Fake Effects Plugin Deals

[Kappa_Beta_Hi-Phi]

OP here is some free stuff that is actually worth installing and playing around with:

Free ozone EQ. I'm not sure if you have Frequency 2 in your version of cubase but this eq is worth your time regardless. It has some great features.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... ugins-page

Free Pultec Style Vintage EQ very nice.

https://sonimus.com/products/soneq

Nice oldschool limiter/compressor. Useful for learning vintage style compression & levelling. Sounds very good.

https://d16.pl/frontier

One of the best chorus plugins available free or paid.

https://acondigital.com/products/multiply

One of the best Reverb plugins available free or paid.

https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/val ... ermassive/

Nice stompbox style delay. Sounds great. Great features.

https://www.pspaudioware.com/products/psp-stepdelay

Nice vintage saturator.

https://fuseaudiolabs.com/#/pages/product?id=301060823

Read up about this one. Very cool.

https://goodhertz.com/loudness/

Also check out these. Info on site, look for the most recent releases and work your way backward:

https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/vst-effects/

[LunarKitten]

OP here is some free stuff that is actually worth installing and playing around with:

Free ozone EQ. I'm not sure if you have Frequency 2 in your version of cubase but this eq is worth your time regardless. It has some great features.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... ugins-page

Free Pultec Style Vintage EQ very nice.

https://sonimus.com/products/soneq

Nice oldschool limiter/compressor. Useful for learning vintage style compression & levelling. Sounds very good.

https://d16.pl/frontier

One of the best chorus plugins available free or paid.

https://acondigital.com/products/multiply

One of the best Reverb plugins available free or paid.

https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/val ... ermassive/

Nice stompbox style delay. Sounds great. Great features.

https://www.pspaudioware.com/products/psp-stepdelay

Nice vintage saturator.

https://fuseaudiolabs.com/#/pages/product?id=301060823

Read up about this one. Very cool.

https://goodhertz.com/loudness/

Also check out these. Info on site, look for the most recent releases and work your way backward:

https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/vst-effects/

Wow, that is alot of useful information in one post. Thank you very much!

Well OP the good news is that deal for the SSL BC plugin will come back around sooner rather than later.

Nice! 30 bucks is a nice price.

Here is an alternative to consider. I used this for years myself. It's good:

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... essor.html

Perhaps sticking to Kotelnikov is best; the paid version is on sale for $10:

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... elnikov-GE

Very much worth it IMO.

Slick EQ M is also on sale for $20 and very much worth it from the same store. You can get a free EQ or Synth which are also very good with a purchase from that reseller. If you are buying two things make sure that you make 2 separate purchases so you can get both the synth and the EQ! Pro Tip right there.

Okay, I have to check all of that out.

That said... I think everyone here praises Fabfilter and Valhalla, so you could auto-add those to your list

Hopefully I will have Saturn on my side eventually.

Why can't you use those AIR plugins in Cubase? Cubase also supports VST2 plugins.

I believe that it is a conspiracy against me personally. The people at plugin boutique have an eye out for me. They think I am too stingy, and that is why they have tormented me with disfunctional plugins, unresponsive customer service and a bombardment of spam mails. Now I am burning in the sun, in agony and shame. It would have been better if they had killed me. Now if you excuse me, I will have to cry.

[Kappa_Beta_Hi-Phi]

Another plugin worth having:

https://slatedigital.com/fresh-air/

Does a good job as an exciter.

Try this link, it is a clipper not sure if you can authorise it. Worth having.

https://apogeedigital.com/downloads/Apo ... indows.zip

https://apogeedigital.com/downloads/Apo ... -macOS.zip

[LunarKitten]

Another plugin worth having:

https://slatedigital.com/fresh-air/

Does a good job as an exciter.

Try this link, it is a clipper not sure if you can authorise it. Worth having.

https://apogeedigital.com/downloads/Apo ... indows.zip

https://apogeedigital.com/downloads/Apo ... -macOS.zip

Thank you so much!

[ChristopherWD]

The consistently high prices of plugins was more commonplace many years ago but you also had less choice - at least from what I vaguely remember and from what my tutors used to rant about to me. Honestly, I think you can get by plenty with the freeware offerings nowadays.

