# ToneBoosters! Best spent $111, ever!



## ThomasL (Oct 14, 2012)

Found a VERY good plugin developer that I hadn't heard of before. I tried the demos and bought the whole lot after about 15 minutes. The value for money is beyond reasoning. Fourteen really good plugs for 85 EUR (approx. $111 rounded up). Plus a few free ones.

I did a quick search here but didn't find that much info so do yourselves a favour and go here: http://www.toneboosters.com/

I would gladly pay the double just for the limiter alone. Or the EQ. Or the De-Esser. Or the Loudness meter. And in some cases I have already.

I haven't used all the plugs yet but I'm a bit euphoric nonetheless. Best money I've spent, ever.

Try the demos, you'll see...


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## gsilbers (Oct 14, 2012)

interesting. 
its hard to find a loudness meter at that price


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## schroerob (Oct 14, 2012)

I use their Limiter "Barricade" since a few month and its one i nearly use all the time. For the price very good value!


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## ThomasL (Oct 14, 2012)

Yeah, the meter is real good as well. And Barricade?!? Wow! I have the UAD Precision Limiter and use it a lot but this one can get you a few extra dBs without cracking up. Stunning.

But the EQ! Aaahhhh... It has six bands and you can set each band to different a different 'target', use one on the side-channel in low cut to get a solid bottom and use another in mid-channel to boost the 3k range a bit and use whatever else you want in L/R as well. To be able to use a combination of M/S and L/R in the same interface is a great timesaver. It reminds me of the Fabfilter Q but at a much lesser price.

And since I'm on the topic of 'awesomeness' I just have to mention the Reel Bus. Yum...


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## Blackster (Oct 15, 2012)

Looks very interesting. Are those plugins all 64bit? I assume they are but I'd like to double check before grabbing them  ... thanks


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## noiseboyuk (Oct 15, 2012)

gsilbers @ Mon Oct 15 said:


> interesting.
> its hard to find a loudness meter at that price



Absolutely - c'est incredible. I have a friend who's been putting loudness meters through their paces, I'll see if he's tested this one.

Amazing-looking range for the prices all round, thanks for the tip off. What's its copy protection btw? Are you locked to a computer or are they mobile in some way?


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## schroerob (Oct 15, 2012)

You get a keyfile which must be in the same folder like the plugin that's all. I have it on my DAW Audioworkstation and on my mobile setup with a MacBookPro without any Problems and as 64bit Plugin.


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## noiseboyuk (Oct 15, 2012)

schroerob @ Mon Oct 15 said:


> You get a keyfile which must be in the same folder like the plugin that's all. I have it on my DAW Audioworkstation and on my mobile setup with a MacBookPro without any Problems and as 64bit Plugin.



Good stuff, thanks. Shame there's no AAX / RTAS, but I'll keep watching 'em for sure.


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## Udo (Oct 15, 2012)

ThomasL @ Mon Oct 15 said:


> Found a VERY good plugin developer that I hadn't heard of before .....


ToneBooster plugins were originally known under the developer's name, Jeroen Breebaart - www.jeroenbreebaart.com

It's just a spare time endeavour, but related to his professional career. He spent many years at Philips Research, The Netherlands. Currently with Dolby Labs, Sydney AU.


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## leafInTheWind (Oct 15, 2012)

Yeah toneboosters are sweet. I got barricade and reelbus. Not very sure how to use reelbus though. How do you use it, Thomas? On the master bus or per-track?


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## ThomasL (Oct 15, 2012)

So far on the master only. But I think it would do great things on separate tracks as well. Especially on “clean” synth sounds.


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## Ganvai (Oct 15, 2012)

Wow Thomas. Thanks for that link! Really great plugins to get there.


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## ThomasL (Oct 15, 2012)

Udo @ 2012-10-15 said:


> ThomasL @ Mon Oct 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Found a VERY good plugin developer that I hadn't heard of before .....
> ...


Yes I Googled a bit and it seems that he created a freeware tape-saturator some ten years ago. Long before anyone even thought it be possible or saw a need for it.


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## gsilbers (Oct 15, 2012)

try downloading but it was taking 5 hours for 100mb !!
ill try again later.


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## ThomasL (Oct 15, 2012)

gsilbers @ 2012-10-15 said:


> try downloading but it was taking 5 hours for 100mb !!
> ill try again later.


Ouch! Must be a glitch, took me just a few minutes.

Worth waiting for


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## mark812 (Oct 15, 2012)

Fantastic plugins..I actually prefer TB Limiter to Sonnox and few others. Isone with BD 880 Pros..my secret weapon. :D

The only plugin that doesn't sound great is reverb imo.


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## ThomasL (Oct 15, 2012)

Haven't tried the reverb yet but the ones I have tried are solid and good!

I also like how the GUI is done. It doesn't look like "old-cool-19"-units-with-barely-large-font-to-read". It's fast to work with, "function before form", I like that.


