Way too many plugins and choices - Need advice to fight GAS/Huge plugin folder

[zerocrossing]

How many unused plugins are because your tastes in making music have changed and those plugins no longer fit. It's a few for me and I imagine I am far from alone in this.
Then there's plugins that seemed like they'd be useful but weren't. Might be honest mistake, might be sucked in by a deceptive marketing campaign (kontakt libraries can have outrageously deceptive marketing and no chance to try before you buy.)
or maybe you bought somethign to change things up, like getting a new guage set of strings for a guitar.

and then some because you got carried away and quickly regretted an attack of GAS. But not all now useless plugins are from that

Also 'making music' (ie completed pieces) is incredibly over-rated compared to 'having fun'. Realistically how many people like music you have completed enough to listen to say 20 minutes of it in a row on more than one occasion? If there is more than one then you are successful enough to keep doing / buying plugins as you have done coz it's working for you.

Guilty as charged. A good share of my seldom to never used plugins have been replaced by better alternatives, or came with bundles where due to a special, it was cheaper to buy the entire bundle than only the ones that you want. Over the course of 20 years using plugins, you can easily find yourself accumulating a bunch of detritus.

I could, and probably should, slim my folder down, but unlike some others, I don’t really find it a mental strain.

[dblock]

The plugins won't slow you down nearly as much overthinking it will.

[Niowiad]

I've been buying tons of plugins for the last 10 years. I have way more than I need.

Choice paralysis isn't much of an issue, since I keep them VERY well organized for type and function.
I might have 10 plugins basically serving the same purpose... I just pick one in that "category" in 5 seconds.
It's not optimal, but it's not really obstructing the process either.

The real nightmare is whenever I format my PC and have to re-install everything.

[cdbaksu]

What I did was I created a chart of all my plugins categorized, so when I wanna reach for a delay I can pick between the 11 I have in that folder. Sped up my workflow immensely.

Also lets me visualize whether I really DO need yet another delay plugin or not

[Niowiad]

Yeah about delays... I just checked and I currently have f**king 36 of them.
Still, I use a naming/ordering system with prefixes (inside the DAW) which visually puts them in very specific groups and sub-groups, based on their style, purpose, workflow and "complexity".
So, despite having to look at quite a long list, it still takes just a few seconds to pick one.

[lobanov]

I have a template setup with the instruments I curated to be my most go-2 plugins. I don't delete or sell the rest. I remove the .dll from my vst3 folder and they go in my "removed plugins" folder so they don't get scanned. If I'm working on a cue and none of my favorites suit my need for that time I just take the .dll of the plugin I think might work and put it back in my vst3 folder.

Cool strategy.

Zipping is another good option for plugins we don't use. We zip a file (.dll or .vst3 or clap etc.) and delete the plugin (not zips). After rescan the plugin will be "hidden". If in the future we need this plugin (for an old project) we just unzip it. And then zip it again.

[Funky40]

Folks......buuut:
what´s your numbers ?



i see no problem with high counts, as long your brain can manage to create a selection and you´re able to chose quickly.

Yet, i personally started to run into another problem: i can´t even nolonger remember the names of the plugins. The flood of names started to scramble my brain. my host just shows an endless list of the devs.

i make my music based on the usage of FX. There i WANT to have a selection.
while vs. my main tools, it´s just all about to allways have the -for me- best at hand.
I do not need to have 10 comps cause each would deliver another flower of sound.
I take 10 comps and find the one that i can gel with best. As an example.
The other 9 are then -sort of- wasted money., But not exactly, cause they helped me to chose "my one".


means: i DO think in terms of "which is best ?" But with most things within a preselection process.
And NOT in a ever fresh again occouring "competition type of thinking" vs. ever fresh upcoming situations.


the tough part will be to throw all others out.
i´m not yet there. But has to happen...........

[pekbro]

Screenshot 2025-11-21 175850.png

[djanthonyw]

And all this time I thought I still had a lot after trimming things down to 93.

[pekbro]

That's not even all of them, some I don't use anymore, Melda for instance, I think I have 70-80 of those for example. TBF, I don't sell plugins at all and I have been collecting those for 20 yrs. I will say that I have pretty much lost faith in a number of developers over the years, and don't bother with their stuff, even if I own quite a bit of it.

[swilow11]

I am a reformed GASman. The struggle is real.

