How much money have you spent on plugins?
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UltimiGiorniRecords UltimiGiorniRecords https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=694109
- KVRist
- 93 posts since 11 Mar, 2024
More then 24.000,00 euros in three years.
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- KVRAF
- 2784 posts since 18 Apr, 2001
About the same amount of money I paid for a brand new DX7 back in 1983, not counting inflation over four decades.
CrimsonWarlock aka TechnoGremlin, Moved to Reason and Rack Extensions exclusively (from Reaper and VSTs) several years ago.
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- KVRer
- 2 posts since 17 Nov, 2024
$60 on Reaper, although looking at stuff during the holidays will likely increase that number 
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- KVRAF
- 5094 posts since 30 Aug, 2012 from Sweden
Don’t know how much. Well not really much after all. But when I started plugin prices were steeper than today. $500 for a waves plugin. 150 for other brands plugins. But the most expensive stuffs I paid for are guitars, bass guitar, a kemper and pc’s.
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- KVRist
- 247 posts since 16 Apr, 2004
This is what I was thinking. So many plugins recently are sub $100 and even a large handful are below $50, I don't have much experience with those - but one suite I always have installed in iZotope Ozone. For everything else, I found the stock plugins did the trick (for the most part).
Wave Arts make some really good stuff as well.
Wave Arts make some really good stuff as well.
Chris Hawkins
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el-bo (formerly ebow) el-bo (formerly ebow) https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=208007
- KVRAF
- 17981 posts since 24 May, 2009 from A galaxy, far far away
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- KVRist
- 432 posts since 9 Nov, 2018 from Colorado
TLDR version: I've spent too much and make too little music with what I have. GAS gets in the way of making music. Get a good DAW, but maybe buy it "used". Reaper can be great and it's free to cheap. Use Vital and/or stock plugins. Or buy one or two good synth plugins and learn them well and resist the urge to shop for and collect more. I find Serum and Diva, and a piano library, to be the most indispensable for my purposes.
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I've spent three thousand probably. And I hardly actually make music these days. I think for me it's more a matter of playing with sound-making toys and learning how they work and collecting them, unfortunately! It's a disease!
When I first started playing with music production, I made more music and was more creative. That was before I bought any plugins at all and was using pretty bad free stuff. I used the Reaper trial for some time and then finally paid for it. For some time, that's all I had paid for. I focused more on music than on the tools back then.
After I started buying premium plugins, I think I became more obsessed with getting the latest thing that has the most perfect sound quality or whatever, or filling out my collection with all the best tools that can cover all the bases to make any sort of sound, subtractive, additive, granular, FM, sampled, physically modelled, and so on, and all the various effects.
I don't actually use 90% of them for much more than playing around, making crazy noises and whatnot, generally just exploring and experimenting with sound, and generally geeking out. Oh well! There are worse addictions!
The premium plugin I use the most is Serum. I feel really at home with it. The workflow is so easy and the visualizations are super helpful. And the interface is fairly compact and straightforward. Most of the others I could do without. Even in 2024, I think Serum is one of the best synths to learn synthesis with. Much better for learning than most virtual analog synths that don't really help you see what the filters and envelopes are doing. Definitely not Massive X, which I feel like I have to figure out again every time I use it. Massive X sounds nice, but what a terrible UI! Phase Plant is pretty nice to use too, though it's more fiddly and complicated than Serum. I got Serum before Vital came out, so I never really bothered to learn Vital. It seems pretty great.
Arturia's V Collection is fun if you want to geek out and learn how to work with all the classic old synths. It's like playing with a flight sim or train sim or something. But any time I want to actually do something, I am more likely to reach for Serum, or maybe Diva. If I want to do something special that I can't do with a regular synth, I'll use Reaktor Blocks with all the EuroReakt and ToyBox stuff. I am also learning Bitwig and its The Grid lately.
I know a lot of these plugins inside and out, but have few tracks to show for it. GAS actually tends to get in the way. I spend more time shopping and reading and watching videos and deciding if I want to buy this or that plugin, and playing with trial versions, than actually making music with what I have. And the holiday season is dangerous with all the sales!
