top 10 plugins you couldn't live without.

[redemption91]

simple enough. i want to hear 10 plugins you guys couldn't do without! thanks.

[mattsearles]

hmm.....

#1 Altiverb

You know I don't know if there's anything else I couldn't live without? That I couldn't maybe substitute with something else?

I could maybe make a list of what plugins I use most.. that are the most bread and butter for me.. just what I turn to most out of the selection of plugins I have.. but even then it's like..

Like ok.. here's two plugins that I turn to the most... Wave's Renaissance EQ, and Waves S1 Stereo Imager

Now the truth is.. there's really nothing special about the S1.. there's other plugs that would do that job just as well... but I need a plugin that will allow me to control stereo width... and I have other plugins that will do that.. but they are all DAW specific.. so I like to have a workflow I can use in different production environments and so I use that one all the time...

I'm not in love with the Waves Ren EQ... but it sounds decent.. and like.. lower processor impact.. and there's a certain job I use it for relative to creating my virtual sound stage.. where I just use it all the time cause its like.. easier to deal with automating then some of my more complex EQs..

So ok

#2 Ren EQ
#3 S Imager

#4 Waves H Delay ...I don't know that it's the grooviest delay.. but it's kinda simple.. I like the UX of it.. and not a production goes by that I don't use it.

#4 PSP 84 (I know I need an update).... I sorta don't like some of PSPs UX conventions.. I mean I think they're god awful.. but its a delay I really love and use all the time.. I could live without it.. maybe use the Ohm Boyz.. or use some other delay in my plug in folder... but this is the other delay I turn to most.

#5 Waves Ren Compressor.. again.. not my favorite compressor.. but for some reason I use it all the time... perhaps if I invest in some more better stuff?

#6 Liquid Mix.. truth is a whole lot of projects I haven't used Liquid Mix in.. but of the collection of EQs and Compressors it gives me.. as long as I'm willing to deal with the limitations of Liquid Mix... I think it sounds the best... and it's certainly a pretty expansive library of EQ and Compression options.. and I like the hands on control of the control part of it...

#7 Ok.. truth is.. there isn't a specific plugin for this.. but most production environments have one.. so I think it's worth mentioning.. but it's the midi plugin that allows you to vary velocity... and maybe timing.. and I use this kind of plug in allllllllll the time.... really helpful for putting in a human esk element when doing midi programing stuff.

I wouldn't want to do drum programming without it.


I'm going through my plug in folder and realizing that most of the other stuff I use all the time is kinda dorky stuff? Like stuff you might not want to share publicly.. like little stuff where.. they all give me a different flavor of analog warmth that somehow fits together to make an over all sound...


#8 SpeakerPhone.. like I don't know that a lot of people even know about it.. but sometimes i'll think "well you know what.. instead of putting an EQ on here, why don't I try different speakers that might have a similar sorta EQ effect.. but like.. different.. and maybe throw on a real EQ after the fact or something..

And it can be a real secret weapon.. its offers the vinyl distortion and bit rate reduction that I normally use.. although there's a lot of overhead to use just for that.. it would seem...

I still don't have go to chorus or flanging or phasing type effects.

#9 Guitar Rig... I don't know.. It has some groovy sound design-e features.. plus it gives you a mess of kinda alternative effects that you wouldn't normally think of.. like you would never think "oh, I'll use the tube compressor from Guitar Rig" like you just wouldn't do that..

I mean I know how there's new compressors that use it as host and of course you wouldn't think twice of using it now if you owned the latest Komplete Unlimited but... and just the fact that you have some very strange reverbs in there.. and distortion can be useful to.. and there's a lot of flavors gong on....

#10 URS Strip Pro.. when I don't wanna deal with Liquid Mix.. I think this is the best sounding.. well lets say channel strip.. in my collection.. I mean I think it's my only channel strip but.. idk.. there's a lot in what it does sonically that I dig...


OK...... now all of that was lie... . because the truth is.. I didn't mention Virtual Instruments.... which are like way more important to me. .but I figure probably less so to the more engineering minded among us.

