Step closer to the plug-in rabbit hole... what are your favorite & most used ones?

TheTrueZoltan!

TheTrueZoltan!

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What's a Recording sub-forum without a nice plug-in thread?!

So what are your favorite & most used ones?

I'll start with mine:

Line 6 Helix Native
Valhalla Delay, VintageVerb & Room
SIR Audio Tools SIR3 & StandardGate
FabFilter Pro-Q, Pro-C & Pro-L
Sonible smart:EQ, smart:comp & smart:limit
Kuassa Efektor CH3604 & PH3605
Soundtheory Gullfoss
Steven Slate VSX (with headphones)
PSP Audioware 2445 EMT
 
#1 Neural Granophyre

granophyre-ui.png


runners up:
Neural Plini black amp (Friedman BE)
Nembrini MRH810 (Marshall JCM800 2210)
Mercurial Audio ReAxis (Mesa Triaxis preamp)
 
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TheTrueZoltan! said:
What's a Recording sub-forum without a nice plug-in thread?!

So what are your favorite & most used ones?

I'll start with mine:

Line 6 Helix Native
Valhalla Delay, VintageVerb & Room
SIR Audio Tools SIR3 & StandardGate
FabFilter Pro-Q, Pro-C & Pro-L
Sonible smart:EQ, smart:comp & smart:limit
Kuassa Efektor CH3604 & PH3605
Soundtheory Gullfoss
Steven Slate VSX (with headphones)
PSP Audioware 2445 EMT
Click to expand...
Soundtoys everything
 
Fabfilter (boring but dependable and versatile)
Arturia’s stuff has just got better and better
UAD since going native is also a lot of fun
Izotope Ozone and RX
A lot of Waves here, always reliable. Love the Renaissance stuff, holds up so well even now.
Toontrack Superior Drummer 3
Lexicon reverbs still sound incredible despite being abandonware
TC MD3 and MD4
PSP Audioware stuff is up there with the very best, criminally underrated
Cranesong Phoenix
Fuse Audio do some fun/obscure bits
Valhalla (everything they do)

As for amp sims, just so many good ones out there. I dig:

- Helix Native
- Softube
- Audiority
- NDSP
- Mercuriall
- Nembrini
- NAM
- STL Amphub (and LL/JM Tonality’s)
 
TheTrueZoltan! said:
What's a Recording sub-forum without a nice plug-in thread?!

So what are your favorite & most used ones?

I'll start with mine:

Line 6 Helix Native
Valhalla Delay, VintageVerb & Room
SIR Audio Tools SIR3 & StandardGate
FabFilter Pro-Q, Pro-C & Pro-L
Sonible smart:EQ, smart:comp & smart:limit
Kuassa Efektor CH3604 & PH3605
Soundtheory Gullfoss
Steven Slate VSX (with headphones)
PSP Audioware 2445 EMT
Click to expand...
ToonTrack: EzKeys2 and EzDrummer 3
Waves: Tune Real Time and Harmony
Eventide: Quadravox
Native Instruments: Session Horns and Kontakt 7 library
Scalar Audio 2

DAW: Logic Pro
 
TheTrueZoltan! said:
What's a Recording sub-forum without a nice plug-in thread?!

So what are your favorite & most used ones?

I'll start with mine:

Line 6 Helix Native
Valhalla Delay, VintageVerb & Room
SIR Audio Tools SIR3 & StandardGate
FabFilter Pro-Q, Pro-C & Pro-L
Sonible smart:EQ, smart:comp & smart:limit
Kuassa Efektor CH3604 & PH3605
Soundtheory Gullfoss
Steven Slate VSX (with headphones)
PSP Audioware 2445 EMT
Click to expand...
Something associated to consider. The PITA factor when it comes to moving software licenses to new hardware.

I think many of us here will be buying an M4 Mac of some sort within the next year, as they become available, the iPad M4 is already here. Of course any software migrated won't have any AI capabilities to take advantage of the new hardware, but we'll need that software in the interim.