Nowadays prices are a lot more reasonable, but another concern that I would bring up is whether or not a plugin has reasonable DRM; the more I moved away from stock and freeware plugins into the many paid eco-systems, the quicker I had issues with project recalls and stability. It also just doesn't feel great to have lots of DRM managers all running constantly in the background, or have plugins depend on your hardware ID or online check ups whenever it's loaded...

Usagi Tsukino would have no chance of dealing with them all considering her computer skills.

Also try not to get trapped not just through misleading prices or DRM, but marketing speak that wants to tell you how their emulations of these classic studio gear, or their special magic, etc... is what you need to add that polished touch to your mixes - "You must buy this because X artist or X studio used it!". Be weary of a plugin that's trying to convince you that you cannot do your best work without it.

I'll recommend ToneBoosters plugins - their newest V4 plugins are very good quality and value, and since they have simply copy protection I can rely on them when travelling or updating my PC. Their V3 bundle was even retired as freeware not so long ago, and while they are a bit older and don't support modern formats like VST3 like their V4 counterparts, I still use them daily - the V3's BusCompressor, Sibilance and Barricade go toe-to-toe with plenty of paid plugins even today.

For a general FX bundle, the Melda Free FX bundle is great - it can require a bit more tweaking than usual, but they are versatile and can get you really far while also being good learning tools as well.

I can also happily vouch for some freeware posted earlier, such as the free releases by Tokyo Dawn, Fuse Audio Labs and Klanghelm, Apogee's SoftLimit and Acon's Multiply. Great quality.

That said, I do have plugin bundles from IK Multimedia and Arturia that I use as well. Those two pretty much won the endless "analog style" plugins comparisons I made some time back. These bundles tend to focus more on emulations of classic gear, and it's certainly a vibe and fun to use them, however they never feel truly necessary either...

I wouldn't ever pay the MSRP for them either - you really do have to wait until they're like 50% off at least, or buy them as part of a group buy, bundle or even second hand - I got FX Collection for about £80 from a license transfer and IK T-Racks DX as a bonus for buying their iLoud speakers.

Just take your time and wait for an opportunity, and also demo and stress test plugins to see if it suits your workflow, regardless of their prestige. I have a couple projects filled with reference tracks and loops specifically to test out FX's, EQ's, compressors, etc.

[jamcat]

Whole lot of words in this thread just to say "don't pay more than $39 for a plugin."

[Kappa_Beta_Hi-Phi]

Whole lot of words in this thread just to say "don't pay more than $39 for a plugin."

Personally I chipped in to help a noob. I also made an account so I could block you.

[Kappa_Beta_Hi-Phi]

OP you should grab this while you can too:

https://korneffaudio.com/product/el-juan-limiter/

And for some fun:

https://aberrantdsp.com/plugins/lofi-oddity/

[jamcat]

Whole lot of words in this thread just to say "don't pay more than $39 for a plugin."

Personally I chipped in to help a noob. I also made an account so I could block you.

A noob who's been on the forum a week longer than you?
Oh let me guess, you've had plenty of accounts on KVR that have been banned.

[LunarKitten]

Hey thanks for the awesome links!

Let's try to get along, I would hate to see people paying too much for plugins (including myself). This curcial information in this thread. Thanks to everyone involved!

[Kappa_Beta_Hi-Phi]

OP since you don't have Magneto go here:

https://chowdsp.com/products.html

You are looking for Chow Tape. I'm not sure if the manual is in the installer but it's there on the site. Anyway, great free tape saturator plugin.

I think that covers some bases, no? There are more good free things out there but I think some stuff is so case specific it's probably best to get to know the basics which I have tried to cover in these links. I also think only dealing with the best stuff out there is a good approach.

I dunno if you are into synths but there's a boatload of good free instruments out there but again best to stick to one or two really good ones. Try the free U-he synths and Vital (put vital free synth into google) - if synths are your thing. Also the free synth they are giving away at Plugin Boutique is actually a very good synth so I recommend getting the paid version of a TDR plugin and nabbing that synth (Polymax from UA).

Best of luck OP.