What's actually almost completely broken it for me was selling a huge array of stuff this year (Bazille, Ace, Hive2, Current, Falcon, Spire, Pigments, V Collection, FX Collection 4/5, and so on). I did this because I was being so unproductive and not actually enjoying making music because I always felt like I was neglecting this or that, or not making good use of whatever, or always surmounting the learning curve on some new gadget. I've got ADHD and having almost limitless choice does not work well for someone like me. So I basically made a list of everything I had and was absolutely brutal. Anything that I used based on the idea that I was "neglecting" it got killed. If it wasn't an S tier item, it got killed.

Selling stuff, at a loss of course, has made me really cautious when I think about buying something now. I can short-circuit the GAS by asking myself whether I would have sold this item during the Great Cull of 25. The answer is often YES and so i basically do not buy synth plugins anymore. This year, I've picked up Newfangled Mastering bundle because it served a purpose and is top tier products. I've picked up Toneboosters Barricade, added Pitch Shaper to my Shaperbox, grabbed Knifomium because it was $9 and I'll soon upgrade Bitwig but my days of hard-core over spending are over.

Tbh, I've still got too much stuff. I'm now using Serum 2, Phase Plant, Massive X, Bitwig grid/stock, Kontakt, Argon 8, TR6S and Tal Mod with a few other supporting acts like Curve 2, FM8, Reaktor, etc. And of that, it's probably 70% Serum 2 and Phase Plant. I'm enjoying music way more, have gotten so much better at sound design with Serum/PP, and am now sort of ashamed at how materialistic and gullible I got with all my expenditure.

All that said, I just purchased a TR6S and a Maschihe Mikro but hardware is different, right? Right???

[pekbro]

Personally, I've spent way more on software than HW and I've spent LOTS on HW...
HW, since it tends to be costlier, imo is much more bound by one's financial means
than SW and easier to collect in moderation. Of course this is coming from a guy
with $10k worth of guitar pedals.

*Sry, since these types of threads often end up concerning cost, I guess I have a
habit of breaking things down that way. Concerning creativity and inspiration,
plugins and HW are mostly equal for me.

[cdbaksu]

Yeah about delays... I just checked and I currently have f**king 36 of them.
Still, I use a naming/ordering system with prefixes (inside the DAW) which visually puts them in very specific groups and sub-groups, based on their style, purpose, workflow and "complexity".
So, despite having to look at quite a long list, it still takes just a few seconds to pick one.

That's a lot of delays! Which ones are your favorites?

[Niowiad]

Yeah about delays... I just checked and I currently have f**king 36 of them.
Still, I use a naming/ordering system with prefixes (inside the DAW) which visually puts them in very specific groups and sub-groups, based on their style, purpose, workflow and "complexity".
So, despite having to look at quite a long list, it still takes just a few seconds to pick one.

That's a lot of delays! Which ones are your favorites?

Yeah that's a lot, definitely too much.
BTW right after I wrote that post, I deleted one, so now it's 35. MUCH BETTER


About favorites, it depends on their "category".

For general purpose it's either EchoBoy or ValhallaDelay, although I know you can get "experimental" with those too.

For "vintage" sound/workflow and delay+reverb combos I like AudioThing's OuterSpace and Audiority's SpaceAge555.

PSP42 and SoundToys' PrimalTap specifically for the sample-rate modulation trick.

ADA STD-1 and Audiority's SpaceStation get quite a bit of use, not for standard echo duties, but for how well they're suited for "vintage digital" early reflections.

UVI's Relayer is pretty great for multi-tap pattern editing.

For more unconventional stuff there's "weird yet simple" plugins like ValhallaSupermassive, AudioThing's Bubbles.
It gets a little more complex through sound mangling and unusual modulation, there's stuff like UA Fault/Sandman, AudioDamage's OtherDesertCities, Melda's MSpectralDelay, Soundtoy's Crystallizer.
Then u-he's MFM2 is quite complex but fun routing-wise, and especially fun in "user matrix" mode.

Several plugins are not stricly delays but they have an "echo" section with a pretty defined character (like AudioThing's Wires/Reels, Plogue's Chipcrusher or Eventide's H910/949 harmonizers), so they still appear on that list.
Eventide's Undulator (not strictly a delay) is also really underrated in my opinion, and it can sound f**king amazing.
Quadravox is also pretty cool.

Other notable mentions... Audiority's DarkMemory and VRS23, AudioThing's Mantis.

So the choice basically depends on what kind of sound/effect is required, and the amount of complexity I feel like dealing with at the moment.

[ToneCarver]

I am considering setting up a subscription web service that periodically sends out a "You have Enough _____" (fill in the blank) and "Use What You Have" emails/tweets to all subscribers as an Anti-GAS service. Hobby neutral. Cost would be minimal. Services like this work better if recipients have skin in the game.