Favorite plug-ins for (a) getting work done, (b) fun

[PaganGods]

I know this has been covered before, but there are a lot of new plugs nowdays. What are your favs for use with DP?

[larryf]

Dr. Device (truly twisted and fun!!!)
Timeless
Camelspace
PSP84 (in use on at least 1/2 of all my tracks)
Replicant

[wheever]

Not to sound like a broken record but...

REAKTOR!

(For both work and fun.)

After that, probably PSPVW or ozone. for work.

And I can't believe how f%^&*&* good MWEQ is! And we got it free!

[mikebeckmotu]

All the Audiodamage plugins are plain old fun as well as Camelspace and the PSP effects. Ohm Force's Ohmicide is a distortion plugin that is more full-featured than many instruments. Fabfilter Timeless is a nice delay, and I also like the Nomad Factory BlueTubes delay/echo plugins.
For the "work" plugins, I'd say Vintage Warmer, AirWindows "character" plugins and Iron Oxide (tape-like saturation), T-RackS, BlueTubes, Ozone, Classik Studio Reverb, MasterWorks EQ, PSP MasterQ, WaveArts TrackPlug and FinalPlug, PSP Mixpack, CamelPhat, Tritone Digital's AngelTone, should I quit now?

[TheHopiWay]

For me the UAD Neve channel strip is currently my favorite get it done workhorse.

For fun it's playing with the UAD Roland Space Echo.

Reading this those sound like boring choices.
I'm either easily amused or I need to get out more......

[Tripi]

Buffer Override for fun..... PSP-VW for work!

tripi

[Shooshie]

I'm not sure it counts, being a VI, but I like Mach Five a lot.

For audio processors, I like Waves Linear Phase MultiBand (sort of the C4's big brother), and the L2 or L3 limiters. And of course, Altiverb.

I like the Linear Phase MultiBand because it's more than an EQ, and more than a compressor/expander. It is both, and they operate on each other in real time. A change in dynamics produces a change in the plugin's processing for any given bandwidth's output. In other words, you can change the sound of loud notes in certain ranges without changing the unaccented sound for that range, or while changing the unaccented sound in another way. You can literally reshape the sound. Of course, the same could be said for any compressor, or even any EQ, so you really have to try it to see how it works and what it's doing over time. Very nice plugin. It beats the C4 because it has 5 ranges instead of 4, and they are all processed in-phase.

Altiverb is a no-brainer. Being able to place your mix in practically any physical space or electronically-created space known to man? Definitely a lot of fun.

[James Steele]

Classik Studio Reverb - Plate. The Wide Vocal patch just floats my boat like nothing else right now.

[dosuna11]

PSP Vintage Warmer, Ozone, Altiverb

[PaganGods]

My new favorite of all time (in software arena, anyway): NI's Massive.

I bought this 3 weeks ago. I have not had more than 5 hours of sleep any night since installing that demon seed on my iMac. I wake up at 6 and feel an unearthly, mystical pull of my body to my studio seat, as my arms' control is taken from me and some evil force gets them to punch all the right buttons and keys to bring Massive on screen.

These three weeks, all my preconceptions about how technology makes it all harder in the end, and when we were all cavemen weren't we managing to make music (while occasionally getting eaten by giant reptiles maybe), have collapsed. MASSIVE has convinced me that sound design and mudic-making can be a fun-intuitive process that, when combined with the right tool, can take you to new places. MASSIVE is that tool for me.

I being no sound design tweaker, needed 3-4 days to mind-meld with this crazy app and get into the sould of what it was about. Four hard days, but theyn they were over, and I got it. I made 3 new sounds that have never been heard before - good, musical sounds - and dropped them right into a mix, and they sound beautiful.

Summary judgment: MASSIVE can make 97 % of the entire inventory of electronic sounds, collectively in use in music today, exluding totally wacked out additive synthesis textures like Chameleon 5000 - a subtractive or wavetable synth isn't going to do that. Aside from that, the 3 % that's missing is the super-warm traditional/old skool type sounds you'd hear on a Moog emulation. MASSIVE can get close, but not quite there - it needs different/better analog filters, and some diffierent oscillator waves too, I think. At best, MASSIVE produces a sound that's "kinda like a minimonsta but a bit harsh". NI could easily remedy this in the next rev, so I'm just hoping and praying they haven't decided this is going to be their showpiece for techno-house-dub-hip hop producers, and leave us boring old emulation/lovers of the Old Sound out in the field.

