Which Plugin Alliance deals were MUST HAVES?

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Effects Discussion
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

I've been following the deals each day with one eye on my wallet (with all these damn amazing deals out there)... now I feel like I missed out on some things. Were there any that for the price were MUST HAVES? I'm just starting a FX toolkit so I really have little right now..

THANKS!

Post

The ones I bought :D

Maag eq was what got me addicted. You'd think that a fixed eq would be terribly limited but it's not. It's not a surgical eq, it's a shaping eq and the air is nice w/o being harsh.

Next was mpressor. I REALLY didn't need another "comp" but this one is too good. Frequently it adds depth and punch w/o shitty pumping yuckness. The built in little filter is a bit magical too. BTW, that filter is free in a separate plug (do check those out!)

Then the mistake was DSM. I'm still horribly embarrassed that I didn't notice when demoing that it doesn't save the curve and it's a known issue for quite some time and who know when/if they will fix it. Shame, as the plugin is a game-changer (until you close and reopen the project) The workaround is to save that curve you like and recall it when needed, but that is a PITA. Ugggggggggg, I'm really mad at myself STILL! :x

I hated the bx xl. HATED it. I didn't demo the SPL pass eq because I'm just not in the market for it and it looks too complex :scared: Anyways, I've tried to pick and choose somewhat wisely, I'm really happy with the first two.

Post

Ok.. Now that all days are open again .... Which ones are must haves?

Post

For me, it was SPL Transient Designer and Elysia Mpressor. I nearly took advantage of the Maag EQ and Elysia Mpressor just because of the price, but they don't really meet "must-have" criteria in my book. That said, I guess I've got a week or so to come to to my senses.
Logic Pro | PolyBrute | MatrixBrute | MiniFreak | Prophet 6 | Trigon 6 | OB-6 | Rev2 | Pro 3 | SE-1X | Polar TI2 | Blofeld | RYTMmk2 | Digitone | Syntakt | Digitakt | SX7

Post

How are the SPL De-Essers?

Post

HcDoom wrote:How are the SPL De-Essers?
Absolutely loathe it, but then I know someone swears by it so... Demo. It's very much love or hate thing.

Post

For me these are the "must haves" (keep in mind that I like compressors.. a lot!):

Elysia Alpha Compressor, an awesome soft knee gentle compressor to smooth all kinds of things. At 119$ it is ridiculously good value. It does have the same compression "vibe" as the hardware (which I've had the pleasure of using on numerous occasions).. hardware costing over 10 000$! I'm not entirely convinced by the "warm" button though. I thought it sounded very different on the hardware but the compression action is extremely close and has a very distinct clean Elysia vibe to it.

Elysia Mpressor, a hard knee, quite aggressive compressor with proper output saturation stage (so make sure you gain stage this one correctly.. hit it hard for some proper saturation or hit it with low levels for clean operation). Never tried the hardware so I don't know how close this one is but the same guy who programmed this also did the Alpha compressor so I'd guess it's pretty damn close.

SPL Twin Tube, an awesome tube emulation.. unfortunately the latest version is buggy and it's quite a CPU hog (only the latest version.. old version is much less buggy and uses only a third of the CPU but sounds considerably worse).

I'd also say Dynamic Spectrum Mapper but it's pretty useless at it's current buggy state so I'd skip this one.

Maag EQ might be interesting. Personally I didn't really get anything useful out of it but then again I have pretty much every Nebula EQ ever released and I just purchased the DDMF 6144 which I absolutely adore. It's also a bit too imprecise to my liking.. it boosts at a ridiculously wide Q (or cuts with a low shelf while actually saying that it's boosting.. not sure what happens but all those knobs behave very strangely).

------------------

I'd be very careful of these ones though (YMMV).

SPL Transient Designer does not sound like the hardware in my opinion. The "plop!" you get on the attack is not nearly as smooth as the hardware and it seems to distort quite easily with larger sustain values.. it also pumps sometimes a bit strangely (also true for the hardware). If you need a transient designer thing in plugin format I think the Native Instruments one is a far better purchase.

Most of the BX plugins are a bit "meh.." in my opinion. They make such a huge deal of them doing Mid/Side processing but it's so easy to use the free Voxengo MSED to turn basically any of your plugins into a mid/side process. I also don't like their limiter at all.. nor the saturation thing. In my opinion it sounded quite bad. The dynamic EQ might be useful though.. but I've got two of those already (Voxengo GlissEQ and the excellent MeldaProductions DynamicEQ which is the most powerful of the bunch, by far).

The only plugin I haven't tried is the guitar amp thing. I'm done purchasing guitar amp plugins as I still think they have quite a way to go to sound authentic (though I do like S-Gear a lot and the Yamaha THR10 which is also a DSP amp sim in hardware).

