Post audio: top 10 (or so) plugins

[postprosound]

There is a thread going on (for quite some time now) over in music computers about most regularly used plugins. From a post production point of view, both mixing and editing, what are your top plugins, and why?

Also too, how do you feel the need s for post plugs differ from music?

For me: in no order

massey limiter
izotope RX
wavearts multidynamics
wavearts restoration
Massey HM meter (simple is good)
Digi eq and compressor
waves ren eq
ren or maxx bass/lowender (fun effects)
TL space
Altiverb
wavearts panorama (fun effects)
Some revibe, but not much (depends on who i'm working with)
audioease speakerphone (really cool)
audoease snapper
soundminer
i'm forgetting others, no doubt...

as an aside, i do wish that digi would build in an eq compresor etc right into the track like nuendo. it seems to me it might use less cpu, and would always be there. if it was a quality plug, that would be nice... but, i guess i could just put an eq on every track... oh bother.

[soundboy]

Waves Q10
Ren comp
Ren reverb
Altiverb
C4
Equium
Firium
TapeHead
Pitch'n'Time
L1
Waves Restoration
PAZ Meters
Massey limiter

[soundguydave]

McDSP
Massey
Speakerphone

to hell with waves!

[subbasshead]

I'm not a mixer, so my selection is from sound editorial/design pov...

Plugs:
- Waves Doppler
- TL Space
- Altiverb
- Lowender
- Q10
- FilterFreak
- GRM Freeze
- GRM Reson
- Kontakt
- Structure
- Moog Modular
- TimewARP2600
- VSTwrapper (for audiodamage plugs etc)

Apps:
- SoundMiner
- Conformalizer
- AudioSculpt
- Ableton LIVE
- Kyma
- Metasynth Pro
- AudioFinder
- Snapper

[danijel]

Originally Posted by subbasshead

I'm not a mixer, so my selection is from sound editorial/design pov...

Plugs:
- Waves Doppler

i've seen people mention doppler before on this forum, so i got interested... do you use it to make realistic pass-bys, or in some other, creative way?

as for me, besides the usual stuff (waves, altiverb...), i would add melodyne plugin to these lists. it's my everyday tool for inserting pieces of alternative field takes.

[subbasshead]

re Waves Doppler

I have used it to create elements for passbys where I didnt have a real/recorded doppler that was strong or powerful enough, one example was for a car chase in a film & I recorded a lot of material with the two cars but one of them had an exhaust that I just couldnt get close enough to to record a fast passby... but I had a lot of onboard recordings with seperate mics (on exhaust, engine & interior) so I took a powerful sounding piece of the exhaust mic (accelerating) and put it through Waves Doppler and managed to create some really powerful sounding passbys... these were layered with the real recordings but helped a lot to make the FX rate in the mix, in what I knew would be a loud scene with a lot of music...
I also remember once making a sound appear to go away naturally by having the midpoint of the Doppler right near the start of sound & then only using the sound from past the passby (if you know what i mean)

Another example: I use Doppler to create passbys for sounds which would be too short/fast to pan on a desk, but where I want more movement in the sound than simply cutting it eg Left/Right... I only have Waves Gold Native so it is only a stereo Doppler, but at times I have created big fast movements by making & then cutting two seperate dopplers from say surrL->L and surrR->R

I find the Doppler plug to be a bit hit & miss with it predictably generating good passbys, so i tend to cut say 10 copies of the same region on a track & print/re-record it through the Doppler, varying the trigger start, the speed of passby & the midpoint each time, so I end up with a lot of variations from the same source material. Also this way I can edit the dopplers to use the most appropriate for a specific moment and/or combine different passes...

I tend to only use a small amount of the Dopplers pitch variation on most sounds as it is too artificial/extreme to my ears... ditto for its built in reverb... Its a shame Waves dont develop the Doppler plugin further - there are plenty of features they could add or develop further that would make it even more useful.
I alos sue the GRM Tool Doppler occasionally & find it works best when you move the midpoint, so the Doppler is chasing your mouse around the screen, ratehr than simply circling a static midpoint...

oops, sorry for hijacking this thread...

[danijel]

Originally Posted by subbasshead

re Waves Doppler
oops, sorry for hijacking this thread...

but no, the question was 'what are your top plugins, and why?", so the explanations are on-topic. i had to describe why i use melodyne for postpro, cause it's generally used to pitch correct singers, and make background vocals.
anyway, thanks for the detailed explanation, i will definitely have doppler on my mind in the future.

BTW, i invite others to post here. although it looks like a too general topic, and posting here looks like showing off ('i listen to this and that music'), i think it can be valuable as a kind of poll. maybe with a little more explanation on the use of each plugin, if it's not too obvious....
here's my 2c:

my dialog strip:
waves req (lo cut, hi cut)
sonitus ultrafunk gate/expander (as a gentle expander)
waves ssl compressor
waves req (for dialog color)
waves rdesser (obvious)

my 'quick' dialog strip (for fast TV production):
w. req (lo cut, hi cut)
nuendo eq
waves C4

offline dialog processing:
w. z-noise, w. x-crackle, w. c4 (de-hissing expander), equium (for notches), melodyne (as explained above)

sound design:
altiverb, z3ta+, kontakt......

