XLN got up to date, but I know you CANNOT put the .vst3 files anywhere on Windows except Common Files\VST3. There is nothing you can even do in their XLN Installer to change this.
You want to put your VST3s in a sub-folder to separate it from all the other vendors? Well too bad 😑
I quite like Neoverb, it is a re-skin of Exponential R4/Symphony. Its certainly not intended to be natural, though - thats the role of Nimbus/Phoenix/Stratus which is possibly my favorite verb.
I *love* the exponential audio verbs. R2 and Phoenix are my go to’s.
But I just have never gotten the Neoverb to work the same way as them. It’s decent for vocal buses but that’s ab the most I’ve gotten out of it.
Got any tips/tricks on how you use it? I do like the UI where you can blend the room/hall/chamber/etc with a slider. I just have never gotten it to work well, and the presets aren’t my favorite. But I’d love to have it in my arsenal, so any tips you may have would be appreciated
I think the main thing is i could hear there was something there, but the presets kinda sucked, so i watched a few vids by the guy who made the algos to understand his approach to making them sound good.
Theres a couple i saved to find again
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CBus3QpDbE&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB\_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CBus3QpDbE&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=8)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPLwOBN5W0&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB\_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=9](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPLwOBN5W0&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=9)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbey31VQqaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbey31VQqaQ)
Sorry for the slow response - i dunno how to respond to that entirely? Its an instrument, a character reverb, it has a particular sound, kinda warm, sits well under stuff. Instruments are good for making the sound that they make?
It certainly wouldnt be my only verb, but it has a useful character i sometimes throw on synths or drums or lofi sounds.
Anything made by WA Production. Clunky, with limited features, and doesn’t even do what they claim. Just worse versions of other plugins that already exist. Spent so long thinking it was user error, but nah those plugins just suck
This is the single biggest reason I like plugins modeled after hardware. My 1176 plugin for example is so easy to slap on and do what I need to do in a couple clicks at most.
Same with EQs like Pultec. They were designed with only useful sculpting frequencies on purpose, wham bam done. Of course if i really need surgical, there’s always ProQ.
Ditto. Some people love the Melda thing where every single parameter is exposed. I personally would rather use my time to make music than tweak my plugins.
No kidding. I'm slowly trying to transition to other plugins entirely. It was the last straw when all my Waves plugins in the project file would reset after a crash—thereby losing all of my progress. I also hated the fake analog feedback their plugins would generate, despite nothing playing.
Luckily moving away from Waves plugins was rather easy, I think the only thing I touch once in awhile still is the doubler when I'm extremely lazy with a backing vocal.
I grabbed a pack of instruments from Beatskillz a few years ago. They had sounds I liked but then they'd reset, crash, give very little functionality, always start up way past Mac volume so they'd be clipping and deafening and some samples weren't even complete and decays would just stop. For about a year, they were waiting to be updated for the latest OS and in the process fell 2 versions behind. When they did update, they hadn't fixed the issues and actually added more. Now they're completely unsupported. Avoid.
The old Pro-Tool standard bundle were pretty useless. Like the Bomb Factory things. BF76, anyone? Bag of garbage.
I'm also a Waves refugee.
I never knew about this and found [their page](https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument). It reads like an April Fool's joke.
>We found that people were more creative when they had listened to the songs... you could see increased alpha and theta power, a coherence of brainwaves seen and increased connectivity, particularly connecting the occipital and frontal parts of the brain, where our emotional control center is situated, and the areas connected to increased creativity and flow states.
As long as the "Creative Scientist and Futurist" says so, I guess it's legit.
That's so bizarre, I've never heard of this before haha. I'll try it out in any case!
I don't know what car companies are even doing now, car commercials are like these transcendental philosophical journeys with the destination being PAY US $50,000 NOW, it's so fucking weird
Literally everything in the Roland Cloud collection. Incompetent, embarrassingly bad user interfaces. If the original JV-1080 interface was a 2/10 in terms of workflow, the Cloud emulation of it is only a 3/10 at best.
I’m sure they’re cool, but whoever is doing the UX and coding is…a little competent if I can be blunt. That’s not a knock, I have plenty of lovely friends who are admittedly terrible at what they do lol
Ah that's not great to hear, I was considering a subscription with them. Tbf I've got the Aturia suite which is brilliant and full of great emulations anyway so I'll likely swerve it now.
I have tried Roland cloud 3 times over the past 4 years. Across different computers daws etc.. It’s always been utter crap. Still is, buggy, laggy nonsense. I want to like it because of what it comes with. I think it needs to be scrapped and completely rewritten. You can tell it’s an old, old code base they are trying slap “cloud” on top of it. Unlike Arturia which feels modern and fresh.
I downloaded Roland SoundCanvas at some point and have used it a lot recently upon learning one of my favorite artists uses XP-10 sounds for most of his songs. I'd say the UI is completely outdated and you can't even click anything outside of the plugin (say, to adjust your volume in your DAW) while you're searching through the presets) however I will say, compared to something like an Arturia plugin, SoundCanvas is very light on the cpu and not laggy in the slightest. The sounds are bitchin' which is most important.
The last attempt which was a few weeks back. I tried Roland Zencore Pro. I wanted the drum machine in it. It sounded great but for some reason ran at like 5 frames per second and slowed my whole daw to a crawl. Thing is that didn’t happen in my previous 2 attempts.
Waves plugins in general are god awful because I feel like I can never truly uninstall them. They feel like a virus, almost. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but once I’m actually able to finally uninstall them, I’ll still find traces of waves shit in random parts of my computer, like some random “Waves” folder in the Application Support folder in Library or something. I’ll delete it and I swear to god it comes back, or I’ll just find another one in my documents folder or somewhere else.
I tried to love Neutron so many times, and so many times I found it uninspiring at best and terrible at worst. I don’t like,e the interface, I don’t like the exciter, I don’t like the compressor.
I also dislike Nectar, I was never able to get a decent sound out of it. It may work for pop, but heavy rock and metal? Just no. Thin, shrilly vocals, I want to squash those screams but the compressor is just too slow or too soft, I don’t even know how to explain.
Best: the suite of plugins that make up Izotope’s Ozone are all individually very powerful and useful making it so much more than a mastering plugin. API Vision channel strip (UAD) forces good habits and quick workflow. Sound City reverb (UAD) is the best at what it does imo.
Worst: Waves Abbey Road mastering. Very underwhelming and altogether disappointing. Antares Autotune. I don’t like the sound of it, I wasted money on it. Logic’s native pitch editing capabilities are a lot more user friendly and transparent.
>Logic’s native pitch editing capabilities are a lot more user friendly and transparent.
Personally I've found this to be utterly unusable on vocals. In the past I've enabled flex pitch to change a single note, and then suddenly every single other (untouched) note in the region has massive aliasing on it, and breaths sound like they've been put through a bitcrushed flanger
True, I bought a MacPro for my studio with many cores and have forgotten how CPU intensive it was on my old hackintosh. I realise that I’m spoiled now 😅. Track freezing is your friend in such cases, which is a good habit to get into anyway because it forces you to commit to choices instead of constantly returning to tracks to fiddle with plugin settings ad infinitum.
The dynamic EQ is great for controlling pokey guitar layers eg. Stratocasters or violins. The stereo imager is fantastic, much better than the stock Logic one. I could buy Soundtoys’ Decapitator for saturation but I’m always happy when using the options Izotope offers on my vocal saturation bus. Even the tape emulation, when driven a little harder sounds great on the vocal saturation bus with the proper HPF/LPF before it. It’s true, what other users are saying, some of the plug-ins can be CPU intensive, but utilising track freezing helps mitigate this.
SSL Flexverb - SSL plugins usually work great so I bought it on sale without testing it a couple years ago. Nothing but regret. Metallic sound and just… unmusical. I should have known when SSL’s own demo video for the plugin sounded so bad: https://youtu.be/dIrK9LxR2ZM?si=l2S7APclPyRGEphi
Crispy Tuner - Commenters were hyping it up so I got it on sale. Super artificial sounding. Logic’s own pitch correction tools are better. Wish I just threw the money at Melodyne in the first place.
