Software Hoarding

[.jon]

The tool analogy sucks, I've never needed 18 PHZ-2 drivers with different shaped and coloured handles, or 7 angle grinders from different brands or 59pcs of 13mm ratchet wrenches. Which is what large plugin collections essentially are, dozens of minutely different variants for the same purpose when a couple would suffice.

To be fair, some of the these are more varied than you might think.

I have multiple distortion and saturation plug ins and they all have a different tone.

Same goes for delays and reverb, I have quite a few but the pretty much all have different flavours.

Of course there is some overlap and of course that many flavours are probably not needed...

Absolutely fair, I also have multiples of those (delay+reverb folder is my most numerous, followed by distortion/saturation) and even multiple EQs, compressors and limiters. And a bunch of synths of various types. And a dozen very limited use utilities, some I've never actually used- but even having this variety totals only up to 70 plugins installed. When you start dividing a 500+ plugin collection with the number of possible plugin types, you'll realize that there is quite a bit more overlap than actual tonal variety. Fun of collection vs real tool-like utility.

I'm not really critizing collecting, plugins don't generate waste, don't cost that much compared to many other hobbies, and it's easy to organize and manage them so there is no real clutter and mess like you would have in a workshop with a similar tool collection. It's just that the tool comparison is perhaps more like an innocent white lie to yourself, and not so much based on a need to get a certain task done.

[.jon]

59pcs of 13mm ratchet wrenches.

You can never have enough of 13mm wrenches, they tend to strangely disappear by the dozen

The trick is to buy singular wrenches! If you buy a set, the 10mm and 13mm will be gone in two weeks. If you see a full set older than two weeks, the 10mm and 13mm were stolen from another set. I have banned wrench sets in two companies now because this seems to be a law of physics, and the wacky sizes like 7mm and 14mm are just waste of good tool steel in any case.

[IvyBirds]

The tool analogy sucks, I've never needed 18 PHZ-2 drivers with different shaped and coloured handles, or 7 angle grinders from different brands or 59pcs of 13mm ratchet wrenches. Which is what large plugin collections essentially are, dozens of minutely different variants for the same purpose when a couple would suffice.

To be fair, some of the these are more varied than you might think.

I have multiple distortion and saturation plug ins and they all have a different tone.

Same goes for delays and reverb, I have quite a few but the pretty much all have different flavours.

Of course there is some overlap and of course that many flavours are probably not needed...

Absolutely fair, I also have multiples of those (delay+reverb folder is my most numerous, followed by distortion/saturation) and even multiple EQs, compressors and limiters. And a bunch of synths of various types. And a dozen very limited use utilities, some I've never actually used- but even having this variety totals only up to 70 plugins installed. When you start dividing a 500+ plugin collection with the number of possible plugin types, you'll realize that there is quite a bit more overlap than actual tonal variety. Fun of collection vs real tool-like utility.

I'm not really critizing collecting, plugins don't generate waste, don't cost that much compared to many other hobbies, and it's easy to organize and manage them so there is no real clutter and mess like you would have in a workshop with a similar tool collection. It's just that the tool comparison is perhaps more like an innocent white lie to yourself, and not so much based on a need to get a certain task done.

Only your tool analogy doesn't really work as people don't install the same exact plugin dozens of times

You compared using a dozen plugins with a dozen of the same exact handtool with a different colored handle

Yet that's not what plugins are. Every plugin on my computer is different from every other plugin.

I have five Minimoog plugins, everyone is different and does different things

[djanthonyw]

One or two plugins in each category is all that you need. I learned this the hard way and spent years narrowing down my choices.

[BONES]

Good thinking. You're nearly ready to try Bitwig. :hehe: it has a flag that will hide vst 2 versions.

So does Studio One, although I mostly tend to hide the VST3 versions. I tried Bitwig for about 6 months but I didn't like it at all. It's just not made for the way I do things. In all that time I never managed to get one of our songs working to a standard I was happy with. OTOH, I had a full live set up and running in Studio One a couple of weeks after I started using it. Bitwig is the one and only piece of software I have ever resold.

[martiu]

"Software hoarding is very good"
Vst makers

[BONES]

One or two plugins in each category is all that you need. I learned this the hard way and spent years narrowing down my choices.

Why? I gave up that style of thinking a long, long time ago. I figure that if I've got a plugin and I like it, there is no reason not to use it. There are definitely plugins that have been on my PC for ages without ever being used in a song, and those I don't hesitate to ignore when I'm setting up a new computer, but anything I've ever used in a song usually gets installed on the new machine.

Just yesterday I loaded up Continua, which I haven't even thought about in years, and in a few minutes had the perfect filter sweep pad sound for what I was working on. It might be another five years before I think to use it again but it will be sitting there, waiting, for when I do.