In summation, right now, as of today, MASSIVE is the most advanced, beautifully designed, full featured, stable, intuitive, flexible, mindblowing piece of software on the synth market, and if they could just beef up the filrters with better old-school Moog type filters, they would have possibly the "one synth you need". And at $180, wow, they could corner much of the market with this beast. When Massive was $300 it made sense in a different way - there were cheap/free/moderate priced synths which most people made do with, and then those with some cash could get into things like Absynth and Massive. But at $180, this monster destroys the typical 2 or 3 oscillator synth with a couple LFOs that can be assigned someplace or other in rigid patters. You have to see Massive's open routing architecture to believe it. But... all those hip hop loopy things they call "presets" detract from people understand what this monster is really all about - a wavetable subtractive synth with thousands if not unlimited ways to route modulation to create never before hear sonic landscapes. The presets say "This pile of code was designed so you could blow a subwoofer with your obnoxious preset - isn't that cool!" Wrong message for such a subtle, inspired product.

I love this beast. I hope it gets the recognition (and selfishly, the inevitable third party libraries and sounsets that come with an "industry standard product") it clearly deserves.

I conclude by saying there is NOTHING else like Massive on the market today, but you have to ignore completely the presets and dive in to get a feel for what this animal is all about. The presets just confuse matters, leading you to believe this is a harsh techno box, which it just isn't. I really, truly hope NI comes out with an analog emulation type of soundset or features that will close whatever small gap exists between the ability of a Minimonsta or similar synth to put out a simple wave that moves your heart, and the harsher, nonemotive feeling you get from most of the Massive presets.

Aside from all of the above, this is NI's best piece of graphical design to date. Most/all of their other products are so obviously layers deep in initial product concept to current commercial product, with many twists and internal spaghetti code along the way. Massive is a cleanly designed piece of kit that was so obviously designed from the ground up with a clear, decisive vision in mind of the end-product - the subtractive/wave synth that would be simply the best one out there.

[monkey man]

Hmm... sounds huge, PG.

[larryf]

Interesting analysis of MASSIVE. Thank you for the effusive review!

I've been demo'ing it, and just bought it a few days ago.

I agree, MASSIVE has the best GUI of any synth out there, period, end of story. It is not an "emulation" of anything - old synth, rack module, etc. It leverages the power of visualization and on-screen design to the hilt in ways that few have tried and no one has up until MASSIVE fully succeeded (including NI).

As for the sound, I'm trying to love it, and I think I eventually will. It has all the right oscillators and filters for creating the warm, lush sound, and yet it sounds cold to my ears. Compared to, say, FM8 (FM) or Minimonsta (subtractive), it has a complex, rich, but sterile sound, like too many people on the design team spend their time at European dance clubs and have never listened to an ELP album. I feel a little like I've been stuck in a Hummer commercial and can't find my way out. I've been trying to coax a traditional warm searing lead with a touch of portamento out of it, but so far it still sounds like the Euro-techno-house version of an ELP lead. However, I will keep trying to love it, because the GUI is genuinely that good. I *want* it to be my GoTo synth, even though, honestly, I think Minimonsta sounds better.

The effects section is the only thing that struck me as weak. The effects are quite downmarket for a sound design tool of this magnitude. The reverbs sound like choruses, and the delays, stereo widener, bit crusher, etc., are little more than consumer toys. They should have just provided a dry output rather than included this stuff.

[stephentayler]

For fun, if you have a VST wrapper - Delay Lama!!!

http://www.audionerdz.com/


Drat, just blew a Genelec woofer out here in remote Tuscany.... typical at the start of a weekend during a mixing gig........ sigh

kind regards

Stephen

[HeadMaster]

I know this has been covered before, but there are a lot of new plugs nowdays. What are your favs for use with DP?

Lately, it's been a lot of

Audiodamage
Dr.Device
Dubstation (it's always lots of dubstation in my life)
Reverence

IK Multimedia
Amplitube 2 LE (live version AU plugin)
CSR (Plate plug-in most often)

Lernvall Audio
LAConvolver

Sonalksis
FreeG
SV-315 Mk2
SV-517 Mk2
TBK3

For the VI part, it's quite dep. on situation, there's no main "goto" except for possibly Stylus and sometimes in combination with GURU where I most often start when rythm part is to be done.

. . .
HM

[larryf]

some more plug in fun:

Fabfilter Volcano (goes great with Timeless)

PSP Nitro