TV mastering:
waves L2 (didn't like L3)

[Branko]

dynamics: RComp, Massey L2007, sometimes L1, C4, R De-esser.
EQ: Oxford Filters, Oxford 3band or 5band, Equium, rarely Filterbank
Reverb: Altiverb XL, ReVibe
Noise reduction: Wave Arts MR Noise, NoNoise (rarely) Cedar DNS 2000
Fx: Speakerphone
3D: TC electronic UnWrap

Still evaluating: Eiosis de-esser (a great potential!), Sonalksis stuff (sounds really good)

[Loa]

i would add waves x-Click for removing , well, clicks very efficient if wisely used..

[swirlyd]

My faves=

Waves Restoration (particularly X-Noise, X-Crackle)- the X-crackle helps a lot with badly recorded location audio that may be distort due to high gain or auto-limiters. Can't afford a Cedar yet for the noise ;-)

Massey CT4= I love this compressor for VO

Massey VT3= the "treble" gives me that extra air that the Ren EQ doesn't do so well..

L3= though i hate making things loud, the clients demand it, and this helps.

Massey Limiter = same as above...

C4= helps control bassy music tracks and gives the sound a nice glue in some situations

Ren Compressor= use it quite a lot as well

DUY DaD Tape= Always a battle to keep things "warm" with all this digital world, and this plug has come the closest to given a mix a nice "analog" sound. Does very nice things to low frequencies.

Digidesign De-Esser= I actually like this de-esser better than the Ren De-Esser, though i use both. Sometimes I switch between the two just to try things differently.

For sound design and music stings, the Native Instruments Komplete package and the SoundToys filter delays (Time Blender, Pitch Blender etc)

[seanmccoy]

I'm noticing a distinct absence of UAD-1 plugins here. Is the latency a problem? Lack of transparency? They're fantastic for music applications, so I'm curious as to why they would be completely missing from the post arsenal. Anybody?

[soundslikejoe]

Probably cause most Post folks are running PTHD.... why buy UAD DSP when you already have invested so much in TDM?

I use FairChild, LA2A, Precision deEsser, etc on all that stuff.

[cubivore]

i don't have anything new to contribute to the list since i use something of everything people have mentioned. i was wondering what you guys were using for quickie composition/sfx triggering. i've used kontakt/battery quite a bit, but what non-dialog processing tools are people using at bigger studios for advertising and short format pieces? one place i worked had spectrasonics, but i never had a chance to use it. i'm interested in getting a little bundle for a studio i will be working at that has nothing for this sort of thing, but has all the waves and basic processors.

[funkpolbrother]

I love these threads....

Comp: Ren Comp or Digi DynIII....also C4
EQ: Oxford/GML, Digi EQIII or Ren EQ
Reverb: Waves IR or TLSpace
Desser: Digi DynIII or Ren DeEsser
Limiter: L2 or Massey
Delay: Super-Tap
Noise Reduction: Waves x-series....also C4....Cedar DNS (hardware) when necessary
Other: Ren Bass

Those are my "standard", go-to plugins for normal, daily-use.

[soundfx]

Originally Posted by cubivore

i don't have anything new to contribute to the list since i use something of everything people have mentioned. i was wondering what you guys were using for quickie composition/sfx triggering. i've used kontakt/battery quite a bit, but what non-dialog processing tools are people using at bigger studios for advertising and short format pieces? one place i worked had spectrasonics, but i never had a chance to use it. i'm interested in getting a little bundle for a studio i will be working at that has nothing for this sort of thing, but has all the waves and basic processors.

If you're talking composition, the Spectrasonics stuff is great. I have to write short stuff pretty quickly and Stylus RMX is one tool I can't live without. EWQSL for symphonic stuff, Massive and Minimonsta, DIGIs stuff seems fairly effective as well....Indigo, BFD....so many choices. I'd start with Stylus RMX for drums and loops and get a boatload of expansions.

[charles maynes]

Wow-

I have a bazillion plugins, but I will try to give a short-list-

EQ's- FIlterBank, Oxford, Massey VT3, Frequalizer and Uniqualizer

Dynamics- McDsp ML4000, Analog Channel, Omnipressor, Drawmer, Cyanide(via wrapper) Inflator (I need to buy the Massey L2007 though)

Reverb- ReVibe, TLSpace, VSS3, RaySpace(via wrapper)

Delay/FX Time Blender, GRM Tools, Band Delays, H3000 Factory, TL Everyphase

Noise Reduction RX, NoNoise Sony Restoration.

[Berolzheimer]

I'm amazed no one else has mentioned the MDW eq- to me it's one of the most flexible, cleanest eq's out there. Personally I wouldn't touch the ren eq, q10 is very smeary- good for interesting fx sometimes but I wouldn't use it on something I care about-and the digi eq3 gets pretty strident, or gritty, pretty fast.
My go- to's are MDW, LinMB, Altiverb, Oxford dynamics, Massey ct4 for normal sutff, but I'll use anything & everything when it comes to design work.

[Henchman]

As I've stated before. I keep my list of post/mix plug-ins to a minimum, and don't use any esoteric ones really.

Ren Comp
Digi EQ3
Q10
C4
Waves De-Esser
L1
Revibe or 360 verb, whatever is available.
Waves multitap
Ren Verb

And the most important one for dialog, Cedar DNS