Roundup: Best software plugins in each category

I was thinking that since there are so many goddam different plugins that do essentially the same job out these days. Why not take a poll of watmm's favorite plugins for each category/genre? The goal of this thread is to have people state their favorite plugins in the categories I will list below. After enough people respond, I'll make a poll for future reference and to declare a winner of each category. I put a category of 'unique' for anything that doesn't fall into any of the descriptions or provides a unique function that can't be compared to anything else. You can even include a reaktor patch or something like a proprietary plugin that only exists in one DAW (ie: Sculpture in Logic Pro)

categories:

FX:

EQ

Compressor

Limiter

Flanger

Phaser

Delay

Reverb

Spectral Manipulation

Pitch Shifting

Noise Reduction/Restoration

Unique (uncategorized)

SYNTH:

Subtractive

FM

Additive

Physical Modeling

Unique (uncategorized)


SAMPLER:

Drum centric

Melodic centric

All-around sampling

Beat-slicing

Unique (uncategorized)


I'll give my own entry later, just trying to see if there is any interest for a collection of most well regarded or liked plugins in any particular category. Right now I wouldn't bother listing if it's for mac or PC.

Edited July 18, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

fx

eq - ff pro-q or eq8

filter - ff volcano

compressor - mpressor or waves pie

limiter - ff pro-l

delay - ff timeless 2

reverb - vintageverb

spectral - mstereospread

unique - vintagewarmer 2

 

synth

subtractive - diva

fm - operator

additive - absynth

 

sampler

drums - live drum rack

melodic - kontakt 5

all round - live sampler

beat slicing - ableton live 9

 

:)

  On 7/18/2013 at 3:19 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

Delay

Reverb

Flanger

 

Cakewalk 6.0 direct X plugins

 

FX:

Phaser

Virtual Guitarist FX - no longer supported :(

Delay

DubStation & EchoBoy

Reverb

SilverVerb & EchoBoy

SAMPLER:

Kontakt 3

FX:
EQ : Airwindows EQ / SSL Duende Channel Strip
Compressor : Kush Audio UBK-1 / Slate Digitale VBC
Delay : Sonic Charge Permut8 / Valhalla UberMod
Reverb : Valhalla Room / Valhalla VintageVerb

SYNTH:

Subtractive : U-He Diva

FM : U-He Bazille

Unique : Madrona Labs Aalto

FX:

EQ >>> DMG EQuilibrium, Softube Trident A-Range

Compressor >>> The Glue, Waves API 2500, Softube CL1B, Sonoris Mastering Compressor

Limiter >>> FabFilter Pro-L

Delay >>> Soundtoys EchoBoy, GSi GS-201 Tape Echo

Reverb >>> Lexicon PCM (algo), Hofa IQ Reverb (impluse)

Spectral Manipulation >>> iZotope Spectron

 

Distortion & Saturation >>> iZotope Trash, Sound Toys Decapitator

Pitch Shifting and beyond >>> Celemony Melodyne

Noise Reduction/Restoration >>> iZotope RX 2

 

Step Sequencing >>> Five 12 Numerology

Unique (uncategorized) >>> TT Dynamic Range Meter, Waves PAZ Analyzer, Merging Technologies VoiCode

SYNTH & SAMPLER: (not categorized for obvious reasons)

>>> Camel Audio Alchemy, NI FM8, NI Massive, Sonic Charge Microtonic, NI Kontakt, FXpansion Geist

FX:

unique: Cycling 74 Pluggo
Spectral manipulation: Argeiphontes Lyre by Akira Rabelais, SoundHack by Tom Erbe

  On 7/18/2013 at 1:59 PM, xox said:

Five 12 Numerology

 

+ 1 000 000 ! Bit it's so much more than a step sequencer.

