5 Favorite Plugins and why? Heres mine whats yours?

M

mikey joe

Guest
Whats your 5 favorite plugs and why? Was board thought id do this maybe pick up a couple ideas of plugs to pick up.

1. Logic EQ - Couldnt live without this one easy fast extremely nice sounding and my favorite feature using it is the live analyzer. Use this one every mix always have 10+ instances if I got 10+ tracks and almost also using to cut low end and take harshness of certain sounds ie. a clap with too much high end.

2 and 3. Waves L2 and Airwindows Bus Color 2: Using these in unison on 2 bus for every instrumental I have made for the past year and a half. The bus color 2 is always before the L2. The bus color adds the color of certain consoles too your mix and just overall adds punch, fullness, and width. I was never really much of a fan of emulations of consoles and tape till I got my hands on this not many people use the air windows stuff since its independently run by one programmer who does just a great job! ive actually used this plug so much im going to put a link: Airwindows Audio Unit Plugins
You can even demo all air window plugs! Then comes the L2 which I crank usually at a thresh of -2.5 to -4 and output of -0.1 this combo of plugs on the 2 bus gets my tracks usually pretty damn close to mastered studio volume and quality especially for how easy it is to put these too plugs on.

4. Maschine: Every instrumental Ive made has been maschine. Great device love it till death nothing more to say

5. Sonnox Oxford Trans Mod: I use this plugs on almost all drums strings pianos and any instrument that needs punch or smoothness in the mix. Almost all drums i do run through this to add that edge to the mix either that or ny parallel compress it. I also run pianos through it and take off the transient beginning so it has no impact to it giving it a nice west coast roundish sound and when you string stabs this plug is the way to go

So overall those be my 5 favorite and most used plugs whats yours?

Honorable mention for me would be:
Waves r axe comp
Logic compressor
Waves S1
Logic Stereo delay
Guitar Rig
Vanguard
 
1. Addictive Drums. I just love the sound of real drums and its so easy to use and even the expansion stuff sounds great. Once you get passed the registering part this is great drum software.

2. Reason. I use Reason basically as a plug in for Sonar. I think the pure variety of instruments you can get in Reason is great. There may be better stuff out there than what it offers but Reason is still a great product.

3. T Racks. Just grabbed this during the group buy and this has some of the best compressors I have ever used in 9 years of making beats. I love love love this bundle.

4. Z3ta 2. My favorite synth I've ever used. Its just easy to use and sounds great.

5. Kontakt player. Just for pure variety in libraries it offers. Every library is like a brand new plug in. Great piece of software. The full Kontakt may be just as great idk I haven't done anything with it besides load up patches and that was years ago.
 
I'm breaking them up because it's really not fair to not categorize.

Tracking/Mixing FX
1) T-Racks Black76 or FET Compressor - Great on Vocals, Kick, and Snare.
2) T-Racks White2A or Tube-Tech CL-1b - Great on Vocals, Bass, and overheads.
3) Maag Eq4 - Amazing Vocal and Drum eq. So sweet.
4) Lexicon LXP - Best reverbs ever IMO.
5) Massey TD5 Tape Delay - The best analog tape delay

Mastering FX
1) Massey L2007 - Best Limiter ever IMO.
2) SSL Buss Compressor
3) Apulsoft apQualizr - Amazing eq with M/S mode and FFT Analyzer
4) Sonnox Eq Type 4 - Great mastering eq.

Instruments
1) ReFX Nexus 2 - Haters step back
2) Soundburst Northmood - Nord Emulation
3) DiscoDSP Discovery - Synth and Nord Lead 2 emulation
4) Arturia Analog Factory - Classic Analog Synth presets
5) kiloHearts KHS One - High Res analog style synth.
 
Yeah reason and kontakts got great sounds however if I don't sample it I tend to have a friend play the real instrument then I usually layer that with a vst sound but yeah dope sounds also I thin I'll have to check out the l2007 since I looked it up and it's got great reveiws my question is how far can you push it and still keep te punch and impact?
 