So VSTs

#1 Absynth
#2 Omnisphere
#3 Massive
#4 Kontakt
#5 Maschine
#6 BFD
#7 Reaktor
#8 Thor (Reason)
#9 Simpler if I'm using Ableton, or the Nano Sampler if I'm using digital performer.. there's just something about having a ridiculously simplistic sampler around that.. is just so useful.
#10 Operator (Ableton Live)

I'd like to make a little comment about Ableton.. I used to be very down on the plugins that came with most DAWs... but as a Ableton Suite user.. I've found that there's a lot of plugins in there that I miss the hell out of when I'm working in another production environment.. and sometimes they are just these very simple things...

I don't know.. so that's a lot of madness for ya

In truth it's more the VSTs that I couldn't go without.. Absynth has forever been my favorite synth to program.. Omnisphere is quickly becomes a favorite.. and blah blah blah......

[Joniverse]

1. Logic Compressor. By now I know it by the back of my hand. With the 6 different modes, side chain and parallel mix it covers it all and I always find the sound I'm looking for.

2. Waves Rvox, this awesome limiter is designed for vocals but I use it on just about everything that needs limiting except bus limiter, because it just sounds so damn good.

3. Logic EQ. It's not the best sounding eq ever but it's there and I end up using it all the time.

4. Guitar Amp. Not always great as a guitar simulator but really good for adding dirt or make something sound like a sample from some 60s album.

5. Waves L1. My favorite on the master bus.

6. Space Designer. Maybe there is better, but I'm so happy with my collection of impulse responses, they sound great in this thing.

7. Tape Echo. My go to delay, can sound from really clean to really gritty.

8. Apul Soft ApTrigga. Simple but powerful plug for trigging drums. Its super simple and triggers really good. Ability to load multiple sampled layers, tune the samples and more.

9. Spreader is great for adding some width to vocal tracks. Use it all the time.

10. Pedal Board. The perfect little toy box with a lot of great little FX, i use it on all kinds of sounds, and a lot of useful distortions.

[adamboon]

Here are a few Favs:

EQuality
Decapitator
Crystalizer

The Glue
Logic's Spreader
Echoboy
Waves Tune
PCM Native
Devil loc
Logic's Ensemble
Ozone
FG-X

I could live without all of them though

[RightOnRome]

waves c4
renn eq
tl space
H delay!
t-racks
t-racks 3
UAD harrison
-pultec pro
-trident A range eq
BF 1176..[yea i know.. but i still like it]

[KRStudio]

Samplitude's AM/unition compressor
Samp's 116 EQ
PSP 85 delay
PSP 8 tap delay (forget the name)
Valley People Dynamite (great for ducking)
UAD 1176
UAD LA3A
UAD 140 plate verb
UAD Pultec Pro
Lexicon PCM verb

[sleepingbag]

I think I could mix a record to my complete satisfaction (if everything was recorded sufficiently well) with just:

Sonalksis TBK
Sound Toys Decapitator
Logic Space Designer

Icing on the cake would be:

Waves Puigtech 670
Waves LA2A
Waves API 560

I could easily produce a record with:

NI Kontakt
Spectrasonics Omnisphere

And two of my other most used:

Sonimus SonEQ
Sonalksis Stereo Tools


So there's 10. I could live without any of them except Decapitator and Kontakt.


If my iMac wasn't such a piece of garbage I would probably buy and love Nebula. I really dig way the free version sounds, and would buy it if I could conceivably run a few iterations on a mix, but my computer has a problem with that. I use some of the free versions EQ's when I'm doing 2-track mastering sometimes and they sound awesome, I don't know if they do anything that I absolutely couldn't do with another EQ or with Decapitator, but the curves they program in (sample?) are really pretty sounding in the hi freqs.

[moley]

Fabfilter Pro-L : Brilliant limiter, easy to set up, great GUI, sounds amazing.

Fabfilter Pro-Q : Again, Fabfilter's GUI makes this really nice to use.

Fabfilter Pro-C : Ditto

Sonalksis Free G : Gain staging made easy... and it's FREE!

I can't really think of 6 more plugins, but OTB...

My Overstayer FET compressor & ID4 Instrument Driver are getting a lot of use.

Delay is taken care of by my RE201, AD202 and Moog 104Z

And OTO Biscuit is always used somewhere...

Oh the joys of a hybrid set up!