Edited July 18, 2013 by lin

FX:

 

Limiter/Saturation - FerricTDS

 

  On 7/18/2013 at 3:19 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

SAMPLER:

Drum centric

Melodic centric

All-around sampling

Beat-slicing

Unique (uncategorized)

 

Renoise

  On 7/18/2013 at 2:14 PM, lin said:

 

  On 7/18/2013 at 1:59 PM, xox said:

Five 12 Numerology

 

+ 1 000 000 ! Bit it's so much more than a step sequencer.

 

Agree!

FX:

EQ : Waves Q-10 paragraphic

Compressor : Waves C-1

Limiter: Sonnox OXford Limiter

Flanger: Lexicon delay/flanger

Phaser: Cooledit 2.0/Adobe Audition's Pahser

Filter: Antares Filter

Delay: Reaktor: 'Echomania' Native Instruments Spektral Delay

Reverb: Waves Rverb & Audioease Speakerphone

Spectral Manipulation: Anarchy FX (FREEWARE)

Pitch Shifting: well we have a new winner Soundhack's PVOC pitch/time/spectral pack is fucking amazing, ill be using this from now on for all my workhorse real-time pitch shifting needs Antares Harmony Engine, Melodyne & GRM Tools

Noise Reduction/Restoration: Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction (for intentional artifacts) Izotope Ozone & Waves Noise Reduction

Unique (uncategorized): Abelton Live: Corpus (phys mod resonator) Antares Kantos, Anarchy FX (FREEWARE)

SYNTH:

Subtractive : Vaz Modular, Arturia Moog Modular, Arturia Arp 2600,

FM: FM7, VOPM (FREEWARE)

Additive: Cube, Reaktor: Prism

Physical Modeling: Logic Audio: Sculpture, Tassman, Abelton Live: Tension, Chromaphone

Unique (uncategorized) : Vocaloid (speech synthesis)


SAMPLER:

Drum centric: Native Instruments: Battery, Steinberg Halion 3

Melodic centric: Native Instruments: Kontakt, Steinberg Halion 3

All-around sampling: Steinberg Halion 3/4

Beat-slicing: Fruity Slicer, Reaktor: Beat Slicer, Reaktor: Squarepusherizer (FREEWARE) , FXpansion Guru & Phatmatik Pro

Unique (uncategorized): Steinberg has 2 decent new plugins that were added in Cubase 5 and 6 respectively : Loopmash (a spectral beat slicing 'matching' tool with pre-existing loops, not an effect)
Padshop Pro (probably the most bendable nicely packaged granular synth/sampler I've seen besides Maelstrom in Reason, but I think Padshop pro is better)

Pretty lacking for me in this area, any cool new or interesting sampler VST/au ?

Edited July 20, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

  On 7/19/2013 at 10:52 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

FX:

 

EQ : Waves Q-10 paragraphic

 

Compressor : Waves C-1

 

Filter: Antares Filter

 

Reverb: Waves Rverb

 

 

Really? Are this your favorite plug-ins or do you think this ones are the best in their categories?

 

btw...i thought this thread will be more active.

FX:

EQ: EasyQ, EngineersFilter by rs-met, sweep by signaldust
Compressor: Molot(no gui version) by vladg, TDR Feedback Compressor II by tokyo dawn labs

Limiter: Loudmax, Limiter 6 by vladg

 

Flanger/Phaser/Delay: ValhallaUbermod

Reverb: ValhallaRoom/VintageVerb

Granular: Argotlunar

 

Sampler: tx16wx

 

for all instruments and most effects I use Reaktor patches, too many favorites to list

  On 7/19/2013 at 4:48 PM, xox said:

 

  On 7/19/2013 at 10:52 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

FX:

 

EQ : Waves Q-10 paragraphic

 

Compressor : Waves C-1

 

Filter: Antares Filter

 

Reverb: Waves Rverb

 

 

Really? Are this your favorite plug-ins or do you think this ones are the best in their categories?

 

btw...i thought this thread will be more active.

 

its just what im used to using. I dont know if they are the 'best' or not, in fact im sure they arent. They are old plugins

as far as EQs go, it's still my favorite, i haven't used another EQ that I like as much.

Edited July 19, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

this isnt necessarily what i think is best (cause i dont know or really care), but this is what i use.

