Favourite plugins to use with your amp sims

[MirrorProfiles]

Purpose of this thread is to discuss our favourite plugins for using with amp sims. I’m talking more about studio fx rather than pedal/amp/cab sims.

Ones that get regular use from me:

- Arturia REV-Spring 636. REALLY great colourful spring plugin. Not too boingy, great inbuilt preamp model that you can drive hard for more colour.

- Lexicon PCM bundle. Unfortunately it’s borderline abandonware and even if it does get updated, don’t expect them to be regular or robust. The underlying algos are still Lexicon’s flagship, and are the product of years of R&D and some of the most talented reverb designers ever to have lived. Can find it quite cheap on thomann, which for 7 world class algos is a great deal. The LXP bundle shares a lot of the same DNA with slightly more simple controls and shouldn’t be overlooked

- UA 480L / Relab LX480. Relab has some advantages in that it has some additional routing options for combining 2 machines into one mega reverb. It also has an additional HD algorithm that can do a reasonable Bricasti style reverb. They also have delays and FX that Lexicon are known for. The 480L is probably the most famous studio reverb ever made, maybe Lexicons pinnacle design. Earlier models have more character, later ones are a bit cleaner. This is right in the sweet spot. The Relab Essentials 480 is often included for free with other gear and provides a lot of famous presets, it’s pretty cool too.

- UA Lexicon 224. LoFi style reverb - brickwall filtering at 8k, lots of modulation. Also includes a cool chorus effect. Love this on guitars. Arturia’s version is fantastic too, probably with a better GUI and great extra features.

- Valhalla Vintage Verb. Kind of like a “best of” of Lexicon reverbs. I think it leans quite heavily on the PCM70/224XL era of Lexicons, but it can do more modern sounds, and also more vintage ones. Great GUI, perfect amount of controls that all have an audible effect. No brainer, must own.

- Arturia’s Memory Man, just a perfect memory man model as far as I’m concerned.

- Eventide H3000. They haven’t ported all of their algos, but between the 2 H3000 based ones and all the H9 derived stuff, as well as the others they make you can cover a lot of it. Great for inspiring weird ideas and happy accidents.

- Valhalla Delay. Quite a lot like Vintage Verb in that you get so many sounds with an ideal amount of controls. Very versatile yet almost “pedal” like control.

- Pulsar Echo Rec. Solid Binson plugin, great sounding preamp included

- Roland Space Echo. There are so many great emulations of these, I don’t have a favourite. UAD, IK, Arturia all make solid interpretations. Don’t overlook the spring

- UAD Korg SDD3000. DSP only as it stands, but I really love this for 80’s digital delay sounds. Soundtoys Primal Tap, Waves H-Delay and PSP PCM42 are also worth a go and have similar sounds and features. Great for modulation fx too.

- Valhalla UberMod. Maybe my favourite modulation plugin. It’s quite deep but still nice to use and can do basically anything (including reverbs and cloud fx).

- TC2290. Lots of delay fx, but also modulations and tremolo and panning.

Non-FX plugins

- UAD Helios Type 69. The EQ is just so well matched for guitars - all the available frequency options sit in a great position for guitars, you’ll always find something that works. Waves and Lindell versions are good too.

- UAD Studer A800. Can be nice to round out a tone a little. Perfect amount of colour. I like U-He Satin and IK’s A80 model (despite its HUGE CPU use).

- Waves Ren Axx, great on cleaner guitars for keeping them loud n proud. Rcomp is the best utility compressor ever

- Plugin Alliance Acme Opticom XLA3. Aggressive and spanky compression.

- UAD Distressor, very versatile and useful on guitars. Can mimic a lot of compression styles. IK/slate and others do good takes on these.

- Waves NLS / Slate VCC. Subtle console colour, can round things out, smooth the top end and add a little heft

- UAD Culture Vulture / Arturia. Arturia’s is arguably better tbh. Subtle to extreme distortion fx, possibly the most realistic distortion effects I’ve heard in a plugin

 

[Sascha Franck]

- Logic's Stereo Delay. For ease of use and it's easy x-feed options.

- Logic's Space Designer (for cabs and reverbs). I'm also using weird homebrewn IRs.

- U-He's MFM2. Just an incredible delay.

- Sixth Sample Deelay (freeware), most fantastic for quick, yet great and often astonoshing results.

- Valhalla Supermassive. Just incredible for spacey stuff. Free.

- Valhalla SpaceModulator. See above. Free.

