Try Ambience. It's also free. Some like it. Some don't but I've found it useful for certain applications.

pentimentosound
...
When I started installing stuff on my new desktop, I didn't do any 32 bit versions and now I'm thinking I might as well, or are there good reasons not to?
...

First, I'd wait for Win10 to drop in a couple of weeks, before I started testing new apps.
 
Second, and I'll probably get cwap for this, but...I really don't want to get dependent on an app/plug that hasn't been updated in years or is no longer supported, as many of the older 32-bit free plugins are. Nor do I want to get to like a freebie, only to find out that to get all of its capability I need to buy the pro version, or whatever. I'm not out to spend money for fun (that's what casinos are for), but I have no use for "free" plugins. Nobody works for free. We've all got to pay bills. So, if something is "free", what am I NOT getting OR what ELSE am I getting?
 
No, my preference is to pay for what I use. I specifically avoid "free". Low cost? All for that. But free? Not for me.
 
But that's just me...and I've been wrong plenty of times.
 
EDIT: I wasn't going to post again in this thread. Oh, well.

If you're looking for reverb I'd recommend Valhalla Vintage Verb. It sounds great, it's uses very little CPU, it's versatile and it's only $50. Although there are other reverbs that sound different I don't think there are any that sound better until you get into the $2000+ hardware reverbs.

The other thing I'd recommend spending your money on is MCompare. It's by Melda productions and it lets you easily compare your track to commercial tracks. Just load some of your favorite songs in and then flip back and forth between your mix and these songs. This lets you see how your mix balance, reverb, compression, etc sounds vs pro mixes. It's not a sexy plugin, but it's useful and you can use it on every song you do.

Chevy
 
I also remembered/realized, while reading all this good info, was that most decent studios (even modest ones) will likely have a decent tube preamp before the cpu interface.

 
They may do, or they may not. Some of the most highly regarded consoles and press are solid state.
 

Chevy
Is there a bit of magic added with a hardware tube preamp that seems to be missing and can't be simulated otherwise?

 
Sort of. Valves (or tubes to use the US term) have qualities that are valued, but more in the guitar amp field than mic pres. Their most liked quality is their ability to distort in a way humans seem to like. Emulating valve behaviour is something that software and hardware companies have been trying to do for years. Personally I think that emulations that don't have too much saturation going on and are based on circuits that are designed for low (by valve levels) distortion and saturation can be pretty good, but guitar amp emulations generally lose out to the real thing or even analogue solid state emulators such as the Sansamp range. Others will disagree with me :-)
 
If you want a little valve magic on a low budget there are the Art tube press and the Behringer equivalents. They actually don't sound to bad, but the Behringers in particular are fitted with a very cheap and pretty horrible example of a valve. Switching it to a better quality one can make quite an improvement. That's the thing about valves, just because two have 12AX7 (or ECC83 if you're European) written on them and are supposedly the same thing doesn't mean they'll sound or react to input quite the same. Selecting and comparing valves is a can of worms in its own right.
 
Again though, the kind of difference a valve preamp makes over a decent solid state one in a typical interface doesn't leap out at you, it's a subtle difference. And if the interface the pre is connected to isn't very good then.... And the mic also needs to be good, otherwise all you're doing is very nice amplification of a not very nice microphone... And you need good monitors and experience to understand what its doing....
 
If I were you I'd sort out a couple of decent compressors (the Sonnitus you already have is one), a limiter and a reverb (Breverb which you have already is good), learn to use them then start looking at where to go next..

FWIW, Waves Linear Multiband Compressor is just $29 (~£18) for the next few hours. I'm having a punt, just need to learn to use them. I'm pretty comfortable with the theory, but putting it in to practice will be interesting.
 
jdf