Which virtual instruments should I keep? In need of advice in purging my VSTi plugins.

[RLSguitar]

Dear fellow KVRers,

I'm seeking advice from veterans who are recovering from the newbie G.A.S. addiction to accumulating too many softsynths, have tried them all (or a significant quantity of these) and have found those that are keepers.


Some Background Information

I'm a long-time geeky guitarist-songwriter and software power user who knows a bit of keys. I'm a huge synthesizer fanatic and have always wanted to learn to use these amazing instruments. About a couple years ago, I finally decided to take the plunge into MIDI keyboard controllers and VST software synthesizers/samplers. Since then, I've been a common noob in accumulating too many virtual instruments (free, magware and commercial), soundbanks, tutorials and the like that I now find myself too overwhelmed to actually work on my music. I spend all my time trying out different VSTis and sounds trying to find those that I like for a song that I never get any effective recording done.

Compounded to this are certain health challenges that have severely limited my capacity to work in my normal career as a business analyst/technical communication consultant. Thus, I haven't been able to work for over two years, which has caused me financial troubles. Fortunately to some degree, despite my health challenges, creating and working on music is one of the few activities I can still perform for a few hours a day.

However, being a guitarist-songwriter that for decades has been on an eternal quest for the "right" tone and a sound unique to me (which I still haven't found), I've over-extended myself and need to clean up my VST plugins folder. I also need to sell all I can for financial reasons. I've already sold all the guitars and hardware gear I'm willing to part with, which has been very painful, and now it is time to do the same with my music software.


Help Me Purge My VST Plugins Folder

Finally after this long explanation (if you're still with me, I'm very grateful for your patience), here is my dilemma with which I need your help: Considering my current situation, which of the virtual instruments listed in the next section should I keep as minimum or which should I get rid of and why? Also, is there some virtual instrument that I'm missing or that I should replace with something else? In your response, please take into account the following:

• [] Though I have a strong progressive symphonic rock and ambient music influence, I am seeking my own signature sound and multi-genre style in my music.
  
  [] I've been hired to arrange music created by others and have requests for music collaborations within a wide variety of overlapping genres (no disco, dance music, hip-hop or polka yet, but I dare not say never).
  
  [] I may have opportunities to create music for a few independent films.
  
  [] I'm a very prolific songwriter/music creator.
  
  [] I want to have a handful of high-quality virtual instruments that are updated as required to last many years, with paid upgrades every couple or so years (not yearly), from developers who are planning to be around for many years to come.
  
  [] I wish to streamline my workflow so I can get back to my music.
  
  [] I've been mostly a preset user but I want to learn to create my own sounds and have comprehensive options to tweak sounds. I already have a lot of video tutorials and reference materials for learning about softsynth programming, sound design and MIDI.

My Virtual Instrument Inventory

Basses:
- 4Front Bass (Free)
- Cakewalk Studio Instruments Bass Guitar (NFR)
- Togu Audio Line (TAL) BassLine (Free)
- Varisha Fender Fingered 49 Keys (Free)
- Varisha Fender Fingered 88 Keys (Free)

Drums & Percussion:
- AudioRealism ADM CM (Magware)
- Cakewalk Studio Instruments Drum Kit (NFR)
- iZotope iDrum (Commercial)
- LinPlug CM-505 (Magware)
- Toontrack EZdrummer (Commercial)

Pianos:
- 4Front E-Piano (Free)
- 4Front Piano (Free)
- 4Front R-Piano (Free)
- Acoustica Pianissimo (NFR)
- Cakewalk Studio Instruments Electric Piano (NFR)
- GSi MrTramp2 (Free)
- Sound Magic Piano One (Free)
- Toontrack EZkeys Grand Piano (Commercial)
- Varisha Binaural Piano (Free)
- Varisha Classical Grand (Free)
- Varisha T-Custom Piano (Free)
- XLN Audio Addictive Keys Studio Grand (Commercial) *

Strings & Orchestral:
- Cakewalk Studio Instruments String Section (NFR)
- EWQL Symphonic Choirs with WordBuilder (Commercial)
- Garritan Instant Orchestra (Commercial)
- IK Multimedia Miroslav Philharmonik (Commercial) *
- Sound Magic Orchestral Strings (Free)

