Holy Grails - plural

[Jim]

Seems like every month, new plug-ins are released that perform the same standard functions of EQ, compression, modulation, amp sim, etc.

I've read a few reviews in which the reviewer did an AB comparison between the plug-ins and the hardware upon which the plug was designed to emulate. I can count those on one hand. Bearing in mind that audio is subjective, I'm a bit wary of better/worse opinions from people who may have an agenda (or simply bad taste, which is usually taste that conflicts with ours).

I wonder how many people are confused into thinking these are better or worse than competing products based on the GUI, the brand name, or a model.

If it looks vintage cool, it must sound better, right?

I welcome the glut, though, because competition leads to higher quality and value priced products to survive in the marketplace. While the prices of many products are going up, the prices for many plug-ins have been plummeting - many of them on constant "sale."

By tradition, there can only be one "Holy Grail."

[mikehalloran]

Amen?

That does open up a conversation. What are our personal HG plug-ins?

1. For natural sounding reverb, mine is the Vintage Room (stereo) setting on Eventide's SP2016 — weird because it's an emulation of an old hardware unit and I'm pretty sure that being natural was never the intent. I use it on the Master bus for church choir tracks and instrumental that I assembled during the pandemic. Before SP2016, I liked the convo Room and Hall settings in Ozone 5 Advanced but reverb was dropped in Ozone 6 and iZotope's later offerings never duplicated those settings.

2. Since so many of my projects involve tracks from outside sources, RX Advanced is an essential tool in my work and has been since v.2. Its ability to clean up, de-click, de-noise and repair is unparalleled.

3. Lastly, I often need a brickwall limiter. Brainworx bx_limiter True Peak is the friendliest one I know.

[stubbsonic]

I've seen so many gtr amp model comparisons on YT where the only differences can be attributed to the demonstrator failing to do even a modicum of Drive level & EQ matching. ("Um. Just boost the bass knob on A and it will sound like B). It becomes an unintended demo of why EQ and ears) are important.

My go-to for reverb is Fog Convolver-- and my fave reverb IRs.

My Holy Grail for dynamics is Wave Arts MultiDynamics- versatile, clever, hi-fi.

+1 on Brainworx bx_limiter. I rarely use such things, but it looks/works/sounds good. (I 100% agree that it is "friendly")

I'll be curious to see what people like for tube-saturation (both in the guitar/bass realm, and for vintage tube studio action).

[Jim]

IDK if I have any Holy Grail plug-ins. I have a bunch, though. I've been saying for a while that nobody can tell me what the best cheeseburger is in town unless they've tried every single one. Otherwise, you can't honestly make such a claim in a state of ignorance.

Same goes for pretty much everything. Nobody can proclaim the best anything unless they tested everything. So, I depend a lot on reviews and advice from trusted sources. I imagine that applies to most of us.

I use PSP Vintage Warmer for buss compressing and limiting. I use FabFilter EQ because I like the before and after display and the option to use compression per node. The Sonnox Oxford drum gates are the best gates I've used for drums - almost magic. I have NI Kontakt Komplete that ships with dozens of effects in addition to VIs, including several "vintage" emulations. I use the various compressor / limiters on instrument (VI) tracks. They support side-chaining, which I've found to be invaluable. The three Kontakt reverbs plus MOTU ProVerb work fine for me. I'm not that picky, and tend to use so little, I don't think I could hear a difference between them and some of the more highly rated ones.

Then, for my video post business - my lifeblood - I have a whole other set of plug-ins and effects. But after switching to Resolve a year ago, pretty much everything I need for audio is built into Fairlight. I have several third party noise and reverb reducers.