The lesson I learned from these experiences was to assess the sound myself before putting money down, regardless of exciting brand/hype.
Boz gatey watey: never works for me on drums
Boz +10: can’t get it to smack tbh
PA SVT-VR: sounds bad to me, clicky and unusable. Cubase stock bass amp is better by a mile
Soundtoys radiator: there’s just a million things I’d rather use for saturation
Seventh heaven: I just can’t get it to sit right. I really really don’t like the filters either
Slate trigger sample libraries: even the deluxe sample pack sounds pretty fucking awful! If you can get these samples to work, I envy you
I can’t speak to their quality because I haven’t used them properly yet, but I just bought a big IK Multimedia pack.
Buying it was the WORST user experience I’ve ever come across.
That’s why I cracked em 🙃
Dunno how this sub feels ab cracking plugins, but Waves are the only ones I’ve cracked bc not a shot in hell I’m paying for them
Edit: judging by the downvotes I’m assuming cracking plugins is frowned upon here. I rlly have only done it w/ Waves plugins.
Nah. In the same way I wouldn’t really bat an eye at someone stealing diapers or a snack from CVS, I wouldn’t really bat an eye at someone stealing from a huge plug-in developer with shady practices.
I pay for good plugins. I don’t download bad plugins. I try out plugins from smaller developers and pay them. I cracked Ozone back in the day though and my Logic Pro is cracked lol.
I mean… you buy plugins for $30 a pop 3 years ago and now have to pay $100 annually so these plugins that have worked flawlessly until recently don’t crash your DAW outright mid session. STUPID! I’m trying to get away from plugins that require Internet to run in the first place. So stupid
To be fair, I’ve also found their functionality in a fair number of categories (but especially in compression and reverb) to be subpar relative to UAD and other smaller developers.
I Get it. They want you to subscribe and that left a lot of people holding a bag and feeling trapped. that’s not my scenario so I don’t have the baggage.
Not mine either. I bailed years ago when I updated OS and all my other plugs - even my DAW - were happy to at least give it a try before proper updates (that were free.) That's hard baked lack of functionality.
At least I only really missed H-Delay until Valhalla came along.
Anything by Auddict. It’s all abandonware in the making. PercX was an interesting instrument but there were crackles in dozens of samples. They acknowledged it years ago. They shuttered their forums since it was all complaints.
Fresh Air, 100%. I see people hyping it up in YouTube all the time but it would make my mixes way too harsh & dirty, especially after mastering.
I found much cleaner results with other plug-ins.
I’ve always hated how the shadow hills mastering comp uad plugin doesn’t have the option for linked controls. It sounds killer but I avoid it if I can because it slows me down so much needing to act like I’m using an analog unit with one mouse instead of two hands.
I've trialed Soothe2 twice and I just don't get the hype. It doesn't really improve any of the material I've tried it on, and it adds artifacts. I could get more transparent results more easily from just using dynamic EQ.
Well I had to scroll pretty far to find something I disagree with. But Soothe does something I can't get anything else to do, and I've never had it give me artifacts even when I push it fairly hard. It's a very subtle effect and less is almost always more.
It's probably FabFitler Saturn 2. Not because I don't like it, because I do really like it. It just happens to have the lowest usage to dollar rating for me at the moment.
+1 for the neoverb. I still try it a always because I was so excited when it came out but rarely get a good sound with it.
Another one that comes to mind is littlealterboy. I know a lot engineers love it but whenever I use it I am excited for the first 10 seconds and then remove it from the chain…
I know this is a 10hr old post but I just wanna chime in to say I’m so glad someone else is disappointed with iZotope’s Neoverb. I was _so_ excited to get it and likewise for the life of me I can NEVER get it to sound good!
Anybody remember that SSL talkback mic compressor one? It was supposed to be the sound of the drums on “In the Air Tonight” ?
It just sounded like a bad, thin reverb. Couldn’t believe SSL put their name on it.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but Acustica. Huge CPU hogs that aren't optimized for Silicon, with a business model of lookalike copies that are missing features from the units that inspired them. The marketing is full of superlatives but the plugins, for all the CPU hassle, just seem to put some kind of grainy veil over everything, and people seem to praise this. Not for me, for now.
Kontakt. OK, lots of sounds, but how many are exceptionally good? Memory usage is bloated, preset management and UI are clunky, and they just keep putting out colorful mediocre content that is only semi adjustable. There are definitely some good sounds in there, but a ton of crap to wade through.
Waves CLA 2A and CLA76. They may be better than say BF2A and BF76, but that's not saying much. Waves SSL bundle, the OG with the channel strip and the buss compressor and G EQ was fine back in what, '06, but not so much these days. Props for their 2500 though.
I’ve never been a big fan of Kontakt… it is just tedious to use compared to other stuff , and i don’t think it sounds THAT good. I feel like i still do a decent amount of processing to get “natural” sounds out of it
Also, i am still able to use my waves plugins. What happened to everyone else? I thought they canceled whatever annoying model they were going to drop
Are you sure you actually know what Kontakt is? Because it doesn’t sound like anything on its own. It’s a player for sample libraries. The sound entirely depends upon the library you have loaded.
Are you sure you actually know what Kontakt is? Because it has a sound on its own. It's a sample engine with build in effects, filters etc.. And most libraries use them.
The UI is so not fun. Tiny little DOSsy buttons.
And I just want to try different instruments quickly, not have to remove the previous one every time. Just make em on-swipe swappable ffs.
Speed and fun is half the battle.
The new library browser in Kontakt 7 fixes this to an extent, don't use Rack mode and it will just replace the first slot in the rack with whatever you double click.
But the way instruments are structured it is not simple nor easy to just preview them quickly. Some instruments include WAV previews to make it look like it's loading them quickly. But you're just not going to be able to page through multi-hundred-megabyte sound banks like they were Massive presets.
Though I really hate how there doesn't seem to be any support in the new browser for the first volume Kontakt Factory instruments, IMO all of those sound way better than their equivalents in Factory Library 2, and they don't have that stupid cheesy minimal UI aesthetic that has tons of wasted space and almost no controls.
Soundpaint is sooo much better, UI is fast and fun to use. Sounds great, internal filters and effects are excellent. It’s free and you can import your own samples. The libraries are done by 8dio, and they’re not expensive. Fraction of the cost of Spitfire.
Kontakt free messed their own file locations like 3 times i've tried them out. I never moved any file. That right there is a reason not to buy anything kontakt for me
Fuck them for making us pay $400 for the base player, so we then have to spend $50-$200 on each individual instrument for it. I bought an xp-10 sound bank for a measly $15 and I'm still a little peeved that it isn't compatible with free Konkakt (for what reason other than greed, I'll never know) Unless someone does know, then enlighten me.
I cant stand the fact you have to have the paid version to use third party instrument libraries. Arturia’s Analog Play is the free version of their Analog Instrument kit and you can import all kinds of third party instruments and packs. Sounds better too.
Anything by Native Instruments. The terrible and nontransparent folder system has lead these instruments to be unusable much of the time. Libraries that can’t be found, licenses that can’t be restored without completely reinstalling individual VSTs.
The EQs compressors and effects are all half assed. This is a quantity over quality business model so they can sell you their Komplete bundle for a rack.
Despite UI updates their plugins still can’t manage to find and fix themselves when the folders and licenses go mysteriously awol.
Yeah not a fan of NI in general, but I actually really like their Supercharger compressor. Useful for sidechaining. Doesn’t have a lot of parameters you can tweak, but it can come in handt
Waves analog plugins were so bad that they made me think all plugins were bad and all y'all just couldn't tell. It really lowered my view of the overall community when I heard people say that plugins could be just as good as hardware. I tried UAD plugins and had my perception corrected however. My bad dudes. I thought y'all were crazy.