:D

[MattMoorman]

i'm in the 10th hour of making a record, and i would have to go back to the drawing board if the decapitator and devil-loc disappeared

[soundrick]

I could do everything I need with:
Soundtoys Bundle
Oldtimer
Waves API 550
DigiRack

I'd easily trade whatever else was left in the plugin folder for the UBK-1, if I had to

[joakimjarl]

URS Saturator
Waves API 2500 Compressor
Soundtoys Echo Boy
Logic's EQ
Waves SSL G-Channel
Lennar Digital Sylenth
Native Instruments Massive
Native Instruments Kontakt
Izotope Ozone 5
Waves L1

Without any of these i would probably be out of business since I do lots of in-the-box mixing. A couple of weeks ago I would have put Decapitator on my list too, but since it's buggy on my machine I switched to URS Saturator which works excellent for me.

cheers!

[craig9045]

waves CLA collection - Great for its fx.
Logic compressor - on logic 8, i know it too well not to use it
Fat EQ (logic) - works well for eq reduction for me
Waves vocal rider - very easy to use, good results
Spreader - great for single tracks
(not a plugin) Steven Slate drum samples - Great sounding samples
Izotope Ozone 4 - great for end 'glaze'
Waves SSL Collection - Only recently got them so havnt used it much, compressor is nice.
Logic limiter - Usually for kick drum track at least
waves maserati - Another new one but im liking the clarity it gives, using it on guitar at the moment

[muziekschuur]

My Tascam DM24 is my best plugin.
Second Sonar X1 Pro Channel

[monad]

I could use any standard bunch of DAW plugins and make a mix, not so difficiult if you know what you're doing.

Having said that, I would need one thing; an IBP-type plugin for manual per-track phase adjustments, just can't mix without these. Sonitus FX:Phase is my favorite. Voxengo PHA-979 is also cool, but not as flexible.
With these tools, making a perfect stereo image is a breeze.

All the other tools I could compromise and still make a decent mix, I mean all digital EQs are the same, aren't they? lol :D

(erm, no, no they're not)

But if I'd have to choose, then I'd take AQ Naive LPF, Flux Epure, Waves MaxxBass, Nebula 3, Mellowmuse CP2V, Softube Focusing EQ, Elevayta Spaceboy

Instruments: SS Omnisphere, GF Imposcar 2, OSC Poise

[electroninja]

SSL Channel
SSL Comp
PSP Mix Saturator
Kontakt
AIR Multi-Delay
AIR Pitch shifter
AIR Lo-Fi
Oxford Limiter
IXLS Analyzer
Sonalksis TBK

I would include the Liquid mix but it is actually completely useless on protools :(

[Jan1973]

#1 Focusrite LiquidMix - Goto EQ / Compression
#2 PSP VintageWarmer - Goto Bus (Tape-Style) Compression
#3 NI Guitar Rig - For all DI Guitars / Basses
#4 Voxengo GlissEQ - Goto Bus EQ
#5 AudioDamage DubStation - Goto Delay
#6 Cubase's REVerence - Goto Reverb
#7 SPL Transient Designer - For Drums mainly
#8 Slate Digital Trigger Platinum - Drum Replacer
#9 NI Reaktor - Goto Synth / Noise Generator / Inspiration Source
#10 Voxengo SPAN - Goto Frequency Monitor

[RaySoul]

There are lots of plugins I really like, but I can make a record start to finish with the stock plugs in Pro Tools and Digi Reel Tape...

[chuckduffy]

I don't think I even have 10 must haves... I'm a spare bedroom recording guy with a very un-pro setup :-)

UAD Pultec. Use to add slight boosts on highs for air and lows for bass

UAD EMT-140 - I love long, smoky plates on my hollow body gretsch and les typically do a bandpass on the input - critical to remember to set this thing to 100% wet, lower the stereo width and bump the pre-delay on this as all the presets seem plain wrong to me.

UAD SSL-G - Use on a bass, drum submix and on lightly on the masters to shave off a couple db and gel things up

Waves RBASS - Use this (sparingly!) on bass centered on 80-100 depending on the song to get the bass to pop on earbuds, tvs, clock radios, etc.

Waves Ren EQ 2 and 4 band - Goto for HPF and LPF to roll off lows and highs and strategic cuts. Don't do alot of boosting with this, with the exception of electric guitar sometimes.

