Must-have plug-ins?

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by terminal3

For those that use DAWs to create your music, what are your top 5 or 10 must-have plug-ins? Even if you prefer outboard, there must be a few that you use on a regular basis!

More than 5 - 10 (sorry) but all must have plugs IMO.

Cakewalk
z3ta+
Dimension Pro
Rapture

Spectrasonics
Omnisphere
Trilogy
RMX Xpanded

Voxengo
Varisaturator

Audio Damage
Replicant
Automaton
Richochet

Camel Audio
Alchemy
Camel Space
Camel Phat

MAGIX
AM SUITE

Fabfilter
Timeless

[Khazul]

An interesting MIDI VST plugin for generating chord and finding substitutes etc

Chord Space

[sphelan]

Originally Posted by Khazul

An interesting MIDI VST plugin for generating chord and finding substitutes etc

Chord Space

I downloaded this as discussed here.

Not a bad little piece of kit...haven't played much with it but it has a basic arp feature and keys on the keyboard control the chords played. Worth checking out!

[Kaychi]

my most used are:

Massive
Albino
Zeta
Orchestral

[EdRyan]

Mine:

Massive
Battery 3
Ultra Analogue
V Station
PSP Nitro
PSP Vintage Warmer2
LiquidMix.

[Benoit]

Since I got Logic I dont use nearly as many 3rd party plugins..a few of my favourites tho...

Camelspace for groove based fx
Subboombass (inspirational bass grooves)
Komplete synths - Massive mainly
Audio damage (replicant / discord) again for groove based fx
T Racks for mastering
Sonalksis for mastering

On my shopping list...trillian,omnisphere, dcam synth squad, waves platinum

[tehlord]

After a year of financially abusive experimentation it's thus :-

Sylenth1 for leads and pads

Predator for bass and leads

TC Character for almost everything

Redline Reverb for sends

Cubase delay for everything

Camelspace for gates and general mucky upiness.

TC CL compressor - nice.

[Khazul]

My must-have list curently stands at:

Sylenth1 - really - just one plugin synth that I use alot. (Often resampled, or helped by a Virus TI)

Misc Processing:
D16 Devastor - excellent for hard dynamics and subtle distortion to all out acid distruction - stick it on a regular bright piano, tweak the filters a bit and it will turn it into a hard dirty dancey M1 style piano
D16 Syntorus and Fazortan - very lush sounding chorus and phaser.
D16 Decimort - Basically a bit crusher and great for subtle use on rhythm parts to add a bit of an edge when needed.
D16 Redoptor - Tube trasher - from subtle to extreme. Excellent on electro house type synth bass sounds among other uses.
Vengance multiband sidechain - exellent for getting the hard kick pumped effect, but more like having a sidechained multi-band to work with, so far most flexible and controllable. (I stick prefer a regular compressor for more subtle pumping however).

Mangling:
Camelspace - excellent insant mangler/chopper. Also great sounding characterful filters on it.

Reverbs:
D16 Toraverb - excellent for astmospheric fx type reverbs, and making sweeps etc. (use with the D16 Syntorus as well - very lush!)
Audio Damage EOS - good general reverb - really nice on synths. Also good for creating atmosphere fx etc.

Delays:
Audio Damage dubstation - instant dubby goodness - use it with a colourful reverb for best results.

Post production:
UAD precision series plugins - even if no other UAD plugins grab you - the Limiter is excellent. If you have to use a multi-band compressor at times, then the companion multiband comp is one of my favourites. The EQ is not bad too for making subtle tweaks.
SPL Vitalizer Mk2-T - a definate must have - either the original hardware version (that I have) or the new software plugin - instant spit and polish on your mixes, but get to know it first - IMHO you have to mix for it rather than just slap it on afterwards.


Oher stuff worth a mention:
D16 or AudioRealism 808/909/303 simulations - not much to choose between them, both very handy to have even if I mostly use samples for drums.

Alchemy - I expected to get alot more out of this (specifically replace my v-synth for audio managling), but Im still on the fence about it. I tend to do most of my extreme sample mangling using Ableton live warping and bounce the result, or stick it in a the V-Synth.

Aether reverb - quite a lush reverb, but often need alot of post EQ work to get it to sit well - also quite fiddly to tweak. If you have enough lifetimes, it can sound great.

TC30 reverb - it was a freebie. Very limited control, but it always seems to sounds ok making a reverb of choice when you dont have time to tweak (producer sitting over shoulder etc).

Other UAD plugins - mostly excellent especially the vintage character processors, though I dont find I use them very much due to the extra latency that gets annoying when recording.

Fabfilter - I have volcano, twin, timeless and their pro-c, I used to really like their plugins, but more recently I find myself using others far more - I cant usefully put my finger on why I have gone off them.

A typical channel strip for me a the moment when I'm mixing other peoples bounced stems:
Ableton Live plugins - Compressor + Overdrive + EQ8 - start with all disabled, but that is basically my default channel strip.

On the sends, default are currently Toraverb behind a delay and EOS behind another delay (often dubstation).

Edit: have to add melodyne editor as a must-have for anyone who works with instrument loops and samples.