I think someone new, if they have a little money to spend, might be well-advised to buy one or two premium plugins, but to resist with all their might the temptation to constantly shop for and collect them. Vital is probably fine instead of Serum these days. But I think Diva is worth buying, or maybe The Legend HZ. But stick with maybe two good synths, perhaps a modern wavetable synth and a good virtual analog, and just really learn how to use them and avoid buying more! Not a bad idea to have a decent piano library too.
Really, if I had to advise my past self, beyond the DAW, I'd tell him to get Vital and that's it! You don't really need virtual analog. I can make Serum sound quite analog if I want. The same should be true for Vital. People who say its a digital sounding synth only don't seem to know how to program a synth. They are just stuck with all the stock presets that sound dubsteppy and whatnot. You can create oscillator drift and warmth and fizz if you want. And the brightness isn't the character of the synth itself, but rather a lot of the stock presets. It can be as dark as you want. And in Serum, there are some overlooked filters in the misc section like the French or Scream LP that can give you a lot of the character people like some VA filters for.
In Serum, a lot can be done by modulating various things with the noise osc too. I just wish there were multiple noise oscs and that you could modulate the filter cutoff at audio rate with the wavetable oscillators and that the filters would hold up well with fast modulation. I also wish it had a wavetable LFO like Phase Plant and Bitwig.
Depending on your DAW, you might not even need to get any synth plugins at all. Bitwig supplies most everything you might need. Reaper is great in many ways, but is kind of lacking for complex modulation and whatnot. The one feature I really got Bitwig for is the micro-pitch expressions. I like to bend notes in a controlled way to exact notes. If Reaper had that, and maybe some better modulators, I wouldn't bother with Bitwig. But Bitwig's modular stuff and complex modulations are probably not ideal for beginners at synthesis. Too much!!
If you want a DAW like Bitwig, it is much cheaper to buy it from someone else on KVR. I think I paid maybe $150 for it.
Obviously if you want more acoustic sounding stuff, you need good sample libraries or physical modelling instruments. If you want a variety of such instruments or orchestral libraries, that will cost you a lot!
One thing worth investing in is a good MIDI controller with some range. That, IMO, is much more important than having a hundred synth plugins! The NI Komplete Kontrol S61 MK1 that I bought used online for three hundred has served me very well for almost years now. Very solid and reliable and has a decent Fatar keybed. I kind of wish for a hammer action 88 key controller though. You might not need a piano style controller though, depending on your style.
A good microphone is useful too, even if you don't sing. I'd recommend a Rode NT1, since it has such low self-noise. Great for recording even quiet stuff. You can do a lot of creative stuff by recording sounds with a sensitive mic. A field recording setup can be cool too! But even a phone can record sounds surprisingly well, and stereo on many phones.
Jeez, I got carried away!
---------------
I've spent three thousand probably. And I hardly actually make music these days. I think for me it's more a matter of playing with sound-making toys and learning how they work and collecting them, unfortunately! It's a disease!
When I first started playing with music production, I made more music and was more creative. That was before I bought any plugins at all and was using pretty bad free stuff. I used the Reaper trial for some time and then finally paid for it. For some time, that's all I had paid for. I focused more on music than on the tools back then.
After I started buying premium plugins, I think I became more obsessed with getting the latest thing that has the most perfect sound quality or whatever, or filling out my collection with all the best tools that can cover all the bases to make any sort of sound, subtractive, additive, granular, FM, sampled, physically modelled, and so on, and all the various effects.
I don't actually use 90% of them for much more than playing around, making crazy noises and whatnot, generally just exploring and experimenting with sound, and generally geeking out. Oh well! There are worse addictions!
The premium plugin I use the most is Serum. I feel really at home with it. The workflow is so easy and the visualizations are super helpful. And the interface is fairly compact and straightforward. Most of the others I could do without. Even in 2024, I think Serum is one of the best synths to learn synthesis with. Much better for learning than most virtual analog synths that don't really help you see what the filters and envelopes are doing. Definitely not Massive X, which I feel like I have to figure out again every time I use it. Massive X sounds nice, but what a terrible UI! Phase Plant is pretty nice to use too, though it's more fiddly and complicated than Serum. I got Serum before Vital came out, so I never really bothered to learn Vital. It seems pretty great.
