| Evolve140 |
Took this from my Facebook. Not a definitive guide by any means, just my take on the plug-ins I'm using at the moment, to answer questions from new producers I'm talking to.
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The most frequent question so far is: What's in your plug-in folder?
Moogi Filter
This is a mono filter that has some nice color to it. I don't use it on much, usually just very low frequency basslines. It tends to add punch and character, and is not a transparent filter. Used with other processing like distortion, this thing really adds some nice punch and fullness to basslines.
NI Massive
Don't really use this very much, but am waiting for the day when I check it out. Totally used used, but doesn't mean that it doesn't merit use or should be overlooked.
PSP Vintage Warmer
I can't imagine mixing, or processing, without this. It can be used on pretty much anything that needs extra warmth and harmonic content. I can keep the drive at 0% to take advantage of the analogue warmth emulation without compressing the signal, making my processing chain more robust. The presets are pretty much ready to go, but I usually tweak the parameters a bit to fit the sound. Wonderful for bus mixing and processing on individual channels. A must have if you want your bass instruments to sound full and punchy.
Rob Papen Albino
Have heard great things about this. Can do pretty much any sound you need. Haven't used it very much at all, but like Massive, just kind of waiting until the day when I delve into it more.
Rob Papen Predator
The first VST I ever learned when I switched from Reason to Ableton, I love this synth. It has a really raw sound for a lot of different things. Excellent waveforms to choose from, and a big variety of them as well. The filters sound really great, and the built in effects like the lo fi filter and distortion sound great -- sometimes I even process other sounds with the Predator FX unit. Great for basslines, pads, leads, and layers. Fat sounds from this beast.
Tone2 Gladiator
A diversity of sounds can be made on this. I like it for its punchy envelopes. Great for basslines. To be honest I haven't used it for much else other than basslines, but they sound great. I'm sure it's good for other sounds. It does have a unique character, and a lot of really awesome features that make it unique. Surprisingly, it's not that heavy on CPU (but it has its moments). Love this, excellent for bassline layers too.
u-He Zebra
Unfortunately, I haven't used this very much. It's supposed to be one of the very best out there in terms of synthesis and openness. You can design your own waveforms, and really dig into the sound. I may have used this a couple of times but not very much. Another synth I am waiting to delve into.
Arturia MiniMonsta
Have used this a few times, but never really got into it. It's good for basslines and pads though, that I know for certain.
dB Glitch
Fun. Lots of endless possibilities. It is extremely over used, because after Avicii the wound down at the end of the measure, unfortunately, kind of took over. ing obnoxious right? Anyway, there are a lot of kinds of effects built into this effects-sequencer combo, and to this day it is still a great tool. When I use it, it's very subtle but with good effect. If you can make your own edits and have the skill, you probably won't use this -- but if you need glitch and edits on the fly, this will be useful for you.
Bass-Station
This is considered to be pretty antiquated and has limited features, but I use it to this day. Sub bass works perfect, and the envelopes are easy to fine tune to get a punchy, groovy sound for sub bass and lower bass. It has a pretty nice LFO as well, but I really like the character of its envelopes and the relationship the filter has with the envelopes.
Diva
My newest addition. I love this thing. So easy to get really rich, fat sounds. Endless possibilities since you can combine different filter and envelope modules. Beautiful, singing pads, crisp leads. Haven't used it much for basslines but I wouldn't put it past it. An obvious down side is the INSANE CPU usage that it uses. Put it on draft or fast until you render it, then put it on the higher settings.
DrMS
I can't praise this tool enough. Don't know what Mid/Side is? Don't worry. Open this up and find out, because once you start tweaking the presets it's going to rock your mixes. Tweak to taste, but they have world renowned engineers and producers who have created excellent presets for certain sounds. Keep that low end of a bass patch mono using the HP filter and explore a world of stereo positioning for the rest of the frequency band of your instrument. LOVE this thing!
FabFilter Saturn
Indisputably the best software distortion unit on the market. This is called multi-band distortion, and is not only super creative, it's smart. You can choose frequency ranges (bands) with their own distortion type and individual parameters. There's a crazy ass LFO step sequencer thingy I haven't even begun to fool around with, but it looks pretty ing insane. LOVE THIS.