The L2007 is a mastering grade limiter. It's designed to be very easy to use, handle many music types, and sound great doing it. I don't push limiters hard. That's what compressors are for.
 
East West Quantum Leap Complete Composers Collection

Maschine
 
I'm a HUGE believer in the big three. Reverb, EQ, and Distortion. They're all you really need.. But since this is about plugins, here are my 5.

1. apulSoft apEQ - Awesome plugin for EQ'ing and has a spectrum analyzer in the background which to me is important.
2. iZotope Trash - Makes anything and everything sound sick.
3. Native Instruments Massive - Really overused by the electronic music community but honestly this plugin is probably the easiest
way to get any synth sound imaginable.
4. Celemony Melodyne - If you're working with vocals then you need this. Can be used as a standalone but I use it as a plugin.
5. SPL Transient Designer - I work with a lot of samples and this is great for cleaning them up, especially if you sample from vinyl.

Now if only Propellerhead Software would make Scream 4 a plugin...
 
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Here's my current 5 favorite plugin effects....


1) Stillwell 1973. - Hands down my favorite EQ. I haven't really found one application that this thing doesn't work on. It's like they hand picked the perfect frequencies for all music!!! haha. Seriously... I love this EQ. Especially when I'm shaping my low-end. It makes it very easy to bring the low end of my drums out, or to cut out low freqs for vocals, etc... even cleaning up mud. I don't really feel like I need much more from an EQ. I've already gotten rid of most of the other free stuff I had, and I don't really touch the paid-for ones I have much nowadays.

2) Tube Tech CL1b- Favorite on vocals. This thing really goes to work. I use it a lot to help make things more present.

3) Khaejhrus MPL limiter. Gives me the volume boost I need very quickly. Just a simple -6db lowering of the threshold and presto.

4) Studio One's stock Beat Delay. - It just gives you so much control over the sound. Even has a LP/HP filter on it. Love this thing.

5) Valhallah - Hands down the best algorithm reverb on the market. Made me completely forget that I was interested in Convolution reverb at one time lol.

(...... 6) SPL Transient designer. Twist the attack knob and it's IMMEDIATE punch to a drum rhythm lol.)
 
1. Ferric Love it on guitars and drums.

2. TB Barricade Best limiter I ever used. Haven't tried the Sonnox stuff.

3. LFX-1310 (swiss army knife go to, love the overdrive on kicks and snares....there I said it....I hate myself now. :( Everybody can kiss my ass or either thank me.)

4. Prefix (every channel gets it)

5. Mono side chain compressor (it kicks ass for what it does until I find a good stereo one.)

I hardly use FX though. Prefix is about all I use on channels. I never use compressors unless I want to smashed rock drums or totally flatten something. All of my sounds were recorded with great stuff.....last thing I want to do is mess them up with a plug in.

1. Kontakt Player (one day I will get Kontakt so I won't have a 30 minute limit using all of the wonderful free stuff people have created and some of the inexpensive but great paid sounds. I'm loving this one I paid for......and kiss my ass I ain't telling you shit.......I'll tell you that next week I'm getting the Komplete Elements because it is eating me alive that I don't have it)

2. Kore player (wish they never discontinued it. It's like my go to on a blank idea)

3. Ummmmmm.......ummmmmmmmmmmm....damn I've really become a sample based dude. I use other people's shit and mangle them to death now.

4. Reason (make a beat real quick.....or either end up trying to create a certain sound in my head all day til I realize the beat sucks....then I don't mess with reason for a month or two)

5. Uuuuuuum.............ummmmmmmmmm.............ummmmmm I really do need to delete a lot of stuff. That's what I'm going to do today. I'll just call #5 all of the vintage vst synths (I ain't telling you my baby........I'll get jealous if I say it and you say WOW I LOVE IT..I USE IT ALL THE TIME) I would hate you for the rest of your FP life. :)
 
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