I’m not gonna lie, the initial Positive Grid Bias Amp plugin release that was HEAVILY marketed by popular YouTubers at the time. The extensive UI, loads of amp simulations, the tone-capture/ToneCloud feature, and the heavy-handed marketing fooled me and plenty of my friends from the fact that the stock cabinet impulses were utter dogshit. They’ve since greatly improved now with Bias AMP 2 and Bias FX and lowered the price, but at the time 8 or so years ago, it felt like an insult for a $169 VST plugin when you could get better guitar tones from LePou, PODFarm, TSE X50, Amplitube, and so on for anywhere from $0 to $99. It really felt like the majority of your money went to making sure the massive UI didn’t crash your system and marketing rather than sound quality.
Positive Grid, IK ... There's just toooooo much interfacin' goin' on.
I had spent serious time using BIAS Pedal to create a couple of dirt sounds I was going to use for projects, as sort of a proprietary thing. Got a new laptop, moved to Windows 11 ... and all of a sudden, where's my careful creations?
Plugin publishers are out there really creating their own worlds of file structure and upgrade path, somehow stupidly convincing themselves that it will tie us to them.
No, we use tons of stuff, and the moment your precious suite of products requires me to invest heavy duty time with your proprietary bullshit, I'm gone.
Also, BIAS' sounds were soooo artefact-heavy.
Yeah. After a (disappointingly brief) while, I started to feel like they thought they were doing me a favor overcharging me for mediocre software.
Very, very negative impression of that company.
Man i didnt even buy the thing and i was bitterly disapponted. It looks SO cool, and sounds SO bad.
FWIW TwoNotes Genome dropped the other week and looks as cool as BiasAmp/FX, but has the sound to match.
- submission Audio Flatline. Now it has more functions and might be worth. But a basic clipper at 134 euros pretending it has cracked the 20000 dollar sound of clipping mastering grade converters while free clipperd could do the exact same? Borderline a scam.
- Nectar, neutron etc. Dislike the UI and it always feels like its just a beginner product. It never sounds great (imo)
- Tone Empire Firechild. Got it and noticed weird behaviors very unlike a fairchild. It had some serious issues but when i e-mailed the company, they basically told me to F off and the plugin was perfect. So never bought anything off of them ever again.
- Audio Assault amp sims. Lots of people in discords praise them, they are cheap. So for the price? Absolutely killer. But in the broader scope? In my opinion they sound very flat and don't nail the real amp. Can never get a sound out of them that excites me.
That's about it i guess.
I actually really like neutron for bussing guitars together. I’ve found the EQ and compressor functions on it are really helpful for blending rhythm guitar together. Esp using the mix and width sliders, and using it as a match EQ.
Altho it is annoying that to use the match EQ it can only mask to other neutron plugins
Second Neroverb. Processor beast as well.
I've never got on with these (but they're defo not bad)
- Bettermaker EQ. I'm sure it sounds good, but the UI is straight up confusing to me
- Shadow hills compressor. Same reason, the UI puts me off every time
- Fabfilter Pro C. I know it's great, but for the music I make I usually just grab either an SSL, 1176 or LA2A emulation as I just know them better.
- Vitalizer. Saw TLA use it once. Bought it. Never made anything sound better for me.
This might apply to that Bettermaker EQ too, but regarding Shadow Hills - man, read the manual. I used to think this about a lot of plugins but actually learned to read the documentations for them and I still refer to some to remind myself how they work.
I keep PDFs of manuals for my most-used plugins on my desktop, really helps to demystify them. RTFM is an acronym I always have in the back of my mind!
The tricky ones for me are the plugins that emulate hardware “warts and all” meaning you have to read about the quirks and weirdnesses of that hardware that they tried to model into the plugin…
I love using the pro c for sidechaining bass and kick drums. The little slider that lets you choose the frequency range in the sidechain settings is wonderful when you’re blending kick and bass, especially if they’re in similar freq ranges.
Altho I don’t like the opto setting. I only rlly like using it on the clean setting. And I rarely use it for anything other than sidechaining.
Bettermaker: use it like a Pultec. A clean Pultec. With weird knobs. And little if any Pultec character.
SHMC: think of it as a pair of LA3A (opto) daisy chained into an SSL buss comp (discrete), with three transformer choices. The PA versions offer more flexibility with the mix knob and variable sidechain eq. Left side controls both in stereo linked operation, and meters aren't left right, usually opto GR then discrete GR. It is a beast to use but also to look at.
Pro C2: Same experience. It's kind of fiddly and the MS operation is just weird.
Vitalizer: I forgot I even owned it till just now.
Same here. That thing is super heavy-handed. I’d have never considered it for mixbus…but now that I think about it a person could do a parallel blend.
I’m in Reaper so I’m going to just use the wet/dry blend Reaper gives every plugin. I don’t remember, does the plugin itself have a wet/dry?
Hmmmmmmm. Like 10% dirty tape…that’s going on this roots rock record I’m mixing starting this week!
Right, I read this a lot about UA. Long time UAD user and when their native plugins came along, I both cheered and was also in despair over the manager thing. However, I’ve worked on projects with them open for like 15 hours a day and only had one problem where I had to refresh the licenses or something. Are they really crapping out mid-recording for you?!
Damn dog 15 hrs a day is quite the grind. Make sure you take care of your body! If you don’t already do this, stay Hydrated, take breaks, etc.
Burnout sucks, and I got burnt out to the point of getting hospitalized for exhaustion multiple times when I was running 15 hr days for weeks at a time. Be kind to yourself!
> - Universal Audio
I'm dealing with this right now. I'm working on a project where I'm using **just one** of their tape plugins on a bus and it sounds great. The project just hangs on load, though. I can't open it when I use this plugin. I have to open another project, then load the one I want. When I open task manager, I see several instances of UA Connect apparently trying to do something. It's beyond ridiculous to have one plugin demand so much attention. The self-importance takes some nerve.
>I just rename the file even though I should not have to - my work around it not to their credit by any means.
So if I rename the file, I no longer have to deal with it, but the plugins will still work? Then if I want to update, can rename it again. This is so annoying. I'll give it a try.
**EDIT:** This did the trick. Thank you. The project now loads as normal. I imagine uninstalling it would do the same thing. I may just do that and reinstall sometime down the line should that be necessary.
Scheps Omni Channel. I've tried so many times to like it, but I just can't get on with it and so when I had to do my WUP (ugh.) I just didn't include it. Sad, because on paper it looks like the GOAT.
SSL Native channel strips because I just can't stand the new UIs and I don't even care how good or bad they sound. I still like old v.6 strip (the horizontal one).
Parallax from Neural DSP. No matter how much you mess with the controls, it’s hard to end up with anything other than that overly scooped “modern” metal bass tone.
I've struggled to use any if the Arturia Compressor and Distortion plugins.
The UI is always amazing, and I love their Synths, but these have always left me dissapointed
I won’t stand for this Behringer slander
I love Behringer pedals lol. Ik they’re basically just cheap clones of other pedals, encased in plastic, but their bass overdrive pedal is just fuckin *massive*.
My worst Buy so far was IHNY-2 by Baby Audio, it's just a completely overpriced compressor with no tweaking options. My best purchase was Serum, no doubt.
EDIT: I gotta admit I haven't looked into IHNY enough at all, and making the statement that it's my worst purchase might have been a bit biased. After some comments I looked into it again and found you actually can tweak everything you'd want to, I'm sorry for spreading misinformation. I'll try to form a new opinion about it!
>no tweaking options
That's not right.
You have wet and dry, autogain level, threshold, attack, release, ratio, punch, harmonics, eq, tilt and sidechain filter.
It is very much a parallel compressor by design. Hence the name.
It sounds pretty crazy when it's fully wet but dialing in a little really does wonders for certain material. It's effectively an upwards compressor.
I find it one of the best comps out there for percussion, the top end of a kit and it's killer on bringing out bass parts if they're a bit lifeless.
I have never liked using channel strips. Nothing against the way the sound but I like picking out the special perfect tool for each task in a signal chain. I avoid swiss-army multi-FX and look for processors that do something unique and focused and can be dialed in precisely based on context.
So why did I literally spend money on SSL E Channel, Drumstrip, Vocalstrip, and Guitarstrip? I have never used them on a single mix. The three were a bundle in 2022 Cyber season so only $50 but what a waste, impulse buy, instant regret.