The other looming aspect that needs to be addressed, the marketing of everything AI. Everyone here will be bombarded with AI upgrade deals because they won't be free. Replacing all our software with AI versions is going to get expensive very quickly.

I'm holding off on any big ticket apps until my M4 is here. Less licenses to move.
 
Helix Native
Mercuriall
  • Spark
  • Euphoria - Bog XTC
  • 5150 Stealth
Neural
  • SLO 100
  • Nolly
  • I liked Plini also (but don't own it )
ML Roots - Amped the free Fluff EL34 EVH 5150 III
Tonex
Tonacracy/NAM. - Playing around with it.
Izotope - Ozone, Neutron
Bertom Denoiser Classic - Free and Awesome. Allows gate to be set a bit lower maintaining a more natural tone, in most cases.

Everything else is pretty much Logic.
 
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Free:
Valhalla Super Massive
Softube Saturation Knob

Paid:
BFD3
Black Rooster VLA-2A & VPRE-73
 
This is my mastering bus. I could probably cut out 2 or 3 of these, but each one is set to something that enhances my overall mix, so they stay. I'm apparently a huge fan of harmonics and saturation as I run all my tube guitar gear into a tube mic pre, a FET compressor, and then into this chain, which includes no less than 3 saturators each adding a little bit of spice.

If I had to cut this down to 2-3 plugins, the Waves Pullteq EQ, Flatline as my clipper, and smartLimit as my limiter would be my choices. I've used Pro L 2 as my limiter before and smartLimit is just better to my ears. it has some great features for adding in harmonics, balance, and bass control, while giving the most usable metering I've found in a mastering plugin. The new version of Flatline, Flatline 2, is also simply awesome, and I have yet to properly put it through it's paces. Each of these is set fairly subtle, but the whole is definitely greater than the sum of it's parts:

1716159375838.png


  1. Multiband compressor just to even things out so nothing is terribly jumpy. You almost can't tell its on but it tames any oddities. So it's first.
  2. Pro-Q EQ - also subtle - this is just a HP filter, along with some subtle mid-side enhancements.
  3. Pro-C 2- I could probably eliminate this step with more comp in the initial MB or later with Flatline, but this at a 2:1 ratio gives my drums and guitars a little more thump.
  4. An old Izotope exciter - I'm not recording to tape, but after this plugin it sure sounds like I am.
  5. PullTeq style EQ - we're getting solid bass here.
  6. Pro Q - aaaagain with the EQ. This is where I tone match a bit. I've found my mixes are a little light in the mids compared to some more modern mixes, so this is where I listen to other artists' albums I love the sounds of and make sure mine is in the ballpark.
  7. True Iron - the best saturator on the market. Use it.
  8. Flatline - This more brings the gain up. In my mixes it never even hits the red and 'flatlines'.
  9. SmartLimit - the best limiter IMO on the marker right now. I can get my mixes set to the right LUFS with the right amount of saturation and bass response and it even tells me if my mixes are too dynamic or not dynamic enough for my genre. If I did everything up to this point right, I'm only limiting maybe 1-3 dB here, and I can set my peak to -1.0 dB here as well so my final master doesn't have any problems on any streaming platforms.
  10. Youlean - simple Loudness meter. SmartLimit has one, but this one is maybe a smidge more accurate to the final results I get and gives me a LUFS-M metric to see if I've got an errant peak somewhere.
I'm by no means an expert and I'm not saying this way is the best, but this is what has worked for me with my most recent album.
 
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pretty great sale on waves (I know) plugins at the moment, not sure I've seen them quite this cheap where you can get any plugin for $20 or less.

The company is what it is, and WUP is just something you have to factor in when you buy the plugins. But honestly. I don't mind paying every so often for plugins that are ALWAYS reliable and work seamlessly. The Abbey Road stuff really is fantastic, and even when you find used licences they're rarely as cheap as this sale price.
 