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## Dan Mott (Oct 15, 2012)

Hello

Thanks for the link. I really like the EQ!


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## noizy (Oct 16, 2012)

ToneBoosters plugins are awesome 
i am using them since years, they are kinda secret weapons for me


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## ThomasL (Oct 16, 2012)

noizy @ 2012-10-16 said:


> ToneBoosters plugins are awesome
> i am using them since years, they are kinda secret weapons for me


Yeah, haha, I should have kept quiet :D


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## Ganvai (Oct 16, 2012)

Buyed them yesterday and couldn't stop this night testing them. Really great plugins. The Loudness-Meter is very helpfull and Brickwall just rules!!!


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## Dan Mott (Oct 16, 2012)

I actually really like the tape emulations. I didn't think they'd be as good for that price.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2012)

just my humble and crazy opinion.. but this plugins will be just like any other plugin. mainly because an EQ programing code will be the same no matter what company does it. 
boot this freq by this much and this Q. 
thats been since forever. so plugins add different bells and whistle like SSL EQ will add saturation. 
minor things will be different in how the code is written but its not like the difference thats is in hardware where each component will make it sound different. 

same with compressors, etc. reverb and spatial sfx will vary since its the amount of reflection the code will provide. 

have you heard the new NI series of EQ and comps.. all about branding, i compared them to the logic stock ones and almost no difference. 

but finding a loudness plugin at this price. wait till the post forums find out about it


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## Dan Mott (Oct 16, 2012)

gsilbers @ Wed Oct 17 said:


> just my humble and crazy opinion.. but this plugins will be just like any other plugin. mainly because an EQ programing code will be the same no matter what company does it.
> boot this freq by this much and this Q.
> thats been since forever. so plugins add different bells and whistle like SSL EQ will add saturation.
> minor things will be different in how the code is written but its not like the difference thats is in hardware where each component will make it sound different.
> ...



I do agree with you. They are just like any other plugin, but what I like about some of them, is just the design. Easy to read and such. The reverb is pretty bad, but I like the EQ and the Tape plugins.


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## ThomasL (Oct 17, 2012)

gsilbers @ 2012-10-17 said:


> mainly because an EQ programing code will be the same no matter what company does it.
> boot this freq by this much and this Q.


I beg to differ. This statement comes up every now and then (don't take this as if I'm flaming you in particular, I'm not).

Yes, there are only two things available by an EQ, boost or cut. But using that to say that every EQ is therefore the same is simply wrong IMHO.

It's like saying that all cars are the same (because you can drive forward and in reverse). Yes, all cars will get you from A to B (hopefully) but *how* you get there is also of importance. To me any way. First, I want to know that I will get where I want to go, I also want to know that I'll get there safe, in time and so on.

And yes, this particular EQ is nothing special, sound wise. It's clean and doesn't "color" the sound like an UAD Harrison for example (which is pretty cool because it gets a narrower Q-value the more you boost it). You could probably mimic this behaviour with any other EQ but the Harrison will get you the Harrison "sound" much faster.

What sets this EQ apart is *workflow*. Period. Take PSP Neon, it can work in L/R or M/S with emphasis on the word "*or*". This can do both, in the same instance. Big difference.

Now, the above rambling could just be me defending my expensive _must-have-EQ-buying-disorder_  

The EQs I use are UAD Harrison (for "color" and a nice low-cut), Plugin-Alliance Maag EQ4 (for the awesomeness of getting a good sound fast) and from now on ToneBoosters EQ (for M/S and L/R surgery). The all fill a different purpose and yes, I could probably do just fine with Logics built in EQ but it would require more time. For me anyway.

My 2 cents...


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## ThomasL (Oct 17, 2012)

Ganvai @ 2012-10-16 said:


> Buyed them yesterday and couldn't stop this night testing them. Really great plugins. The Loudness-Meter is very helpfull and Brickwall just rules!!!


Yesterday I tried the Isone with headphones. I will never use headphones the same way again. Tried the preset "It's over there..." and almost crapped in my pants. Now I want better headphones :lol:


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## noizy (Oct 17, 2012)

i agree to thomas,
for sure there are very much plugins available and some of them promising to emulate highend stuff... some do it very well (softube/uad) and some dont. but in case of toneboosters they have several products that are done without the aim to simulate something. they stay for themselve. 
for me its also a mixture of soundquality, cpu consumption and stability 
BTW the support from toneboosters is also very good!


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## Daniel (Dec 31, 2012)

My client was satisfied with my demo song I sent by email. The secret weapon is TB ReelBus & TB Barricade free trial.
And just now I purchased them :-D
Thanks to Thomas Mavian for this thread & friends who replied to this topic, and also thanks to Frank Herrlinger for posting into Facebook about these plugins.

Happy New Year 2013.

Best


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