You Know You Own Too Many Plugins When....

[Eric Lambert]

When you have so many options that it becomes challenging to choose one and continue moving forward.

I was often more productive and creative back when I only had a few VIs and a keyboard workstation. Now, with 1,000 instrument plugins, I often struggle (i.e. waste time) just sifting through possibilities. With limited options, the musical ideas came out quicker.

That's my fault, of course, but all the composers in our company have said similar things about their processes and the effects of having "too many plugins."

[massivekerry]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

When you have so many options that it becomes challenging to choose one and continue moving forward.

I was often more productive and creative back when I only had a few VIs and a keyboard workstation. Now, with 1,000 instrument plugins, I often struggle (i.e. waste time) just sifting through possibilities. With limited options, the musical ideas came out quicker.

That's my fault, of course, but all the composers in our company have said similar things about their processes and the effects of having "too many plugins."

Same here. Although having a template with everything in it (deactivated, tho) and being specific about the few things that I’ll use an instrument or processor for has helped a lot.

[JFreak]

... when you don't miss Waves at all

[Stephen Bond]

Whatever hardware or software you find get the tone, the more power to you Waves or non-Waves™️, the music consumer will decide on the results, not the processors.

My choice is to choose whatever, from whomever I can trust and afford. I have stuck with Waves the longest in the 3rd party plugin department. They show no sign of producing too many plugins yet.

https://www.waves.com/plugins/bb-tubes

Neither do the other major plugin manufacturers seem to have stalled in production. Why wouldn't we be happy we have more affordable tools to choose from?

Stephen

[noah330]

Originally Posted by JFreak

... when you don't miss Waves at all

I still like the Linear Phase eq. So once in a while, I use the CLA 1176. However, with a Mac Studio and Spark, the UA 1176AE is quickly becoming my go-to. I have a friend who has a pair of the AE compressors and they're out of this world. I wish Audioscape would make one!

The Waves plugin I use on almost every session is the Dorrough meter. I know there are several metering plugins, but most are geared toward hitting streaming targets. The Dorrough does what it does extremely well.

C4/C6 excel at what they do. I've tried other multi-band compressors (iZotope, UA Precision). For me, Waves is still king. Maybe it's because I've used it for so long.

Waves NLS is great. I had to spend a lot of time with it to get the most out of it. The Linear Phase EQ is very good. I think it's overlooked because many beginners don't understand what it does.

In my opinion, Waves dropping their prices to almost free has really hurt the brand's image. There isn't a Waves plug-in that sounds bad, it's just that many have been around for a long time. Plugins tend to be different than hardware in that the latest and greatest is considered better than the classic. Waves are boring, but they work fine.

The other plugin I am always using is the Avid 7 band eq. Maybe because I've used it for so long, but that is a great-sounding plugin. Sometimes I don't want character; I want eq. It's easily exchangeable and doesn't take any system resources. Re-skin that, and it would be $299.

The stock Avid plugins are spectacular for many things.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by noah330

I still like the Linear Phase eq. So once in a while, I use the CLA 1176. However, with a Mac Studio and Spark, the UA 1176AE is quickly becoming my go-to. I have a friend who has a pair of the AE compressors and they're out of this world. I wish Audioscape would make one!

The Waves plugin I use on almost every session is the Dorrough meter. I know there are several metering plugins, but most are geared toward hitting streaming targets. The Dorrough does what it does extremely well.

C4/C6 excel at what they do. I've tried other multi-band compressors (iZotope, UA Precision). For me, Waves is still king. Maybe it's because I've used it for so long.

Waves NLS is great. I had to spend a lot of time with it to get the most out of it. The Linear Phase EQ is very good. I think it's overlooked because many beginners don't understand what it does.

In my opinion, Waves dropping their prices to almost free has really hurt the brand's image. There isn't a Waves plug-in that sounds bad, it's just that many have been around for a long time. Plugins tend to be different than hardware in that the latest and greatest is considered better than the classic. Waves are boring, but they work fine.

The other plugin I am always using is the Avid 7 band eq. Maybe because I've used it for so long, but that is a great-sounding plugin. Sometimes I don't want character; I want eq. It's easily exchangeable and doesn't take any system resources. Re-skin that, and it would be $299.

The stock Avid plugins are spectacular for many things.

I also occassionally miss C6, but that is the only plugin from Waves that I haven't found a direct replacement.

[Eric Lambert]

Over the past 15 years I've not missed Waves once, not in the slightest.

I miss new releases from Massey though. I wish Steve would jump back in the saddle. He wrote great sounding, CPU efficient, inexpensive plugins and backed it all with a smart, customer-friendly business plan. PSP, Kush, Kuassa, FabFilter, Valhalla, and several others have adopted a similar paradigm, but Massey's simplicity always felt like hot apple pie.

[JFreak]

^^ what he said.

TD5 is a staple on my portfolio and just because of that I keep buying everything this one-man-shop has to offer. Brilliant! Limiter is also better than its price.

[Justin1524]

...you just can't remember them all and you spend way too much time updating them when you're trying to just be creative.

I had a brainstorm to make a massive searchable database listing of all plugins which I started here: www.pluginlisting.com but as I started to add plugins I realized the data entry was taking forever.

My goal was to make a platform where you add searchable metadata and get a compete listing of options. For example: "I'm looking for all the fender amp plugins there are from all developers."

Just don't know how to achieve this project idea but I might just crank through the data entry and see what happens. Cheers!

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Justin1524

...you just can't remember them all and you spend way too much time updating them when you're trying to just be creative.

I had a brainstorm to make a massive searchable database listing of all plugins which I started here: www.pluginlisting.com but as I started to add plugins I realized the data entry was taking forever.

My goal was to make a platform where you add searchable metadata and get a compete listing of options. For example: "I'm looking for all the fender amp plugins there are from all developers."

Just don't know how to achieve this project idea but I might just crank through the data entry and see what happens. Cheers!

It's a great idea for a product that many people would use. I've struggled with that very question countless times. As the title suggests, there are just too many options. Just yesterday I found some tubescreamer plugins I'd forgotten about, because they were in an unexpected plugin category.

A reworking of the plugin list is long overdue. UA's preset browser is smart, as are those from a few other developers. I'd love to see something more verbose and interactive inside PT. As the sheer number of available plugins increases exponentially, it's becoming mandatory. Listing by "type" isn't enough -- my instrument folder takes forever to scroll through.