[HAL76]

never pay the full price and always expect a better deal

[Kappa_Beta_Hi-Phi]

One more thing, you are probably gonna need a bread and butter 3rd party compressor, although Kotelnikov and Molot are great don't forget the Klanghelm compressors. Remember there are free versions and the paid for versions never go on sale but they are great value at $25:

https://klanghelm.com/contents/main.html

Check the free versions to see how the cpu hit is on your machine - you will want something light on the CPU meter.

Kazrog's True Dynamics also a good candidate that goes on sale for less than $20 all the time:

https://kazrog.com/collections/frontpag ... e-dynamics

If you have access to Frequency in Cubase you don't really need a 3rd party eq. The Ozone eq and Nova should take you a long way for sure.

[LunarKitten]

I have tried the zebralette 3 beta. That is the best sounding synth I have ever tried.

Recently I looked at different cab sims/IRs and amplitube 5 seemed to be the best. There are alot I haven't tried though.

https://musicsoftwaredeals.com/price-hi ... ultimedia/

They have sold it for 80 bucks, but maybe it is better to wait for the next version altogether.

never pay the full price and always expect a better deal

Sometimes keeping your money is a better way to success.

[ralfrobert]

https://musicsoftwaredeals.com/
Always worth checking here to see if plugins are on sale and where; also lists history of deals as well, so you can get an idea of previous sale prices.

That is a nice site!

I meant that your approach seems entirely absurd to me. If quality is not important to you as you say because you're a beginner, then why bother with payware in the first place? There's enough freeware around. That's the first bit I don't get at all.

You may be right. Maybe I should rethink my perspective.

Then: if I didn't misunderstand you you consider expensive plugins that are on sale with a heavily reduced price often "fake deal" and you are not interested in them because of this. So what you look for is expensive plugins that are on sale only rarely but then also with a deep discount. So the perfect plugin for you would be - regardless of any other measure - one that is the most expensive of all (let's say a thousand bucks), but costs only fifty dollars every ten years. And you would prefer that one over something else that's always 50bucks and everyone raves about.

It not so much about numbers for me. I think that valhalla supermassive for 50$ would be a good deal for example, even though it is free. I am sure that there are plugins that sell for 300$ that are not as good.

1. After five years of very active buying (and selling again), I consolidated my plugin folders based on what I am actually using. Expensive solutions like Fabfilter and Melodyne stayed, many things in the 30 bucks range went away.

What did you keep in the 30 bucks range if you don't mind sharing.

This may be different depending on your personal preferences or needs, but it seems there are a handful of "standard" solutions that both have a good reputation and are in use by many. Examples are: Fabfilter EQ, Compressor, Saturation; Melodyne, Valhalla Reverbs; XLN RC-20, NI Noire, Algonaut Atlas, just to mention a few. I see these as long-term investments into infrastructure I will be using on a daily basis.

I have heard alot of good things about Saturn. It seems to be the industry standard that all the star engineers use. I don't think I will ever be on the level to get the green light working with the stars.

Now, you can look for third party stuff for free that has very high quality. Examples are: Melda Free bundle (costs you 25 bucks when on discount to unlock all features), Toneboosters legacy (very good, completely free), Chowdhury plugins, Blue Cat free package (very good), Pianobook libraries (enough instruments for a lifetime), Project Sam Free Orchestra (good an entirely free), Audiodamage legacy plugins (totally free, but no support, sound design stuff for half a lifetime).

Thanks for sharing. Do you think I should even look at lowpriced plugins/heavy discounts with these option available? The Melda kit for 25 bucks seems like a great deal.

Bottom line: You perhaps have to spend a little money, between 50 and 100 bucks (look for second-hand DAW!), but what you've got after that can make you happy and well-equipped. I always find it ridiculous and a pain to take part in the marketing battle out there and then complain about the money that has been spend or things everyone "needs" to deliver something good.

Got it.

One thing to consider though: In professional audio engineering, "time is money". Many plugins deliver convenience and time saving, and this can be crucial if you are working with a deadline or have to be competitive. However, 90% of what is discussed here does not seem to fall into this category.

I see your point, but by the way your speaking I can tell that you work on a different level than I am.

That site and this forum help define the real world base price for software.