Synths & Romplers:
- Applied Acoustics Systems Player (Free)
- Applied Acoustics Systems Ultra Analog VA-1 and VA-2 (Commercial NFR)
- Arturia Analog Lab (Commercial)
- Arturia Analog Laboratory (Commercial)
- BigTick Rhino CM (Magware)
- Cableguys Curve 2 CM (Magware)
- Cakewalk Dimension Pro (Commercial NFR)
- Cakewalk Sound Center (NFR)
- Cakewalk Square I (Free)
- Cakewalk z3ta+ 1.5 (NFR) **
- Camel Audio Alchemy (Commercial)
- Expert Sleepers xfadelooper CM (Magware)
- IK Multimedia SampleMoog (Commercial) *
- IK Multimedia SampleTank 2.5 (Commercial) *
- IK Multimedia SampleTron (Commercial - 2 licenses) *
- IK Multimedia Sonik Synth 2 (Commercial) *
- Korg M1 Le (NFR)
- KV331 SynthMaster (Commercial)
- LinPlug Alpha CM (Magware)
- Loomer Cumulus CM (Magware)
- Madrona Labs Aalto CM (Magware)
- Native Instruments Kontakt Player 4 (Free)
- Native Instruments Kontakt Player 5 (Free)
- Native Instruments Kore Player (Free)
- Native Instruments Reaktor Player 5 (Free)
- Rob Papen RG-Muted CM (Magware)
- Synapse Audio Dune CM (Magware)
- Togu Audio Line (TAL) NoiseMaker (Free)
- Tone2 FireBird (Free)
- u-he Podolski (Free)
- u-he TyrellN6 (Free)
- u-he Zebra CM (Magware)
- u-he Zebralette (Free)
- Xils polyKB II CM (Magware)


Miscellaneous:
- Delay Lama (Free)
- Varisha Lyric Trumpet (Free)

Notes:
- My DAW host is Reaper.
- I have a good assortment of soundbanks for some of these.
- G.A.S. = Gear Acquisition Syndrome
- NFR = Not for Resale -- I either got these included with hardware or purchased a non-transferable license.
- * I currently have these for sale on the KVR Marketplace (XLN Studio Grand and all my IK Multimedia software).
- ** Zeta+ 1.5: If keeping it, should I upgrade to v2.1?


If you've read this post to this point without being bored to death, I truly admire your concentration and patience, and am very grateful for tolerating me. Thanks so much to those who post advice in helping me with my great VST plugins folder purge.

In exchange for your posts, I can give you a few demo recordings of my solo instrumental guitar music, if you wish. Just send me a PM requesting these and I'll send you a download link. If you want to listen to it first, please visit my website.

Peace, blessings and happy Thanksgiving (for those of us who celebrate this day)!


P.S.: Next is the purge of my DSP FX plugins, but that is for different thread in the Effects forum...

[rockstar_not]

Simple,

Look through your past 10 COMPLETED tracks - keep the plugins you used. Put the others away.

[RLSguitar]

Simple,

Look through your past 10 COMPLETED tracks - keep the plugins you used. Put the others away.

Thanks for your reply. The problem is that I haven't been able to complete any recordings because I keep trying out softsynths and sounds attempting to find the right one for the recording. So I need to reduce these and need help choosing just a handful with the quality and features I may require.

[BBFG#]

First, is the purge from your system or just the VST Folder?
Is it a question of the DAW load time or other factor of efficiency?

Next, I would list them in their obvious categories. i.e. 'Free/NFR/never use/32bit' & already for sale. Some things start eliminating themself.
As I've done on my system, I have actually created folders under those names/types and can add or remove them from the scan as I choose.
And I'm just now starting to make the list of what I DON'T use in each of them and will start by striping unnecessary or redundant libraies from them.

I think there's more than one way to look at this though.

[spirit]

What a list! Some people will shoot me down for this, but I'd take every free thing and most of the NFRs and (at least temporarily) retire them. If you feel the pangs of loss from any particular item after a month then bring it back.

In each of your categories I'd then just choose one or two things to keep. For example, in synths I'd get rid of everything except Alchemy and maybe one or two others.

What I most notice about the list is that there's quite a bit of so-so gear and not very many top shelf items.

I think you could trim the whole thing down to about half a dozen items and with the proceeds from sales get Kontakt and a couple of top quality sample libraries.

[rockstar_not]

Simple,

Look through your past 10 COMPLETED tracks - keep the plugins you used. Put the others away.

Thanks for your reply. The problem is that I haven't been able to complete any recordings because I keep trying out softsynths and sounds attempting to find the right one for the recording. So I need to reduce these and need help choosing just a handful with the quality and features I may require.

For not completing a song, you sure do have alot of plugins. You have probably over $1000 of plugins in your list.

Keep the XLN stuff. Keep Z3TA. Keep any GSi stuff. Keep Miroslav.

Go do a track to completion. Put everything else away. Complete a track - don't worry about 'getting rid of' other stuff. Discipline yourself to complete a song using just those plugins.

If you cannot do that with these plugins, then you have a larger problem at hand.

[Cuauhtli]

Keep Alchemy and SynthMaster.

[pdxindy]

Spending a bunch of time whittling down your collection is also another way to spend time not making music. Go complete a song.