- lkjb Luftikus, a free clone of the Maag EQ4, which I find to be just excellent for quick tweaking, even if it doesn't seem to cover some relevant guitar frequencies at first. But the bands are pretty interactive. And it's got a "keep gain" function, so you don't fall for the "boost = better" thing as easily.

- Logic's Channel EQ. Just works.

- Logic's Pedalboard Designer. Didn't expect much as Guitar Amp Designer is pretty bad, but there's some nice useful pedals, such as the Double Dragon Overdrive, the Happy Face Fuzz (which doesn't sound much like any original but works quite well in a buffered environment) and the Squash Compressor. I also like to use a combination of, say, a compressor, drive and graphic EQ in front of HXN, simply because I can switch them all on/off without having to open HXNs UI (which I'm not particularly happy with).

These are the most used ones. I sometimes like Waves' Berserk or iZotope's Trash 2 for some wilder drives.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Post HX Native (I normally don't do any plugins pre HX).

No particular order:

-AUGraphicEQ by Apple. For subtle shaping and cleanup, and that's dependent on whatever else is going on in the mix of course. I prefer working with GEQs.
-Vintage Compressor in Ozone 10 -- just to even things out
-Fiedler Audio Stage from P. Alliance -- for spatial and flanging fx
-bx_digital V3 from P. Alliance -- for mono and spread adjustment of stereo track or bus, and for subtle eq moves.
-bx_delay 2500 from P. Alliance -- typically on an FX send
-Analog Delay in Studio One -- typically on an FX send
-Open Air, Convology Reverb in Studio One -- typically on an FX send

These are the most common but I do use others.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Waves H-Delay is the PCM42 we always wanted that we had all along.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, I also like Native Instruments' Raum reverb a whole lot - but I wouldn't want to encourage anyone to even just think about that company, simply because I despise NI as much as it gets (for pretty good reasons of course). Especially in case you're stupid enough to be a Mac user like me, NI is plain horrorshow. Apple + NI = a match made in hell!

Anyhow, I'm still mentioning it because: In case I could have something like the mentioned Deelay and NI's Raum in, say, the HX ecosystem, it'd be "case closed" for me in terms of delays and reverbs. These would do anything I ever needed live.
I obviously wouldn't mind something like MFM2, either, but that one's just too complexed to even remotely be edit-able on whatever modeling hardware (you could of course come up with things such as an easy edit mode for on-unit-editing, offering user definable macros).

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Fwiw, I also like Native Instruments' Raum reverb a whole lot - but I wouldn't want to encourage anyone to even just think about that company, simply because I despise NI as much as it gets (for pretty good reasons of course). Especially in case you're stupid enough to be a Mac user like me, NI is plain horrorshow. Apple + NI = a match made in hell!

Anyhow, I'm still mentioning it because: In case I could have something like the mentioned Deelay and NI's Raum in, say, the HX ecosystem, it'd be "case closed" for me in terms of delays and reverbs. These would do anything I ever needed live.
I obviously wouldn't mind something like MFM2, either, but that one's just too complexed to even remotely be edit-able on whatever modeling hardware (you could of course come up with things such as an easy edit mode for on-unit-editing, offering user definable macros).

Raum is indeed a fantastic reverb. The (Softube coded) Lexicon Reverbs from them are pretty good too (as is their TSAR-1). Funnily enough I was comparing the Lexicon PCM reverbs to the Helix Native ones, and it’s pretty grim for HX Verbs.

I think stock plugins can cover a hell of a lot of ground but high quality reverbs still take skill and knowledge that very few people have access to. It took a long time to have any decent reverb plugins at all that could rival HW units - thankfully there are many good options now that will instantly improve what you have at your dispersal.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Kuassa Efektor modulation plugins and Valhalla Delay & Verbs is all I need.

 

[bikescene]

All the best stuff was covered by @MirrorProfiles

These are the other plugins that I tend to go to:
From Fuse Audio Labs:
VREV63 - spring reverb
Bucket-500 - analog delay sim
Flywheel - for tape simulation

Soundtoys EffectRack was the cheapest way for access to Echoboy, Phase Mistress, Microshift and Tremolator.

Eventide Black Hole, Rotary Mod, Crystals, and H949 for those specific algorithms.

IK Sunset Sound for room reverb, although I dislike the plugin itself and made IRs of it.

