vst restraint

i recently went on a downloading binge of vsts, effects and instruments. now i got a lot of stuff to go through

i'm curious how you ekt'ers use vsts, do you use a bunch always or do you only use a few instruments/effects that are your faves.

I used to download absolutely every VST I could find. But I found that, having that much options, "limits" the possibilities for creation, since you'll have just too many things to explore it will get quite frustrating.

Personally, the only VSTs I have right now are Absynth, those from FL Studio (which I rarely use), Reason synths, some Izotope stuff (mainly Iris, Trash and Ozone) and a bunch of free FX which are quite useful (the glitch one, some granulators, etc) I'm looking for more "sample mangling" stuff right now.

^Exactly.

I always have the same problem, though in recent years I've really honed in on what I'm trying to sound like and limit my vsts that achieve that. Not necessarily aping a specific sound but more getting in the ballpark of what I like aesthetic wise, and then going from there.

Unless you have a lot of time and truly want to experiment and fiddle around for new sounds it seems best to figure out what is used to make the music you are inspired by, track down said vst's and effects, and then go from there. Otherwise it's overwhelming and hard to focus. After all, happy accidents have provided the basis of many "trademark" sounds for many producers.

i downloaded all of the freely available vsts i could find several yrs ago, and then went through and organized them by changing the filenames and adding prefixes to them. so i have like 'delay' 'flanger' 'chorus' etc. doing that was super tedious but it helped out a lot in terms of being able to quickly find what i want and try different versions of it quickly to see which i like best for a situation. only problem is that while flstudio arranges the plugs alphabetically which means the organization shows up there, other programs don't. like with reaper, i would have to create categories inside reaper and place everything how i have the filenames named. but if you have hundreds of plugins and they aren't organized at all, it's just a mess and chances are you are not going to be finding cool things in your collection that you could use, and only go to a few that you know are good.

man i hate overly complicated vsts, i'm not a fucking sound designer...

I use three different VSTs.

i'm beginning to think that the layout of vsts is just as important as their sound...

All you need is three-five good ones, and then learn every single thing about them. But that's just my opinion.

Man.

yeah man.

I've never really been into collecting VSTs. All I tend to use is Reaktor, and a couple EQs, Compressors, and Reverb plugins. I'm really into trying to limit myself to only using patches I've made myself, but making really good EQs, reverbs and so on, is pretty hard work and gets pretty heavy on the CPU as well. Very hard to optimize in core to the same degree as I imagine you can in code.

The DIY works out kinda well though. Just making small, super dedicated little patches, minimises the clutter sometimes.

I do also occasionally play about with Absynth, and Alchemy as well. Both really cool for offline sound design stuff, but too bloaty to use within a project.

I still love the sound of the Lexicon PCM verbs, they get used a lot. But otherwise, that's more or less it.

  On 10/7/2013 at 7:13 AM, yek said:

i'm beginning to think that the layout of vsts is just as important as their sound...

Very true. UI makes a massive difference, not only in how you use the plugin, but also how you perceive it's function and quality too. For example, seen people raving about software emulations of hardware synths, which while not sounding remotely similar, look the part.

IMO pick one or two of each category (EQ, compression, etc) and master them.

I would much rather be a master of the shittiest vst ever created than so-so on the greatest vst ever created.

should pull up that thread I made about a month ago where everybody listed their favorite VSTs in different categories

I use stock everything.