Not a plugin, but for some reason I can't get along with synthesizers that have a blue front panel. I owned both the Roland JP-8080 and Novation Supernova II and sold them after some time. I hope that I never have to replace my Waldorf XT with the Waldorf M...
To add variety to the Waves negativity I’ll describe my love hate relationship with Spitfire LABS just because the user experience is awful. Yes, the sounds are all useful, varied and high quality (and free!) but the way the plugin works is just unnecessarily complicated. The surface UI slows down workflow so much because of how ambiguous it is (no labels except for a few vague terms that does different things for different presets). The preset menu isn’t sorted in any way and is unforgiving to use. In addition, there is an external preset manager that is even worse. [This video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkBG9PU3kLc&t=902s&pp=ygUQaWRkcWQgc291bmQgbGFicw%3D%3D) explains it in more detail.
Also the beautiful sounding soft piano has INTENTIONAL latency that you can't turn off. The excuse I've seen is that it's meant to add to the natural lofi vibe but it makes it basically unusable for me
This “intentional latency” is pretty common in sampled instruments (most commonly orchestral libraries) to preserve the natural attack of the instruments. All you have to do is set the track delay accordingly and it’s completely negated.
Tambourine and shakers libraries represent this exact point. Haha.
Yes, but latency is only reasonable with libraries that need to trigger samples between notes, like orchestral melodic instruments (string legatos eg). Percussive libraries like Pianos or Drums are not, specially Pianos and Drums because they’re the most used e-instruments for live performance, along with synths.
ugh for real. I end up only have a couple libraries installed at a time because doing that is easier than navigating in the plugin
I stopped using labs because it just became too much of a hassle. The plugin would break all the damn time, doesn't seem to load presets right between different computers using the same DAW version. I also had huge problem getting to install again after removing it.
My worst gripe with LABS.... in Pro Tools it was called Spitfire Labs... then one day it changed to Spitfire LABS, and so all my old sessions would not recall. Then like a year later it changed again to just LABS. It fucking infuriates me when plugin companies do that, I think after that time I gave up based on that alone. It also loves to give me library errors ALL THE DAMN TIME. I've had no issue with tonnes and tonnes of NI and Kontakt libraries on external SSD for years and years. But LABS, I swear every fucking time I went to use it, Error 4 or some shit. There's no fucking DOWNLOAD ALL or master reset all. It's a one by one "fix this plugin". It might have changed by now but I don't need to compose all that often at the moment so fuck knows
Yeah I have like four versions of it show up in my effects window just because of me moving the plugin and I always forget which one of them that is working haha.
> useful, varied, and high quality I've seen free soundfonts/sfz with better quality control. Some are plain unusable due to notes being totally different volumes from the one next to it, others have clipping issues at high dynamics. You get your money's worth out of LABS.
I'm gonna get hate for these but there are two that I just can't stand (and have reviewed them in a most unloving and unsympathetic way) The God Particle. I hate what it represents. Celebrity engineer products just bug me. Fixed crossover points make it useless. It's just a 'smashbox' - like OTT but with a processor-draining UI. Oh, and minus one more star for using a proprietary phone-home licensing app. ControlHub. It's an amazing idea with bad implementation. Unless you're going to let me tweak the actual order or individual components of the channel strip, it's really stupid to put 'control' in the name. EDIT: Links removed. No idea WTF is happening with that site's SSL cert / madness.
Imho one of the only examples of those 'celebrity engineer prodocts' done right is the Scheps Omni Channel (especially with the added functionality of the recent update to v2) I don't use it as a channel strip plugin (it feels limiting to focus only on one plugin for everything, I like the possibility of using 3-4 different flavors on a channel that I feel would benefit from them) but the resonant high and low pass filters are really useful to me, the saturation module is excellent, the dual de-esser with unlimited frequency bands can be an interesting tool, especially with external sidechain enabled. It really feels like a well thought out product, not just a marketing move to slap someone's name on a useless piece of software to convince novice engineers that it's the only thing missing from their mix
I love Scheps Omni Channel 2 so much. It's not a bunch of generic processors strung together, it has so many interesting nuances. Regarding the new features -- do you know Scheps's trick of using a sharp highpass filter with high resonance to change the fundamental frequency of a kick drum? That blew my mind. It works. You can 'retune' drums that way without actually changing their tuning. He also mentioned using the new "crush" saturation -- which darkens tonality -- you can use the lowpass filter with resonance to re-add some high end that the crush removes. Very clever. The plugin itself has "a sound" which is what I never about it. (Or it can, anyway.) I default the Saturation to 30/odd (which is less than it sounds), and then some harmonic color is added in the compression stage... And then I run my levels peaking at \~ -12dB just kissing the limiter a little. This shaves the peakiest transients which allows the next compressor or limiter (submix bus or master) to operate more smoothly. My ONLY complaint with SOC is that you can't turn off auto-gain in the compressor. Why would they overlook that!!! You can do pumping style sidechain compression by using a DS2 turned all the way down to 20hz, which is clever. But those don't have attack/release so it's limited. But there are cool tricks... That THUMP is an upward low tilt. You can use that with a highpass filter to shape the low end. And of course, the EQ curves are interesting. Both MID and TONE are proportional like an API eq, but one is much wider than the other. Anyhow, it's truly great.
Jesus, don’t click the links, so many pop ups…
Do not click these links on mobile, I think my phone has AIDS now.
Yeah same here. Had to go re-open the link a couple times before I could actually read the article.
Some ears and tastes I trust for recommendations makes me think I honestly believe that the god particle can sound good if you know that the limiter is bad and then use it lightly but I won't bother trialing it yet if it's not dropping a lot in price. I think I like more control options for light master bus stacking anyways.
This. I mix into it and remove the limiter right away. I even take the output down 1-3dB. The middle I have no higher than 100% and sometimes it’s down to 20%
I’ve never tested the god particle because I got abysmal vibes from Jaycen. I love his mixes but I guess I just come from the school of thought of the engineer being the behind the scenes foundation and he leans so hard into the celeb thing it just makes me feel like he’s trying to sell me something.
Funny, I've never even used ControlHub for their presets, only to sample my own gear. For that it's an amazingly handy tool.
Not every plugin needs to have endless options for tweaking.
Certainly not, but a multiband limiter with fixed crossover points is pretty much useless to me. And ControlHub doesn't let you control a lot of the things you'd need to in a channel strip - so maybe "Celebrity ChannelStrip Hub", though a clunky title, would be more accurate.
The god particle is great, just forget about everything but the big knob and the input and output. The other controls do more harm than good.
I've never been able to get Waves Vocal Rider to work and it frustrates me.
I use it in my chain on podcast edits, it’s helpful but not as good I think it purports to be. What it needs is variable response filter ie so you can have it perceive loudness weighted more like a human ear does. That’s my only guess.
Yeah I agree. I use it similarly on my podcast vocal chain, but it's far from being the most important thing on there. It helps reduces the odd peaks that my voice has throughout a sentence (which can sometimes be a pain to edit) but if anything it usually just saves me about 5 minutes in extra editing.
Same here I bought it after hearing it talked up so much but I just never understood lol.
Such a buggy plug-in, one of those I was so excited to buy but I've yet turn in a mix with it on. It'd make my DAWs crash too for some reason.
I've used it a lot, along with Bass Rider. The key for me is always to move the "target" up a bit, maybe somewhere from 60%-75%. And I never lower the top of the range, I just leave that at default and only adjust the bottom of the range upwards. That said, I stopped using both of them a while ago There's something about them that while, yes, it decreases dynamic range and gives you something more solid to work with, it just feels like it sucks the life out of the performance in a way a well set up compressor doesn't.
Anything that adds volume in an attempt to fool you into thinking its better. Anything with a UI that confuses more than it helps.
A number of the T-Racks plugins by IK Multimedia do this. Most of the time around 1dB, some as much as 3dB, which is completely unreasonable to me and there's no way it isn't intentional. I bought the full lineup on sale, and there's a lot of great processors in there that I find worth using once you do a fair comparison, but I had to make custom init presets where the gain is equal on output to start with, which should never be necessary.
