So I’m trying to pare down my music-making audio plugin setup a bit. This is a post about what I’m liking lately.
Having less plugins to browse makes it easier to get things done and less likely for me to become distracted. I want ones easy to find that I know and love, with big sweet spots, that I’ll use much of the time — rather than a lot of things that I might use some of the time, and then waste time trying to figure out if I want to use them this time.
I’m also kind of trying to invent new imaginary genres, maybe lo-fi up-tempo groove metal with sampled orchestral instruments. Maybe music for new age raves afterhours in 1990s Nature Company stores. I don’t know. I want to be different.
Using less synths as sources means I have to do more with effects too, and more sound design via layering, which means less preset surfing and I think that seems more fun to me. Plus it would be different.
Instruments
Most surprising to me because I have a lot of libraries, I uninstalled Kontakt for reasons that I found myself preset surfing, and when I wanted to get a particular sound it’s likely I just want to pick something out of Orchestral Tools, where I can just drill down or search for a particular sound I want because I know what instruments make those sounds (rather than trying to guess what weird preset names mean). For those wondering about the recent upgrade that came out, I’m also not a fan of the new Kontakt 7 browser and it made things harder to use for me. I miss the sidebar and it’s hard to jump between instruments in some libraries. At this point I would view Native Instruments as making good Kontakt libraries, but not really making much new software anymore, and not doing a good job with Kontakt itself!
I’ve uninstalled most Arturia synths, but not their non-synth emulations (organs, etc). like these because the interfaces are obvious and if you want a sound you can make it happen, rather than synths that kind of make you stumble into something and you never really get what you want (or you forget what you want while trying to work on it). This is not their fault. It’s not them, it’s me (though I think they could have a bit more grit/accuracy?)
I’m keeping Dune3, Serum, and Legend installed for software synths. Dune 3 remains my favorite for that Access Virus sort of sound, Legend is super close to a Moog and has a great interface and some additional features, and Serum is raw, basic, and direct (with no effects polluting most of the default patches). I am also keeping Thorn installed since it has some rather unique filters and I think I could use it for some fun things, though it’s one of my newest installs and I need to spend more time with it. I am going to try to make more tracks that use a limited set of synths when I do make things, like tracks that are 100% from Dune3, because synths tend to have a flavor that only goes with themselves sometimes, in a way that doesn’t happen with sampled instruments.
I am trying to not use many other synth sounds in software since I have three hardware synths I really like - the GRP A4, the Moog Model D reissue, and a Korg 700 reissue mostly. If I want basic waveform sounds I should use those.
As I do like my weirder noises, I reinstalled Omnisphere which I had a bad opinion about in the past but I’m using it differently — I was wrong. Rather than using any of the presets, I’ve come to realize it’s really a no-nonsense system for designing a patch with up to 4 layers from scratch, and you can put different effects on each layer. I should start from init patch every time! The built-in effects are actually super good, and this gives some new life into the plugin. I think the fact that the UI is kind of, I don’t know, Windows 3.1 feeling and split up into so many pages with so few controls, makes it fit my brain in ways that seeing too many controls doesn’t. The sound quality is great, it’s just the presets I didn’t like to have to surf too much. Anyway, thumbs up Spectrasonics. I think I already mentioned I still also like Keyscape a lot. The keyed bass instruments there are also really good!
Delays
I need to remember to use Echo Cat more as it’s really good and sounds great.
The new Moog delay plugin (see below) is pretty good.
I’ve removed a lot of stuff that was a bit muddy.
Reverb
I’m mostly just using Seventh Heaven from Liquidsonics, which is the software emulation of the Bricasti ($$$) reverb. Cinematic Rooms is good, but maybe a bit artificial/clean sometimes. I’m trying to use less “effectey” reverbs as they seem to turn things to mud, and use delays more.
Aside: I saw there’s a plugin version of BigSky in plugin form out now, and I don’t like it, just like I didn’t like the BigSky. Kind of metallic and lower quality to my ears?
