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Forum or eMagazine recommendations for Good VST Plug In Reviews

Re-Pete

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Hi Folks
I just recently upgraded things at home to get Cubase 8 Pro. I was finding that Propellerheads Reason was losing ground with it's Rack Effects & not many software developers are using the Reason format for their Plug In releases. So I went back to the old Grandpa format of VST. I will still be using Reason through Re-Wire, however, as I like their user interface & their SSL mockup mixer display.

There are a heap of VST Plug Ins around. Many variants, for example, of the SSL desk layout. Or the Neve consoles, or famous compressors. Multiple examples of the same 'unit' from different developers.

Of course, you want to know - especially if you are downloading a copy & PAYING for it - that the one you get is:
a) a true representation of the old hardware
b) that it performs well within the DAW on VST format.

There is Waves, Slate Digital, Softube, Chandler. All doing, what I see from their websites, as pretty darn good jobs at bringing these old hardware units to life in software format.
But which one is better in any given unit? Is there, for example, a developer who is red hot with one unit but not so with other Plug Ins in their range?

Surely there must be a review site where the software is put through it's paces and compared to other units from other developers?

If anyone knows a decent forum or eMagazine that goes through the numerous Plug Ins and assesses them well enough to gain an informed opinion, I would like to know.
 
Sound on Sound has a fair bit of stuff.

http://www.soundonsound.com

I've heard Gearslutz may be worth a look.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/
 
I find the UAD forum is pretty good for this kind of thing:

http://uadforum.com/general-discussion/

Though it's for UAD stuff (which requires their fairly expensive DSP HW to run), their plugins are excellent and when a new competitor shows up with a version of the same thing it's usually discussed. But you'd basically have to search using the other vendors name and product to find anything.


But there's been a lot of good emulations in recent years with different strengths and weaknesses, so I wouldn't go crazy trying to find the "best" as much as I would look for "best value". Unlike HW, with SW there's often little correlation between price and quality, and lots of stuff eventually gets discounted significantly so you should never pay anything close to full price.

Personally I don't care if it's a perfect emulation as much as if I like the sound and it has a reasonable cost, a decent UI and such. And vintage HW often had multiple revisions and various inconsistencies anyway.
 
I'm not sure of a forum or website with a list, but I've used just about everything so I can help you out.

There have been some plugins that have equaled their hardware counterparts, and some are even a bit better because of the interface and ease of tweaking, like the Eventide UltraReverb, which is the exact same reverb algorithms from their hardware H8000, but with a super easy interface.

Abbey Road briefly had some plugins you could get back in 2007 that were amazing emulations of a bunch of their hardware like the EMI/TG Zener limiter and passive eqs. They didn't have them for sale for very long though.

The Lindell Audio plugins are extremely good and sound the same as their hardware pre (6X-500), compressor (7X-500, which is their version of an 1176), and eq (PEX-500, which is their version of the Pultec EQP-1A).

Those are just a few examples.

As for which is better than another for a similar emulation, I can help. For example, if you're looking for a good Neve eq, pick up the IK Multimedia EQ 81. It's a very very good emulation of the Neve 1081 and in my opinion beats out the others like the Waves V-EQ4. Sounds ridiculous on guitar tracks.

For companies, most have some good/great plugins, and some that are not as good. I do like a lot of the stuff from Softube. They have a lot of very nice plugins. Also, just about everything from FLUX: is outstanding. I haven't used a single plugin from them that I haven't wanted. Their IRCAM reverb is just nuts.

In terms of host DAW compatibility, it depends on the DAW company and the plugin company. There are some incompatibilities like Sonar and Metric Halo and Sonar and Waves. Sonar doesn't like either of them. I went back and forth with Cakewalk's tech support for like 10 months with software issues and there was never a fix for it. Another one would be Samplitude and really any 32-bit plugin in a 64-bit version of the DAW. It has a bit-bridge, but it annihilates the DSP and you'll get drop outs. Samplitude will be great once they fix that. Digital Performer is highly configurable, but it REALLY doesn't like 32-bit plugins in a 64-bit version of the DAW. It will see them, but won't make them available. Reaper just annoyed the crap out of me and I stopped using it after three days. It's very inexpensive, but it felt like I was trying to make music in an Excel spreadsheet or something. I'm demoing Cubase 8 Pro and Nuendo 6.5 now. So far they are driving me insane lol I'm trying to get them to do 5.1 mixes and simple tasks are seemingly impossible in these things like customized output assignments. They also claim Cubase 8 Pro can do 5.1 surround mixes, but the program doesn't seem to have any panning functions for surround tracks lol The panner in Nuendo however is excellent, but you can't do mixes in it it seems unless you buy a music production package for it. For a DAW that costs $1,700. Yea.
 
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