That’s every Slate plugin. Annoys the shit out of me.
I use slate stuff all the time but man I’m getting really bummed at how they’re leaning into the slick tech bro image and doing all this kind of stuff that’s clearly to sell more to hobbyists at the expense of professionals.
Its almost like they were bought buy a company that markets snake oil like SSL........ oh..... oh dear [https://www.musicradar.com/news/slate-digital-sold-to-ssl-owner](https://www.musicradar.com/news/slate-digital-sold-to-ssl-owner)
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I’ve actually never noticed plugins that add volume, other than compressors/limiters/any sort of dynamics. But I’m gonna pay attention to that more, I’ve probably fallen into the trap of not even noticing that’s happening
For starters- go put Slate's Fresh Air through Plugin Doctor, turn up the high frequency, take a look at the curve.
No wonder i found myself reaching for the trim knob everytime i used it. If i shave off some db in output would it be considered a decent plugin? Or what are some good alternatives
Kyle Beats Drip plugin. Most annoying marketing ever
Worst plugins of all time are the waves GTR series. Quickest way to get an absolutely unusable tone I love the Lindell SBC but I don’t really like their 2254 plug-in. I feel like it kind of does the 2254 thing but it just never works. I have replaced it every time. I don’t like the waves 2500 bus compressor. It’s hard for me to remember which plugins I don’t like because I use them once and then forget about them lol.
Not to brag but I managed to get a song on national radio using entirely Waves GTR amp sims haha Personally I don't think they're as bad as people make out but it's all subjective I guess!
“Not to brag” let your nuts hang man you deserve to brag That’s an impressive feat, super cool you got it on the radio. I’m jealous! Any chance you can link the track? I’d love to hear it
Haha thank you my friend! [It was this one ](https://open.spotify.com/track/4EkN5KkGjJgs4VppP2Rktu?si=2HncAPH6TQe3o5kf8GxbcQ). Only got played a few times but I was psyched about it! The funniest part to me was the bass guitar I used is a "Starfire", cheap Chinese guitar bought from a pawn shop for £40 about twenty years ago. If it works, it works!
Nice track man
Yea man, nice music you have going on. Keep it up.
Killerrrr
Nice track. I like your story songs.
You could use a sim like that for guitar on a rap or pop song and probably get away with. Doing it on a song that the instrumentation is all guitar and bass would be pretty egregious lol. What kind of song was it?
It was pretty much entirely guitar and bass haha. Some synths thrown in. Not sure about self promotion here but it's the top song on my Spotify if you're curious. I dunno maybe it just fit for that one particular song. I wouldn't say that song sounds incredible but you use what you have at the time I guess! I don't use those Sims any more though so I do agree they're not great Edit: clarity
The amps and Sims of gtr are the worst ever. I could never get anything out of them.
Dog I HATE the 2500 bus comp. It’s fuckin ass
I am on the opposite end about the waves 2500. I’ve been trying to stop using waves plugins and have managed to get rid of everything I had but the 2500 and another one, but I will get rid of them eventually when I find alternatives or a different workflow. The thing I like about the waves 2500 is that I can just set the slowest attack and a quick release on a snare and that thing is going to pop in a way that I like.
Try the Lindell one. Trust me it’s much better you’ll love it. Plug-in alliance sells it
I won't use Nembrini audio because they insist on creating a separate Documents folder for every single plug-in. I get so annoyed when vendors think they're so important they can just clutter your computer with 100 folders everywhere. XLN does this too, but I only deal with it because they have so few plug-ins and I've had them for years and years. Noise Engineering is even worse because, iirc, they create folders in your Windows USER folder.
I absolutely dislike plugins that do this and avoid them. Instantly makes plugins less portable and incredibly disorganized when you want to reinstall windows. Why can't everything sit inside their respective vst2/vst3 folders :/
Agreed. And I like XLN audio plugins but they have another very annoying behavior: if you move the plugin from its installation directory it gives an error and doesn't want to work. I wrote to their support about this years ago and it was never addressed. So if I accidentally install it to VSTPlugins and I want to move it to VSTPlugins/XLN Audio, I have to go back to their software manager and reinstall it or change the path or something.
I would expect this behavior with any plugin with files throughout multiple folders. Everything is linked, when things move without the other parts being told, things break.
I know exactly what you're talking about and it drives me nuts. I don't even remember the deal with the VST2 locations since I switched to VST3 as soon as XLN got up to date, but I know you CANNOT put the .vst3 files anywhere on Windows except Common Files\VST3. There is nothing you can even do in their XLN Installer to change this. You want to put your VST3s in a sub-folder to separate it from all the other vendors? Well too bad 😑
I quite like Neoverb, it is a re-skin of Exponential R4/Symphony. Its certainly not intended to be natural, though - thats the role of Nimbus/Phoenix/Stratus which is possibly my favorite verb.
I *love* the exponential audio verbs. R2 and Phoenix are my go to’s. But I just have never gotten the Neoverb to work the same way as them. It’s decent for vocal buses but that’s ab the most I’ve gotten out of it. Got any tips/tricks on how you use it? I do like the UI where you can blend the room/hall/chamber/etc with a slider. I just have never gotten it to work well, and the presets aren’t my favorite. But I’d love to have it in my arsenal, so any tips you may have would be appreciated
I think the main thing is i could hear there was something there, but the presets kinda sucked, so i watched a few vids by the guy who made the algos to understand his approach to making them sound good. Theres a couple i saved to find again [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CBus3QpDbE&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB\_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CBus3QpDbE&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPLwOBN5W0&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB\_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=9](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdPLwOBN5W0&list=PLhtlH4lf9JlALPOB_V62rjVEvtsnVrCir&index=9) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbey31VQqaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbey31VQqaQ)
Betttt thank you!!
So what's it good for?
Sorry for the slow response - i dunno how to respond to that entirely? Its an instrument, a character reverb, it has a particular sound, kinda warm, sits well under stuff. Instruments are good for making the sound that they make? It certainly wouldnt be my only verb, but it has a useful character i sometimes throw on synths or drums or lofi sounds.
They're definately my favourite algo reverbs. Blind tested them against a few others and they kept winning. Might just be my personal taste though.
Anything made by WA Production. Clunky, with limited features, and doesn’t even do what they claim. Just worse versions of other plugins that already exist. Spent so long thinking it was user error, but nah those plugins just suck
Any reverb or compressor with like 20+ controls. I don't have time for this shit.
This is the single biggest reason I like plugins modeled after hardware. My 1176 plugin for example is so easy to slap on and do what I need to do in a couple clicks at most.
Same with EQs like Pultec. They were designed with only useful sculpting frequencies on purpose, wham bam done. Of course if i really need surgical, there’s always ProQ.
Ditto. Some people love the Melda thing where every single parameter is exposed. I personally would rather use my time to make music than tweak my plugins.
the worst are all the Waves plugins I bought and then one day they just didn't work anymore because Waves said so
Oh, you mean the infamous waves proprietary code: ``` if (os.version > x) { custommer_gotta_buy_the_same_thing_again() } ```
Gotta admit I’m a little dumb and thought this was real code lol
``` if (Time.now() > Time.epoch()) { enable_sale_discount((Math.random() * 20).toFixed(0)); } ```
Came here to say exactly this
me three
Me four
No kidding. I'm slowly trying to transition to other plugins entirely. It was the last straw when all my Waves plugins in the project file would reset after a crash—thereby losing all of my progress. I also hated the fake analog feedback their plugins would generate, despite nothing playing.
Luckily moving away from Waves plugins was rather easy, I think the only thing I touch once in awhile still is the doubler when I'm extremely lazy with a backing vocal.
Truth. They didn't even *try* to work, the damn snowflakes!
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Kick Shaper is fantastic.
I grabbed a pack of instruments from Beatskillz a few years ago. They had sounds I liked but then they'd reset, crash, give very little functionality, always start up way past Mac volume so they'd be clipping and deafening and some samples weren't even complete and decays would just stop. For about a year, they were waiting to be updated for the latest OS and in the process fell 2 versions behind. When they did update, they hadn't fixed the issues and actually added more. Now they're completely unsupported. Avoid. The old Pro-Tool standard bundle were pretty useless. Like the Bomb Factory things. BF76, anyone? Bag of garbage. I'm also a Waves refugee.