[RLSguitar]

First, is the purge from your system or just the VST Folder?
Is it a question of the DAW load time or other factor of efficiency?

Next, I would list them in their obvious categories. i.e. 'Free/NFR/never use/32bit' & already for sale. Some things start eliminating themself.
As I've done on my system, I have actually created folders under those names/types and can add or remove them from the scan as I choose.
And I'm just now starting to make the list of what I DON'T use in each of them and will start by striping unnecessary or redundant libraies from them.

I think there's more than one way to look at this though.

This is great advice, thanks! I haven't decided, but if I'm not going to use it, I'd prefer to uninstall/delete from my system to keep things efficient and nice 'n' tidy. Although, my system can handle all these and more. I'll keep a backup of installer/source files in case I want to reinstall later.

I have a relatively powerful system, a recent model Sweetwater Creation Station 400 with Intel Quad Core i7-3770 3.40 GHz processor, 16MB RAM memory upgrade, 500GB system drive and a 1TB file drive. I run the VSTs and standalones from the system drive and all prset/sound libraries and DAW project files are on the second drive. My OS is Windows 7 x64 and my DAW host is Reaper x64. I run 32-bit VSTs seamlessly through Reapers internal bridge, though I have jBridge in case I need it. I also have a separate file server for long term archive and daily backups of my entire system. Furthermore, I do periodic redundant backups to external hard drives in case of catastrophic failure and if I need to reinstall and reconfigure everything.

Reaper has features for organizing VSTs in folders within the DAWS add FX interface. I've done this adding some VSTs repeatedly in several folders within multiple categories. For me, it complicates the workflow. Scanning or not different folders is a good idea, I'll try it to see if it fits my desired workflow, but I think reducing the number of plugins is better and less time consuming in the short and long run.

I will follow your advice of looking at the different angles. I may even build an MS-Excel spreadsheet with pivot tables to analyze the different options. Being a business analyst, I can be obsessive-compulsive at times in "overthinking" things. For me, the process and workflow are fundamental but planning is primary. It's high time I follow my own advice too.

[NAD]

I think your choice of categories says a lot about your musical priorities. For example many people might lump their piano plugins in the same list as strings and orchestral plugins. Others might make separate lists for acoustic pianos and electric pianos. What I'm trying to say is I think you'd do best to just pick one or two from each category.

I personally would keep:
EZdrummer
Addictive Keys
all the Cakewalk Studio stuff
then sell all the synthesizers and buy Zebra (which happens to be my "desert island" synth)

I don't know how much that helps.. Obviously it's really such a personal thing, I doubt you'll get two similar answers.

I should also mention that I still hold on to Delay-Lama, though I can't actually remember ever using it.!..

[RLSguitar]

For not completing a song, you sure do have alot of plugins. You have probably over $1000 of plugins in your list.

Keep the XLN stuff. Keep Z3TA. Keep any GSi stuff. Keep Miroslav.

Go do a track to completion. Put everything else away. Complete a track - don't worry about 'getting rid of' other stuff. Discipline yourself to complete a song using just those plugins.

If you cannot do that with these plugins, then you have a larger problem at hand.

Yes, this is cause from a larger problem of my bad habits stemming from my health challenges and a bit of procrastination on my part, I must admit. This is a start in changing my behavior, I hope...

[RLSguitar]

Keep Alchemy and SynthMaster.

I'm wanting to keep Alchemy, but am deciding between SynthMaster or upgrading to Z3ta+2.1. Decision, decisions...

[RLSguitar]

Spending a bunch of time whittling down your collection is also another way to spend time not making music. Go complete a song.

So true my friend, I need to make an effort to start changing my behavior and quit procrastinating!

[werp]

Keep the lot. Unless you are hard up for cash.
It's not like they take up all of your wardrobe space.
Re-buying something is really really silly.

[RLSguitar]

I think your choice of categories says a lot about your musical priorities. For example many people might lump their piano plugins in the same list as strings and orchestral plugins. Others might make separate lists for acoustic pianos and electric pianos. What I'm trying to say is I think you'd do best to just pick one or two from each category.

I personally would keep:
EZdrummer
Addictive Keys
all the Cakewalk Studio stuff
then sell all the synthesizers and buy Zebra (which happens to be my "desert island" synth)

I don't know how much that helps.. Obviously it's really such a personal thing, I doubt you'll get two similar answers.

I should also mention that I still hold on to Delay-Lama, though I can't actually remember ever using it.!..

I've read so many great things about Zebra, as well as about Alchemy. Maybe further down the line after I've had time to learn Alchemy and see if it's the right sound design tool for me or not, I may sell it and purchase Zebra.

Haha, Delay Lama is so cool and fun! I'm keeping that one for sure just for kicks. Maybe it will make into my music someday.