Thought the gear purchases thread was nice for inspiration for the GAS so thought one more thread for software would be a good idea also.
Hits:
Ableton live 11 , first time had fun making music on the laptop
Soundtoys Superplate, new favorite reverb
Fabfilter R2, my new 2nd favorite reverb
Moogerfooger fx bundle, really fun for making creative effect chains
Misses:
Arturia pigments, bought it before trying the demo and thought it was quite thin sounding compared to some other wavetable synths i have so sold it after couple weeks
Not really miss, but I wouldnāt call them hits either:
Scaler2 - if anyone wants to buy it off me - $20
TB Pro Audio DSEQ - this is actually a really good plug-in but soothe is easier to use and when I demoed both I went with DSEQ based on the price. I also have TEOTE and I personally like that one the best for resonance suppression/tonal balancing but it doesnāt have a side-chain function.
Hits:
Synplant 2 - just bananas, I love it. Sonic Charge are just awesome
Wavestate Native - whatās that, a Wavestation on steroids? Yes please!
Soothe 2 - was sceptical about this, demoād it, immediately bought it. Amazing plugin
Backbone & Groove Agent - such a good pairing for drums
Misses:
None, really! Though I did pick up the Twin 3 upgrade and Iāve barely used itā¦ itās not bad, I just donāt use it a whole lot.
edit: I did pick up opsix native and Iām on the fence about it, think I need to spend more time with it
Pro Q, Pro C, Pro L, Vulf Compressor, Valhalla Vintage Reverb, TAL Chorus, RC-20 and Plogue Chipcrusher have been serving me well on everything. Picked up echoboy but prefer my hardware usually.
Been going pretty hard with the trial over the past week for cleaning up samples and old tracks. Was even considering buying it directly from Izotope until I found Sweetwater had a pretty good crossgrade deal last night.
SoundToys 5: only use 40% of it, but I ALWAYS use them
AAS Objec Delay: relatively unique, and more a sound-design tool than a delay, though it does delay; I really like this thing
u-He Colour Copy, Hive 2 and Zebra 2: not sure why I didnāt get these earlier; my favorite is absolutely Hive though; you can run 20 of them if you want to with a current machine and it has a wonderful arpeggiator/loop-sequencer
Arturia Pigments: I may or may not use this anymore now that I have an Argon and I generally want to be doing things on hardware from now on, forever and until I die
Opsix Native: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Opsix native; I suck at FM programming, but it doesnāt care what I know; things are laid out in a way that you can just twiddle and go and not care about the tech; just the sound
Wavestate Native: I like this, though Iād prefer it if Korg would mimic the Wavestate editor/librarian as itās easier to read, but you have to have the Wavestate to use that one (which I do); got Native just to be able to have more than one Wavestate going that loads the same stuff, which it does so itās golden; no editing on it required
Unsure:
Everything AAS except Objeq Delayā¦ WAY too hungry for what they are, honestly. Chromophone is awesome; spikes every machine I have; Ultra Analog 2/3ā¦ same, but isnāt as unique as Chromophone so I donāt use it ever
Everything Arturia but Pigments: Iāve grown tired of their plugin updates being somewhat mixed in with their marketing strategy AND more importantly that every time I update something I have to re-activate it (see ādoing things on hardwareā¦ until I dieā above - jeez)
Plasmonic: stop saying this is an Absynth replacement. This is not an absynth replacement. Itās a decent-enough synth with an Absynth skin-job and presets reminiscent of Absynth but it stops there. Totally different kind of synth at its lowest level and that disappointed me greatly, which isnāt the synthās fault. It makes good drony stuff though, and dark atmospheres.
Retired:
Everything Waves, Native Instruments as they donāt keep up with Mac and just canāt seem to and I donāt care to wait for them anymore at allā¦ they make me angry. Nothing positive to say anymore. Point blank truth, from my perspective: if thereās a component that requires Rosetta in order to get to installing native ARM plugins, then your plugins arenāt ARM native actually. Your system still requires it and it just canāt take 3+ years.
