plug ins

[naomifix]

ON PLUG INS:

I bought valhalla vintage verb, i love it
i also am trying soundtoys and don't know which ones are actually worth having if i buy any at all, for my 80's-ish music:D
for drums and bass and pads?

[jestermgee]

For what kind of effect do you want?

[TLW]

All the Soundtoy plugins are good at what they do.

If I only had one Soundtoys plugin it would be Echoboy, it does a good job of emulating a very wide range of delays and sound very musical. At least, it does to me. Tremolator is very good, as is Little Plate. I think Waves Abbey Road plate reverb is a better plate simulator and has more configuration settings, but it also uses a lot of cpu while Little Plate is low on resource use in comparison.

[naomifix]

For what kind of effect do you want?

This is gonna sound weird but it's the best I can come up with, I love the fashion music that is played on the runway without lyrics, the bouncy housey progressive style music with lots of steady beats and some nice melodies that all blend in time. And I am an 80's girl, so in between those two realms.

This video has some nice music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP-Z8NxDN1s

it's almost like pay-trancy

[naomifix]

All the Soundtoy plugins are good at what they do.

If I only had one Soundtoys plugin it would be Echoboy, it does a good job of emulating a very wide range of delays and sound very musical. At least, it does to me. Tremolator is very good, as is Little Plate. I think Waves Abbey Road plate reverb is a better plate simulator and has more configuration settings, but it also uses a lot of cpu while Little Plate is low on resource use in comparison.

i have valhalla vintage verb so i do not have that sort of toy right there? or is echoboy different?

i don't have great vocab when it comes to works like simulator and stuff. i am using my intuition mostly
i do tutorials and am going to do the warp academy mixing and mastering one month course and they say not to have a bunch of plug ins. it's mostly so i can get creative and outside of the walls of just flat digital sound:) and for when I'm better at production i will have them. i'll try those ones you mentioned though for sure and learn what they do and some new language about them!

Thank you.

[TLW]

Echoboy is a delay/echo effect, not a reverb.

This explains the difference between the two quite well - https://thehomerecordings.com/reverb-vs-delay/

Where emulation/simulation comes into things is when a plugin is intended to sound like a particular hardware effects processor or instrument which has a desirable audio quality. Some manage this better than others, but that’s the aim.

There are lots of plugins available, probably thousands and it’s tempting to get more than you will ever use. I think it’s better to have fewer plugins but know them very well. If a plugin that comes with Live does what you want and you like what it does then use that and only buy third party ones when you know why you want that specific plugin.

Where I feel Live has a particular weakness is in metering tools- the (free) Voxengo SPAN is a very useful metering tool as is Melda Production’s MMultiAnalyzer. Intuition is a good thing when creating music, but sound engineering means sometimes it’s necessary to know what’s going on and what to do.

It’s often worth waiting for the plugin maker to have a sale before buying. Waves in particular frequently drop their prices substantially, and I got a very good deal from Soundtoys in a sale last year. Black Friday is coming in a couple of months and is usually a good chance to pick up a few bargains.

[naomifix]

TLW thanks for this. I agree, waiting for a sale is essential. I am finding the Vintage Verb is really helping lift me out of the box so to speak...I like soundtoys Microshift right now and I'll wait for a sale on soundtoys to see if they have a sale in the next couple months, maybe boxing day too! My bday is Dec 30 so I often wait for everything to come on sale haha.

I don't think I really need many plug ins either because when I send it to the final place it goes those won't be desirable, it's more of a thing for me to explore the sounds. Thank you for the very clear reply, I understood you well.

[VAPstudio]

I use Soundtoys decapitator (especially in kick) more than I was expecting. It adds a great color in the tracks. You could also find some nice stuff at hornet plugins. I also use WOW from sugarbytes together with Ableton;s Auto filter (great plugin) . Ableton Live comes with great plugins.

Of course you have to see what do you need and then test some stuff with their demos.

[TLW]

Thinking about what I use a lot, Bozdigital are worth looking at - some slightly unusual plugins that can be very useful.

Also d16 - they do a nice bit-crusher that emulates old samplers and their modulation plugins are pretty good. The flanger is the nearest digital thing I’ve found to my old EHX Deluxe Electric Mistress.

[[jur]]

Naomifix, try learning Live's devices.
If you have L10 Suite you get Echo which is amazing (and probably as good as Echoboy), and M4L which comes with Convolution Reverb for example.