# Speaking of Premium Plugins



## José Herring (Aug 28, 2021)

Curious. What are you favorite great sounding but easy to use plugins. 

Right now I'm demoing FabFilter's Pro-Reverb and I'm friggin' amazed at how quickly and easily I can dial in the right reverb. I mean no complicated stuff x over cross mod, ect.... to tinker with. And the knobs are just easy to understand. Brightness, Character, Distance, knobs.... Just a few musically friendly knobs and and easy to use EQ section. Amazing!

Which got me thinking what else is there that's effective yet easy to use like Fab's Pro R? Mix tools that are made for musicians and not engineers but that still get the job done like a boss.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Aug 28, 2021)

FabFilter Pro-MB and Waves Scheps Omni Channel are two that always seem to do the job for me.


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## José Herring (Aug 28, 2021)

Jeremy Gillam said:


> FabFilter Pro-MB and Waves Scheps Omni Channel are two that always seem to do the job for me.


Oh man that Scheps Omni Channel sounds dirty in the best possible way. Thanks of that. I'll check out Fab Pro-MB


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## PaulieDC (Aug 29, 2021)

I started accumulating Waves plugins 7 years ago before the MIDI orchestration bug bit. I was back into audio and music and discovered the world of DAWs and engineering plugins, and got totally back into mixing now with all the new tech at my fingertips. Started watching endless videos from all of the big league mixing guys. I got caught in GAS on a Waves level and after too much money over a couple years, I am bloated to the seams with Waves stuff. I probably only need a couple hundred bucks to upgrade to Mercury. _Twice_. I have a full set for my laptop as well. I'm disturbed.

Started a 3-semester Advanced Mixing program at Berklee this past January, wraps up in 3 weeks. This particular semester the instructor is GOOD and not afraid to tell you where your mixes are failing. My first 3 weeks or so I was pounding Waves on the class tracks and TBH, they all sounded over-processed and weird (because the were!). This is actually going somewhere relevant, lol...

There was a FabFilter sale plus I qualified for EDU pricing, and my last instructor was really raving about FabFilter, touting how musical they sounded. They're not cheap, but I was able to get the 5 I needed (EQ, Comp, Multiband Comp, DeEsser and Limiter) for about $300. I decided to just go forth with each week's lesson with FabFilter and my Lexicon reverb. I think you know what's coming next... FabFilter plugins are phenomenal and the sound quality truly is more musical, to the point where these plugins are teaching me what that means. The user interfaces are excellent, you can go as simple or complex as you want. I do grab for a few specific Waves plugins as needed such as the Dorrough metering and the PuigChild 670 on the mixbuss (for R&B and rock mostly). But other than a few, I am SOLD on FabFlter.

I don't own the reverb but if it is anything like the set I bought, it's going to be great. I'm a Lexicon guy, you either love it or you don't, and the Random Hall is my fave, but I'm sure FabFilter is excellent.

This overly long explanation was to say that I'm right there with you. Christian Henson uses them and he's a pretty picky guy, lol. Good choice.


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## PaulieDC (Aug 29, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Oh man that Scheps Omni Channel sounds dirty in the best possible way. Thanks of that. I'll check out Fab Pro-MB


Oh, YES, the Omni Channel is one of my Wavers keepers. 👍🏼


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## Minko (Aug 29, 2021)

I really like the Fabfilter stuff because it is so quick and easy and get results fast.

Other plugins that get me fast results, give me fast results because I've used them for a long time and know them. With Fabfilter it is very intuitive. That is one of the powers of their designs.

For synths I have that with VPS Avenger. It just is really quick for me.

I would not know of any other examples.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 29, 2021)

TG12345 / AR Mastering Suite
MTurboReverb


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## NekujaK (Aug 29, 2021)

Ploytec: Aroma
Waves: H-Delay
Kush: Novatron


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## SupremeFist (Aug 29, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Curious. What are you favorite great sounding but easy to use plugins.
> 
> Right now I'm demoing FabFilter's Pro-Reverb and I'm friggin' amazed at how quickly and easily I can dial in the right reverb. I mean no complicated stuff x over cross mod, ect.... to tinker with. And the knobs are just easy to understand. Brightness, Character, Distance, knobs.... Just a few musically friendly knobs and and easy to use EQ section. Amazing!
> 
> Which got me thinking what else is there that's effective yet easy to use like Fab's Pro R? Mix tools that are made for musicians and not engineers but that still get the job done like a boss.


Seventh Heaven (regular) for me! I know you said you don't really like it in the other thread but it was the one that finally clicked and got me (along with threads here) to really understand reverb properly and esp how to use ERs. 

