Decent bundle of Effects, not expensive.

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Is there any similar bundle with good visual feedback like Fabfilter, but cheaper?

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roman.i wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 12:25 pm Is there any similar bundle with good visual feedback like Fabfilter, but cheaper?

https://www.tracktion.com/products/daw- ... collection

That's in line with your budget as well.

It's a really useful and enjoyable set of plugins that cover just about all the bases. It's somewhat fabfilter like in the GUI department. Well worth the money and very high quality.

I did get one annoying bug with the plugins not remembering their settings, and I don't know if it was ever fixed. I lost some work effectively when on recall in the DAW the plugins reverted to default. You have to save the preset and not expect it to be remembered by the DAW. But then again, it wasn't all DAWs that behaved this way, some remembered the settings. Hopefully they've sorted that out by now (don't think they had last update iirc).

But for the money that's as close as you will get to what you're looking for. Just check the DAW you are using is recalling the patch properly when you reload your project. If not, just save the patch.

All the plugins are very good, but I really like the gate/expander and ducker - very very quick to work with to carve out that space and find the sweet spot. The reverbs, delays, compressors and Eq all work as expected, no complaints.

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I would second the Tracktion DAW Essentials recommendation - good choice for "bread and butter" plugins and pretty good feedback to boot. In terms of cost-effectiveness, I recently picked up the Toneboosters BusTools pack, and for 5 quid a plugin there are some impressive utility plugs in there (Isone alone I've found to be quickly essential for working and listening with headphones, evoke and fix are quite powerful in their own right, plus tape saturation, pitch shifting with formant correction, pro de-essing...). There's also the AIR Music fx package that goes on sale for super-cheap quite regularly (so long as you're willing to deal with iLok), and it comes with an absolute ton of plugins...

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My recommendations - check GVST, Voxengo, Blue cat audio

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Waves Gold bundle is on sale now for $100. Looks like it worth the money, but these old plugins are not resizable and have bad graphics. So not sure if they worth buying.

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roman.i wrote: Sun Sep 22, 2019 12:25 pm Is there any similar bundle with good visual feedback like Fabfilter, but cheaper?
anything that's remotely close to fabfilter or dmg audio will have some expensive price tags but that's normal for those quality plugins

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Finally got Waves Gold for $100.

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MountainKing wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:27 pm I'd look out for Waves Horizon.

It's usually much more expensive but when there's a sale around you can get really close to 150 USD.

https://www.waves.com/bundles/horizon
Damn. That’s a good price for it!!! Just checked and it’s about $330 now. I’m willing to bet that we’ll see it closer to $150 for Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

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Waves is good but it's old now. They've tried to come up to speed with all the new VST tech by leveraging their back catalogue. Sometimes they throw a bone. Sometimes they bone you.

Lots of accusations against Waves. Not going to get in to that. Maybe a bit of 'sharp practice' going on. I couldn't possibly comment...

Waves Gold is a good package for the price. Couple of things to think of:

1: Compatibility - the Waveshell is a nightmare in many hosts. You can get around it with shell2vst and VSTWrapperBuilder, but mileage will vary on your particular system. I've had good results with both, but it takes a certain amount of effort. I recently had a total fail with both of those on a new system. Time consuming, unpredictable results. Waves plugins do not install like most other plugins. Know this.

2: Waves update plan. Yeah, you is gonna get wupped! No, no one expects for life updates for free, but you know, at least give us a warning when you are going to break OS compatibility so we can mitigate. What, no warning? Guess we'll just have to pay the couple of hundred bucks then to keep the plugins we paid for working in our old projects. Lots of animosity with this one. Do your due diligence. It may or may not work for you (in 2 years).


Having said all that, Waves Gold provides some solid plugins, not least the old classics like C1 Compressor/Gate/SC, C4 Multiband, L1 Ultramaximizer, PAZ Analyzer, Q10 Equalizer (with new GUI), SuperTap, TrueVerb, IR-L Convolution Reverb, and last but not least the Rennaisance classics like the Comp, EQ and Reverb.

You get about 5GB of IR files to go with the IR-L Convolution Reverb. You can use some of them in other convolution plugins. I loaded mine in to Fog Convolver. But most are proprietary format.

The Rennaisance plugins are still very much respected today. Maybe because they just do the job and the old boys know how to use them. Each has their charm. The EQ has some very nice 'curves' when working with it. Read the manual to find out why. Some say it 'models' a Manley Massive Passive. It's a very 'musical' EQ for sure.

The Q10 is more of a surgical EQ. It's great for fixing resonances you might get in a snare drum, say. The new GUI is very nice. Very nice plugin to have.

Then you have more modern stuff in the package like the 'H' series. Hybrid Delay and Compressor. Both very modern and very useful. Very tweakable. Great plugins.

There are some unique plugins as well that you won't really see copied elsewhere. One is the MaxxBass. It adds harmonics to low volume program material to enhance the impression of low end bass. It kind of works. Not much like it really out there. A few things, but they don't work the same way.

