What VST plugins do you use?

Can anybody suggest some VST plugins? I've used SampleTank - I like the sounds.

I could name way too many but if you mention a type (synth, drum, FX..) and a price range I could be way more specific.

Because you said Sampletank I'll mention a couple other VST ROMplers that have free versions available.

Kontakt Player 5 is a good one, you just need to give an email for the link/serial to be mailed to. I don't mind their emails after that as a couple times a year they give out $30 coupons. http://www.native-instruments.com/en/pr ... -download/

UVI Workstation has some nice sounds in the free version. (links are on the lower left corner of the page) http://www.uvi.net/en/software

u-he Software's Tyrell N6 VST is free and sounds great. (Page is in German, scroll to end of article, Windows/OS X hotlinks are there) http://www.amazona.de/amazona-de-freewa ... l-n6-v3/3/

u-he's Zebralette is a nice lite version of their Zebra synth. http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebralette

u-he also has the older (updated recently though) but useable Podolski synth on the site too http://www.u-he.com/cms/podolski

Audio Damage's free version of their Rough Rider Compressor is very nice. http://www.audiodamage.com/downloads/

Ambience is great donation ware reverb http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/#Ambience

All but one recent release (The excellent TAL-U-NO-LX Juno synth emulation @$40USD) everything on TAL's sight is free (donations accepted) and very good plugins. http://kunz.corrupt.ch/Products

I could really list dope plugins all day, so again if you could be slightly more specific, I can mention so many more. I just wanted to mention some excellent free ones with a few of the vendors also having even more powerful paid stuff if you are looking to go that route too. But even for free you can enjoy new sounds/FX plugins all weekend if you want.

Well, I guess I can start at synths - maybe something simple like that. But, thanks for the feedback Metatron72.

By the way, I'm using the Mac OS (if that helps too).

What would be a good/easy EQ plugin to use with MPC studio? I just want something that's simple as far as controlling hi/lo/mid. It doesn't have to be free, just simple for someone who has only used hardware/outboard his whole life until now.

If you Buy vst the best Time for this is the Summer and blackfriday and before xmas..

justineastwick wrote:Can anybody suggest some VST plugins? I've used SampleTank - I like the sounds.

NI Komplete is a pretty popular package. Omnisphere and Trillian are also popular. I am considering buying one or all of these.

Currently I use Motu Mach Five 3, Battery 4, MiniV, etc.

Cakewalk makes some nice plug-ins, I have Rapture, Dimension and use them all the time and they have great sounds and expansions. The next plug-ins I am going to pick up are Z3ta 2, Nexus and Massive I hear that these three have great sounds.

JAH wrote:

justineastwick wrote:Can anybody suggest some VST plugins? I've used SampleTank - I like the sounds.

NI Komplete is a pretty popular package. Omnisphere and Trillian are also popular. I am considering buying one or all of these.

Currently I use Motu Mach Five 3, Battery 4, MiniV, etc.

I don't have a ren but i gotta say i recently got Trilian and it is **** AMAZING! best bass plugin on the market by far imo.... omnisphere is cool too, and, if you have both, you can load trilian patches in omni for a lot more manipulation (the granular stuff in omni is pretty cool with bass sounds to rough em up a little).

How you like MachFive jah? +/-'s ?

Other shit i use a lot is Nexus, Gladiator, Neo Soul keys, Addictive Drums/Keys...... ah yeah and Diva that one dope

oh yeah i should also mention that i got sampletank2.5, too. I really dont like it at all. Always seem to have a hard time finding sounds i like and the interface is horrible. BUT, the rest of the ik multimedia stuff is pretty good. I use Miroslav Philharmonik a ton, sonic synth 2 has some great sounds, sampleMoog is very usable and the Mellotron type thing they got has some DOPE Optigon sounds. If you play guitar/bass Amplitube is pretty **** awesome, too.

Yeah man Trilian and Omnisphere cross into a line where they're worth the heavy asking price. I have both along with the Moog Expansion for Omni, in 2 years I still haven't got through the presets , let alone go deeper into making patches from scratch. Although sample based those two plugins especially Omnisphere have all the synthesis tools you really need.

The only thing Omnisphere doesn't have is user sample/waveform loading. Camel Audio's Alchemy is great in that it allows user samples to be loaded. You can even take SFZ patches and load those into Alchemy and use all the synthesis/modulation features on your own patches. I take old E-MU and Ensoniq patches and convert them and mangle the hell out of them in Alchemy.



Diva is a beast, I just updated that, ACE and Zebra2/Dark Zebra. I highly recommend anything u-he does which was why I linked to u-he's freebies in my previous post.