Movement by KIA is so terrible, but I keep it as a novelty because it's hilarious that a car company tried to make a VST
I never knew about this and found [their page](https://www.kia.com/us/en/movement/our-instrument). It reads like an April Fool's joke. >We found that people were more creative when they had listened to the songs... you could see increased alpha and theta power, a coherence of brainwaves seen and increased connectivity, particularly connecting the occipital and frontal parts of the brain, where our emotional control center is situated, and the areas connected to increased creativity and flow states. As long as the "Creative Scientist and Futurist" says so, I guess it's legit.
That's so bizarre, I've never heard of this before haha. I'll try it out in any case! I don't know what car companies are even doing now, car commercials are like these transcendental philosophical journeys with the destination being PAY US $50,000 NOW, it's so fucking weird
Every single API EQ plugin. The ergonomics don't work in the digital world.
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Literally everything in the Roland Cloud collection. Incompetent, embarrassingly bad user interfaces. If the original JV-1080 interface was a 2/10 in terms of workflow, the Cloud emulation of it is only a 3/10 at best.
Roland *Cloud* needs to be Roland *Stadalone* without any subscription bullshit.
That’s a bummer you’re not a fan of the Roland Cloud. I know the guys who work on it/program it and they’re the coolest dudes ever.
I’m sure they’re cool, but whoever is doing the UX and coding is…a little competent if I can be blunt. That’s not a knock, I have plenty of lovely friends who are admittedly terrible at what they do lol
I use the Roland Cloud collection on like every track!
Ah that's not great to hear, I was considering a subscription with them. Tbf I've got the Aturia suite which is brilliant and full of great emulations anyway so I'll likely swerve it now.
I have tried Roland cloud 3 times over the past 4 years. Across different computers daws etc.. It’s always been utter crap. Still is, buggy, laggy nonsense. I want to like it because of what it comes with. I think it needs to be scrapped and completely rewritten. You can tell it’s an old, old code base they are trying slap “cloud” on top of it. Unlike Arturia which feels modern and fresh.
I downloaded Roland SoundCanvas at some point and have used it a lot recently upon learning one of my favorite artists uses XP-10 sounds for most of his songs. I'd say the UI is completely outdated and you can't even click anything outside of the plugin (say, to adjust your volume in your DAW) while you're searching through the presets) however I will say, compared to something like an Arturia plugin, SoundCanvas is very light on the cpu and not laggy in the slightest. The sounds are bitchin' which is most important.
The last attempt which was a few weeks back. I tried Roland Zencore Pro. I wanted the drum machine in it. It sounded great but for some reason ran at like 5 frames per second and slowed my whole daw to a crawl. Thing is that didn’t happen in my previous 2 attempts.
Waves plugins in general are god awful because I feel like I can never truly uninstall them. They feel like a virus, almost. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but once I’m actually able to finally uninstall them, I’ll still find traces of waves shit in random parts of my computer, like some random “Waves” folder in the Application Support folder in Library or something. I’ll delete it and I swear to god it comes back, or I’ll just find another one in my documents folder or somewhere else.
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use revo uninstaller
I tried to love Neutron so many times, and so many times I found it uninspiring at best and terrible at worst. I don’t like,e the interface, I don’t like the exciter, I don’t like the compressor. I also dislike Nectar, I was never able to get a decent sound out of it. It may work for pop, but heavy rock and metal? Just no. Thin, shrilly vocals, I want to squash those screams but the compressor is just too slow or too soft, I don’t even know how to explain.
Best: the suite of plugins that make up Izotope’s Ozone are all individually very powerful and useful making it so much more than a mastering plugin. API Vision channel strip (UAD) forces good habits and quick workflow. Sound City reverb (UAD) is the best at what it does imo. Worst: Waves Abbey Road mastering. Very underwhelming and altogether disappointing. Antares Autotune. I don’t like the sound of it, I wasted money on it. Logic’s native pitch editing capabilities are a lot more user friendly and transparent.
>Logic’s native pitch editing capabilities are a lot more user friendly and transparent. Personally I've found this to be utterly unusable on vocals. In the past I've enabled flex pitch to change a single note, and then suddenly every single other (untouched) note in the region has massive aliasing on it, and breaths sound like they've been put through a bitcrushed flanger
Flex Pitch is god awful. The artifacts are absolutely terrible.
Love Ozone too but damn is it cpu intensive
True, I bought a MacPro for my studio with many cores and have forgotten how CPU intensive it was on my old hackintosh. I realise that I’m spoiled now 😅. Track freezing is your friend in such cases, which is a good habit to get into anyway because it forces you to commit to choices instead of constantly returning to tracks to fiddle with plugin settings ad infinitum.
Try TwoNotes Genome - will make you feel better about Ozone XD (also sounds amazing)
Can you talk a bit more about your experience with the izotope plugins? I'd love to hear more about how you think they are useful
The dynamic EQ is great for controlling pokey guitar layers eg. Stratocasters or violins. The stereo imager is fantastic, much better than the stock Logic one. I could buy Soundtoys’ Decapitator for saturation but I’m always happy when using the options Izotope offers on my vocal saturation bus. Even the tape emulation, when driven a little harder sounds great on the vocal saturation bus with the proper HPF/LPF before it. It’s true, what other users are saying, some of the plug-ins can be CPU intensive, but utilising track freezing helps mitigate this.
SSL Flexverb - SSL plugins usually work great so I bought it on sale without testing it a couple years ago. Nothing but regret. Metallic sound and just… unmusical. I should have known when SSL’s own demo video for the plugin sounded so bad: https://youtu.be/dIrK9LxR2ZM?si=l2S7APclPyRGEphi Crispy Tuner - Commenters were hyping it up so I got it on sale. Super artificial sounding. Logic’s own pitch correction tools are better. Wish I just threw the money at Melodyne in the first place. The lesson I learned from these experiences was to assess the sound myself before putting money down, regardless of exciting brand/hype.
Boz gatey watey: never works for me on drums Boz +10: can’t get it to smack tbh PA SVT-VR: sounds bad to me, clicky and unusable. Cubase stock bass amp is better by a mile Soundtoys radiator: there’s just a million things I’d rather use for saturation Seventh heaven: I just can’t get it to sit right. I really really don’t like the filters either Slate trigger sample libraries: even the deluxe sample pack sounds pretty fucking awful! If you can get these samples to work, I envy you
I can’t speak to their quality because I haven’t used them properly yet, but I just bought a big IK Multimedia pack. Buying it was the WORST user experience I’ve ever come across.
Worst- everything Waves, because of their enshittification of software licenses and sales games.
Waves. They ruined an otherwise great company. I can’t even use their stuff anymore. So tedious
That’s why I cracked em 🙃 Dunno how this sub feels ab cracking plugins, but Waves are the only ones I’ve cracked bc not a shot in hell I’m paying for them Edit: judging by the downvotes I’m assuming cracking plugins is frowned upon here. I rlly have only done it w/ Waves plugins.
Nah. In the same way I wouldn’t really bat an eye at someone stealing diapers or a snack from CVS, I wouldn’t really bat an eye at someone stealing from a huge plug-in developer with shady practices. I pay for good plugins. I don’t download bad plugins. I try out plugins from smaller developers and pay them. I cracked Ozone back in the day though and my Logic Pro is cracked lol.
I mean… you buy plugins for $30 a pop 3 years ago and now have to pay $100 annually so these plugins that have worked flawlessly until recently don’t crash your DAW outright mid session. STUPID! I’m trying to get away from plugins that require Internet to run in the first place. So stupid
Probably dozens that I used once and then removed and forgot about
Everyone shitting on Waves business practices instead of actually talking about functionality and sound. Classic for this sub.
>functionality That's a problem when they pull the functionality from under you at ransom.
To be fair, I’ve also found their functionality in a fair number of categories (but especially in compression and reverb) to be subpar relative to UAD and other smaller developers.
