imdrecordings
Venerated Member
Hello friends
I've been doing a lot of research and demoing to find or should I say, rebuild my tool box.
So, I thought I'd post some plugins that I purchased and been using on a regular basis that can leave room for your coveted UAD favorites.
First up!
Metric Halo Production Bundle:
Production Bundle for AAX and AU
I've mainly been relying on the Channel Strip and Character plugin, but this whole bundle is absolutely phenomenal. I still need to dig into the reverb and transient controller, but judging from the class of the plugs I've been using constantly and this companies commitment to excellence for everything they do, everyone here should get this bundle from their favorite retailer, stat. Especially if you are on PT10 or PT11. Solid performance and sound in PT11. So far, if you are looking for a Phoenix replacement, you need to get the Character. More stable and better sound than Slate VCC, Heat, URS's thing and all of the other subtle distortion plugs on the market. I've tried the Multi-band Compressor and enjoyed what it gave to a final mix. Definitely miles better than the Precisions MB. Overall, this is one of the best purchases I've made in plugin land.
IK Multimedia
These plugs have been great, especially their SSL clones, particularly their SSL Bus Comp. It's not as heavy handed as the Glue and to me is closer to the real deal, in the way it handles the lowed, than the UA, Waves, etc. You get oversampling or low latency with each plugin. I use their 1176 often on guitars, vocals, bass and drums. Their LA2A kills on a drum bus and sounds great when you start having to automate your snare up and down. A great drum bus compressor for roots and americana style music. You can really drive the snare into this, when it's on the bus and it just sounds like a record, sitting and smacking in just the right way. Their 33609 is s bit different sounding than the UAD model and I like the UAD model better, but both or fantastic. The IK 33609 is a bit slicker and beefier, but the UAD for me sounds closer to the hardware. Their Neve and SSL emulations are superb and well worth the investment and you can go to a dual mono in a flick of a switch for all their plugins. Their Neves are the closest plugins that come close to the Nebula third party libraries, I have. Massive Passive hogging your card? Try their Master 432eQ, because it kills.
Things I'm not too excited about? Their M/S ability is great in theory, but in practice produces some strange phasing and movement in the stereo field. In oversample mode, the plugins appear to be poorly coded and only take advantage of 2 of the 8 cores my CPU has. In none oversampling mode they use all 8 cores. I have a ticket in with IK and they are looking into the issue. Lastly... they do that thing were each plugin is bumped up 2-3db when you instantiate it, which bugs the heck out of me! I ended up having to save new defaults for all the IK plugs, since they are ALL gain staged so poorly. Slate plugins do this stupid stuff too and it piss me off.
Plugin Alliance:
I use their SPL Transient Designer on heavy guitars or just guitars in general or anything for that matter. This thing just rocks and I'd like to get a hardware one some day. It sounds the same as the UAD version and I got a killer deal, since PA has a ton of sales always going on. The Dynamic Spectrum Mapper V2 is an amazing and unique powerhouse of a plugin. What can't you do or save with this thing? Best Desser out there and rad for mastering. I love using this on clean guitars, because you can really squeeze the piss out of them, control the bottom end and the spiky transients without even touching the tone or vibe. I haven't found anything that can do that, not even in hardware land. So if you ever need to give something the squeeze and every compressor is changing or ruining the vibe, this is your savior. Everybody needs this one in their tool box! Plugin Alliance really makes some great stuff and I wouldn't ever buy these for the UAD platform, since they are all available in Native. I'd like to get there guitar amp plugs, someday and the Digital 2 EQ. How they manage activation is also great and super convenient
DDMF:
If you haven't heard of DDMF, go check them out. I've been relying on their Metaplugin a lot! DDMF: VST/AU/RTAS plugins, audio software It allows me to use my Nebula libraries or any VST/AU in PT11 and all of the latency is compensated for. You can get wild with this thing, but I use it for simple and reliable AAX wrapping. In fact, I run "Ignite" through it when I'm needing cabinet IR's and Amplitude and get near zero latency. Believe it or not!
Ignite Amps: NadIR
Looking for a free IR loader that allows you to load two different cabinet IR's as well as blend them, HP or LP filter, duo mono or stereo? "NadIR" is it! Audio Plug-Ins Don't waste your time with the one that comes with your VST or whatever you are using and certainly don't use the buggy Waves IR loader, what a piece of crap! I use this in conjunction with Own Hammer IR's. You can load a Shure57 IR on one side and a Royer 121 on the other and blend them to taste, no phasing at all. KILLS FOR IN THE BOX GUITARS!! I'll often take this one step further, because Own Hammer gives you Nebula presets with your purchase and come mix time, I'll drop nebula into the DDMF Metaplugin and bring up the same IR I used in Ignite, but as it's Nebula counterpart and BAM!!! Voltera/Dynamic IR action for an even better tone!
Things I'm looking for:
I don't use Waves plugins anymore, but would really like an alternative to "Center". I'f heard some good things about Dr.Ms, but haven't tried it. Regular M/S plugs don't do what Center does or I should say do a poor job at keeping the stereo image intact when pulling down or pushing up the center image. I'm not sure what Waves is doing under the hood, but I want it. Perhaps I should just bight the bullet, since it's so cheap. Any who...
I still can't find Native replacements for the EMT reverbs (nobody comes close to these), FATSO Sr., Pultec eQ's, Roland Space Echo or Dimension D. I need to check out the La2a and 1176 MKII collections, but haven't needed to since I'm good with what IK brings.
Well, I hope my opinions and experiences help someone find something cool that gives you more freedom with your UAD card. What I also love about all of these is the company. All of them are stand up companies with great product and customer support, just like UA.
