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Post by gravesnumber9 on Mar 27, 2021 12:48:07 GMT -6
Zombie thread revitalized. Because this is an awesome thread and deserves a second life.
I'm going to add one... a true hot take. Capitol Chambers. Not because it doesn't sound great (it does) but because it simply takes the DSP on my little x4 and eats it alive. Plus no DAW lets you freeze bus tracks easily (at least not that I know of, Logic certainly doesn't) so the most intensive plugs set me back 50% of my DSP before I've even tracked scratch vocal. Ocean Way, Capitol, Ampex. Two chips down, two to go.
Just kind of sucks that the most processor intensive plugs also tend to live in places that you can't easily freeze.
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Post by OtisGreying on Mar 27, 2021 13:39:01 GMT -6
PA black box and Mc77 haven’t used at all since bought. Also Kush AR1 and MDE magic death eye, I use a bit but not very much I think it’s my own personal exhaustion with emulation plug-ins in general. I’m always second guessing whether what they’re doing is really getting me the analog sound they’re going for, or just some digital farce, a lot of this is because my ear just isn't that attuned to what the analog piece should really sound like due to my lack of experience. So in constantly wondering if they’re doing what they’re supposed to do it just exhausts and distracts my brain thinking about it so I just don’t even reach for them anymore. In other words, very few emulation plugs I can tell are for sure positively changing the sound versus just keeping it drier, again this is mostly a combination of untrained ear and some analog v digital debate paranoia I've developed. Whatever, I’ve since bought 6 analog hardware pieces and couldn’t be happier and are getting the best mixes I’ve ever gotten.
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Post by superwack on Mar 27, 2021 14:19:43 GMT -6
Here is a business idea that someone should steal because I’m certainly not going to do it.
You know how when trade-in used gear or a car they give you less than they can sell it for? Someone should set up a site to buy and sell used plug-ins where they would track the going rate of a used plug-in then pay you less than that so they sell them for a profit. You could offload all of your old, regretted, unused ones with zero hassle and people could easily buy used plugins cheaply from a trusted/legit source. Obviously it wouldn’t work for UAD and things like WUP or ILok or other transfer fees would have to be figured in.
Maybe they could do it like old used CD stores and offer you slightly more credit vs cash to sell your old stuff? I know I’ve got plenty of things I’d trade for pennies on the dollar if it wasn’t a hassle 🤔
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Post by RealNoob on Mar 27, 2021 21:52:30 GMT -6
Black rooster plugins - no character
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Post by phdamage on Mar 28, 2021 7:13:21 GMT -6
So, so many: UAD distressor. I use it from time to time but 99% of the time, I’d prefer to use something else UAD massenberg EQ. Was wowed by if at first, now I never touch it, esp since I got fab filter pro-q3 Softube Trident EQ - never cared for it and find the controls annoying EW spaces - I do use it from time to time, but considering the price tag, I could have easily done without it. Not the game changer I hoped it would be Eventide spring and black hole - sound fine, just never use them
Too many disappointing Waves plugs to name, but for $30 a pop, I can’t be that sad. A few I wouldn’t miss: Greg Wells signature Butch Vig vocals Manny Marroquin signature
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Post by thirdeye on Mar 28, 2021 9:16:45 GMT -6
All my URS plugins that never got updated to AAX.
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Post by tkaitkai on Mar 28, 2021 9:31:44 GMT -6
UAD 1073: Bought this years ago to use in Unison mode, ended up preferring the stock Apollo pre and eventually going outboard. Fantastic for mixing, but an absolute DSP hog, so I pretty much never use it.
UAD Oxide: I want to like it, but it always does this crispy/sizzly thing to the high end that I just don't care for.
UAD/bx ENGL E765 RT: I don't know what I was thinking with this one. Honestly one of the worst amp sims I've ever used. Sorry UA/bx, I still love you guys.
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Post by gwlee7 on Mar 28, 2021 9:55:42 GMT -6
Pretty much all of the UAD guitar amp sims. I just don’t use them. I do like the ampeg bass amp sims I have.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Mar 28, 2021 10:12:09 GMT -6
Pretty much all of the UAD guitar amp sims. I just don’t use them. I do like the ampeg bass amp sims I have. I generally don't like amp sims. However, the UAD Ampeg lite (or whatever they call it, legacy?) is totally usable as is the bx_bassdude. I generally track bass direct and will sometimes run a safety guitar signal through the "bass dude" if I made some terrible 2am numb-ears mic error on a guitar track. The rest just don't do it for me. If there's one thing that I wish lived up to the hype it would be amp sims. There's just always something weird about them to me. Maybe it's cuz I actually like the sound of a slightly lo-fi room tone mixed in and they just sound too "good" or something?