UAD LA2A - use for light compression to tame peaks - don't typically use the make up gain on the plug as I don't like the sound

Elephant - I have a love hate relationship with this plug - but it generally works well to quickly get the level up on roughs. If I drive the master too hard before I use it I HATE it - brittle and really harsh on the high end. If I keep the peaks around -3 it's fairly transparent. Seems to play nicely when I use the SSL-G (sparingly) in front of it.

[Moen]

Well, I basacly use the waves stuff, so that's what I've gotten used to..

1. PuigTech EQP1-A
2. PuigChild660
3. Ren EQ
4. CLA1176
5. L3
6. Center
7. TrueVerb
8. S1 Stereo Imager
9. C6
10. H-Delay

I've never tryed out the UAD stuff, and I guess there are some potential new favs there!

[JohnRick]

- Superior Drummer
- Kontakt with all imaginable sample libraries
- Altiverb
- Waves RComp
- DMG Equality

Those five are enough really.


edit: I completely forgot MELODYNE...and Trilian, and Waves L2, and Soundtoys Decapitator & Panman. PCM Native too.
SPL Vitalizer and oohhh....Sonnox Inflator!

[Cover'd]

Interesting to see how everyone is saying different things! There's no standout 'must have', which is of course because everyone has different tastes and requirements

Also chuckduffy - you say you have a very 'un-pro bedroom set up' yet still use UAD & Waves - sounds quite handy to me!

[Jfalikman]

1. Kontakt
2. Massey L2007
3. Waves 1176 blackface
4. Logic space designer
5. Massive
6. Softube metal amp room
7. Cubase magnetic
8. Reakor
9. Atmosphere
10. Waves dorrugh

[noizek@t]

UAD:
LA2A
Transient Designer
1073
EMT140
Cooper Time Cube
Precision Buss Compressor
Soundtoys:
Echoboy
Decapitator
Ohmforce:
Ohmicide
Expert Sleepers:
Silent Way

I would rather have these in analog hardware form (other than silent way), but such is life.

[chuckduffy]

Originally Posted by Cover'd

Also chuckduffy - you say you have a very 'un-pro bedroom set up' yet still use UAD & Waves - sounds quite handy to me!

GS is an interesting ecosystem. I wrote that as a sort of 'disclaimer' - as in I like these plugs, but I don't do this professionally and in no way could I be considered an 'engineer'. I'm super picky about what I buy - and once I do usually end up using it until it simply won't work anymore :-)

I picked up the Waves Ren bundle in 2006 (i think) and it lives on to this day under Win 7 64 bit with no issues. I have the UAD solo - more than enough for what I'm doing. I bought the original version. One day I got a suprise email with a $250 coupon attached to purchase any plugins available in the store as they increased the number of plugins included shortly after I purchased. So I used my coupon and got ANOTHER $50 coupon for being a loyal customer!

[kraku]

1. Logic Pro's EQ
2. Native Instruments Battery
3. SoundToys EchoBoy
4. ...any good compressor plugin...

...that's about it...

[A Fak]

In no order:

Slate Digital VCC
DMG Equality\Equick
Soundtoys Echoboy
Cytomic The Clue
Sonimus SonEQ (free)
Waves CLA-76
Waves PlugChild
Waves CLA-3A
Waves Rcomp
Waves L2

Almost made the list:

Eiosis E²Deesser
ValhallaDSP Valhalla Room
PSP MasterComp
Waves Rvox
Waves CLA-2A
Waves SSL EQ
Waves H-Comp
Waves VocalRider
Waves Doubler
Waves MetaFlanger

[gussyg2007]

in no particular order

QL Spaces
Nebular (EQ's)
Kore Player (fx bundles)
logic bit crusher (distortion)
Logic Tape delay
Logic EQ (subtractive)
Logic Comp (side chaining)
Echo boy
Waves CLA
The Glue

pretty much on all the mixes i do

[Vytis]

- Pro Audio DSP Dynamic Spectrum Mapper
- Waves REQ
- Waves C6/C4
- Waves UM225/226
- GRM Doppler
- McDSP ML4000
- Izotope RX
- Avid Revibe
- VocAlign
- PPMulator+ XL

[Killah_Trakz]

Rvox
Waves la2a
waves 1176
Tracks la2a
Tracks 1176
Tl space
L2007
Any eq (API 560)
Maschine

[tommygunn]

Really thought the Massey L2007 would be mentioned more...
Surprises me 8)