Hello nauts!
I need to up my game in everything FX so I am turning to your collective wisdom for some recommendations.
Name your favorite FX plugins or plugin suites, whether free or paid, reverb, compression, delay or what have you?
what are you guys using?
Thanks!
Tal Dub and Tal chorus are both free, and used considerably by myself.
Native Instruments :
Finger
Replika
Driver
Phasis
Supercharger
I use Abletons convulsion reverb a lot, and have amassed a nice library of IR files so I have emulations of Lexicon, Space Echo etc, plus the standard stuff is really very good.
Voxengo do a nice selection of free and laid for vsts from vintage delays to spectrum analysis
Glitch by Ill Gates is fun, but can get samey if you don’t work with it.
Focusrite Red plugin suite is OK. Compressor is the standout plugin.
I used to have the T Rex mastering suite and Ozone on the old pc, but the when I moved to a new set up, I slimmed down my vst collection (also I moved to 64bit), and a lot of these are now gathering cyber dust on a hdd.
I’ll go through my library at some point and update you.
I’ve been loving the Soundtoys 5 bundle since buying it on their black friday sale, not a single bad cookie in the batch! I use some FX more than others but they all have a time and place to make a track shine.
Also Kush Audio has some of my favourite dynamics processing and pre-amp flavours, although they are a bit CPU hungry.
Permut8 and bitspeek from Sonic Charge.
+1 Soundtoys
Sandman Pro
Lexicon reverbs suite & Decapitator
IRCAMAX 1 + 2
Gem Tapedesk
Izotope Trash
Soundhack Plugins
Decapitator?
Obviously I could use Google, but seeing as you brought it up - what’s that? 
Soundtoys saturation plugin. It’s magical.
Oooh I’m actually in the market for a ‘goto’ saturation plugin. Thanks for the tip, I will YouTube it now.
The algorithms range from subtle glue effects to complete destruction. It’s the VST Analog Heat. I use it in every mix.
U-he Presswerk. Does all the compressors including really nice saturation.
Ha! That’s a bold claim mate. But it would save 600 notes!
It’s true though
Decapitator–> Radiator–>Filter Freak–>Sie-Q is my VST chain that closely resembles the Heats signal flow. Been doing some comparisons and am very satisfied with it, almost makes me want to sell the Heat.
One more recommendation for Soundtoys 
Eventide complete bundle.
Reverbs next level
unfiltered audio (all of them are killer)
valhalla dsp
fabfilter - eq compressors reverb limiter - but everything they do is classy
soundtoys
eventide
reaktor
soundhack
cytomic - such a rad filter and an essential compressor
audio damage
waldorf lector
glitch machines for the weirdness
surreal machines (really amazing models)
ohmforce (old but good!)
sonic chaarge permut8 (alternate firmwares for it are amazing)
2caudio B2 for experimenting w/reverb
izotope - neutron 2 - great mixing tools… fast sound great and are flexible
Arghhh! I knew I should have got the soundtoys bundle last black Friday/cyber Monday, it sounded like a good deal! (pun intended
Thanks everyone for your input, I’ll have to try the demos and dig deeper!
I haven’t tried them personally, but he Sugar Bytes effects look pretty awesome and capable(expensive though)
SB Effectrix is rad! Although these days I prefer to use Reason for FX modulation & sonic mayhem.
To answer the original question, my go to (3rd party) plugs are Valhalla verbs, Cytomic’s The Glue (bus compression), Izotope Trash 2 (distortion etc) and the Brainworx bx_digital & bx_limiter plugins (mastering).