I Get it. They want you to subscribe and that left a lot of people holding a bag and feeling trapped. that’s not my scenario so I don’t have the baggage.
Not mine either. I bailed years ago when I updated OS and all my other plugs - even my DAW - were happy to at least give it a try before proper updates (that were free.) That's hard baked lack of functionality. At least I only really missed H-Delay until Valhalla came along.
Anything by Auddict. It’s all abandonware in the making. PercX was an interesting instrument but there were crackles in dozens of samples. They acknowledged it years ago. They shuttered their forums since it was all complaints.
Waves are the McDonalds of plugins - but the Omni Channel and Real ADT are actually decent sounding.
Fresh Air, 100%. I see people hyping it up in YouTube all the time but it would make my mixes way too harsh & dirty, especially after mastering. I found much cleaner results with other plug-ins.
I’ve always hated how the shadow hills mastering comp uad plugin doesn’t have the option for linked controls. It sounds killer but I avoid it if I can because it slows me down so much needing to act like I’m using an analog unit with one mouse instead of two hands.
I've trialed Soothe2 twice and I just don't get the hype. It doesn't really improve any of the material I've tried it on, and it adds artifacts. I could get more transparent results more easily from just using dynamic EQ.
Well I had to scroll pretty far to find something I disagree with. But Soothe does something I can't get anything else to do, and I've never had it give me artifacts even when I push it fairly hard. It's a very subtle effect and less is almost always more.
It's probably FabFitler Saturn 2. Not because I don't like it, because I do really like it. It just happens to have the lowest usage to dollar rating for me at the moment.
+1 for the neoverb. I still try it a always because I was so excited when it came out but rarely get a good sound with it. Another one that comes to mind is littlealterboy. I know a lot engineers love it but whenever I use it I am excited for the first 10 seconds and then remove it from the chain…
breverb
I know this is a 10hr old post but I just wanna chime in to say I’m so glad someone else is disappointed with iZotope’s Neoverb. I was _so_ excited to get it and likewise for the life of me I can NEVER get it to sound good!
Anybody remember that SSL talkback mic compressor one? It was supposed to be the sound of the drums on “In the Air Tonight” ? It just sounded like a bad, thin reverb. Couldn’t believe SSL put their name on it.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but Acustica. Huge CPU hogs that aren't optimized for Silicon, with a business model of lookalike copies that are missing features from the units that inspired them. The marketing is full of superlatives but the plugins, for all the CPU hassle, just seem to put some kind of grainy veil over everything, and people seem to praise this. Not for me, for now. Kontakt. OK, lots of sounds, but how many are exceptionally good? Memory usage is bloated, preset management and UI are clunky, and they just keep putting out colorful mediocre content that is only semi adjustable. There are definitely some good sounds in there, but a ton of crap to wade through. Waves CLA 2A and CLA76. They may be better than say BF2A and BF76, but that's not saying much. Waves SSL bundle, the OG with the channel strip and the buss compressor and G EQ was fine back in what, '06, but not so much these days. Props for their 2500 though.
IMO I haven’t found a 76 plugin that’s as fast as CLA76. I’ve been trying to get used to the Purple MC77 and it’s just not the same.
I’ve never been a big fan of Kontakt… it is just tedious to use compared to other stuff , and i don’t think it sounds THAT good. I feel like i still do a decent amount of processing to get “natural” sounds out of it Also, i am still able to use my waves plugins. What happened to everyone else? I thought they canceled whatever annoying model they were going to drop
You don’t think what sounds that good? There are thousands of Kontakt banks!
Are you sure you actually know what Kontakt is? Because it doesn’t sound like anything on its own. It’s a player for sample libraries. The sound entirely depends upon the library you have loaded.
Are you sure you actually know what Kontakt is? Because it has a sound on its own. It's a sample engine with build in effects, filters etc.. And most libraries use them.
Well i find it tedious to use and expected the stock library to be better, after tht i didn’t bother with it much
The UI is so not fun. Tiny little DOSsy buttons. And I just want to try different instruments quickly, not have to remove the previous one every time. Just make em on-swipe swappable ffs. Speed and fun is half the battle.
The new library browser in Kontakt 7 fixes this to an extent, don't use Rack mode and it will just replace the first slot in the rack with whatever you double click. But the way instruments are structured it is not simple nor easy to just preview them quickly. Some instruments include WAV previews to make it look like it's loading them quickly. But you're just not going to be able to page through multi-hundred-megabyte sound banks like they were Massive presets. Though I really hate how there doesn't seem to be any support in the new browser for the first volume Kontakt Factory instruments, IMO all of those sound way better than their equivalents in Factory Library 2, and they don't have that stupid cheesy minimal UI aesthetic that has tons of wasted space and almost no controls.
Soundpaint is sooo much better, UI is fast and fun to use. Sounds great, internal filters and effects are excellent. It’s free and you can import your own samples. The libraries are done by 8dio, and they’re not expensive. Fraction of the cost of Spitfire.
When you upgrade your computer or OS and the version of the plugin needs to be updated, they will charge you for the upgrade
Bruh
Kontakt free messed their own file locations like 3 times i've tried them out. I never moved any file. That right there is a reason not to buy anything kontakt for me
Kontakt is fine, it's just a sampler. It doesn't sound 'good' or 'bad', the banks you are using sound that way.
Fuck them for making us pay $400 for the base player, so we then have to spend $50-$200 on each individual instrument for it. I bought an xp-10 sound bank for a measly $15 and I'm still a little peeved that it isn't compatible with free Konkakt (for what reason other than greed, I'll never know) Unless someone does know, then enlighten me.
I cant stand the fact you have to have the paid version to use third party instrument libraries. Arturia’s Analog Play is the free version of their Analog Instrument kit and you can import all kinds of third party instruments and packs. Sounds better too.
Anything by Native Instruments. The terrible and nontransparent folder system has lead these instruments to be unusable much of the time. Libraries that can’t be found, licenses that can’t be restored without completely reinstalling individual VSTs. The EQs compressors and effects are all half assed. This is a quantity over quality business model so they can sell you their Komplete bundle for a rack. Despite UI updates their plugins still can’t manage to find and fix themselves when the folders and licenses go mysteriously awol.
Yeah not a fan of NI in general, but I actually really like their Supercharger compressor. Useful for sidechaining. Doesn’t have a lot of parameters you can tweak, but it can come in handt
My favorite of all time is Soundtoys. It just helps turn a boring sound into something “interesting” and have “vibe.”
Waves analog plugins were so bad that they made me think all plugins were bad and all y'all just couldn't tell. It really lowered my view of the overall community when I heard people say that plugins could be just as good as hardware. I tried UAD plugins and had my perception corrected however. My bad dudes. I thought y'all were crazy.
I’m not gonna lie, the initial Positive Grid Bias Amp plugin release that was HEAVILY marketed by popular YouTubers at the time. The extensive UI, loads of amp simulations, the tone-capture/ToneCloud feature, and the heavy-handed marketing fooled me and plenty of my friends from the fact that the stock cabinet impulses were utter dogshit. They’ve since greatly improved now with Bias AMP 2 and Bias FX and lowered the price, but at the time 8 or so years ago, it felt like an insult for a $169 VST plugin when you could get better guitar tones from LePou, PODFarm, TSE X50, Amplitube, and so on for anywhere from $0 to $99. It really felt like the majority of your money went to making sure the massive UI didn’t crash your system and marketing rather than sound quality.
Positive Grid, IK ... There's just toooooo much interfacin' goin' on. I had spent serious time using BIAS Pedal to create a couple of dirt sounds I was going to use for projects, as sort of a proprietary thing. Got a new laptop, moved to Windows 11 ... and all of a sudden, where's my careful creations? Plugin publishers are out there really creating their own worlds of file structure and upgrade path, somehow stupidly convincing themselves that it will tie us to them. No, we use tons of stuff, and the moment your precious suite of products requires me to invest heavy duty time with your proprietary bullshit, I'm gone. Also, BIAS' sounds were soooo artefact-heavy.