Drums
I’m wanting to not use anything that makes too many choices for me lately, so I’ve mostly gone back to the built-in basic drum synths in Bitwig and am using them without presets, and am just making up my own patterns, and supplementing that with one shots from Nexus.
While things like Addictive Drums have been good (keeping it installed if not used often), programming them to sound realistic over the course of a song and be my design, and not the design of the person who made the MIDI samples, is kind of tedious. Using them with some different effects might be fun though.
I intend to use sampled orchestral drums (i.e. Orchestral Tools) more. I had some good stuff in Kontakt, but Kontakt has become a bit of a buzzkill to work with despite having some good libraries.
Instead of having MIDI clips with lots of different drums on them, I’m likely to just have a channel for each drum type to make it easy to bring elements in and out. This also encourages more different effects per channel and different layering, I think.
Nexus really shouldn’t be knocked for being a shortcut, you just shouldn’t use the “sequence” presets.
Piano
I still have Pianoteq and Keyscape installed for when I’m sequencing something and not playing the Nord Grand for fun, but it probably should just be Keyscape given how fast the M1 Mac Studio is. I’m still intending to use piano to sketch out arrangements/melodies more before I pick the final instruments to use for things, but that doesn’t always go according to plan. I guess Pianoteq is mostly there if I want to play something that isn’t on the Nord Grand’s default soundset and I want it to be more dynamic/responsive.
Tape
Tape effects remain some of my favorites, I still think Sketch Cassette is the best, but I’ve got Echo Melt and Wavesfactory Cassette in there to chain up, as well as Plugin Alliance’s NEOLD Warble and Arturia’s Mello-Lofi. Mixing these up seems good and having a lot is ok.
I can see having a melody or something that switches out tape/lofi-effect variations when it comes back around, or something like that.
Stacking multiple ones of these is fun.
BitCrusher
I’m still using Softube’s OTO Biscuit emulation a bit still. I like Aberrant DSP’s Digitalis (great/unique UI too!) and need to use it more too. Like Delay, BitCrushers can be used on a lot of tracks.
(I’m not a phaser/flanger fan very often)
Maybe Kind Of Cool/Useful Utilities?
I recently found out about Iceberg Audio’s Sub cut, which is nothing more than a high-pass filter that stops at 220 Hz. Now you could EQ the mud off of anything with pretty much any plugin, but it takes mental energy. This one doesn’t, so it’s easy to just slap on every single channel and be done with it.
Beyond that, I’m not doing a lot of EQ. I have a hardware Massive Passive and Silver Bullet that I can use at the end of the chain, and I sometimes don’t use them when I start using software options, so I really should make myself use them. Track EQ is kinda important but … eh, sometimes it makes me boost everything too much and that’s a bad habit. Tools like sub cut are interesting because they only cut and you can’t overthink them too much. Workflow over features, etc!
Falling Out Of Use?
I find I’m not using many of the Universal Audio plugins at all lately. I think Softube did a better job with various emulations that I typically use. I don’t use compressors. I still like the UAD audio interfaces (hardware) for sound and reliability, especially as my Apogee had died (otherwise I’d probably still be an Apogee fan).
Moog Effects Stuff News (New)
These might be cool. Just recently Moog released emulations of all of their well-regarded Moogerfooger pedals in VST/AU format and I think from the trial I’m probably going to pay for them.
What I like about these is they feel like hardware and work well with synth or sampled sources, and don’t have the space or gain-staging or noise limitations of the real thing. I have previously owned some Moogerfoogers many times in the past, and have generally sold them because they were really expensive for how often I used them.
Moog is selling these as a bundle for $150 now with a free demo period. The intra-moogerfooger modulation via the “CV” system is clever, and the real winner I think is how you can change the animation patterns on the Murf to be what looks like polyrhythmic.
Think of the Murf as a vintage trance gate though really it’s an animated filterbank. Everything has a bit of a flavor, and it’s a good flavor, so worth checking out.
I always really liked the ideas of these, being able to apply them to lots of tracks and have them just work should be fun.
Anyway, wanted to share. Let me know if you’ve found anything cool lately!