I mean, my sp404 has cassette sim, and sound toys has echoboy which has tape filters that you can dial off the delay completely.
I don’t think I need EVERYTHING.
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Yeah, I have those too. I’ve tried a lot of them. Satin is my favorite of the bunch for subtle tape compression. Not warbly, lo-fi stuff.
Definitely don’t need everything out there though, so don’t recommend buying things you don’t need or won’t use.
I’ve pretty much stopped buying plugins (haven’t gotten anything new in more than a year), but would classify Satin as among my most used along with RC-20, Seventh Heaven (the cheap one) and the Valhalla and Soundtoys stuff.
Yeah, I would probably go RC20 before Satin.
Plus I have an Analog Heat mk2, so I got all the coloration I need.
I’m sure I got a bunch of tape saturation plugins from all the freebies too.
But I think I’m good on things now. Even Diva was an impulse buy that I don’t have a specific need for, but will use later maybe.
This is my first year of music production, and I’m trying to go no compromise. The test will be this time next year. I want to see if I’ll buy more stuff knowing there are like 19 soft synth I haven’t touched that I own.
But it’s good to own all this stuff, once I get faster at producing, I pull up something with the intention of making a couple tracks with it as a limitation to spark creativity.
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Oh man, first year. Wow. I didn’t realize that. You definitely gotta slow that pace. Haha. 
I’m like 20 years in and need to slow my pace as well though, so no judgement. 
I think it gets a bit easier once you get a feel for what gets used over time (and what you’ve been burned by in the past), but always something tempting on the horizon.
I’m actually stepping up my music studies and instrument practice at the moment though, which I think is the best killer of GAS for me. A drummer buddy of mine told me years ago that when he’s actively playing he almost never buys gear, it’s when he isn’t gigging regularly that he starts getting tempted by stuff. That was good insight for me. When I’m recording regularly, I’m like why do I have all this stuff.
The good thing about music gear is that it keeps its value pretty well, so not a sunk cost like a lot of plugins. I have a lot of software regrets, which is why I haven’t bought any in a long time. Whenever I get tempted I think what I already have and walk away. I also have a core group of plugins that I know well though and use on like every track I do in the DAW, so that helps as well.
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I want the uHe Zebra and Izotope software but since I spent a lot on a new Virus and computer, will wait a year to pass the 2023 no gear challenge and learn these then can build patches in the future on the Zebra and load to the Virus if that is possible.
In for a penny…. In for a pound.
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Well thanks folks. I woke up after a few too many drinks with some new VSTs in my inbox. Merry Christmas!
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