I bought into the UAD native packages, but haven't used much outside of the LA2A and Waterfall Rotary for guitar yet.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

All the best stuff was covered by @MirrorProfiles

These are the other plugins that I tend to go to:
From Fuse Audio Labs:
VREV63 - spring reverb
Bucket-500 - analog delay sim
Flywheel - for tape simulation

Soundtoys EffectRack was the cheapest way for access to Echoboy, Phase Mistress, Microsoft, and Tremolator.

Eventide Black Hole, Rotary Mod, Crystals, and H949 for those specific algorithms.

IK Sunset Sound for room reverb, although I dislike the plugin itself and made IRs of it.

I bought into the UAD native packages, but haven't used much outside of the LA2A and Waterfall Rotary for guitar yet.

I own all of these, big +1 to all of them.

 

[sashimi]

Softube tsar-1
Waves J37 (great tape delay)
UAD la2a
UAD pure plate
Space designer
A while back Wampler offered a free terraform plugin. I don’t think it’s still available but I still use it for vibe sometimes.

 

[Blix]

Some of the ones I use most:

IK Sunset sound for that Van Halen reverb, and awesome room sounds as well.

Soundtoys Echoboy, fantastic delay, all I use for a plugin delay really.

Valahalla Supermassive for when you want to swim in crazy ambience, and its free!

UA Lexicon 224 as mentioned in the OP.

UA Capitol Chambers, so lush.

Eventide Ultrachannel, underrated plugin IMO, sound killer.

 

[Whizzinby]

Purpose of this thread is to discuss our favourite plugins for using with amp sims. I’m talking more about studio fx rather than pedal/amp/cab sims.

Ones that get regular use from me:

- Arturia REV-Spring 636. REALLY great colourful spring plugin. Not too boingy, great inbuilt preamp model that you can drive hard for more colour.

- Lexicon PCM bundle. Unfortunately it’s borderline abandonware and even if it does get updated, don’t expect them to be regular or robust. The underlying algos are still Lexicon’s flagship, and are the product of years of R&D and some of the most talented reverb designers ever to have lived. Can find it quite cheap on thomann, which for 7 world class algos is a great deal. The LXP bundle shares a lot of the same DNA with slightly more simple controls and shouldn’t be overlooked

- UA 480L / Relab LX480. Relab has some advantages in that it has some additional routing options for combining 2 machines into one mega reverb. It also has an additional HD algorithm that can do a reasonable Bricasti style reverb. They also have delays and FX that Lexicon are known for. The 480L is probably the most famous studio reverb ever made, maybe Lexicons pinnacle design. Earlier models have more character, later ones are a bit cleaner. This is right in the sweet spot. The Relab Essentials 480 is often included for free with other gear and provides a lot of famous presets, it’s pretty cool too.

- UA Lexicon 224. LoFi style reverb - brickwall filtering at 8k, lots of modulation. Also includes a cool chorus effect. Love this on guitars. Arturia’s version is fantastic too, probably with a better GUI and great extra features.

- Valhalla Vintage Verb. Kind of like a “best of” of Lexicon reverbs. I think it leans quite heavily on the PCM70/224XL era of Lexicons, but it can do more modern sounds, and also more vintage ones. Great GUI, perfect amount of controls that all have an audible effect. No brainer, must own.

- Arturia’s Memory Man, just a perfect memory man model as far as I’m concerned.

- Eventide H3000. They haven’t ported all of their algos, but between the 2 H3000 based ones and all the H9 derived stuff, as well as the others they make you can cover a lot of it. Great for inspiring weird ideas and happy accidents.

- Valhalla Delay. Quite a lot like Vintage Verb in that you get so many sounds with an ideal amount of controls. Very versatile yet almost “pedal” like control.

- Pulsar Echo Rec. Solid Binson plugin, great sounding preamp included

- Roland Space Echo. There are so many great emulations of these, I don’t have a favourite. UAD, IK, Arturia all make solid interpretations. Don’t overlook the spring

- UAD Korg SDD3000. DSP only as it stands, but I really love this for 80’s digital delay sounds. Soundtoys Primal Tap, Waves H-Delay and PSP PCM42 are also worth a go and have similar sounds and features. Great for modulation fx too.

- Valhalla UberMod. Maybe my favourite modulation plugin. It’s quite deep but still nice to use and can do basically anything (including reverbs and cloud fx).

- TC2290. Lots of delay fx, but also modulations and tremolo and panning.

Non-FX plugins

- UAD Helios Type 69. The EQ is just so well matched for guitars - all the available frequency options sit in a great position for guitars, you’ll always find something that works. Waves and Lindell versions are good too.