Then you have extra plugins again like the Vitamin Sonic Enhancer. This is a very useful plugin to have. A real joy to use. Then there is the Waves Tune thingie which is a cut down version of their other tune thingie which some people swear by. Again, great to have in the toolbox.

There's lots of nice plugins here. Plus a few extra on top.


Keep in mind you can only use these plugs on one system at a time. So be prepared for shenanigans if you want to move things about a lot.


I would never recommend these plugins over Toneboosters or the like, where you can just download once and deploy anywhere once you have the keys. Far easier. Quality over quantity and the same price in this instance for the Essentials and Bus Tools packages (80 quid or so). More modern plugins as well.

Waves can make sense for those who know what they are doing. Those that don't have high expectations, such as, ok, this will only work on one of my systems, and it might stop working next year, at the whim of some corporate entity, but maybe I'll get lucky... maybe I won't.

Like I said earlier, you will probably want to use one of the shell systems to get the plugins to be readable in some of your DAWs - it works well in some but not in others. Then again, you can even use Waves in EnergyXT2, just as long as you don't miss having the GUIs. They still work fine though. Quite fun, in fact...

You can also strip out all the superfluous mono and mono/stereo plugins when you rebuild in one of those shell programs. Lots of threads on this around the place.


For a total noob I wouldn't bother with the grief. I'd get the Toneboosters bundles and be done with it. Knowing I could deploy on as many systems as I liked, and that they would always work, while still getting compatible upgrades as well. No fuss, no brainer. And less plugins to confuse my little noob brain too. I mean, what is a 'Mondo' or a 'PAZ' really?

But then again, once you got the Toneboosters bundles and whatnot, Waves is quite a nice little collection to have on top, as long as you have realistic expectations.

Not to be discounted out of hand, but caveat emptor.


And don't forget a lot of these GUIs are old now and very small on new high resolution monitors. Something to consider.


Waves, whether they realise it or not, are kind of on the naughty step. They are held in high suspicion in one regard, but also in high regard, in another. They have tried to come up to date with the new plugin paradigms of the 21st Century and have done a pretty good job as well, but they still have a long way to go.

Maybe if they made the whole update process a bit more transparent, maybe if they brought a few of those old small GUIs up to date for little to no cost, maybe if they created a little bit more goodwill among those they have upset (for whatever reason), then they will still have a place in 10 years time. They have the pedigree. Do they have the vision?

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Just beware of Paz Analyzer. It doesn't show anything below -60db. I deleted it since it screwed me over.

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Why does it have to be a bundle?

Why not mix’n’ match, so you can hone in on exactly what you are interested in?

Some recommendations to check out:

Toneboosters - EQ4 & Barricade
Klanghelm - DC8C3, SDRR2 & MJUC
Unfiltered Audio - G8

That gets you a great eq (with dynamic eq’ing built in), a limiter, a workhorse compressor, a character compressor, saturation & an extremely flexible gate plugin. All are top notch, and you can pick them all up for the price of one of FF’s plugs :tu:

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codec_spurt wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 3:41 am
1: Compatibility - the Waveshell is a nightmare in many hosts. You can get around it with shell2vst and VSTWrapperBuilder, but mileage will vary on your particular system. I've had good results with both, but it takes a certain amount of effort. I recently had a total fail with both of those on a new system. Time consuming, unpredictable results. Waves plugins do not install like most other plugins. Know this.

2: Waves update plan. Yeah, you is gonna get wupped! No, no one expects for life updates for free, but you know, at least give us a warning when you are going to break OS compatibility so we can mitigate. What, no warning? Guess we'll just have to pay the couple of hundred bucks then to keep the plugins we paid for working in our old projects. Lots of animosity with this one. Do your due diligence. It may or may not work for you (in 2 years).
...
ok, this will only work on one of my systems, and it might stop working next year, at the whim of some corporate entity, but maybe I'll get lucky... maybe I won't.

3. And don't forget a lot of these GUIs are old now and very small on new high resolution monitors. Something to consider.
1. Each Waves plugin appears as a separate VST3 plugin in my DAW by default. You also have the Waveshell thing, but personally I don't use it.

2. I don't get it, how they can break the OS compatibility if you don't get any updates?

3. This is the main problem with these plugins, even on a full hd monitor renaissance series have a very small GUI.

The major advantage of the Waves bundle for newbies is the amount of courses and tutorials on the internet.

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roman.i wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:02 am
codec_spurt wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 3:41 am
1: Compatibility - the Waveshell is a nightmare in many hosts. You can get around it with shell2vst and VSTWrapperBuilder, but mileage will vary on your particular system. I've had good results with both, but it takes a certain amount of effort. I recently had a total fail with both of those on a new system. Time consuming, unpredictable results. Waves plugins do not install like most other plugins. Know this.