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Post by subspace on Mar 28, 2021 10:32:11 GMT -6
Pretty much all of the UAD guitar amp sims. I just don’t use them. I do like the ampeg bass amp sims I have. I generally don't like amp sims. However, the UAD Ampeg lite (or whatever they call it, legacy?) is totally usable as is the bx_bassdude. I generally track bass direct and will sometimes run a safety guitar signal through the "bass dude" if I made some terrible 2am numb-ears mic error on a guitar track. The rest just don't do it for me. If there's one thing that I wish lived up to the hype it would be amp sims. There's just always something weird about them to me. Maybe it's cuz I actually like the sound of a slightly lo-fi room tone mixed in and they just sound too "good" or something? Yes to this, regret the Friedman BE-100 purchase, but love the free Ampeg SVT-VR Classic and bx_bassdude purchase!
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Post by ragan on Mar 28, 2021 10:34:25 GMT -6
I love that free Ampeg too. DI into that is honestly just better than the bass tones I get elsewise, mic’ing or using the Suhr RL or whatever.
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Post by gwlee7 on Mar 28, 2021 11:13:51 GMT -6
I love that free Ampeg too. DI into that is honestly just better than the bass tones I get elsewise, mic’ing or using the Suhr RL or whatever. The BN15 or whatever is pretty cool too.
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Post by ragan on Mar 28, 2021 11:16:21 GMT -6
I love that free Ampeg too. DI into that is honestly just better than the bass tones I get elsewise, mic’ing or using the Suhr RL or whatever. The BN15 or whatever is pretty cool too. Yeah I’m gonna be on the lookout for a sale on that one as well.
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Post by ragan on Mar 28, 2021 11:20:00 GMT -6
And as far as amp sims more generally, I too found all of the UAD options to be pretty bad. And also just about every other sim I’ve tried. But I am a big fan of Overloud TH-U. I still prefer mic’d amp or (more often) the Suhr RL, but TH-U was the first sim that I actually viscerally liked. It’s a lot of fun to sculpt with and I can get totally useable sounds out of it.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Mar 28, 2021 13:48:21 GMT -6
I love that free Ampeg too. DI into that is honestly just better than the bass tones I get elsewise, mic’ing or using the Suhr RL or whatever. I take a 10,000 year old SansAmp pedal into the Ampeg legacy and it usually sounds great. No reason not to. Btw, say what you want about it but that SansAmp probably returned more on investment than any gear I own. Bought it used for $70 when I was 19 to run a Rhodes bass piano through. 21 years later it still provides value.
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Post by ragan on Mar 28, 2021 14:12:38 GMT -6
I love that free Ampeg too. DI into that is honestly just better than the bass tones I get elsewise, mic’ing or using the Suhr RL or whatever. I take a 10,000 year old SansAmp pedal into the Ampeg legacy and it usually sounds great. No reason not to. Btw, say what you want about it but that SansAmp probably returned more on investment than any gear I own. Bought it used for $70 when I was 19 to run a Rhodes bass piano through. 21 years later it still provides value. Hey I’m a dyed in the wool Tchad Blake fan so you’ll never hear me disrespect the mighty Sansamp.
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Post by Johnkenn on Mar 28, 2021 14:21:30 GMT -6
Pretty much all of the UAD guitar amp sims. I just don’t use them. I do like the ampeg bass amp sims I have. Pulled a few up not long ago and was surprised that they were very similar to my Axefx. At least some of them. My deal is that they just don’t have many of the Fenders I’m interested in.
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Post by gwlee7 on Mar 28, 2021 15:58:58 GMT -6
Pretty much all of the UAD guitar amp sims. I just don’t use them. I do like the ampeg bass amp sims I have. Pulled a few up not long ago and was surprised that they were very similar to my Axefx. At least some of them. My deal is that they just don’t have many of the Fenders I’m interested in. And for me, it’s not that I think they suck so much as I just don’t use them and especially since I am not using an apollo interface anymore. But even when I was still using the Twin, I didn’t use them.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Mar 28, 2021 20:57:45 GMT -6
Earlier, I forgot to say the IK Multimedia Ampeg bass plug is not only the B15, but it also came with a bunch more of Ampeg's bass amps. I like the one called..I forget the exact name, but it ends with 500. I use it all the time. The EQ is the closest I've ever heard to the way the real knobs react on their hardware.