- UAD Studer A800. Can be nice to round out a tone a little. Perfect amount of colour. I like U-He Satin and IK’s A80 model (despite its HUGE CPU use).

- Waves Ren Axx, great on cleaner guitars for keeping them loud n proud. Rcomp is the best utility compressor ever

- Plugin Alliance Acme Opticom XLA3. Aggressive and spanky compression.

- UAD Distressor, very versatile and useful on guitars. Can mimic a lot of compression styles. IK/slate and others do good takes on these.

- Waves NLS / Slate VCC. Subtle console colour, can round things out, smooth the top end and add a little heft

- UAD Culture Vulture / Arturia. Arturia’s is arguably better tbh. Subtle to extreme distortion fx, possibly the most realistic distortion effects I’ve heard in a plugin

Out of curious what all are you using these on?

Typically for my guitars and bass I’m using the effects in the plugin/modellers. Do you typically record dryer into the DAW specifically to use these after, or do you find benefit experimenting with these even if somewhat wet already?

Or are these more used on drums/vocals, or on a mix bus?

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Out of curious what all are you using these on?

Typically for my guitars and bass I’m using the effects in the plugin/modellers. Do you typically record dryer into the DAW specifically to use these after, or do you find benefit experimenting with these even if somewhat wet already?

Or are these more used on drums/vocals, or on a mix bus?

I tried to have the thread so these are just things for guitars. I’ll mostly track rhythm parts pretty dry fx wise, but when it comes to layering and overdubs, i’ll try and get these fx 90% of the way there while i’m playing because they can affect the performance a good bit, and it’ll inform other choices about the tone. These fx are generally a part of the sound and relate to the part+performance rather than subtle mix things.

I like having these running as plugins because they sound better than what I’ll find included in modellers. I also find it VERY beneficial to be able to change the order of the plugins after the fact, or to add some eq/filtering between stages, or to adjust the settings very slightly as I go, or to tweak cab IR’s etc.

If the sound is quite wet/processed already then these will often just become too messy and murky - if I’m working with more processed sounds, it’s likely just going to be EQ/compression/saturation to make things sit in the mix how I like.

 

[NightWalker]

right now im using Helix Native for FX
sometimes i use Eventide H3000

 

[Sedaxel]

I'm not such a plugin guy, so I find a whole lot of great info here. Thanks mates!

Now, related to guitar plugins... I wonder what all of you would choose for a live pc rig. Would you choose a complete suite like Helix Native, TH-U, etc... or would you mix plugins with any kind of host? And... Which host? A DAW or some kind of gig performer or the likes.

Also curious about whether you would use the same plugins at home/studio as gigging out there.

 

[Whizzinby]

I tried to have the thread so these are just things for guitars. I’ll mostly track rhythm parts pretty dry fx wise, but when it comes to layering and overdubs, i’ll try and get these fx 90% of the way there while i’m playing because they can affect the performance a good bit, and it’ll inform other choices about the tone. These fx are generally a part of the sound and relate to the part+performance rather than subtle mix things.

I like having these running as plugins because they sound better than what I’ll find included in modellers. I also find it VERY beneficial to be able to change the order of the plugins after the fact, or to add some eq/filtering between stages, or to adjust the settings very slightly as I go, or to tweak cab IR’s etc.

If the sound is quite wet/processed already then these will often just become too messy and murky - if I’m working with more processed sounds, it’s likely just going to be EQ/compression/saturation to make things sit in the mix how I like.

Interesting. I’d like to try the Arturia Memory Man one, you like it more than the FAS Mind Guy?

 

[Slammin Mofo]

This list is of course all in my opinion:

Reverb:

Convolution based and overall best tone: Nebula N4 Analog In The Box Bricasti M7 library (E.A.R. Collection)

Fusion IR tech: Liquidsonic Seventh Heaven

Algorithmic: UAD Lexicon 480L, UAD AMS RMX 16, Lexicon PCM, Valhalla Vintage Verb

Room Simulations: IK Sunset & Fame Studios, UAD Sound City Studios, Ocean Way Studios & Capitol Chambers

Delay:

Sample based and overall best tone: Acustica Audio Lemon

Algorithmic: PSP Lexicon 42, D16 Repeater, UAD Korg SDD-3000, UAD Factory Dela, UAD EP-34 Tape Echo, TC 2290, Pulsar Binson Echorec, Valhalla Delay

Pitchshifting:

