Variety Of Sound

not sure what is going on with the download link for epicVerb mkII, all other products on the developer's website download w/o any issues, this one just hangs. I noticed Chrome was the culprit (perhaps in my security settings were too aggressive), so I switched over to Edge and the product downloaded.

The only review that I saw for this plugin is from 2012 and it was for version 1. The purpose of this review is just to give a small update to that old review. Everything in that old review still counts except for the following:

ThrillseekerXTC is now on version 3.0.2, and it supports 64-bit VST2 and VST3 so it is 100% usable in all major DAWs.

Another free release from Variety of Sound that sounds better than a lot of paid options. It's essentially a glue compressor with a subtle tape saturation module. Both can be toggled on/off, but their order is fixed (compressor > trim 1 > saturation > trim 2). While it may not be suitable for tasks that require more aggressive compression and saturation, it excels at gluing busses together and imparting a bit of analog flavour. The resizable UI is also a nice bonus, as some of the developer's older plugins can be slightly difficult to use on larger screens.

An esoteric thing that requires a good ear and, from my experience, manual separation of channels (L/R or M/S done with splitting). So for me, it works best on mixes that "ran their course" but still need some polish, and you want to try a quick thing because you run out of time. For example, in M/S configuration and used carefully, it can give you very quick and very powerful stereo results on master; especially when you have no other "compositional' ways to pull that stereo up. However, it's sometimes hit or miss, and also you have to read the manual to have the slightest idea of what's happening at all, trust me. (In short, it's three compressors that work together and talk to each other, but not really.) Other than that, at this point I'm ready to say that it's tried and tested in the real world for multiple years, that it works and sometimes works as an irreplaceable thing, IMO - and I'm usually the first to hate on both compressors and black boxes.

Didn't test it extensively yet, but did use it a lot in one production project (https://youtu.be/L3YSHdWGc0Y) and was very, very happy with how it sits in the mix. Quick responsive interface and not too hard on the CPU.

It's one of my secret weapon :

It's one of the best watchdog against volume bias (louder is better) thanks to
the great AGC.

I use it as the big broad shaping tool to quickly get me where I wanna be.

Unless I need fine resonance/gross stuff control or make final adjustements to the mix (which might requires a more analytical mindset) I only use this.

Also great while producing.

Docking a point for very occasional stability issues, but this is a really smooth-sounding plate reverb that you can make brighter without sounding harsh. The GUI is nice and big on modern setups, and I've got my fingers crossed that VoS uses it as a model to update their older plugins, which can often be a bit small and hard to read.

One of the best ambient reverbs you can get for free. The controls are simple and intuitive so you can quickly create gigantic lush reverbs to use on synth pads etc. The included presets also do a good job of showing off the different sounds you can get (some of them surprisingly subtle).