Bring Diva as much CPU power as you can get though. Yesterday on a 32 buffer I was 99%-ing my ASIO meter from 45-99% just doing a full filter sweep. This was on an 8 core, admittedly with cores that only run at 2.4ghz/2.58ghz speed stepped. It was fine after a switch to a 128 buffer, but this was on an RME, so a less powerful interface might need that to be a 256/512 buffer if you want to run Diva in Great/Divine render modes. Still one of the most convincing analog emulations I've heard.

Speaking of analog emulations, XILS Lab does fantastic stuff. They have an emulation of the rare Poly Kobol, the Elke Synthex, EMS VC3 and their last synth Oxium is an original creation but the Roland Juno series is somewhat of the general sound. They have some excellent FX plugins too.





For FX plugins Audio Damage has some of the most fun, great sounding and reasonably priced plugins in the whole industry. Highly recommended.

http://www.audiodamage.com/

Another bundle of FX I use almost every time I make anything are D16 Groups plugins. Their Decimort in particular is one I use constantly. It's a bitcrusher with presets that emulate many classic samplers and do it very well. (MPC-60, SP-1200, FZ-1 and many others along with some great "style" presets not based on a single machine. The rest of the Silver Line series of FX plugins are excellent distortion, chorus, phaser and so on.

D16's main bag is Roland emulations though. So if you need a VERY legit emulation of a 808,909,606 or TB-303, D16 has you covered. (Although ABL's Bass Line sounds a bit more like a real TB 303, but the x0x drum emulations are the business).

They recently released a synth as well called LUSH-101 that is a BEAST.







Nexus does have a nice sound and many patches available but I find it to be limiting as far as tweaking/programming it like a full synth. I realize it's trying more for Triton workstation vibe and covers Access Virus type VA with the libraries, but again I need something more programmable. I think Tone 2 fits that perfectly.

Tone 2 has actually licensed their DSP code to ReFX and it's used in Nexus, so the similarity in sound is not a surprise. But as I mentioned the Tone 2 stuff are full synths with all synth editing features available.



For drum synthesis I think FXpansion Tremor is the best thing out and is like half the price of the drum synth AAS just released.



I'd second any recommendations for NI Komplete, it's the best value in the industry, and their sound sets are quality as well.

phx_chronic wrote:oh yeah i should also mention that i got sampletank2.5, too. I really dont like it at all. Always seem to have a hard time finding sounds i like and the interface is horrible. BUT, the rest of the ik multimedia stuff is pretty good. I use Miroslav Philharmonik a ton, sonic synth 2 has some great sounds, sampleMoog is very usable and the Mellotron type thing they got has some DOPE Optigon sounds. If you play guitar/bass Amplitube is pretty **** awesome, too.

I got all 5 of those instruments in a super cheap bundle deal a couple years ago. I feel you on Sampletank, Sonic Synth and Miroslav hold up a little better. Those are pretty old plugins really. But just recently I was using them and paired them with more modern VST FX and it was still very usable sounds, even Sampletank...

I certainly have better options here, but with the added FX and the super low CPU consumption on those I'm happy to keep them installed.

phx_chronic wrote:

JAH wrote:

justineastwick wrote:Can anybody suggest some VST plugins? I've used SampleTank - I like the sounds.

NI Komplete is a pretty popular package. Omnisphere and Trillian are also popular. I am considering buying one or all of these.

Currently I use Motu Mach Five 3, Battery 4, MiniV, etc.

I don't have a ren but i gotta say i recently got Trilian and it is **** AMAZING! best bass plugin on the market by far imo.... omnisphere is cool too, and, if you have both, you can load trilian patches in omni for a lot more manipulation (the granular stuff in omni is pretty cool with bass sounds to rough em up a little).

How you like MachFive jah? +/-'s ?

Other **** i use a lot is Nexus, Gladiator, Neo Soul keys, Addictive Drums/Keys...... ah yeah and Diva that one dope

Mach Five is great but still trying to figure out how to use it. I can insert it in the Ren and load patches. But mapping parameters to Qlinks has been a struggle. I still can't do it like I can with other plugins. Also, Mach Five is suppose to stream samples from hardware. I put my sample library on a Thunderbolt drive for this purpose. But instead of streaming, I am stuck with loading patches...some of them take a little while to load. So basically, I am waiting for the 64 Bit Ren and then buying the latest and greatest iMac (or Mac Book Pro)...and looking into maximizing the use of this software investment.

Sylenth, synth1 (free), Zebra 2, Wavestation and M1 and last, but certainly not least.... Massive.

Free plugs and there are some nice ones here.
http://www.kvraudio.com/?t%5b%5d=free

Albino is the sh&& also z3ta from cakewalk.
Zebra is also nice.

I love using the synths no one really names.