Instruments:
- Zebra 2 for most synth stuff. And all U-He Freebies (Podolski is kickass).
- So far Battery for my "percussive" needs, but I need to trash it. NI is really one of *the* worst companies in that business.
- Kontakt for quite some libraries. I know, NI as well, but in this case, I can hardly avoid it (bought Komplete Ultimate 12 and there's some really great libraries coming with it).
- Logic's Sampler. Still love it for simplicity. Filters sound great, too.
- Logic's electric piano. Still just up my alley and I don't even remotely care whether there's more authentic ones.
- Logic's Drum Kit Designer. I just find it super easy to slap suitable kits together.
- The free Ample Bass. Love it.
- All other Logic synths. There's some killer offerings and even the "small" ones (ESM etc.) are sounding great.

Effects:
- Helix Native. Obviously, as a hardware user you just want to have the plugin, too.
- Pretty much everything from Logic. Decent to great quality. Exception: Guitar amp sims (some of the clean-ish amps aren't bad, though). Used most often: Space Designer (for both reverbs and cab simulation, it's an IR loading device), Stereo Delay, Compressors.
- Valhalla Supermassive and Space Modulator. Both free and in case you don't have them, get them just now! Fan-fu**ing-tastic plugins!
- SixthSample Deelay. Free. Get it even before the Valhalla stuff. Simple delays but you can go really wild with very little clicks. My second favourite delay.
- U-He MFM2. Incredible delay. One of the reasons for me to think about using a laptop live.
- As of lately Two Notes Genome, mainly as a NAM player. I don't think I will end up using it often, though. Right now it's a bit of a honeymoon.

And that's pretty much about it.
 
Sascha Franck said:
Effects:
- Helix Native. Obviously, as a hardware user you just want to have the plugin, too.
Click to expand...

I’m seriously thinking about trying Helix Native. I love the AxeFX but the convenience of recording with plugins is kinda of hard to beat and it’s tough trying to piecemeal the effects I want with the Neural plugs. (They really need a library app to freely mix and match stuff)
 
Whizzinby said:
I’m seriously thinking about trying Helix Native. I love the AxeFX but the convenience of recording with plugins is kinda of hard to beat and it’s tough trying to piecemeal the effects I want with the Neural plugs. (They really need a library app to freely mix and match stuff)
Click to expand...

Well ok... Helix Native vs. the "local contrarian" (aka me) then.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not using the hardware as well. Let alone when purchasing it at the full price.
Without any doubt, HXN has a lot on offer, but the same is true for Amplitube, especially the Max version, which even includes the full Tonex shebang.
Anyhow, the main reason why I wouldn't exactly recommend HXN is that the on-screen-editing experience isn't good IMO. Sliders are a bad choice, the scrollwheel sweet spot range to either trigger a parameter or the scroll bar is just not sweet (so you'll end up with lots of scrollwheel actions going wrong), general visibility is so-so-ish at best (distinguishing between active and non-active blocks can be really tough), amp models aren't looking different, so you need to look up what they are from the text label, you can always only see the parameters for one block at once (unlike, say, in S-Gear, which is exposing all relevant parameters of all blocks simultaneously), there's no keyboard support (so you can't, say, scroll through any lists with the arrow keys), so the entire editing experience is becoming a huge clickfest.
Many of these issues could be adressed, but apparently they never will be.

Don't get me wrong, if you can purchase HXN for the hardware owners discount (typically 99 bucks), that's an incredible lot of great sounding stuff you get for your money. But if I wasn't owning the hardware, I'd personally rather go for S-Gear (note: doesn't do metal, so that might be a showstopper) and use some external FX plugins for the ground not covered.
 
Sascha Franck said:
Instruments:
- Zebra 2 for most synth stuff. And all U-He Freebies (Podolski is kickass).
- So far Battery for my "percussive" needs, but I need to trash it. NI is really one of *the* worst companies in that business.
- Kontakt for quite some libraries. I know, NI as well, but in this case, I can hardly avoid it (bought Komplete Ultimate 12 and there's some really great libraries coming with it).
- Logic's Sampler. Still love it for simplicity. Filters sound great, too.
- Logic's electric piano. Still just up my alley and I don't even remotely care whether there's more authentic ones.
- Logic's Drum Kit Designer. I just find it super easy to slap suitable kits together.
- The free Ample Bass. Love it.
- All other Logic synths. There's some killer offerings and even the "small" ones (ESM etc.) are sounding great.