FM8
I've used this synth a couple time for bell sounds, but really not much beyond that. The programming options are insane, which is probably why I stayed so far away from it. I have heard great things and if I have some time I'll check it out. There has to be a million tutorials out there for it, but my knowledge and practice of FM synth is extremely limited. Probably great for the wub wubs!
Jupiter 8V
Ah, the Jupiter 8V. First of all, the cons. Not good for basslines. Once you start going lower on the octaves, phasing starts to occur. And yes, it's very noticable. There will be 2 phases, if you start the MIDI clip and stop it, then start it again, you can hear how it goes back and forth between the 2 phase positions. Very annoying. This doesn't happen noticably at all in the mid or high frequency areas. Great for leads, beautiful, rich and plucky. Wonderful for pads as well. My go-to synth for leads and pads, and can serve well to fill out layers in a patch. Love the filter and envelope on this, anything from plucky to padlike, it will do it all. Also great for FX, but I stopped using some of the parameters because after I saved a project and opened it again, it wouldn't sound the same -- almost sounded broken. Could be an Ableton compatibility problem and has been fixed, but not sure. Worth mentioning is the built in FX that it has. Wonderful chorus, phaser, etc. And they sound great with the Jupiter.
Sylenth
The rise of Sylenth has to do with its Fisher Price GUI, massive amount of presets, and the sheer amount of YouTube videos available as tutorials. I'm not writing to dissuade or persuade someone to use this synth, but there are a million alternatives that sound better. Sylenth is lowest-tier sound design, and since most new producers will just be downloading a million presets and then compressing the hell out of it. I've used it in a few tracks, but not really anymore. It has a really tin-can digital sound to it. With the right knowledge and processing, it can sound pretty dope. I know of someone who only uses sylenth and his tracks are super banging, but he's the extreme exception.
Ableton: In the Box
Auto-Fiter
Known for its great filter movement and sweeping, I love this filter. I use it as an EQ sometimes, but it has the cleanest sweeps and movement ever. Try automating a filter sweep and see for yourself. I have never used a third-party filter because this does the job so well. Try side chaining it to something as well. This is a rather transparent filter, which means it doesn't add much color to it.
EQ 3
Good for cut off. Has a couple of different curves, 24 db and 48. All around it's a great EQ, have been using EQ 8 though for a while now instead of this.
EQ 8
What can I say? It gets the job done. Quite well. Never needed or had the desire to get a third party EQ since this works so well.
Compressor
Simple, transparent (mostly) and effective. Works practically and effectively for compression, limiting and ducking (side-chaining). Another in-house Ableton effect that works so well I've never needed to consider a third-party effect.
Reverb
I've been able to get the sound I want from this consistently. It doesn't do convolution reverb, which is like designing space for reverb (Logic has a native reverb plug that does this). Though, there is still a lot to be said about this effect. I love the EQ built into it. People have various complaints but I don't understand them. One is that the tail is digital sounding and grainy. Never had a problem with that. It's healthy to try different kinds of effects, but this has always gotten the job done for me.
Ping-Ping Delay
There are some pretty great delay units out there. Sound Toys has some excellent stuff, and even though I've heard such good things about them, I never felt like I would need to, because the Ableton delay unit is ing awesome. Switch between repitch, fade and jump, and see how much variation in sound you can get. There is effective ways to emulate your own tape delay and a number of other effects. The dry/wet automation works amazingly, so if you want to add trippy stereo effects to your synths or drums, it's super easy and fun.
Phaser
Honestly, phasing and chorus are things where I see if the synth I'm using has a built in unit. Like with the Jupiter, the built in phaser and chorus sing with it so well. Though, this is a decent phaser and will get the job done for all practical purposes.
Overdrive
Generally for distortion I will jump straight into Saturn, because it can handle anything from subtle to extreme. For basic overdrive or distortion, this works just fine. I use it very rarely, but to add some extra color to the sound it can be useful. |
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