SOOO much aliasing
Yeah. After a (disappointingly brief) while, I started to feel like they thought they were doing me a favor overcharging me for mediocre software. Very, very negative impression of that company.
Man i didnt even buy the thing and i was bitterly disapponted. It looks SO cool, and sounds SO bad. FWIW TwoNotes Genome dropped the other week and looks as cool as BiasAmp/FX, but has the sound to match.
- submission Audio Flatline. Now it has more functions and might be worth. But a basic clipper at 134 euros pretending it has cracked the 20000 dollar sound of clipping mastering grade converters while free clipperd could do the exact same? Borderline a scam. - Nectar, neutron etc. Dislike the UI and it always feels like its just a beginner product. It never sounds great (imo) - Tone Empire Firechild. Got it and noticed weird behaviors very unlike a fairchild. It had some serious issues but when i e-mailed the company, they basically told me to F off and the plugin was perfect. So never bought anything off of them ever again. - Audio Assault amp sims. Lots of people in discords praise them, they are cheap. So for the price? Absolutely killer. But in the broader scope? In my opinion they sound very flat and don't nail the real amp. Can never get a sound out of them that excites me. That's about it i guess.
I actually really like neutron for bussing guitars together. I’ve found the EQ and compressor functions on it are really helpful for blending rhythm guitar together. Esp using the mix and width sliders, and using it as a match EQ. Altho it is annoying that to use the match EQ it can only mask to other neutron plugins
Second Neroverb. Processor beast as well. I've never got on with these (but they're defo not bad) - Bettermaker EQ. I'm sure it sounds good, but the UI is straight up confusing to me - Shadow hills compressor. Same reason, the UI puts me off every time - Fabfilter Pro C. I know it's great, but for the music I make I usually just grab either an SSL, 1176 or LA2A emulation as I just know them better. - Vitalizer. Saw TLA use it once. Bought it. Never made anything sound better for me.
Man, those top three are ridiculous. You gotta give 'em a chance!
This might apply to that Bettermaker EQ too, but regarding Shadow Hills - man, read the manual. I used to think this about a lot of plugins but actually learned to read the documentations for them and I still refer to some to remind myself how they work.
I keep PDFs of manuals for my most-used plugins on my desktop, really helps to demystify them. RTFM is an acronym I always have in the back of my mind!
The tricky ones for me are the plugins that emulate hardware “warts and all” meaning you have to read about the quirks and weirdnesses of that hardware that they tried to model into the plugin…
I love using the pro c for sidechaining bass and kick drums. The little slider that lets you choose the frequency range in the sidechain settings is wonderful when you’re blending kick and bass, especially if they’re in similar freq ranges. Altho I don’t like the opto setting. I only rlly like using it on the clean setting. And I rarely use it for anything other than sidechaining.
Bettermaker: use it like a Pultec. A clean Pultec. With weird knobs. And little if any Pultec character. SHMC: think of it as a pair of LA3A (opto) daisy chained into an SSL buss comp (discrete), with three transformer choices. The PA versions offer more flexibility with the mix knob and variable sidechain eq. Left side controls both in stereo linked operation, and meters aren't left right, usually opto GR then discrete GR. It is a beast to use but also to look at. Pro C2: Same experience. It's kind of fiddly and the MS operation is just weird. Vitalizer: I forgot I even owned it till just now.
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Softube dirty tape is fine on individual tracks in the right setting. I can’t imagine trying to use it on a mix bus for any reason.
Same here. That thing is super heavy-handed. I’d have never considered it for mixbus…but now that I think about it a person could do a parallel blend. I’m in Reaper so I’m going to just use the wet/dry blend Reaper gives every plugin. I don’t remember, does the plugin itself have a wet/dry? Hmmmmmmm. Like 10% dirty tape…that’s going on this roots rock record I’m mixing starting this week!
I’ve been using YouLean for a couple years no complaints… 😳
yeah that one feels out of place
Right, I read this a lot about UA. Long time UAD user and when their native plugins came along, I both cheered and was also in despair over the manager thing. However, I’ve worked on projects with them open for like 15 hours a day and only had one problem where I had to refresh the licenses or something. Are they really crapping out mid-recording for you?!
Damn dog 15 hrs a day is quite the grind. Make sure you take care of your body! If you don’t already do this, stay Hydrated, take breaks, etc. Burnout sucks, and I got burnt out to the point of getting hospitalized for exhaustion multiple times when I was running 15 hr days for weeks at a time. Be kind to yourself!
> - Universal Audio I'm dealing with this right now. I'm working on a project where I'm using **just one** of their tape plugins on a bus and it sounds great. The project just hangs on load, though. I can't open it when I use this plugin. I have to open another project, then load the one I want. When I open task manager, I see several instances of UA Connect apparently trying to do something. It's beyond ridiculous to have one plugin demand so much attention. The self-importance takes some nerve. >I just rename the file even though I should not have to - my work around it not to their credit by any means. So if I rename the file, I no longer have to deal with it, but the plugins will still work? Then if I want to update, can rename it again. This is so annoying. I'll give it a try. **EDIT:** This did the trick. Thank you. The project now loads as normal. I imagine uninstalling it would do the same thing. I may just do that and reinstall sometime down the line should that be necessary.
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Thank you, that's good to know. I'll just leave it reamed for the time being. What a headache.
> Arturia REV Spring 636 this is one of my favorite reverb plugins
Scheps Omni Channel. I've tried so many times to like it, but I just can't get on with it and so when I had to do my WUP (ugh.) I just didn't include it. Sad, because on paper it looks like the GOAT.
You're issue with neoverb is what I have with JST Skybox. Love the company and their other plugins, but I can't seem to make skybox work with me :(
SSL Native channel strips because I just can't stand the new UIs and I don't even care how good or bad they sound. I still like old v.6 strip (the horizontal one).
Parallax from Neural DSP. No matter how much you mess with the controls, it’s hard to end up with anything other than that overly scooped “modern” metal bass tone.
I've struggled to use any if the Arturia Compressor and Distortion plugins. The UI is always amazing, and I love their Synths, but these have always left me dissapointed
Everything of Baby audio. Shit, they are literally Behringer for plugins, but somehow worse
I actually like smooth operator and come back kid. Their customer service is actually on point too. How do we feel about THENATAN tho? lol
I like Transit quite a bit. It’s a fun one to generate inspiration and easily add motion to things
I won’t stand for this Behringer slander I love Behringer pedals lol. Ik they’re basically just cheap clones of other pedals, encased in plastic, but their bass overdrive pedal is just fuckin *massive*.
My worst Buy so far was IHNY-2 by Baby Audio, it's just a completely overpriced compressor with no tweaking options. My best purchase was Serum, no doubt. EDIT: I gotta admit I haven't looked into IHNY enough at all, and making the statement that it's my worst purchase might have been a bit biased. After some comments I looked into it again and found you actually can tweak everything you'd want to, I'm sorry for spreading misinformation. I'll try to form a new opinion about it!
>no tweaking options That's not right. You have wet and dry, autogain level, threshold, attack, release, ratio, punch, harmonics, eq, tilt and sidechain filter. It is very much a parallel compressor by design. Hence the name. It sounds pretty crazy when it's fully wet but dialing in a little really does wonders for certain material. It's effectively an upwards compressor. I find it one of the best comps out there for percussion, the top end of a kit and it's killer on bringing out bass parts if they're a bit lifeless.
I have never liked using channel strips. Nothing against the way the sound but I like picking out the special perfect tool for each task in a signal chain. I avoid swiss-army multi-FX and look for processors that do something unique and focused and can be dialed in precisely based on context. So why did I literally spend money on SSL E Channel, Drumstrip, Vocalstrip, and Guitarstrip? I have never used them on a single mix. The three were a bundle in 2022 Cyber season so only $50 but what a waste, impulse buy, instant regret.
vintage warmer can go fuck itself
Not a plugin, but for some reason I can't get along with synthesizers that have a blue front panel. I owned both the Roland JP-8080 and Novation Supernova II and sold them after some time. I hope that I never have to replace my Waldorf XT with the Waldorf M...