Diva: sorry, I just donāt see whatās so awesome about it. Itās cool and all. It sounds goodāish I suppose; nothing as unique to my ears as everyone pushing me to get it in my friendship group saidā¦ maybe Iād like it otherwise; Iām honestly just not interested in Analog-emulations on computers at all I think
Live 11 Suite: I probably wonāt get back in to Live. I actually donāt like working with Live. Iāve had it since 5, upgrade every-other version, upgraded to Suite from Standard; got an APC-40 which definitely helped a lot, but it uses too much CPU, I hated the MIDI editing compared to Logic Pro or even my XP-60 believe it or not, and now Iām sequencing via hardware anyway. I wanted to like it; same problem as Diva though: everyone said: dude use Live, and I did and wentā¦ why? Itās never seemed quite ādoneā to me for generalized DAW use, though if I were a DJ Iād be all over it
Anything whoās selling point is [WOW]GBs of sound packs. Goodness. We really need to get away from 'look at how many gigabyes of samples you get with this pack!!!
Anything whoās selling point is 10,000 presets; see above
Everything teletone audio, especially tympo - Really good instruments, super underrated
Everything freakshow industries. There is no excuse for you to not own everything they make. You can either pay or āstealā on their site. Literally, there is a steal button.
Shaperbox 3 - Can do all sorts of wild shit
Baby Audio Transit - Awesome for transitions, something I have always struggled with
Superior Drummer 3 - The easiest, best sounding drum plugin I have used
All of the plugins that come with the SSL UC1, especially SSL 4K B
Misses:
Falcon 3 - UI hurts my brain. It feels like it would take way too much to learn. This is something I should have known and in a way I did, but I still went for it. Amazing for those who can spend 4-6 hours designing a single sound. I am a scroll through presets and tweak a few knobs kind of guy.
Logic. finally i got a DAW where everything just works with near-zero fucking around.
Numerology by Five12. those who know, know.
Acid V by Arturia. i also demoed Phoscyon 2. since i say Ā«303Ā» and imply Ā«overdrivenĀ» ā Acid V won due to its excellent built-in distortion.
suddenly MininnDrum by AudioBlast. very nice emulation of LinnDrum (both LM1 and 9000), has native Linux version, so instantly became one of two to-go drum machines for me.
hits (desktop & iOS):
BAM by Imaginando. a software groovebox with Drambo-like workflow, but limited in very smart way. instantly became my favorite sketching tool because when it comes to sketchning ā i donāt want any Ā«advanced features as in real pro DAWĀ» on my way, i just want it to be quick & simple, and of course maximum desktop <ā> iPad interoperability. also, it rocks as a drum machine.
MixBox by IK Multimedia. got it to be able to use the same effect chains on desktop and iPad. huge time saver and very cool by itself.
SynthMaster One & SynthMaster Two by KV331 (with all extensions). since i avoid sound design jobs and love using presets ā these have loads of cool presets and really are gems.
FAC Drumkit
BA-1 by Baby Audio. since thereās no proper SH-101 emulation for iOS, this one is pretty nice substitute.
TB Lowtone by ToneBoosters
Dagger by Beepstreet. THAT analog-ish grit and THAT low end!
Cream by Kirnu. super cool semi-arpeggiator / semi-sequencer.
MIDIFire & StreamByter by Audeonics. since Axoloti appears to be dead, this is my new secret weapon for building weird MIDI processing & generative stuff suitable for either hardware and software.
hits (iOS):
Surface Builder by 4Pockets. iPad part of my secret weapon.
StringLab by 4Pockets. i wish this was on desktop too.
Moogerfooger effects. (i know there is desktop version too, but ā¦ maybe someday)
same with Falcon. I use it as a preset synth. There are Preset Packs available and the LoFi pack is pretty good. However even with a maxed out iMac it is still not possible to play some of them without dropouts. I managed to locate the problematic module and itās the sampler. There were multiple updates but still the same. I donāt know.
Super interesting to read your take on opsix native - thatās exactly why I picked it up, FM synthesis is something I tend to overlook and I really liked the idea of something more straightforward. opsix just hasnāt clicked yet, but Iām sure Iāll get there
Forgot to add another hit - Keyscape. Iām a sucker for all things Spectrasonics, was a bit of a treat to myself but itās nice to have all my keys in one place.
Synplant 2 - Genopatch is the most fun you can have with a softsynth.
Fors Roulette - Very cool little sequencer thingy.
Live 11 Suite - Not bought just yet, but test drove it for 90 days and loved the upgrades from 10. Will upgrade in the current sale to get 12 as well, which looks even better.
so thought one more thread for software would be a good idea also.