2: Waves update plan. Yeah, you is gonna get wupped! No, no one expects for life updates for free, but you know, at least give us a warning when you are going to break OS compatibility so we can mitigate. What, no warning? Guess we'll just have to pay the couple of hundred bucks then to keep the plugins we paid for working in our old projects. Lots of animosity with this one. Do your due diligence. It may or may not work for you (in 2 years).
...
ok, this will only work on one of my systems, and it might stop working next year, at the whim of some corporate entity, but maybe I'll get lucky... maybe I won't.

3. And don't forget a lot of these GUIs are old now and very small on new high resolution monitors. Something to consider.
1. Each Waves plugin appears as a separate VST3 plugin in my DAW by default. You also have the Waveshell thing, but personally I don't use it.

2. I don't get it, how they can break the OS compatibility if you don't get any updates?

3. This is the main problem with these plugins, even on a full hd monitor renaissance series have a very small GUI.

The major advantage of the Waves bundle for newbies is the amount of courses and tutorials on the internet.

Boy, you sure come alive when Waves are mentioned, ah?

Okays...


1. Each Waves plugin appears as a separate VST3 plugin in my DAW by default. You also have the Waveshell thing, but personally I don't use it.

You're on the ball, I'll give you that!


2. I don't get it, how they can break the OS compatibility if you don't get any updates?

Very good question. I can't answer it. I must be an idiot!


3. This is the main problem with these plugins, even on a full hd monitor renaissance series have a very small GUI.


At least we agree on something!

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Razzia wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:30 am If you don't have a problem with dongles, the VPS essential FX Bundle v2 is a really good complement to stock DAW plugins. As a whole it's a bit more sound design/fx oriented than mixing, and a little more interesting and exotic than the usual DAW plugs. At $120 for 15 effect plugins, some of which I'd consider somewhat hidden gems, I think it's a really good value, although you still have to buy the dongle for $25 or whatever. Some of the effects are fairly genre specific - the trancegate and two or three different types of pitch/time/buffer shifters, for instance, aren't the type of thing you'd want for orchestral musc, but for dance, hip hop, glitch, dubstep, etc. they are pretty underrated IMO.
https://vengeance-sound.com/plugins.php ... Bundle%202
Just be wary - if you have a 4k monitor or something crazy, the UI's are probably really small. They're a bit on the small side on my monitor, which isn't anything fancy.
Wow, these plugins are really impressive. Especially the free scope plugin.

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roman.i wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:02 am
codec_spurt wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 3:41 am
1: Compatibility - the Waveshell is a nightmare in many hosts. You can get around it with shell2vst and VSTWrapperBuilder, but mileage will vary on your particular system. I've had good results with both, but it takes a certain amount of effort. I recently had a total fail with both of those on a new system. Time consuming, unpredictable results. Waves plugins do not install like most other plugins. Know this.

2: Waves update plan. Yeah, you is gonna get wupped! No, no one expects for life updates for free, but you know, at least give us a warning when you are going to break OS compatibility so we can mitigate. What, no warning? Guess we'll just have to pay the couple of hundred bucks then to keep the plugins we paid for working in our old projects. Lots of animosity with this one. Do your due diligence. It may or may not work for you (in 2 years).
...
ok, this will only work on one of my systems, and it might stop working next year, at the whim of some corporate entity, but maybe I'll get lucky... maybe I won't.

3. And don't forget a lot of these GUIs are old now and very small on new high resolution monitors. Something to consider.
1. Each Waves plugin appears as a separate VST3 plugin in my DAW by default. You also have the Waveshell thing, but personally I don't use it.

2. I don't get it, how they can break the OS compatibility if you don't get any updates?

3. This is the main problem with these plugins, even on a full hd monitor renaissance series have a very small GUI.

The major advantage of the Waves bundle for newbies is the amount of courses and tutorials on the internet.
1. The "shell" is kind of a host for their plugins. It allows them to create one plugin and use the shells to connect it to different DAWS. It would make their code easier to update and fix, plus it could all reference one common library, effectively keeping plugin bloat down and making it even easier to maintain.

... or at least, some scenario very similar to that. Having done. bit of programming the the past the above just represents an educated guess on my part. But it makes sense. In effect, it makes it cheaper form them to create, which makes it cheaper for us to buy.

2. It's the newer OS that breaks the compatibility. Or the OS has become so old that it becomes too expensive for any company to maintain. I don't know any dev that doesn't stop supporting old OS's at some point. It's a developer thing in general.

Their older versions are still available for install on older systems, however.

3. I too aren't a fan of the Renaissance UI. Who know's, hopefully Waves will get the message and update it some time in the next year or so. I might consider using them then. As good as they can be, I tend to avoid them just based on a less than ideal UI/user experience.

If you look at the more recent plugins over the few years, it's clear they are taking alot of the new UI demands into account. Admittedly, they still could use a scalable feature. There are still a few devs who don't do this, though. Plugin Alliance being one. IK was another, but that might look to be changing.

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