I couldn't get anything that useful out of the SPL EQs either.

Anyhow, that's my verdict.

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

Post

softska wrote:
HcDoom wrote:How are the SPL De-Essers?
Absolutely loathe it, but then I know someone swears by it so... Demo. It's very much love or hate thing.
Agreed. I could never get them to work.. only tried the hardware so I didn't even bother to demo the plugins.

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

Post

Since you love compressors, what's your verdict on Vertigo?

Post

Everyone is different :hihi:

It is a bummer about the DSM. The workaround is to save that curve and reload it. It saves all the other settings. It's terrific even w/o using the curve though. If you have a drum buss, throw in on, bring the thresh down a bit, then boost the gain. Just that alone is wonderous at getting a bigger sound w/o squish and you can limit it if needed.

Like I said, maag and mpressor are ace. I just got the shreadspread with is lovely for guitar busses and overheads (yes, really!)

I tried the amp thingy today (can't sleep) and it's pretty meh. Might look into vertigo and alpha since I had a small windfall (unless my car needs even more work :roll: )

Post

bmanic wrote:I'd be very careful of these ones though (YMMV).

SPL Transient Designer does not sound like the hardware in my opinion. The "plop!" you get on the attack is not nearly as smooth as the hardware and it seems to distort quite easily with larger sustain values.. it also pumps sometimes a bit strangely (also true for the hardware). If you need a transient designer thing in plugin format I think the Native Instruments one is a far better purchase.

Most of the BX plugins are a bit "meh.." in my opinion. They make such a huge deal of them doing Mid/Side processing but it's so easy to use the free Voxengo MSED to turn basically any of your plugins into a mid/side process. I also don't like their limiter at all.. nor the saturation thing. In my opinion it sounded quite bad. The dynamic EQ might be useful though.. but I've got two of those already (Voxengo GlissEQ and the excellent MeldaProductions DynamicEQ which is the most powerful of the bunch, by far).

The only plugin I haven't tried is the guitar amp thing. I'm done purchasing guitar amp plugins as I still think they have quite a way to go to sound authentic (though I do like S-Gear a lot and the Yamaha THR10 which is also a DSP amp sim in hardware).

I couldn't get anything that useful out of the SPL EQs either.

Anyhow, that's my verdict.

Cheers!
bManic
I love everything that you hate :hihi: :hihi:

(yes even bx_XL, though I shut off the output peak limit and use ozone in place)

Post

Id say the stars in their line-up:
SPL Passeq, twintube, Mpressor, Alpha, vertigo, Maag, and Saturator.

But you may or may not like these.

I also like the SPL EQ's and the Digital V2 & the XL_V2

I have more plug-ins from them than from anyone else.
Aiynzahev-sounds
Sound Designer - Soundsets for Pigments, Repro, Diva, Virus TI, Nord Lead 4, Serum, DUNE2, Spire, and others

Post

I think the bx-limiter is just great. I would get that. RockRack is also great.
I love that its much more basic than all thi Guitar Rig and Amplitube stuff with all of that effects. RockRack has only a really good delay as effect.
And the Vitalizer I will also buy now as I missed the deal.

Post

Voltaire27 wrote:Since you love compressors, what's your verdict on Vertigo?
A very interesting compressor that intrigued me a lot when I first tried the real hardware at AES at it's introduction. It's a bit of a one trick pony though. It has it's "glue" kind of thing that it does extremely nicely but that's about it. I can't seem to "shape" it or "brute force" it to do other tasks. It either pumps/"sags" a bit weirdly or is just too "fluffy" for whatever material I need.

I didn't purchase it because I simply couldn't afford it. I'm still thinking about it though. I might get it today though.

I'm extremely saturated with compressor. I constantly experiment with my own designs, I use all the Bootsie compressors.. I have all the IK compressors (though I plan to get rid of them soon), most of the Nebula released programs, the glue, sonalksis compressor, DDMF compressors, Toneprojects beatpuncher (formerly known as OtiumFX Beatpuncher), Toneboosters stuff, bluecat compressor, also now both the Elysia compressors.. and probably many more that I just can't think of at this moment. I also experiment with funny designs within FabFilter Volcano and Saturn (now I tend to use saturn as it has the saturation as well so you can do some very complex and nice compression within it).

I've also amassed a massive array of "tricks" which can turn most of my compressors into behaving completely differently from the original design. Will perhaps reveal some day. :hihi:

So.. do I need the Vertigo one? Of course I do!! Oh God I've got GAS again! :help:

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

Post

softska wrote: I love everything that you hate :hihi: :hihi:

(yes even bx_XL, though I shut off the output peak limit and use ozone in place)
And that's the beauty of music production. It's all completely subjective! :tu:

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

Post Reply

Return to “Effects”