What (effect) plug-ins have really impressed you lately?

[The Noodlist]

Impressed with ML Sound Lab's amp sims' clean sounds. Unimpressed with demo limitations, I found it difficult to evaluate with the frequent interruptions. Gonna whittle them down and wait for any big sales. $29

[GusGranite]

Picking up Softube's Tape Echoes for $15 this weekend has been a treat. What a rub-a-dubby delay. Most excellent.

Where is it $15? 

You'll need Dirty Tape in your account and need to be logged in and use code TAPEECHOESFOR15
https://www.softube.com/tape-echoes
Through 13 August
Source.

Yes, thank you for following up. I didn’t realize how nice this delay was when it came out. Hopefully it will go on sale again for those that missed it.

[Septic Underground]

Audiority Pyros. Marketed as extreme distortion but it's capable of the full range of saturation and distortion with its large number of algorithms, it's really useful. As soon as I demoed it I knew I had to buy it and I use it all the time now.

Me too, you can make great stuff with it. Love it for some ballsy lowend kicks. It reminds me of my old culture vulture in some ways. It is awesome.

Following the Pyros I bought the Electric Mistress and CE-1 clone from audiority and boy, those are really top notch plugins that totally capture the spirit and swirl of the originals. The Free MX100 phaser clone and the drive are cool aswell.

My fav dev next to Softube and Arturia these days. And closer to the first than the latter imho.

[DJErmac]

Now I can’t work without Baby Audio Smooth Operator. It’s become my time saver. No more endless EQing until all the resonances I don’t like are tamed. I simply choose the zone I need to tame : period. All I have to do is EQ properly then.

[Igro]

Voxengo TEOTE. Very unlikely i would ever achieve my mixes to sound that good, unless I would fiddle for ages with EQs and multiband compressors.

[foosnark]

Now I can’t work without Baby Audio Smooth Operator.

I just gave it a try with some material and was pretty impressed.

And then other material and... hmm, it made things sound worse without a whole lot more manual tweaking than I'd need if I were just going to throw an EQ at it. I'm kind of on the fence.

[multicolor]

Now I can’t work without Baby Audio Smooth Operator.

I just gave it a try with some material and was pretty impressed.

And then other material and... hmm, it made things sound worse without a whole lot more manual tweaking than I'd need if I were just going to throw an EQ at it. I'm kind of on the fence.

Totally agree, it's weird how it sometimes works wonders and sometimes not at all and I can't seem to be able to predict which it'll be beforehand.. I do like how it's not very surgical, which (unless driven hard) makes it sound less obviously processed than I feared initially. I think it lends itself best to subtle changes, taking care of stuff that would be too much/heavy-handed for a normal EQ

[DJErmac]

Now I can’t work without Baby Audio Smooth Operator.

I just gave it a try with some material and was pretty impressed.

And then other material and... hmm, it made things sound worse without a whole lot more manual tweaking than I'd need if I were just going to throw an EQ at it. I'm kind of on the fence.

The correct usage in my opinion is : start with every point on the top. Lower the one where resonances are the worst until you like it. You can then adjust carefully the whole curve by lowering it slowly (can be flipped in many ways, use modwheel) so it leaves the rest almost untouched, as you like it. Sometimes you’ll have to redraw some points when lowering the curve, but it’s the way it works.
This is the way you can use it as a soft tamer.
You can also start by drawing a curve on the top that you want to impose, and then lower it slowly until you get that sound you’re after. More bass than low-medium ? No problem. This way you almost get a signature mastering colour processor : every single song you’re making sounds the same.

I use several instances very often. No other similar plugin tames the sound with so much musicality in the result imho. And I own them all.

[DJErmac]

Another one that really impressed me lately is Autoformer by Plugins United.
https://unitedplugins.com/Autoformer/
By using only the down-left module, it becomes the most insane autogain plugin I’ve heard : it’s reliable, clean enough (simply adjust the right button to get the cleanest possible sound, it’s material-dependant) and working for real. When compressors and limiters can’t maximise the sound volume constantly as I would like to without crushing dynamics more than expected, this thing is going to be my new best friend. This thing seems... clever. I’m going to try it more and more in the next weeks, it’s a quite fresh discovery for me.

[Sinisterbr]

Have you already tried DSEQ? I think it's better than Smooth Operator.

[DJErmac]

Oh, another one : Claro from Sonnox.
https://www.sonnox.com/toolbox/claro
The standard digital EQ page is what counts here : the rest is a bunch of tricks (can be useful, can be stupid).
I can’t explain why, I don’t know how, but this EQ works flawlessly for me.
I’ve stopped using DMG Equilibrium since I own it (and I had stopped using Fabfilter ProQ when I got Equilibrium).
Claro has this "volume compensation" cryptical feature for each band you’re making. And it’s working so well ! If you untick the volume compensation, your equalization becomes dull and lifeless.
I can’t really tell you what’s happening and what this volume compensation is doing, but the fact is that for some reason this plugin is producing magical results for me...

[DJErmac]

Have you already tried DSEQ? I think it's better than Smooth Operator.

I believe I tried it quickly. It’s been on my radar for a long time. If this is the one I think I tried, I’ve not been that impressed. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time on it.
Thanks a lot for the suggestion, I’ll try it again !

[foosnark]

Have you already tried DSEQ? I think it's better than Smooth Operator.

I gave it a brief try. Lots of controls, not sure for my purposes there was much advantage over using an EQ.

[Aiynzahev]

Oh, another one : Claro from Sonnox.
https://www.sonnox.com/toolbox/claro
The standard digital EQ page is what counts here : the rest is a bunch of tricks (can be useful, can be stupid).
I can’t explain why, I don’t know how, but this EQ works flawlessly for me.
I’ve stopped using DMG Equilibrium since I own it (and I had stopped using Fabfilter ProQ when I got Equilibrium).
Claro has this "volume compensation" cryptical feature for each band you’re making. And it’s working so well ! If you untick the volume compensation, your equalization becomes dull and lifeless.
I can’t really tell you what’s happening and what this volume compensation is doing, but the fact is that for some reason this plugin is producing magical results for me...

That's interesting. Have you ever tried the Tokyo Dawns Labs Slick EQ? It has an auto-gain feature, but only a few bands and the free version doesn't have the Japanese model which has the tighter Q. I wonder if it's much different from that?

[Fornicras]

I have used chorus too many times before but something about Arturia's JUN-6 Chorus is different and sounds awesome, especially on Mode II.
My favorite effect right now.