 

FX:

EQ - cubase

Compressor - waves

Limiter - waves edit, i actually use sonnox oxford limiter, but forgot

Flanger - cubase

Phaser - cubase

Delay - cubase

Reverb - cubase/waves

Spectral Manipulation - dont use that shit

Pitch Shifting - dont really use it

Noise Reduction/Restoration - nope

Unique (uncategorized)

SYNTH:

Subtractive - maybe masive but havent used it in a while

FM - fm8

Additive - not really

Physical Modeling - dont use it

Unique (uncategorized)


SAMPLER:

All-around sampling - halion

Beat-slicing - i dont do that shit

Unique (uncategorized)

Edited July 19, 2013 by CharlesWatkins

i think sticking to your favorite or most used makes more sense than what is considered the 'best'. I'm realizing that now after making the thread. Lots of stuff I've never heard of in here and I'm eager to check it out.

Here are my efforts.... areas I don't use often enough I ignored... i also included my choices for filters, distortion and drum synth.

 

FX:

EQ - EQ8 from Live 9
Compressor - Cytomic/Live 9's The Glue (Digitalfishphones Blockfish still gets used way too often too)
Filter - FXPansion Etch
Delay - FabFilter Timeless 2
Distortion - Audio Damage Kombinat Dva
Reverb - Valhalla DSP Vintage Verb
Unique (uncategorized) - Sonic Charge Permut8

SYNTH:

Subtractive - Really this category is too tough (FXpansion Cypher is probably the most flexible and nice sounding pure subtractive I have but Korg Polysix, Arturia's Arp 2600, SEM and Jupiter 8 are all great too).
FM - NI FM8
Additive - NI Razor
Physical Modeling - NI Prism
Unique (uncategorized) - U-he Zebra 2 HZ (just because it covers a number of different methods.... and it's great souding - especially this version with the Diva filters)
Drum Synth - Image Line DrumAxx (FXPansion Tremor was a close second)


SAMPLER:

Drum centric - Drum Racks from Live 9
Melodic centric - Kontakt 5
All-around sampling - Kontakt 5
Beat-slicing - Live 9's in-built slicing (multiple Simplers I suppose)

 

  On 7/19/2013 at 10:52 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

SYNTH:

Additive: Cube, Reaktor: Prism

 

I rated Prism as physical modelling because it's based on the modal bank and went for Razor on the additive.... but I've had a couple of beers so my classification of things could be bent like a bad hedge.

one thing I'm noticing is the extreme lack of diversity in the sampling arena. It seems like very few people use anything outside of Kontakt or Abelton drum racks. Not that there's anything wrong with that ;) but it's been a long time since those came out and I'm surprised no one has made anything that has really caught much attention since.

edit: re: above, I mixed up Prism and Razor, I meant it the other way around. Have you had much luck using the ensembles (and not the reaktor player stand alone versions) ?
I tried making them into ISM files instead of ENS files and they lost all the presets and bunch of the GUI disappeared. I generally try to not work with eNS files because i try to pile on as much as I possibly can into an individual reaktor session. I find if i'm working in a DAW and i load more than like 4 instances of the Reaktor VST, it's far more prone to crashing.

Edited July 20, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

i made custom stripped down versions of spark/prism/skanner

http://imgur.com/a/HtOvH

 

i took the morphing section and the rest of page A out of skanner and now find it much more fun to work with by just automating the parameters in the daw

 

these NI patches are fun to use but the fx and modulation sections are cheap and take up a lot of space so I took em out

With regards Prism and Razor I've never really got too involved in anything other than using them as staright ENS. Mainly because I know my Reaktor skills aren't up to doing anything worthwhile to structures of that complexity. Which is how I feel about a lot of recent commercial ensembles such as those by Icebreaker Audio or Twisted Tools. Often interesting stuff but if I'm wanting to get deeper into the structures I'll tend to start with something from the R3 lib (and it's premium version) or stuff from the User Lib. I've never had an issue with multiple instances of the Reaktor VST crashing though I couldn't be sure I've ever used as many as four instances at a time.