That's nice!

Selling stuff on sale way lower than the initial/standard price is not called fake but a discount.

A real deal implies that there is something special about the offer. If, however, your buisness model is to tag on a price that is outlandishly high and constantly do discounts to even sell your product< that is not a special offer and not a real deal.

No one forces you to buy software on full price. Consumers shouldn't blame other people and companies over their low impulse buy control behaviour. So the title of this post should be corrected.

They don't force me, but they are being deceptive. Exploiting people who don't know any better or have low impulse control is not a good look.

TDR has awesome free plugins, you can buy GE versions.

[...]

Another general fake dev for me is Acustica Audio, they mainly focus on creating analog like guis, but tgey mainly slow down work flow and there's is no analog mojo or magic, there are way better plugins imo.
I stay away from Native Instruments and Plugin Alliance, don't care what they do or release any more.

Thanks for sharing.

Almost everything in this niche is priced like it's mining equipment so you just wait for the price of gold to fall or someone to go bust and fire sale. The pricing around everything music is so gamed that it makes it quite the ethical quandary. I do know that money literally stopped me as a young person from exploring music because not dying took precedence and the most ethical alternative is a subscription or two to sound generators and mix tools.

That is good to know.

Check out Toneboosters good stuff,never goes on sale but it’s affordable. Otherwise just watch and wait and try Demos, eventually you’ll know what you need or want and what is a good price

I'm going to take a closer look at them.

I've got to say, since I found KVR and subsequently Knobcloud, I've never overpaid for a plugin since. Always check what's being sold on those 2 pages first, when there's something you know you want to buy.

Will do.

Step One: TDR is your friend, try all the free effects, the GE versions can be had for $10-$30 regularly from reseller sales. You can go a long way with just these tools.

I'm going to check them out as well as the others you have mentioned.

Excellent posts thank you all very much!

Ignore all list prices. $30 is the price of a plugin, if something is $30 or less and you want it/need it, $30 or less is what it should cost. If it costs more than $30 time to consider a few things.

Do I have an equivalent? If so, is this better than the thing I already have? If so, how much more than $30 do I have to pay for this right now? If this thing is not $30 or less right now at some point in the future it will be $30 or less, either on it's own or in a bundle sale. How long am I willing to wait for this to happen and/or would I be willing to purchase this plugin in a bundle in the future? If you are willing to wait indefinitely or you are willing to buy it in a bundle then don't buy it right now if it is not $30 or less - obviously.

Yes. Do I personally need those plugins, probably not, but I am willing to wait and pick them up when the price is right for me.

Here are a few deals available this weekend:

https://www.pluginboutique.com/products ... ge-nosto-1

^^ Good deal. Good tools. Recommended if you in the market for any one of these tools.

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... _oven.html

^^ Fairly new to the market. As you can see it is $30. Good tool, but do you need this right now? If you do get something like this saturator plugin it is best to commit to it for 6 months to a year before getting or trying another IMO. A pretty good rule of thumb going forward in fact.

Thanks, I am looking for deals like this!

Good luck and remember you don't need any third party plugins to produce great mixes. Also when asking advice for X best plugin you will get X times all the plugin developers as answers, worth remembering this too.

That is nice.

Thank you all for the awesome posts in this thread.

Sorry for the late answer. You asked what I've kept from the 30 bucks price range. I have to say that (1) looking at my plugin folders, it's still a lot of stuff, but much of it was not very expensive. And (2) I got many things as bundles (Kuassa, Acon Digital, Voxengo), so I am well below 30 when splitting the price. Finally (3): I've put a lot of thought into what to keep and what to part with over the last 4...5 years. Optimizing the own setup can be a funny hobby of its own.

Here are some examples:

1. Tokyo Dawn, all the mixing plugins, regularly on sale.
2. Everything Voxengo. These can be bought for around 30 bucks a pop when on sale (and you bundle at least two of them).
3. Acon Digital, single plugins, both mixing/mastering and restoration. Come with Acoustica and give you excellent value for money.
4. Klanghelm. Never on sale, always below 30. Great DSP quality.
5. Kuassa pedal effects. I went for the whole suite (360) some time ago. These are good plugins and excellent time savers.