Other great-sounding but easy-to-use ones I dig are:

VVV (mainly for my electronic stuff, too many controls but I usually just choose a preset and tweak) 
Soothe (magic at smoothing resonances if you don't overuse it) 
Flywheel (great-sounding tape without too many options I don't understand) 
Replika XT (Replika XT Replika XT) 
Black Box (magic sauce, drizzle carefully) 
True Iron (ditto) 
Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain (beautiful filters & eq) 
bx_townhouse (easy and great glue) 
Puigchild (ditto)


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## doctoremmet (Aug 29, 2021)

NekujaK said:


> Waves: H-Delay


+1


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## MPortmann (Aug 29, 2021)

PSP Vintage Warmer 2 and Soundtoys Radiator used discreetly with orchestral strings, brass, perc. Learned this from Alan Meyerson. Helps these instruments peak through just enough without sounding over processed.


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## Junolab (Aug 29, 2021)

Also a Seventh Heaven fan here. Never really liked thr Fabfilters reverb. Otherwise the TLA-100 opto comp from Softube is used all the time. But overall I just really really dig Softubes Console 1 system.


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## musiccorner (Aug 29, 2021)

If we’re going great sound and easy to use, I must go with:

- Pro-Q 3
- Seventh Heaven Professional (yes, it can be complicated if you want, but it’s incredible how almost every preset sounds good IMO)
- Bx Townhouse Buss Compressor
- CLA Classic Comps (basically “input volume” - some ratio on the 1176 - and you’re good to go)

EDIT: how could I forgot my beloved R-Vox? Just one button (not counting output gain - but use it 😂) and pure magic out of the speakers.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 29, 2021)

musiccorner said:


> how could I forgot my beloved R-Vox? Just one button (not counting output gain - but use it 😂) and pure magic out of the speakers.


+1. All Renaissance stuff is good


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## José Herring (Aug 30, 2021)

I don't particularly dig 7th Heaven but I use it for sure. It's not really the plugin it's for some reason I'm not a fan of the Bricasti sound. 

I kind of fell in love with Pro-R with the trail version, but after using and loving Valhalla for so long I'm not sure I'm $199 bucks in love with it. But since I have Pro Q3 already I can get it at $100 or so. Might be worth it. 

Never really looked at Waves too hard. I have a few things which for as much as Waves gets maligned what I have is friggin' fantastic! I have Scheps Parallel Particles which is great. I have GTR3 which is great on synths. I also have CLA compressors which I like as well. 

I might get more into Waves and just get the Diamond bundle.

I'll check out the other suggestions too. 

Thanks guys!


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## jonnybutter (Aug 30, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Oh man that Scheps Omni Channel sounds dirty in the best possible way. Thanks of that. I'll check out Fab Pro-MB


Omni channel is fantastic. So flexible and good sounding


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## TomislavEP (Aug 30, 2021)

As a REAPER user, I regularly watch tutorials by Kenny Gioia that are (IMO) the veritable proof that most tasks can be accomplished by using the stock plugins. Those that ship with REAPER might not look very intuitive at first sight but are certainly capable and very resource-efficient. As an alternative, I use the plugins that ship with Komplete; I'm often finding those even more simple to use.

Besides that, I swear by the Room, Shimmer, and Supermassive by Valhalla DSP. Furthermore, I'm not ashamed to admit of using plugins by IZotope (Elements Series and Ozone Standard, in particular).

I always thought of various boutique plugins including those emulating certain hardware as a luxury I can do without. But there are probably some valuable exceptions out there.


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## Snoobydoobydoo (Aug 30, 2021)

Weiss EQs. Love them, over anything else.


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## Trash Panda (Aug 30, 2021)

T Racks 5 has really surprised me with how good they sound AND how easy it is to get a good sound out of them. Not just the specialty items that get lots of love like the tape machines and Sunset Sound Reverbs, but the bread and butter plugins too.


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## Henu (Aug 30, 2021)

NekujaK said:


> Waves: H-Delay


WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL GODS the plugin starts up with that horrible hissing mode as a default setting though???!?!?!?!


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## musiccorner (Aug 30, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> T Racks 5 has really surprised me with how good they sound AND how easy it is to get a good sound out of them. Not just the specialty items that get lots of love like the tape machines and Sunset Sound Reverbs, but the bread and butter plugins too.


+1 to that. I don´t know why i waited so long to get into it (maybe that old dinosaur logo? 😅).