 

The sampling arena is something I can't help on. Kontakt is great for stuff like Hollowsun does. Live's sampling tools really support quick and intuitive (but not too deep) sampling of stuff. But when I want to dive deeper into the programming/sound design I'll tend to revert back to synths so I've no real experience in the areas you're talking about.

  On 7/18/2013 at 9:35 AM, chunky said:

 

  On 7/18/2013 at 3:19 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

Delay

Reverb

Flanger

 

Cakewalk 6.0 direct X plugins

 

 

is there another host besides Sonar that is currently being updated which hosts Direct X plugins? I've moved away from them for a while, but I still have a few of them I'd love to try again like Sonic Foundry noise reduction.

  On 7/20/2013 at 1:06 AM, jeyemusik said:

Here are my efforts.... areas I don't use often enough I ignored... i also included my choices for filters, distortion and drum synth.

 

FX:

 

EQ - EQ8 from Live 9

Compressor - Cytomic/Live 9's The Glue (Digitalfishphones Blockfish still gets used way too often too)

Filter - FXPansion Etch

Delay - FabFilter Timeless 2

Distortion - Audio Damage Kombinat Dva

Reverb - Valhalla DSP Vintage Verb

Unique (uncategorized) - Sonic Charge Permut8

 

SYNTH:

 

Subtractive - Really this category is too tough (FXpansion Cypher is probably the most flexible and nice sounding pure subtractive I have but Korg Polysix, Arturia's Arp 2600, SEM and Jupiter 8 are all great too).

FM - NI FM8

Additive - NI Razor

Physical Modeling - NI Prism

Unique (uncategorized) - U-he Zebra 2 HZ (just because it covers a number of different methods.... and it's great souding - especially this version with the Diva filters)

Drum Synth - Image Line DrumAxx (FXPansion Tremor was a close second)

 

 

SAMPLER:

 

Drum centric - Drum Racks from Live 9

Melodic centric - Kontakt 5

All-around sampling - Kontakt 5

Beat-slicing - Live 9's in-built slicing (multiple Simplers I suppose)

 

 

  On 7/19/2013 at 10:52 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

SYNTH:

 

Additive: Cube, Reaktor: Prism

 

 

I rated Prism as physical modelling because it's based on the modal bank and went for Razor on the additive.... but I've had a couple of beers so my classification of things could be bent like a bad hedge.

you are correct, i got them switched around. Great choices, i've used only some of these. Is Tremor for mac also?

do most people here have editing ability for a post in this thread? If so, please go back and say if the plugin is freeware or non commercial. If it's not marked that way the assumption will be that it costs $ (since it seems like the majority of people still prefer commercial plugins either built into hosts or as vst/au)

 

also there seems to be either a secretive or just generally very vague vibe some people are giving off in their responses. How many people here can admit to being perhaps somewhat unwilling to reveal 'secret' plugin preferences?

Edited July 20, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

  On 7/20/2013 at 1:11 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

one thing I'm noticing is the extreme lack of diversity in the sampling arena.  It seems like very few people use anything outside of Kontakt or Abelton drum racks.  Not that there's anything wrong with that ;)  but it's been a long time since those came out and I'm surprised no one has made anything that has really caught much attention since. 

I've never used anything that managed to match Ableton drum racks. It's possible that I've just never used more up-to-date things. But I had Battery for a while, then switched to LinPlug's RMV, but ultimately made the switch to Ableton because I found I had more control over everything, especially with chains. That and the automation side of things. RMV was more powerful and provided more options at times, but in the end I found that I worked quicker in drum racks.

 

I forgot to say that i use Ableton 9 and almost its every fx & synth except samples.

 

Second, all of those plug-ins from my earlier post are commercial (the best ones IMO) and i still don't use/have all of them cause they're expensive but i'm gonna get them all this year. The price of the Lexicon PCM reverb pack dropped for $2000 to $421 so this is my priority now.