Voxengo Deft Compressor
Voxengo Marquis Compressor
Voxengo Gliss EQ

and almost every other Voxengo Plugin.
they dont have the fancy GUI like UAD or Kush,
but they are true workhorses.

Never had any troubles with the Voxengo plugs.
Very CPU friendly.
Very good meters and functions like M/S, dual mono modes etc..


If you search for a smooth vintage style compression with more options.
Give a listen to Voxengo Deft.
I prefer it over many of the fancy vintage style 1176/ LA2A etc. style comps out there!

Even after a deep rescan, the vst version is not recognized (Live crashed during the scan), but the AU version is ok (I didn't install it at first, because I'm never using AU plugins).
ADT is ok, but not so different than a "home made" ADT with LFO within a Live rack... It's of course not mono compatible, and you can't EQ the ADT channel to improve the mono sound, so I don't know yet if it's better than a DIY ADT rack in Live.
I like the ADT effect, but I still don't get how the Beatles recordings were so full of this effect and still sounding good on mono. I guess it's just a lot of work and high level craft.

I'll test deeper anyway...

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem like this is simply to save off all the files you need, and uninstall the program.

...Then clean up all the stuff in the registry, and then re-install from the ground up.

It is a huge PITA, but often results in joy.

Honestly, I'm still learning how to use it properly. My one complaint is that the UI isn't as intuitive, perhaps, as it could be.

I don't know that I'd pick one thing as most important - it's the combo of transparency, peak+rms, harmonics, and side chain filtering. All for an amazing price.

I’m still learning the more advanced features like Yin/Yang and FDR myself. They can be subtle. I sometimes feel like I need to take two weeks’ vacation from everything and spend the whole time just exploring plugins, because a lot of them, like Kotelnikov, I know I’m just scratching the surface of what they can do.

But the one thing I have found immediately useful is the equal loudness bypass. It’s incredibly helpful to reality-check exactly what I’m doing to the signal without being distracted by volume differences.

IVGI by Klanghelm

it's free


For my taste, one of the few saturation type things that don't 'overdo' it, or make me pay too high a price in clarity.

TBPRO Audio CS-5501

2x 7 band EQ
2x noise gate/expander
2x compressor, VCA/FET/OPTP design
2x deesser
2x limiter
saturation
thermal noise for analogue sound emulation
EQ tolerance simulation
HQ over sampling
signal overshot protection
link-able input/output fader including phase inversion
module parameter link
extended metering, input/output/gain reduction, Peak, RMS, EBU and VU
perceptual loudness matching (powered by AB-LM Lite)
module routing
extensive side-chain support for many effect modules
many comfort functions like soloing and signal monitoring
preset management
parameter randomizer
selectable color theme
GUI scaling
64-bit internal processing

Used to have Sound Workshop console. Underrated in the hardware world as well. Otari really screwed it up.

Soundbytes magazine has a free version of the ddmf iieq pro. Limited to six bands and no analyser. But it has a lot of intersting filter types, no cramping and sounds amazing. An overlooked freebie from a great company. https://soundbytesmag.net/sb-plugins/

Anything Voxengo...

Warmifier
OVC128
EBusLim
Elephant
GlissEQ
HarmoniQ
Deft Compressor
etc.

The premium bundle is a steal. Their oversampling sounds great too.

Lots of love for Voxengo is great to see.

Here's some "don't hear about them much but they're great" plugins in my opinion:

Martinic - Scanner Vibrato
Excellent characterful vintage organ style chorus/vibe

Psychic MOdulation - VectoMelt
Or anything by Psychic Modulation in general

Nick Crow Lab - Tube Driver
Free, 64-bit, double-precision internal processing, render oversampling, full range of controls. Total sleeper.

Beatrig SideKick 6
Super easy inter-plugin "send + receive" style sidechaining. Never see anyone talking about it.

Auburn Sounds
Couture
Panagement

LVC-Audio
Everything

OMG that looks amazing thanks.

I’ll mention Madrona Labs Aalto and Kaivo.

Toraverb
Redoptor
Syntorus

Honestly I've found all of D16's effects to be really good, but I barely ever hear anyone talking about them.

Agreed. I bought the Silverline collection a year plus ago for $200 from an online store as a substitute for the Soundtoys bundle (before Soundtoys was on sale so much, too). I’ve never felt I needed the Soundtoys bundle since.

EOS 2 *Superhall
eventhorizon
ContemporaryColor

D16 is a really good example for me of the importance of interface design. I bought a couple of their plugins on sale, but I found the UIs so cluttered and inefficient to navigate that I stopped using them before I really got around to finding out what they were capable of sonically. (That’s just me, of course, and others may find those interfaces usable and appealing.)

^^^^

That's a fair critique. I'll admit that their interfaces are pretty busy and can be overwhelming with options.

All of the Shattered Glass Audio stuff, especially Phoenix and Inferno. People almost never talk about them here but they're some of the best saturation plugins out there (and affordable to boot!).

The Native Instruments RC 24 / 48 Reverbs. They rarely come up in reverb discussions but they're really, really good.

The Sknote PedalBench series. Especially the phaser and flanger. Best Phase 90 and EHX Mistress plugins you can get.

RND Portico 5033/5034 plug-ins are something I use a lot, I think yamaha VCM technology is under rated, they do an amazing tape emulation the yamaha vintage open deck which is still the best sounding tape emulation I've ever heard, I was genuinely depressed when the trial of that plug-in ended for months.

They've probably been mentioned by now but the stock Reaper plugins which you can get separately (some anyway).

Wavesfactory Spectre. Amazing toneshaping options.

Audiority Tube Modulator. I actually don’t use it that much, but when you need a lush, swirly and - yes, I’m gonna say it - warm vibrato/tremolo, it’s the way to go.

Softube Drawmer S73. It's just an instant better maker. It always sits on my 2-buss, whatever else happens. I never hear anyone talking about it, but it's absolutely amazing. Throw it on, dial it in, done. (Also its big sibling the 1973. But it's not quite as magical in its ease of use and set and forget.)

Tone2 Saurus - amazing synth, very analog sounding, unfortunately was released at the same time as Diva who took all the attention.

Stillwell Audio's plugins. Over a decade old, but both The Rocket and Bombardier are still 2 of the best software compressors out there imho.

Goodhertz Tiltshift

I had used tilt eq a few times before, but the ability to shift only within a certain range, and quickly adapt high and low pass filters of any slope to match has proven so useful that I now have dozens of instances on every mix. I really hadn't realized until I started leaning heavily upon it just how much of a difference it makes using tilt vs other types of eq to change the overall brightness / darkness while still preserving a sense of tonal balance and avoiding the wonky phase issues causes by many other EQ's.

Not as sexy as something like an AI driven EQ matching black box or whatever else may be popular these days, but by far one of the most practical plugs in the toolbox.

I keep this on my 2bus too ALWAYS!!!!!! Even after my hardware comes back into Ableton I finish it off with the S73, Clarity 1 setting at 50% wet... Just a little sprinkle.

Yeah good call, everything Goodhertz is real quality. All over my mixes too.

I've had that uninstalled for 6-12 months. Just re-installed to give it a real try.