Plugin Battle - recommendations?

[Ted Spencer]

I love the Waves products, and wrote a huge, two-part rave review of the Platinum Bundle in Pro Audio Review magazine last year (you can find them at:

http://www.proaudioreview.com/november04/Waves.shtml

and

http://www.proaudioreview.com/januar...ndle_for.shtml

...but the WUP ongoing-cost factor casts a very dark shadow on the advisability of going that route. I myself am about to have to cough up several hundred dollars to the Waves "pusher-man" in order to be permitted to maintain my unwitting addiction (I didn't realize until it was too late that Waves turns out to be "the gift that keeps on costing"). I'm not at all pleased, and like many others I think Waves should rethink their approach lest they drown themselves in a Tsunami of disgruntled customers.

Having said all that, I will reluctantly accept this year's financial punishment for my allegiance to the Platinum Bundle, and continue to enjoy using them whenever I'm not steamed about that particular credit-card [bleep] sandwich I'm going to have to eat annually. They are still outstanding plugins, almost every last one of them (I stand by every favorable word I wrote about them in the review), and I would feel very deprived if I didn't have them. I've got numerous other fine plugins like Sony Oxford/GML EQ, Altiverb, Auto-Tune, Smack, Bomb Factory Pultecs (note: IMO, BF Pultecs = nice, BF LA2A/1176 = suck), Amp Farm, the surprisingly nice (and free) Digi "3" series, etc., etc., etc. I still think of the huge Platinum Bundle's set as the heart of my plugin array though, in spite of their profoundly infuriating monkey-on-the-back status. Caveat Emptor.

Ted Spencer, NYC
www.tedspencerrecording.com

[Waves Customer Support]

Hi Ted,

Don't forget that you get the $400 IRL Convolution Reverb, $300 TuneLT, ProTools 7 update, Tech Support, and further updates beyond this for a year with your few hundred dollar Platinum TDM WUP renewal. Last year under WUP you also got the Renaissance Axx and L3 UltraMaximizer.

[filmixer]

>Don't forget that you get the $400 IRL Convolution Reverb, $300 TuneLT, ProTools 7 update<

It was very nice that you added the IR1L to all the bundles. Since I have current WUP on my Platinum and Renn Maxx, I recieved two IR1 licenses, one for each system. Thank You.

[Boombatty]

The URS stuff looks really nice and the price is good (as I'm a student and can get a discount from them as well as from Waves). However I'd still need a nice reverb and a good mastering limiter.

The choices are killing me! But I appreciate the new options. Does anyone else have opinions on the URS stuff? I should have an iLok within a week so I guess I'll be demoing like crazy.

You guys are great, thanks for the advice, and keep it coming if there's any more!

[Monte McGuire]

The URS stuff looks really nice and the price is good (as I'm a student and can get a discount from them as well as from Waves). However I'd still need a nice reverb and a good mastering limiter.

For a mastering limiter, the Sony Limiter is hard to beat. It's not foolproof like L1 or L2, but if you take the time to adjust the parameters, you can get a much better sound from the Sony limiter than just about anything else I know of. It doesn't suck the life out of mixes like L2 can, and yet it isn't hard or brittle either. Pretty amazing IMHO...

As for reverbs, don't discount hardware boxes. Used TC M2000 and M3000 are pretty cheap right now, and they won't "stop working" due to upgrades or authorization issues. I'd like to get the new TC plugins, but I'm reluctant to give them any more money since everything I own from them has become obsolete and nonfunctional. I must have paid $1500 for a few floppies for a few years of use, so I'll buy their hardware only at this point.

Also consider older Lexicon hardware like the PCM 90/91/80/81. It sounds good and it is built well enough to last much longer than most software will last.

For plugins, old DVerb isn't bad, and Reverb One is pretty nice too. I just got ReVibe, but I haven't figured it out yet. Still, what I've heard from it sounded good.


Regards,

-monte-

[Wolfgang Eller]

It´s nice to see how fast Waves is replying (not only to this thread) to defend their business behaviour.
Maybe we should spend more money on WUP (don´t buy WUP 2010 if you can spend twice as much every year! Buy more upgrades from their "free" Limited versions to gain the fee!) that Waves will really survive until 2010.

[Boombatty]

I'd just like to thank everyone for their advice again.

I'm pretty sure I will be going with the Sony Oxford 6 pack and hopefully get the Analog Channel sometime in the not too distant future.

I'm excited, it should be a nice jump up from most of the digirack plugs!

[Monte McGuire]

I'd just like to thank everyone for their advice again.

I'm pretty sure I will be going with the Sony Oxford 6 pack and hopefully get the Analog Channel sometime in the not too distant future.

IMHO, Analog Channel isn't as good sounding as it should be, and Crane Song's Phoenix seems to work a lot better for me. Also consider that you'll get Inflator (or at least the 'warmth' facility in the Oxford dynamics) which does things similar to Phoenix.

Analog channel does do the low end EQ simulation of tape head bumps quite well, which might be interesting to you, but the saturation feature never did all that much for me. It seems to add as much as it takes away, whereas the Oxford 'warmth' or Phoenix end up adding much more than they take away.

Try some demos and see what you like!

Best of luck,

-monte-