What are your "game-changer" plugins?

[Lionel]

Hey everyone,

I'm curious to know what are some of your guys' personal favorite "game-changer" plugins.  What Virtual Instruments and/or Effects made your production that much better and brought it to the next level?  And how so?

For VIs, my personal favorites have to be Reason Redrum/Kong and Native Instruments Kontakt.  With Redrum/Kong, it just made my life so much easier making beats/drum patterns.  And with Kontakt, the world is literally your oyster... endless possibilities of professional sounds. 

For effects, it'd have to be the UAD 1073 and Plate 140.  Feels like I'm using the hardware versions.  And my mixes just sound so much better.

[Grem]

EZD3. With the addition of the Grid tab and the ability to finally edit a EDX midi clip, I am in lala land!!

UA Apollo and the channel strips that I can use with it.

[Bapu]

Anything new and shiny. ? 

Actually after watching Glenn Fricker tout the AixDSP line of plugins I'm hoping they will take my live drum mixes to the next level. Given I'm the operator, that's not likely to happen. ? 

[Grebz]

For guitar sounds, I'm in love with Bias Amp 2 from Positive Grid. I love the tweaking possibilities and the resulting sounds. It may take a little more time to find "the" sound than with other amp sims (Neural DSPs are excellent too and simpler to use), but well... I don't mind.

For orchestral music, I love Vienna Symphonic Library's "Synchron Player". So much better than any Kontakt library I've used before. The user interface is great, easy to use and understand. And their sound libraries are great too (strings, brass, woodwinds, choirs...). Of course, there are tons of great orchestral libraries, but VSL's libraries sound great AND their user interface is the one I like best, so... clear winner and game-changer for me.
And Vienna Ensemble Pro is a must.

For mixing,  I love using channel strips and my favorite one is "bx_console SSL 9000 J" from Brainworx/Plugin Alliance. It's convenient, easy and sounds fantastic.

[SuperFreq]

With plugins I go thru a lazy rotation, they all seem to do basically the same thing so it comes down to spontaneity. BUT there are 3 plugins I've found that do the job hands down better than anything else in their league. These are

• Brainworx MasterDesk for mastering (FREE from Plugin Alliance)
• Cakewalk Sonar VintageChannel VC64 for lead vocals (Only available in Sonar 7 & 8 I think?)
• Waves Chris Lord Algae Vocal for rock vocals - This one generates tons of extreme reactions from producers across the spectrum, fanboys & haters, but they all seem to agree on 1 point - nobody knows wtf it does ?

[X-53mph]

In my experience (which is limited), it's not what you've got - it's how you use it. I know guys who can do wonders with nothing but EQ. 

I agree with @SuperFreq that Cakewalk Sonar VintageChannel V64 can do some pretty impressive stuff (if used right).

I will reveal that there are two plugins that always seem to end up in my FX chains. Nembrini LoFi Vintage Clipper and Slate Digital Fresh Air. They both do different things, but very well.

[OutrageProductions]

Scaler 2.7 has made my scoring & trailer work twice as fast.

[Starship Krupa]

I'd have to go with Exponential Phoenix Stereo Reverb. It went on sale for $10, so I d/l'd the demo and the first mix I tried it on sounded sooooo much better than anything I'd tried (admittedly not many top-of-the-line offerings, just what came with my DAW's and freeware, the best of which was OrilRiver).

It opened my ears to just how much difference a good reverb can make.

MCompressor was an important stepping stone because its display helped me to understand compression so much better, so it changed the game in a way.

Sonic Anomaly Unlimited opened my ears to what a good mastering limiter can do although it's no longer the first one I reach for.

T-Racks 670 was the first plug-in I used that demonstrated the magic that mid-side compression can do, a technique (if not the same plug-in) I've used on every track since.

Trackspacer changed everyone's game I think. There's no better tool for the job, IMO. MSpectralDynamics works pretty well, but....I already have Trackspacer to do what Trackspacer does.

[lawajava]

I agree with EZDrummer 3.

Specific to “game changer” I would add Maschine to this list.  You can do stuff in Maschine mere mortal DAWs cannot, or not conveniently.  By using Maschine in a DAW superpowers are at your command.

This refers  to the Maschine software. Of course with the hardware that’s even more powerful.  The hardware is not needed for the general capability.

As far as a quick win on a plug-in buy, PSP’s InfiniStrip is pretty great.

Edited February 25, 2023 by lawajava

[Brian Walton]

Scaler 2

Amek console (full featured enough it helped minimize using different EQ and Comp on every track).  For those that like the channel strip idea but always felt something like an SSL E has a barely usable comp and lack of mix knob.  This could be a game changer.  It isn't a game changer for everyone though.

Kirchhoff EQ - didn't expect it to sound that good with big boosts and cuts with such low CPU consumption.  Granted I wouldn't call it a game changer above fab filter, except I grabbed it with forever $29 so paid about $30 for it.

Melodyne 5 studio for de-essing.  Nothing else is that good at the task but also costs an arm and a leg.

Waves ClarityVX....hate to say it, but if you are dealing with background noise on a vocal that isn't consistent, I haven't heard anything get those results close to the $30 price point.  

ToneX - after capturing arguably one of the best sounding amps ever made (no it isn't on tone net), I can confirm this technology while not perfect, is good enough to be very happy when playing through it.  However it is only as good as the capture and there are tons of "meh" it there, including many that IKM made 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Brian Walton

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

Pro Channel.

[whoisp]

Stock lol

 

[Starship Krupa]

As far as virtual instruments, Break Tweaker definitely changed my game. Xpand!2 put a ton of great sounds at my fingertips. Hybrid 3 with its crazy dual arpeggiators has patches that I've built songs around.

MSoundFactory's Meldway Grand is so good that I don't feel bad about having to get rid of my baby grand.