For those suffering with Ocean Way, I feel that. It was very expensive and for a long time, I never used it. But I have heard tracks from a friend who uses the re-mic features, and I actually thought he went to proper high end studio. The thing is, I went to great lengths to get the mics I have, I sure don't want to switch them out.
But, that said, I now use the Ocean Way reverb on bus 1 for every track. If you carefully dial it in so the reverb isn't obvious but you hear the room, it warms up the tracks in a good way, EQ-ing the low end out a little. I then vary the amount of it on certain instruments, like a little more on drums, and it helps with the drums sounding like they're a little further back in the soundstage.
One of my most irritating purchases was Slate's FG-X. Hype was big then, the best mastering compressor ever, etc. After struggling for months, I went to try one of Logic's free compressors instead and it sounded significantly better. There was a comparison posted of a dozen mastering compressors back then, the Slate wasn't even close. That was a long time ago, and I from that experience and a few others, I learned to be much more patient about getting new plug-ins.
Once you have a lot of them, you need less and less. I can think of a $50 mic I'd like to try instead of a new plug-in.
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Post by mrholmes on Mar 29, 2021 3:34:03 GMT -6
Once you have a lot of them, you need less and less. I can think of a $50 mic I'd like to try instead of a new plug-in.
So true.
In my experience the bigger the marketing machine the less I get true value for the money. For me most of the small developers do a much better job compared to UAD / SLATE etc.
I jumped off Slate subscription and thought I would miss a lot. The truth is, I am too 100% back in the game and just invested a few hundred bucks, ... looking for the best deals. And sorry to say it Steven... I don't need every week a new plug in, or the fact that some of the best ones were taken off the sub plan LX480 for example.
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Post by srb on Mar 29, 2021 7:07:20 GMT -6
I have never used an amp sim. I suppose I could be persuadeed if shown one could give me more than the actual amp choices I have here. I tend to track bands a lot, and capturing performances is my approach. I guess an amp sim could facilitate that. I like (real) tubes, though. All those amp sims sure do clutter up my plugin selection menu. I should work on hiding (again) all those UAD plugins I don't own/use.
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Post by delcampo on Mar 29, 2021 7:52:41 GMT -6
For those suffering with Ocean Way, I feel that. It was very expensive and for a long time, I never used it. But I have heard tracks from a friend who uses the re-mic features, and I actually thought he went to proper high end studio. The thing is, I went to great lengths to get the mics I have, I sure don't want to switch them out. But, that said, I now use the Ocean Way reverb on bus 1 for every track. If you carefully dial it in so the reverb isn't obvious but you hear the room, it warms up the tracks in a good way, EQ-ing the low end out a little. I then vary the amount of it on certain instruments, like a little more on drums, and it helps with the drums sounding like they're a little further back in the soundstage. Agree that OW can be very useful at times but, requires some significant arm wrestling / tweaking with it to get it to sit right. It's a narrow sweat spot between too much / unappreciable.
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Post by mrholmes on Mar 29, 2021 8:35:37 GMT -6
I have never used an amp sim. I suppose I could be persuadeed if shown one could give me more than the actual amp choices I have here. I tend to track bands a lot, and capturing performances is my approach. I guess an amp sim could facilitate that. I like (real) tubes, though. All those amp sims sure do clutter up my plugin selection menu. I should work on hiding (again) all those UAD plugins I don't own/use. Overloud THU Rig Player Profiles are a nice addition if you track a Signal in parallel another fun game would be to give a player the THU signal on the cans instead his real Amp my guesswork is no on us going to notice that he is not playing the real amp. I did not touch my real Amps since THU ... a bit pre compression hells to make the play feeling over real....
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Post by Ned Ward on Mar 29, 2021 8:49:46 GMT -6
All my URS plugins that never got updated to AAX. Yes! Still angry about those as well as while Bobby Nathan's a one man shop, he never updated his plugins except for the Saturation plugin. Also regret now Waves Silver, then Gold. At the time they were all I had, but with WUP the updating costs get ridiculous. May need to go back and see if there were any individual plugins I miss, but it's been 4 years since I've used them...
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Post by superwack on Mar 29, 2021 10:01:35 GMT -6
All my URS plugins that never got updated to AAX. URS gets a special prize because, unbelievably they still sell these wildly abandoned plugins! Their only plugin updated to 64bit came out 10 years ago and nothing since!! www.sweetwater.com/store/manufacturer/URS
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