Plugin Alliance Christmas calendar

[kenobi77]

I bought the Twin Tube and bx_saturator during the original sale period and said that's it and didn't consider buying another, until today that is! Perhaps it's because it's new year today and can start a fresh , but I'm thinking "just one more" and have downloaded and started the demo of the vitalizer.

I make Dance Music, and always convinced myself that certain plugins weren't as usefull for this style of music (not saying they can't be used but perhaps just not as effective as with real instruments/voices), but reading Aiynzahev's posts is really making it tough for me to maintain this pretence!

[Aiynzahev]

I bought the Twin Tube and bx_saturator during the original sale period and said that's it and didn't consider buying another, until today that is! Perhaps it's because it's new year today and can start a fresh , but I'm thinking "just one more" and have downloaded and started the demo of the vitalizer.

I make Dance Music, and always convinced myself that certain plugins weren't as usefull for this style of music (not saying they can't be used but perhaps just not as effective as with real instruments/voices), but reading Aiynzahev's posts is really making it tough for me to maintain this pretence!

Thats true, like I don't really click with Softube and I think it's for that reason, more rock oriented maybe. But I highly recommend MAAG, SPL Passeq, Digital V2 and Alpha Comp. I don't think vintage really works well for dense trance music, I like pretty clean modern stuff with some pleasing thd.

[dusted william]

I think the vitalizer is good for dance music. Maybe not trance, but all types of house for sure.

dw

[kenobi77]

I bought the Twin Tube and bx_saturator during the original sale period and said that's it and didn't consider buying another, until today that is! Perhaps it's because it's new year today and can start a fresh , but I'm thinking "just one more" and have downloaded and started the demo of the vitalizer.

I make Dance Music, and always convinced myself that certain plugins weren't as usefull for this style of music (not saying they can't be used but perhaps just not as effective as with real instruments/voices), but reading Aiynzahev's posts is really making it tough for me to maintain this pretence!

Thats true, like I don't really click with Softube and I think it's for that reason, more rock oriented maybe. But I highly recommend MAAG, SPL Passeq, Digital V2 and Alpha Comp. I don't think vintage really works well for dense trance music, I like pretty clean modern stuff with some pleasing thd.

Hmmm....looks like its gonna be a longnight demoing plugins

People really seem to be loving the MAAG. Digital V2 is a product that i always associated with PA, seems to be revered by people, to hand i remember seeing dom kane refer to it as very powerful, but not much enthusiam for it in this thread.

Excluding bus compression im starting to find that i find the ableton or maschine compressor the best option when wanting to achieve the result on a specific track as opposed to varous third party compressors i have. What situations do you use the Alpha Comp? Actually the same question with the SPL passeq

[hibidy]

Is this sale EVER going to end?

[kenobi77]

I think the vitalizer is good for dance music. Maybe not trance, but all types of house for sure.

dw

When i was playing with this earlier i was using it on individual tracks and often it just made things sound a bit better than before although i cant quite explain why, not a good explanation i know. Why do u feel that it wouldnt work with trance but with house? Hopefully your explanations are better than mine (which would probably read like "it makes trance sound bad, but house sound good" )

[Aiynzahev]

People really seem to be loving the MAAG. Digital V2 is a product that i always associated with PA, seems to be revered by people, to hand i remember seeing dom kane refer to it as very powerful, but not much enthusiam for it in this thread.

Excluding bus compression im starting to find that i find the ableton or maschine compressor the best option when wanting to achieve the result on a specific track as opposed to varous third party compressors i have. What situations do you use the Alpha Comp? Actually the same question with the SPL passeq

Well, MAAG because it's so easy to dial in a huge change to the sound without it sounding like you have EQ'd it, it just sounds like the sound got better.

Digital V2 is just an EQ, but it's a good one. It's a bit of a pain to use on tracks because the GUI is so big, so I tend to use it on busses and the master. It's great for small adjustments as well as M/S eqing. There is something about it's curve that just works in the mid-range. Often with stock EQ plugins if you boost an area, especially the mid areas, it instantly sounds like you've messed with the sound and parts of the spectrum "stick out".

With Digital V2 it might sound wrong if you boost too much in the mid for example, but not because it sounds odd or off, it just may or may not work with the content. It also has a great stereo widener built in which goes up to 400%, so it really goes through a lot of different width sounds along the way. It's a huge advantage to have all this in one place and speeds things up a lot, you try things out just because they are there sometimes and it works.

I use the Alpha Mix compressor on sounds that are somewhat small and short (like plugs, or guitar sounds) that I need to give more presence in the mix. It's good at really compressing them in a gentle but heavy way (with it's feedforward mode). Anything that needs a bit more strength in the mix.

I use the Alpha bus compressor on the mix bus sometimes, not always, I am not actually a big fan of bus compression, but if I have a sparse mix nothing works as well as Alpha compressor. Say you only have a few parts playing, drums bass and some pad sounds or some plucks, when you put the Alpha on there everything will just "bloom" and you will get a sense that suddenly all the different parts are interacting with each other.

You tend to want to use buss compression to 1) gel things together, 2) add energy through movement. This does both very well. It also can do more than that with its EQ filter, brighten things up or beef up the bass and it really works well. Widen, Narrow or give a bit of grit by soft clipping.

It can be used for really creative stuff too as it has M/S and parallel controls as well as softclip. Just flip through the presets and you'll see what I mean. It can do so much and it's always good at it.

SPL I use to clean up muddy low-mids, It's really good for that, even very small adjustments can really clarify things. I use it for High end boosts, this will just take the blanket off the mix, makes everything much easier to hear, it doesn't sound like you just boosted a high end on an EQ either. Most importantly I use this for bass, there is little else that can give you the low end beef this can.

Hope that helps. Their Saturator is great too.

[kenobi77]

Yes, thanks very much , that is useful and helps me to put some context to things.

I went for the Alpha Comp not the Vitalizer in the end. I liked what both did but as I'd just invested in two satruation plugins it made sense to go for a completely different effect type.

The also made me think perhaps I shouldn't have bought two satruation plugins in the first place, perhaps would have been better of with one of them and perhaps something like the Maag.


cheers

[kylen]

No word about SPL Twintube plugin fix yet, checked the Plugin Alliance web site yesterday. Some of us have a problem with extreme cpu spike on Win7 32bit. In my case I can clear it by turning OFF the Harmonics button...

[dusted william]

No fix on DSM in sight either.

dw

[kylen]

No fix on DSM in sight either.
dw

I came 'this' close to picking that up after watching and demoing for a year or so...hope the fix comes soon.

[dusted william]

No fix on DSM in sight either.
dw

I came 'this' close to picking that up after watching and demoing for a year or so...hope the fix comes soon.

I have a gut feeling that it will never come.

dw

[metamorphosis]

Are any of the codes still valid? If so, can someone let me know the code for the SPL Full Ranger?

[hibidy]

No fix on DSM in sight either.
dw

I came 'this' close to picking that up after watching and demoing for a year or so...hope the fix comes soon.

I have a gut feeling that it will never come.

dw

I'm PLENTY PISSED brohiems!

@meta: Their promotion involves buying a couple and getting some free right now. I doubt they are doing anything else.

[metamorphosis]

I bought MAAGEQ - but didn't try out free ranger until it was too late - then I realised how awesome Full Ranger was (even with my 5 other eq's) and didn't have a decent price for it anymore.