Eventide H3000 MK II, Soundtoys Microshift

Modulation:

UAD MXR Flanger, UAD Boss Chorus, D16 Syntorus Chorus, UAD Songbird Tri Stereo Chorus, D16 Antresol (Electric Mistress copy), Eventide Instant Phaser MK II

Tape:

Sample based: Nebula N4 Tim Petherik ATR 102 library, Nebula N4 London Acoustics Taipei Studio

Algorithmic: UAD ATR 102, IK Multimedia Tape Collection

Saturation:

Sample based: Acustica Audio Crimson, Nebula N4 London Acoustics Enna & Telge

Pulsar Modular P42, Vertigo VSM-3, Soundtoys Decapitator, Fabfilter Saturn 2

EQ:

Sample based: Acustica Audio Gold, Pink, Sand (Neve, API, SSL collections), Nebula N4 AITB Blue EQ (Chandler)

Algortihmic: UAD 1084, Fabfilter Pro-Q 3, UAD Massenburg MDW-5, Kush Blyss

Compressor:

UAD 1176, LA-2A, LA-3A, Nebula N4 Brighton 2 Opto Compressor, UAD Neve 33609C, Kush Silika, SSL Native Bus Compressor 2, Fabfilter Pro-C 2

Mix Bus Console Fairy Dust:

Nebula N4 Alex B console mix bus libraries such as the SSL 4K

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Interesting. I’d like to try the Arturia Memory Man one, you like it more than the FAS Mind Guy?

I don’t really use the Fractal one, but yes, I do prefer it. Looks and responds exactly like you’d expect, and the advanced/extra features are still in keeping with what the delay is about, but just allows a bit more creativity. I’d 10000% recommend grabbing the Arturia FX bundle when it’s on sale, I think at the moment there is a sale on individual products (which may give a slightly better upgrade price when the bundle goes on sale).

Their demos don’t expire, so very easy to try for yourself

 

[MirrorProfiles]

This list is of course all in my opinion:

Reverb:

Convolution based and overall best tone: Nebula N4 Analog In The Box Bricasti M7 library (E.A.R. Collection)

Fusion IR tech: Liquidsonic Seventh Heaven

Algorithmic: UAD Lexicon 480L, UAD AMS RMX 16, Lexicon PCM, Valhalla Vintage Verb

Room Simulations: IK Sunset & Fame Studios, UAD Sound City Studios, Ocean Way Studios & Capitol Chambers

Delay:

Sample based and overall best tone: Acustica Audio Lemon

Algorithmic: PSP Lexicon 42, D16 Repeater, UAD Korg SDD-3000, UAD Factory Dela, UAD EP-34 Tape Echo, TC 2290, Pulsar Binson Echorec, Valhalla Delay

Pitchshifting:

Eventide H3000 MK II, Soundtoys Microshift

Modulation:

UAD MXR Flanger, UAD Boss Chorus, D16 Syntorus Chorus, UAD Songbird Tri Stereo Chorus, D16 Antresol (Electric Mistress copy), Eventide Instant Phaser MK II

Tape:

Sample based: Nebula N4 Tim Petherik ATR 102 library, Nebula N4 London Acoustics Taipei Studio

Algorithmic: UAD ATR 102, IK Multimedia Tape Collection

Saturation:

Sample based: Acustica Audio Crimson, Nebula N4 London Acoustics Enna & Telge

Pulsar Modular P42, Vertigo VSM-3, Soundtoys Decapitator, Fabfilter Saturn 2

EQ:

Sample based: Acustica Audio Gold, Pink, Sand (Neve, API, SSL collections), Nebula N4 AITB Blue EQ (Chandler)

Algortihmic: UAD 1084, Fabfilter Pro-Q 3, UAD Massenburg MDW-5, Kush Blyss

Compressor:

UAD 1176, LA-2A, LA-3A, Nebula N4 Brighton 2 Opto Compressor, UAD Neve 33609C, Kush Silika, SSL Native Bus Compressor 2, Fabfilter Pro-C 2

Mix Bus Console Fairy Dust:

Nebula N4 Alex B console mix bus libraries such as the SSL 4K

some nice stuff here! I can never seem to get on with the Acustica stuff, always feels like a trade off for me that isn’t QUITE worth it (despite the sound being pretty good). I have plenty of friends who love them though.

 

[PatF]

IK's T-Racks Max is a good value. There is at least 15 good plugins in there. Comps, EQ, verb, delays, tape sims.