Got too much, if I tried to list them all I would probably forgot half of them. I wouldnt describe myself as an extreme hoarder, but I’m definitively on this side of the force rather than on the minimalistic one.
I’ve used them all on at least one testing track. But on a daily usage, I would say that only a fat third of them gets used. I dont feel overwhelmed at all as I tend to start by the idea of what I want to do, then that guide me to use those plugins instead of others. But if I hadnt started hoarding 10 years ago when I had a lot of time to explore and getting familiar with DAW and sound design process, I would def be drown under that many plugins.
I get that there is a lot of love for Fabfilter in this thread!
But no love for Toneboosters? Their dynamic EQ (with sidechain) is very powerful. The UI is pretty similar, it has analog modes etc.
A big bonus is that you can run their plugins for free with a nag screen, and the price is very decent. Still exploring but I think I might go this route for the more surgical stuff
This exploration has been pretty interesting actually, especially hearing others use cases. I haven’t come across these - but without investigating beyond the website the price difference is night & day!
I actually think Toneboosters is good company with good products.
I’ve been using Fabfilter stuff since before Toneboosters was around, and it wouldn’t make sense to switch to anything really, since ease of use is very important to me.
In many ways Pro-Q was a game changer for its ease of use. They’ve added features as competition added features and many have followed all of the available competition out there and I think that’s benefitted the community with options that just didn’t used to exist.
Fabfilter is also usually very quick to support OS changes making them a very reliable product in many different ways.
It’s hard not to be a fan when you can compare it to other companies progress, pricing models and support. Nothing against Toneboosters at all. They’re a great value for sure.
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I’ve seen toneboosters and I use their spectogram (which is free) all the time, but I try to de-clutter my plugins so I try not installing stuff I won’t use for sure, there was too much overlap between the FF and toneboosters for me to purchase any of the relevant plugins, they sure looks nice and works great but cannot speak for the bundle quality.
btw Tokyo Dawn Labs also have amazing plugins, the GE edition has some great compressors and dynamic eq’s and very good limiter, but again, too much overlap for me so I didn’t even install on the new computer, but they are quality plugins.
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Decapitator gets a heck of a lot of love in review videos. I belive it can go to some crazy places. But how are the saturation tools in the BA bundle? I hear they do some offbeat stuff - so rather than just a standard compressor, you get all that “heat” and “spank” stuff. Is that more of a help than a hinderance do you think?
Decapitator has a model of a tape preamp, echoplex preamp, desk channel and a valve preamp and power amp. It’s very easy to use.
TAIP has a nice combination of tape saturation, glue compression and some pitch drift, but it’s just a slider for each it’s nowhere near as powerful for dialling in drive. It’s very quick and easy for getting a vibe though.
Saturn is way more powerful that either, but it’s much more complex with a huge range of algorithms, band splitting and automation.
They are all good, but it depends what you are looking for.
Parallel aggressor is a three way parallel effect with saturation and compression, but you can easily do the same in most DAWs so I don’t tend to use it as you could easily do the same thing with Decapitator or Saturn and C-2. It’s decent enough though and again quick to get a vibe.
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i have Soundtoys, Arturia V9 and FX Collections, and Baby Audio.
Echoing a lot of what others have said here:
- Soundtoys gets used on everything, especially Echoboy’s saturation models even with no delay
- Baby Audio is def more modern/creative and is quickly replacing Soundtoys in a lot of projects. I find Decapitator’s sound is kind of getting samey or old to me. If i didn’t already have Soothe, I’d be fine with Smooth Operator. TAIP, Super VHS get used a lot. Their echos and reverbs I’d use more if I werent using Valhalla and Echoboy.
- I tend to use Valhalla for most plugin verbs. Exploring Arturia’s Rev Intensity a bit now. Love the trance gate preset:)
- For collaborative long distance projects, most of the producers I work with at least have Soundtoys, so I can be confident in that + ableton stock. Ableton stock stuff is VERY good.
- I want Fabfilter, bad, but the price stops my heart, and I’m getting decent at compression/mixing/eq with ableton stock. It’s def in my future.
V collection I could live without, but sometimes it’s nice to just reach for a classic sound in two seconds. Even if it’s not a 100% perfect reproduction or as good as other clones, no one can tell in the mix + the bundle price (250€ i think, black friday?) made it worth it. I dont need 5 different model D clones, I just need 1 that sounds good enough.
I also have Diva and Pigments, as others mentioned, they complement each other well and are very flexible.
