Essential Plugins?

[midwinter]

I'd say €10 is a bargain.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by midwinter

I'd say €10 is a bargain.

...only if you think they are quality plugs, which I do. When I was shopping for a mastering suite I found them to be an incredible value.

[midwinter]

Alas, they don't seem to work with Logic....

[midwinter]

Thanks, those of you who recommended the Lexicon reverbs. I found a bundle on Ebay for pretty cheap.

[KevWind]

Couple of thoughts about mixing and the idea of "that sonic quality" in general.

There are a number of things that can contribute to a mix not sounding "up to snuff" sonically, compared to more "professional" sounding mixes . Usually what makes a mix sound good is a sense of space. Which is a function of a combination width, depth, presence and clarity.

Generally speaking Sonic quality that is missing is either a lack of dynamics going into the recording to start with and or various types of distortion causing the the recording to be lacking this sense of space and presence.

You stated your room was a pretty dead basement" But didn't state whether or not it is specifically treated with both bass trapping and mid/high absorption. If not accurately treated then even though the room does not sound particularly "live" you may still be dealing with a number of acoustic problems like comb filtering, standing waves, room modes, etc. , all of which can rob from the sound during recording and or also make mixing problematic while not being overtly noticeable to the naked ear.

Also in general and depending on the number of tracks involved, there can be buildups of distortions (again often not overtly noticeable) than can be robbing from from the sonics . This is where things like subtractive EQ'ing will greatly help with reducing distortions and build clarity and then compression can help to bring specific sound forward and more present.

Then after all these things have been addressed will things like reverb and possibly put some finishing touches and help with getting some more sense of space.

Then lastly mastering tools like brick wall limiting (more or less what the Oxford Inflator is doing )

So now with the lexicon reverbs you have, as far as a brick wall limiter goes For Mac users Massey Plugins are really quite good. I use the L 2007 " Look Ahead" brick wall limiter which is superb, for gain without adding distortion.

http://www.masseyplugins.com/#plugins/l2007

[jimmorgan]

The reverb plugins from Valhalla DSP are excellent and very reasonably priced. Valhalla Room is probably their most popular. Also check out Tokyo Dawn Labs. Their Slick EQ and Kotelnikov compressor are great general purpose plugs, and they even come with fully functional free versions if you don't want to spring for the "Gentlemen's Edition." I end up using them on almost everything. Also Tonebooster's bundles of plugins are worth checking out.

[midwinter]

Thanks, Kev! And I'll check out the Valhalla plugins, Jim.

[buzzardwhiskey]

Our band is recording a second CD this winter.

We’re using a Miktek PM5 handheld cardioid condenser for everything, which is maybe a serious constraint but… oh well. And vocals will use a sE Electronics SPACE to keep room interactions to a minimum.

For an interface we’re using a single channel Apogee One (lots of layering).

Reaper is our DAW running on a newer iMAC and we’ll use Reaper’s own plugins for almost everything. We’ll also use:

• Melodyne 4 Assistant (vocal and bass note editing)
• Waves Vocal Rider (leveling tool)
• Waves Maserati VX1 (vocal “enhancer”)
• Waves GTR3 (electric bass modeling)
• Toontrack Drums (half a dozen "packages")

[midwinter]

That Waves vocal rider seems pretty amazing.

[DesolationAngel]

I'll second the earlier post about Valhalla and Tokyo Dawn plug ins... I've become a big fan of the small shop plug in developers. In addition to the two already mentioned I would suggest having a look at Klanghelm and his MJUC compressor plug in which is very good. Also Goodhertz make some interestingly designed plug ins; I use their Mid-Side and Faraday Limiter a lot. I also like u-He Satin for adding a bit of tape saturation. As for the big boys, I've mostly steered clear of Slate, Waves and UAD in favour of these small shop plug ins but, that being said, I do like a lot of the plug ins from Native Instruments. Their collaborations with Softube are very good.

[midwinter]

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I picked up a set of Lexicon reverbs, and that's helping enormously.

Most helpful, though, was a little lesson on EQ and compression from a local engineer (and AGF member!). As I suspected from the beginning, the "quality" I couldn't quite figure out was mostly about EQ and compression settings.

Thanks, again, for all the input! These are some great leads on plugins!

[Woodstock School Of Music]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but Klaghelm Dc8c, MJUC and Cytonic The Glue are excellent low cost compressors that are just as good as the expensive Vst's