Feel free to share your opinions
I've been doing a lot of research and demoing to find or should I say, rebuild my tool box.
So, I thought I'd post some plugins that I purchased and been using on a regular basis that can leave room for your coveted UAD favorites.
First up!
Metric Halo Production Bundle:
Production Bundle for AAX and AU
I've mainly been relying on the Channel Strip and Character plugin, but this whole bundle is absolutely phenomenal. I still need to dig into the reverb and transient controller, but judging from the class of the plugs I've been using constantly and this companies commitment to excellence for everything they do, everyone here should get this bundle from their favorite retailer, stat. Especially if you are on PT10 or PT11. Solid performance and sound in PT11. So far, if you are looking for a Phoenix replacement, you need to get the Character. More stable and better sound than Slate VCC, Heat, URS's thing and all of the other subtle distortion plugs on the market. I've tried the Multi-band Compressor and enjoyed what it gave to a final mix. Definitely miles better than the Precisions MB. Overall, this is one of the best purchases I've made in plugin land.
IK Multimedia
These plugs have been great, especially their SSL clones, particularly their SSL Bus Comp. It's not as heavy handed as the Glue and to me is closer to the real deal, in the way it handles the lowed, than the UA, Waves, etc. You get oversampling or low latency with each plugin. I use their 1176 often on guitars, vocals, bass and drums. Their LA2A kills on a drum bus and sounds great when you start having to automate your snare up and down. A great drum bus compressor for roots and americana style music. You can really drive the snare into this, when it's on the bus and it just sounds like a record, sitting and smacking in just the right way. Their 33609 is s bit different sounding than the UAD model and I like the UAD model better, but both or fantastic. The IK 33609 is a bit slicker and beefier, but the UAD for me sounds closer to the hardware. Their Neve and SSL emulations are superb and well worth the investment and you can go to a dual mono in a flick of a switch for all their plugins. Their Neves are the closest plugins that come close to the Nebula third party libraries, I have. Massive Passive hogging your card? Try their Master 432eQ, because it kills.
Things I'm not too excited about? Their M/S ability is great in theory, but in practice produces some strange phasing and movement in the stereo field. In oversample mode, the plugins appear to be poorly coded and only take advantage of 2 of the 8 cores my CPU has. In none oversampling mode they use all 8 cores. I have a ticket in with IK and they are looking into the issue. Lastly... they do that thing were each plugin is bumped up 2-3db when you instantiate it, which bugs the heck out of me! I ended up having to save new defaults for all the IK plugs, since they are ALL gain staged so poorly. Slate plugins do this stupid stuff too and it piss me off.
Plugin Alliance:
I use their SPL Transient Designer on heavy guitars or just guitars in general or anything for that matter. This thing just rocks and I'd like to get a hardware one some day. It sounds the same as the UAD version and I got a killer deal, since PA has a ton of sales always going on. The Dynamic Spectrum Mapper V2 is an amazing and unique powerhouse of a plugin. What can't you do or save with this thing? Best Desser out there and rad for mastering. I love using this on clean guitars, because you can really squeeze the piss out of them, control the bottom end and the spiky transients without even touching the tone or vibe. I haven't found anything that can do that, not even in hardware land. So if you ever need to give something the squeeze and every compressor is changing or ruining the vibe, this is your savior. Everybody needs this one in their tool box! Plugin Alliance really makes some great stuff and I wouldn't ever buy these for the UAD platform, since they are all available in Native. I'd like to get there guitar amp plugs, someday and the Digital 2 EQ. How they manage activation is also great and super convenient
DDMF:
If you haven't heard of DDMF, go check them out. I've been relying on their Metaplugin a lot! DDMF: VST/AU/RTAS plugins, audio software It allows me to use my Nebula libraries or any VST/AU in PT11 and all of the latency is compensated for. You can get wild with this thing, but I use it for simple and reliable AAX wrapping. In fact, I run "Ignite" through it when I'm needing cabinet IR's and Amplitude and get near zero latency. Believe it or not!
Ignite Amps: NadIR
Looking for a free IR loader that allows you to load two different cabinet IR's as well as blend them, HP or LP filter, duo mono or stereo? "NadIR" is it! Audio Plug-Ins Don't waste your time with the one that comes with your VST or whatever you are using and certainly don't use the buggy Waves IR loader, what a piece of crap! I use this in conjunction with Own Hammer IR's. You can load a Shure57 IR on one side and a Royer 121 on the other and blend them to taste, no phasing at all. KILLS FOR IN THE BOX GUITARS!! I'll often take this one step further, because Own Hammer gives you Nebula presets with your purchase and come mix time, I'll drop nebula into the DDMF Metaplugin and bring up the same IR I used in Ignite, but as it's Nebula counterpart and BAM!!! Voltera/Dynamic IR action for an even better tone!
Things I'm looking for:
I don't use Waves plugins anymore, but would really like an alternative to "Center". I'f heard some good things about Dr.Ms, but haven't tried it. Regular M/S plugs don't do what Center does or I should say do a poor job at keeping the stereo image intact when pulling down or pushing up the center image. I'm not sure what Waves is doing under the hood, but I want it. Perhaps I should just bight the bullet, since it's so cheap. Any who...
I still can't find Native replacements for the EMT reverbs (nobody comes close to these), FATSO Sr., Pultec eQ's, Roland Space Echo or Dimension D. I need to check out the La2a and 1176 MKII collections, but haven't needed to since I'm good with what IK brings.
Well, I hope my opinions and experiences help someone find something cool that gives you more freedom with your UAD card. What I also love about all of these is the company. All of them are stand up companies with great product and customer support, just like UA.
Feel free to share your opinions
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