What would you go with?

[No name]

I know these "what would you pick" threads have to have gotten so old even before I came onto KVR. I need to do one though. If you could choose about 5 plug ins (or a bundle of plug ins) to do all your various chores (filtering, reverb, EQ, etc) what would it be? The reason I ask is that I want an effects suite, but I don't want to go and buy every single little effect that comes out. I just need about 5 to get the job done, and I sure as hell don't want to spend 1000 dollars on buying 200 plug ins. I'll ge the 5 and learn every single thing about them, and use them effectively. I want to know what everyone else would choose, that way I can demo all the choices and get the 5 (or 6 or whatever) I find suit me the best.

[The Chase]

what would you do if every person recommended a bunch of top notch plugs that you would never use

[shamann]

I was going to try to answer, but realized I could never make do with just five effects. But then you shouldn't have to spend a lot of money on them as you could get hundreds of excellent free effects.

An example of five most excellent freeware effects:

EQ - audio da onça posihfopit
Compressor - buzzroom BuzCompFree
Filter - Obertone Filterbank
Delay - P1 Tape Delay
Modulator - Big Tick Hexaline

Top quality all of those. But you will likely find, as I often find, a few is not enough. Many plugins will take a different approach to the same task, pushing you towards different results for each one you use. Take limiters: the TbT Pocket one is beautiful, but I've found in some fairly simple instances I prefer the Classic from Kjaerhus, or Buz Maxi in other cases.

I'm not one who believes in the dictum that limiting yourself is always better for productivity. It can be, especially if you just test all the time or goof around, but at other times if you're spending all your time getting one shoe to fit all feet, that actually can be just as much of an obstacle.

Also contrary to the 'get a few learn them well' refrain that often floats around, it is not that hard to learn how to use these inside and out quickly. P1 Tapedelay, for instance, has only 7 widgets showing. How hard is it really to learn 7 widgets? Move them all about, listen to what changes, repeat a few times. 5 minutes, right? EnergyXT, Cubase SX, Sonar, etc. Now those are hard to learn quickly. Freakin' million hidden things in there.

If you only want five or six, go with things that can do a lot of different things, like a modular, something like QuantumFX or Reaktor.

Or like Ozone for dynamics and EQ things, QuadFrohamge for big filtering things, Ronin for more filtering and all delay type things, Spectrumworx for spectral processing, and then figure out which reverb you like best and get a really good one.

Cheers,
Steve

[hoffy]

equim, waves renaissance compressor, fab filter volcano.

choose your own delay and reverb

and try out the kjaeurhus Audio (however its spelt) classic series (free)

[Kraku]

I second that Kjaerhus Audio's Classic Series is worth checking out. It REALLY is on the same level as most of the better commercial plugins.

I also recommend the Golden Series from Kjaerhus Audio (commercial plugins). They're really really good...

But if I really had to give you names of some plugins, I'd probably tell you to check out these plugs:

[compressor/limiter]
Kjaerhus Audio - GCO-1
Kjaerhus Audio - GUP-1
Kjaerhus Audio - GPP-1
Sonalksis - SV-315
Sonalksis - CQ1


[eq]
Kjaerhus Audio - GEQ-7
Sonalksis - SV-517
Sonalksis - DQ1

[reverb]
Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Reverb
Princeton Digital - 2016 Stereo Room (does only one kind of reverb, but the results are excellent)
Knufinke - SIR (if your host has PDC)

[delay]
Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Delay
PSP - PSP 84

[modulation]
Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Phaser
Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Chorus
Kjaerhus Audio - Classic Flanger
Kjaerhus Audio - GMO-1

[filters]
PSP - Nitro
OhmForce - Quadfrohmage

[distortion]
OhmForce - Predatohm

[mastering]
Voxengo - Elephant


I don't have all those plugins, but I see them as the best in my book...

[No name]

No waves products for me, too damn expensive. I like the idea of fabfilter volcano though. The demo really kicked ass. Boy, it is quite a difficult decision too. With filters, I have two top choices. Fabfilter volcano or PSP nitro. On one hand i'm like "volcano sounds so good," but on the other hand I think "Nitro is so flexible!"

[No name]

Honestly, if hardware was more cheap, I would integrate a lot of hardware with my PC for a soft/hardware studio. I'm not a traveling musician so I don't mind hardware.

[ouroboros]

To start, I would recommend these suites, all free, all excellent:
LFX-1310 an all in one unit w/ reverb/delays/chorus,etc. Sounds nice. Excellent cpu
It has become a go-to for me just because it is a do-everything in one plug deal.

Kjaerhaus: a pack of great, simple plugins with o.k. guis and excellent sound. Have to d/l one at a time, but so what: they're free

BetaBugs; again, individual downloads. Simple, functional, great support.

Honorable mention, only because they don't have the variety of the others:
Floorfish: gate/compressor/limiter
Buzzroom: the ultimate compressor suite. No other fx in it, though (He does have a delay and a reverb, though)

[rpc9943]

just learn your tools is all i got to say. learn how each plugin can work, and then you have so many tools to work with. just like theres different types of screwdrivers, and hammers, etc etc you can find what tool you need from your "toolbox"

many plugs i know how to use and others i dont yet, but its still in my virtual toolbox... i mean clients can be like "i want this to sound like ... *such and such*" and I can confidently say, okay i can do that. that's the point you want to be at. You can do most of these things with free plugins.

RoNC

[BONES]

Given your criteria and my situation, I'd say to hell with buying anything, just use the ones that come with ORION Platinum. The only thing that doesn't really do it for me is the Chorus, even the Platinum one. For that I use Kjaerhus Classic Chorus.