I use them all the time, specially Stealth Limiter, Master EQ 432, their Fairchild, Pultec and so on. The tape machines, OMG, it remembered my records mastered to tape back in the day.

Because of Stealth Limiter, specifically, i sold my Pro-L 2.

Love Fabfilter (specially Pro-Q 3, Pro-DS and Pro-MB), but wasn´t even funny the difference in transparency between the 2 (i told this on some other tread here and people almost killed me - probably they didn´t compared with matched levels, because its pretty noticiable).

I get it, Fabfilter is awesome and on the product page it says that "Pro-L 2 is a transparent, high quality true peak limiter plug-in." Even being transparent for Waves L2 standards, its not that transparent compared to more robust limiters, like Stealth Limiter, Invisible Limiter and so on.

Anyways, the point here is that i think that IK multimedia is very underrated. Specially considering its price!

PS: Love the metering on Pro-L 2 though. 😁


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## AudioLoco (Aug 30, 2021)

musiccorner said:


> +1 to that. I don´t know why i waited so long to get into it (maybe that old dinosaur logo? 😅).
> 
> I use them all the time, specially Stealth Limiter, Master EQ 432, their Fairchild, Pultec and so on. The tape machines, OMG, it remembered my records mastered to tape back in the day.


Yes! The good 'ol 670 and the Pultec are great! The only better Pultec I found is the RuleTech excellent emulation.


musiccorner said:


> Because of Stealth Limiter, specifically, i sold my Pro-L 2.
> 
> Love Fabfilter (specially Pro-Q 3, Pro-DS and Pro-MB), but wasn´t even funny the difference in transparency between the 2 (i told this on some other tread here and people almost killed me - probably they didn´t compared with matched levels, because its pretty noticiable).
> 
> I get it, Fabfilter is awesome and on the product page it says that "Pro-L 2 is a transparent, high quality true peak limiter plug-in." Even being transparent for Waves L2 standards, its not that transparent compared to more robust limiters, like Stealth Limiter, Invisible Limiter and so on.


I used to use L3 Multimaximizer as my limiter of choice for years, which I loved....
but Pro-L 2 is on a next level IMHO. It's more transparent, and "more louder".
It is the choice of most top mastering engineers.


musiccorner said:


> Anyways, the point here is that i think that IK multimedia is very underrated. Specially considering its price!


Yes, although their installation methods are really a PITA and their site used to resemble a 1993 website. (It got a bit better now)


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## wst3 (Aug 30, 2021)

One more perspective (maybe?)

First, I'm not sure what makes a plugin premium, is it just cost or is it some performance metric?

I really don't think about plugins as premium or budget, I use what I use because it works well for me. The majority of my plugins come from UAD and PSP, I also have plugins from Eventide and Zynaptiq, and there are several other developers represented (e.g. Exponential Audio, Valhalla, Plugin-Alliance, etc).

And in truth, even after thinning the herd a couple times I have far too many plugins. Which was not the question, I digress.

There are cases where a specific developer had a significantly better plugin at some point, and that's what I bought. One example is the UA dBX 160 - it sounds, and behaves about as close to the real thing as we are likely to get (and I spent way too much time in studios where that was it). I don't believe it has been eclipsed, but there are certainly dBX 160 emulations that are just as good - today. That wasn't the case when I made my purchase, so why would I put my UA version in the dust bin so I can spend even more money buying another one?

Don't get me wrong - for a while there I tried just about every version of the classic hardware that came down the pike. Some of them were just as good as whatever I was using, in many cases it was more about different than better or worse.

Someone mentioned investments, yes, I've invested in UA hardware, so generally speaking I will look to them first. But if I am buying something that I do not already have in the pile I am not tied to any one developer. I probably would not buy a different DSP accelerator at this point, but if it native, and it does what I want then that's what I get.

There are many reasons why some folks like some plugins better than others. If I were starting out today would I use UA? If I knew what I knew I would certainly get one of their interfaces just for access to the Ocean Way Studios and Capital Chambers plugins (and the Cooper Time Cube). But I would not necessarily get their take on the 1176 or Pultec or what ever other antique is in fashion today.

I mentioned Plugin-Alliance - they have an emulation of the Purple Audio version of the 1176, which I absolutely love (the hardware first, then the software). So I have a couple 1176s to choose from. Was that a brilliant strategy? I don't know.

I also have the Plugin-Alliance MAAG EQ plugin - they were first, and that is another piece of hardware that I depend on.

I have a decent collection of UAD plugins - largely because they were the first to market with really good emulations.

I should probably mention that my first UAD card was branded as a Mackie, and my first Waves collection used a parallel port dongle, I can't even remember what it was called.