Then there are plugins like the Sugar Bytes stuff. I always install Factory, Guitar, Cyclop and Aparillo, even though Aparillo is the only one I've ever actually used in a song. But I know that one day I'll find something to use the others for, so they stay around. Ditto for effects like Gatekeeper.

[zerocrossing]

Two things that I know about myself that's contributed to my large software collection:

I love to explore new tools. There's almost nothing I like more than getting a cup of coffee and sitting down and kicking the tires on a new plugin, or hardware synth for that matter.

Everything I end up buying as something special about it. Part of my evaluation process is taking something similar and doing a pretty extensive compare and contrast. There's a thread comparing ANA2 to other synths, and I couldn't remember why I passed on it, so I downloaded it and within a few minutes, I realized why. There's nothing special about it. It's not bad, but I couldn't really find anything unique about it. If I were new to this, it would probably seem good, as it's very approachable, but in my current state, it's too basic in every way.

Inversetly, Serum 2 came out and they've added a whole bunch of novel and special features, plus they've now got one of the best quality audio rate modulation system available on a similar synth. It was a free upgrade, but I left a tip anyway. I know how hard software development is. Side note, I reported a bug and their support has been awesome so far.

[BONES]

I'm pretty much the opposite. The tools, in and of themselves, bore me to death. It usually takes a massive effort of will for me to look at them at all. It's what I can make with them that matters. I'm more than happy to let others explore, I'll just use their presets and tweak them to suit. That even explains why I usually buy plugins based on audio and video demos; most of the time I can't be bothered trying it out for myself. My bandmate is even worse than I am; everything he uses is a preset, usually with zero tweaking, and he re-uses the same sounds over and over because he is only interested in what he can do with the instrument, not the instrument itself.

[rod_zero]

While you can have different flavours of reverb and delay to an extent there is a point where you have covered allmost all after 3 plugins.

Saturation, I honestly don't think there are that many colors of it and most saturators include 3-4 types, and some come with a shit ton.

Synths, we have several full featured synths right now as Pigments, Serum 2, Vital, Phaseplant, and Zebra 3 soon, I honestly find it hard to justify having more than 2 from that group, too much overlap, and GUIs among them all are good.

[djanthonyw]

One or two plugins in each category is all that you need. I learned this the hard way and spent years narrowing down my choices.

Why? I gave up that style of thinking a long, long time ago. I figure that if I've got a plugin and I like it, there is no reason not to use it. There are definitely plugins that have been on my PC for ages without ever being used in a song, and those I don't hesitate to ignore when I'm setting up a new computer, but anything I've ever used in a song usually gets installed on the new machine.

Just yesterday I loaded up Continua, which I haven't even thought about in years, and in a few minutes had the perfect filter sweep pad sound for what I was working on. It might be another five years before I think to use it again but it will be sitting there, waiting, for when I do.

Then there are plugins like the Sugar Bytes stuff. I always install Factory, Guitar, Cyclop and Aparillo, even though Aparillo is the only one I've ever actually used in a song. But I know that one day I'll find something to use the others for, so they stay around. Ditto for effects like Gatekeeper.

Because it's better to have a few great ones that you know very well instead of having a bunch that you only know enough to mess around with presets.

[jamcat]

But how do you know which are the great ones unless you've gone through several to get to the best?

[djanthonyw]

A lot of demoing instead of accumulating. A better option comes out years later? Replace one of your current plugins with it instead of adding more.

[Hyperbole]

These days, the only music "gear" that anyone really needs is one general-purpose synth plugin like Omnisphere, one flexible analog modeling synth plugin like Diva, one software sampler (take your pick from Falcon, HALion, or Kontakt,) and maybe one "sound design" / cinematic synth plugin like Zebra (or swap that out for a software modular if that's your thing). And of course, you'll need almost any "pro" laptop made in the last few years to run everything on, any one of the leading DAWs which will include all the FX plugins you need, and a nice controller keyboard with a good keybed.

I say this as someone who owns 10 hardware synths (down from 20) plus hundreds and hundreds of synth and FX plugins (so many that I have lost count). So clearly, there is a difference between "need" and "want." I would probably be more productive if I pared back my setup and got rid of most of the plugins. But the resale value on plugins is so low that it's not really worth bothering, in my opinion.

But I definitely don't need any more plugins. I'll make exceptions for upgrades like Serum 2 and the upcoming Zebra 3. But that's about it.

[IvyBirds]

Synths, we have several full featured synths right now as Pigments, Serum 2, Vital, Phaseplant, and Zebra 3 soon, I honestly find it hard to justify having more than 2 from that group, too much overlap, and GUIs among them all are good.

I have all of those plus several more than are considered flagship "full featured" Synths

Do they have some overlap? Sure but there is also lots of stuff that the others don't do that is unique in each one

Even flagship software is inexpensive compared with hardware and you can build up your arsenal over several years and take advantage of sales, those unique things each one does are with the price of admission, all the other stuff that overlaps is just a bonus