Effects:
- Helix Native. Obviously, as a hardware user you just want to have the plugin, too.
- Pretty much everything from Logic. Decent to great quality. Exception: Guitar amp sims (some of the clean-ish amps aren't bad, though). Used most often: Space Designer (for both reverbs and cab simulation, it's an IR loading device), Stereo Delay, Compressors.
- Valhalla Supermassive and Space Modulator. Both free and in case you don't have them, get them just now! Fan-fu**ing-tastic plugins!
- SixthSample Deelay. Free. Get it even before the Valhalla stuff. Simple delays but you can go really wild with very little clicks. My second favourite delay.
- U-He MFM2. Incredible delay. One of the reasons for me to think about using a laptop live.
- As of lately Two Notes Genome, mainly as a NAM player. I don't think I will end up using it often, though. Right now it's a bit of a honeymoon.

And that's pretty much about it.
Click to expand...
Deelay is great! So many possibilities and so easy to use.
 
I've got a metric ton, but these (at least that I can recall) I use the most:

Soundtoys MicroPitch
Soundtoys EchoBoy
Waves L1
FabFilter Q3
IK Multimedia Sunset Sound Reverb
Neural DSP Mesa Boogie MkII c+/++
Neural DSP Fortin Cali
Neural DSP Soldano SLO
Get Good Drums packs
Softube Marshall Amp Room
brainworx ENGL Savage 120
brainworx Masterdesk PRO
UAD SSL 4000G Bus Comp
UAD 1176LN
UAD LA-2A
UAD Studer A800
UAD EP-34
UAD Precision Delay Mod L
UAD Pultec HLF-3C, MEQ-5, EQP-1
UAD EMT140
UAD Manley Massive Passive MST
UAD API 2500
UAD Suhr SE100
UAD Friedman BE100
Bettermaker 232D
Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor Class A
Two Notes Wall of Sound
MixIR2
Eventide Harmonizers!
 
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Sascha Franck said:
Well ok... Helix Native vs. the "local contrarian" (aka me) then.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not using the hardware as well. Let alone when purchasing it at the full price.
Without any doubt, HXN has a lot on offer, but the same is true for Amplitube, especially the Max version, which even includes the full Tonex shebang.
Anyhow, the main reason why I wouldn't exactly recommend HXN is that the on-screen-editing experience isn't good IMO. Sliders are a bad choice, the scrollwheel sweet spot range to either trigger a parameter or the scroll bar is just not sweet (so you'll end up with lots of scrollwheel actions going wrong), general visibility is so-so-ish at best (distinguishing between active and non-active blocks can be really tough), amp models aren't looking different, so you need to look up what they are from the text label, you can always only see the parameters for one block at once (unlike, say, in S-Gear, which is exposing all relevant parameters of all blocks simultaneously), there's no keyboard support (so you can't, say, scroll through any lists with the arrow keys), so the entire editing experience is becoming a huge clickfest.
Many of these issues could be adressed, but apparently they never will be.

Don't get me wrong, if you can purchase HXN for the hardware owners discount (typically 99 bucks), that's an incredible lot of great sounding stuff you get for your money. But if I wasn't owning the hardware, I'd personally rather go for S-Gear (note: doesn't do metal, so that might be a showstopper) and use some external FX plugins for the ground not covered.
Click to expand...
New Logic Pro 11 just released last week sometime. New features for DKD, a couple of new kits, and I think full remix of existing kits as well as a "Stem" /track separator, Saturator and other items like bass, piano and Chord Track.. Will be checking it out more today.

Not sure if I'm too keen on the "AI"components yet.


The Stem splitter doesn't work for Intel Macs. :hmm
 
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