TL;DR
I purchase plugins for a variety of reasons, but in the case of emulations it has to sound like, and behave like the hardware I remember. I'm not married to emulations either, but it is kind of handy to know what will happen when you twist that knob.


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## musiccorner (Aug 30, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> I used to use L3 Multimaximizer as my limiter of choice for years, which I loved....


Love it too. Still used it today, as a multiband, before my limiter.




AudioLoco said:


> It is the choice of most top mastering engineers.


Yes, it is! Maybe for the reason that we mentioned (about the brand and etc). 

Don´t get me wrong, its a great limiter! For transparency alone, surprisenly, i discovered better options (Stealth Limiter is one of them, and it also was recommended by an famous Mastering Engineer here in Brazil, named Carlos Freitas).


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## musiccorner (Aug 30, 2021)

wst3 said:


> they have an emulation of the Purple Audio version of the 1176, which I absolutely love (the hardware first, then the software)


Interesting... i demoed and didn´t like it. But i´m seeing much love for them.

Could you share how you use it?

I know its a matter of taste, but maybe i´m looking at it the wrong way and need to give it another shot...


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## wst3 (Aug 31, 2021)

musiccorner said:


> Interesting... i demoed and didn´t like it. But i´m seeing much love for them.
> 
> Could you share how you use it?
> 
> I know its a matter of taste, but maybe i´m looking at it the wrong way and need to give it another shot...


Not sure I understand the question. Are you looking for ways I use it or specific settings (which I believe would be nearly useless)?

I use it for sounds with sharp(er) transients, especially at the start of the note - think acoustic guitars, hand percussion, even some electric basses. I leave the attack time just slow enough to allow that initial transient through. The release time depends somewhat on the ratio (or is it the other way around<G>???)

One of the things I really like about 1176 style compressors is using a gain stage to "set" the threshold, or put another way, a fixed threshold and a gain stage to adjust the relationship between the threshold and input signal.

I can't say for certain (cause I'm too lazy) but my guess is that fixed threshold allowed the designers to optimize all the stages that follow. It is really quite difficult to design a dynamics processor, and a fixed threshold would probably lighten the load.

I should add that neither the 1176 nor the Purple Audio MC77 is the perfect tool all the time. I have used the 1176 on acoustic guitars and the MC77 on vocals, among other things.

Ultimately it is personal taste, and for me the two co-exist nicely. I hope that is some help.


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## musiccorner (Aug 31, 2021)

wst3 said:


> Not sure I understand the question. Are you looking for ways I use it or specific settings (which I believe would be nearly useless)?
> 
> I use it for sounds with sharp(er) transients, especially at the start of the note - think acoustic guitars, hand percussion, even some electric basses. I leave the attack time just slow enough to allow that initial transient through. The release time depends somewhat on the ratio (or is it the other way around<G>???)
> 
> ...


Yeah, ways you use it. You did answer my question!

Since i love my 76s plugins, i thought that i would fall in love with it, but didn´t happened.

Reading you answer, some ideas sparkled (crushing it in parallel, for example). Tks


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## jneebz (Aug 31, 2021)

Henu said:


> WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL GODS the plugin starts up with that horrible hissing mode as a default setting though???!?!?!?!


Ha! I have always wondered the same thing. And it took me awhile to figure out it was coming from the “analog” setting. I would expect startup hiss from a tape emulator, but not a delay….


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## AudioLoco (Aug 31, 2021)

jneebz said:


> Ha! I have always wondered the same thing. And it took me awhile to figure out it was coming from the “analog” setting. I would expect startup hiss from a tape emulator, but not a delay….


a - hem...a tape echo (delay) emulator?
The original things are the noisiest things alive... 

Having said that, the hiss option should be off by default on every single plugin. 
Most manufacturers got it by now...
I love hiss noise, I don't mind it sonically. But it is very inconvenient when exporting stems as the hiss adds up. That's why I always turn it off when not off by default and sometimes.. add a dedicated hiss/noise track to give that vintage charm/dither/noisfloor - but that's another story...


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## doctoremmet (Sep 1, 2021)




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## Pier (Sep 1, 2021)

José Herring said:


> I kind of fell in love with Pro-R with the trail version, but after using and loving Valhalla for so long I'm not sure I'm $199 bucks in love with it.


I sold Valhalla Room when I got Pro-R, but I still love using Valhalla Plate and VVV.


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## Snoobydoobydoo (Sep 2, 2021)

Throwing Sonimus in the room.
I love Burnley 73 on a lot of Inputs.
Easy to use.


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