If i could go back in time and start from scratch, the keepers would be:
- Soundtoys
- Diva
- Pigments
- Valhalla
- analog lab would probablly be enough for the vintage sounds rather than the full V collection. I’ve barely scratched the surface and could get most of the way there with Diva and Pigments.
- …and i’d still have my eye on Fabfilter.
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This is what I’ve come to realise.
The V collection is great as a preset bank, but because every synth has a different interface it’s annoying to have to learn how it works and the various quirks and I don’t find myself wanting to build a new patch with them because I’ll just hit some vintage accurate arbitrary quirk like “oh this synth didn’t have a saw oscillator” or whatever so I’ll just use Pigments (Or actually Dune 3) for that kind of thing and all I need is just a preset bank with some Macros in which case I could have just bought Analog Lab and not have loads of VSTs cluttering my DAW plugin browser.
That said I do find having a reasonably quality Piano, Clav, Rhodes, Mellotron, Organ useful so it’s actually good from that perspective.
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Supercharger is great as well!
So, I agree with everyone on here. It’s so comforting knowing we are all treading on the same path. And also that we share sensibilities.
Stuff that’s good is good for a reason, and we all have educated ourselves to recognize the differences.
Following what everyone said, and a good convo with @CCMP, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on all the Fabfilter plugins.
I went with the FX bundle. Plus I’m in school, so I got a 50% educational discount.
Plus PayPal let’s you pay in four, so I just went H.A.M.
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Yep and not easy to do. On the one hand you can of course overthink things. But the fact that many of us actively consider these decisions is (on balance) a good sign. Through lack of experience I nearly went all in on NI before I noticed the disclaimer about M1; and the only reason I didn’t buy something I might not have been able to actually use was because I researched it. All good in moderation. I think if I do get a bundle at some stage - the FF one is going to be it.
Yeah. I’m curious about how to use it, since I mainly use the mastering assistant in iZotope.
I think I’m going to open instances in both and set FF to what iZotope reads at, then A/B them to see if I notice a difference.
Plus this will give me context on how to use FF.
I feel like I’m stepping up a level in my production by investing in FF because of all the controls you have to be aware of and how they work. Plus breaking up the core components of iZotope into separate instances of EQ, Limiting, and Compression will also be a learning experience.
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This has annoyed me from time to time, but I also like this about it. I get to imagine that I have all these cool weird old synths that I don’t have to maintain. At the moment I’ve been treating it like a video game and challenging myself to make a patch on each V Collection synth. I don’t want Arturia to actually gamify it, because that would be weird, but I imagine little XBox achievements popping up.
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check out FF youtube tutorials, they are very informative and narrated by Dan Worrall, the best voice in the business of narrating music stuff
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Yes, that is step two. I feel like I will learn better with a little context and direction as well.
Plus, I am embarking into quite the rabbit hole (eww rabbit pun, have to be careful because of my name), with mastering.
Quick question from everyone though.
I’ve heard of Volcano and people seem to love it, but @monquixote mentioned Saturn.
It seems like Volcano is vintage tube saturation? And Saturn is saturation and distortion?
How does everyone go about using them in their productions.
I love the Echoboy trick of dialing the time to zero to get all those filterings.
Is FF the same with Saturn and Volcano?
Volcano is insanely capable filter with multiple algorithms and crazy modulation capabilities, it’s very versatile and deep
Saturn is multiband distortion / saturator also with crazy modulation capabilities that can be anything from simple drive plugin to compressor and whatnot.
both are very versatile and can do many things. love them.
again, their youtube is the best place to get familiar quickly, very good videos
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Volcano is the Fabfilter filter which is indeed fab.
Saturn is their distortion saturation plugin so the equivalent of Decapitator, but it’s way more powerful.
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Regarding the L-2 limiter.
This is what I did when I moved from Ozone to L-2
Once you are ready to do the mastering bit and have something close to a final mix.
Push the level up until you are getting 2-3 DBs of limiting and then go through some of the presets on L-2 to see what sounds best to you.
Then give the settings a tweak if you need to.
Once you are happy start moving the level up and down to see how much limiting works for you before it starts sounding a bit too crushed and artifacty.
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Great! Thank you! I bookmarked this.
I produce a lot of DnB, so artifact-y might not be bad if they are high quality artifacts.
The one thing I wonder though is loudness.
I think Ozone calls it maximizing? But it’s basically getting it ready for upload to YouTube or SoundCloud or whatever streaming.
Limiting is to help with clipping by automating gain/adding compression?
Would FF limiter also help in “maximizing”?