Arturia's V Collection is fun if you want to geek out and learn how to work with all the classic old synths. It's like playing with a flight sim or train sim or something. But any time I want to actually do something, I am more likely to reach for Serum, or maybe Diva. If I want to do something special that I can't do with a regular synth, I'll use Reaktor Blocks with all the EuroReakt and ToyBox stuff. I am also learning Bitwig and its The Grid lately.
I know a lot of these plugins inside and out, but have few tracks to show for it. GAS actually tends to get in the way. I spend more time shopping and reading and watching videos and deciding if I want to buy this or that plugin, and playing with trial versions, than actually making music with what I have. And the holiday season is dangerous with all the sales!
I think someone new, if they have a little money to spend, might be well-advised to buy one or two premium plugins, but to resist with all their might the temptation to constantly shop for and collect them. Vital is probably fine instead of Serum these days. But I think Diva is worth buying, or maybe The Legend HZ. But stick with maybe two good synths, perhaps a modern wavetable synth and a good virtual analog, and just really learn how to use them and avoid buying more! Not a bad idea to have a decent piano library too.
Really, if I had to advise my past self, beyond the DAW, I'd tell him to get Vital and that's it! You don't really need virtual analog. I can make Serum sound quite analog if I want. The same should be true for Vital. People who say its a digital sounding synth only don't seem to know how to program a synth. They are just stuck with all the stock presets that sound dubsteppy and whatnot. You can create oscillator drift and warmth and fizz if you want. And the brightness isn't the character of the synth itself, but rather a lot of the stock presets. It can be as dark as you want. And in Serum, there are some overlooked filters in the misc section like the French or Scream LP that can give you a lot of the character people like some VA filters for.
In Serum, a lot can be done by modulating various things with the noise osc too. I just wish there were multiple noise oscs and that you could modulate the filter cutoff at audio rate with the wavetable oscillators and that the filters would hold up well with fast modulation. I also wish it had a wavetable LFO like Phase Plant and Bitwig.
Depending on your DAW, you might not even need to get any synth plugins at all. Bitwig supplies most everything you might need. Reaper is great in many ways, but is kind of lacking for complex modulation and whatnot. The one feature I really got Bitwig for is the micro-pitch expressions. I like to bend notes in a controlled way to exact notes. If Reaper had that, and maybe some better modulators, I wouldn't bother with Bitwig. But Bitwig's modular stuff and complex modulations are probably not ideal for beginners at synthesis. Too much!!
If you want a DAW like Bitwig, it is much cheaper to buy it from someone else on KVR. I think I paid maybe $150 for it.
Obviously if you want more acoustic sounding stuff, you need good sample libraries or physical modelling instruments. If you want a variety of such instruments or orchestral libraries, that will cost you a lot!
One thing worth investing in is a good MIDI controller with some range. That, IMO, is much more important than having a hundred synth plugins! The NI Komplete Kontrol S61 MK1 that I bought used online for three hundred has served me very well for almost years now. Very solid and reliable and has a decent Fatar keybed. I kind of wish for a hammer action 88 key controller though. You might not need a piano style controller though, depending on your style.
A good microphone is useful too, even if you don't sing. I'd recommend a Rode NT1, since it has such low self-noise. Great for recording even quiet stuff. You can do a lot of creative stuff by recording sounds with a sensitive mic. A field recording setup can be cool too! But even a phone can record sounds surprisingly well, and stereo on many phones.
Jeez, I got carried away!
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- KVRAF
- 5271 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
Probably like $12000-$15000 not including hardware and sample libraries. I spent almost $1000 buying waves platinum back in the day. I have made my living composing and producing music though so that's far less than other business expenses.
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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vitocorleone123 vitocorleone123 https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=333504
- KVRAF
- 2491 posts since 30 Jun, 2014 from Pacific NW
Even more now than before.