Maybe it's time for me to cut down on the VSTs

I trashed a lot of my old VST's,kept the ones I use the most and now use a lot of Sonar's included plugins,i'm now down to two hundred from about 400 and I couldn't be happier
 

I would say my VST plate is plenty full too 939, I think it's pretty safe to say I have a VST habit. I don't feel so bad, I know someone here that has almost double that amount.

kennywtelejazz
In truth I did put Amplitude on there but I haven't touched it other than to see if it installed OK .
I'm really digging all the CA stuff ...it is really nice sounding and it responds as if I'm playing out of an amp
 
Kenny 

Wow, thanks for the compliment!! It's particularly gratifying because I really wanted the amps to feel responsive.
 
The only comment I'd make is the amps default to being fairly bright, on the assumption that its easy to pull back on the highs but harder to add them where they're not.
 
More are waiting in the wings...
 

I've been cleaning house too, got it to under 500!

Bristol_Jonesey
Craig, did you have any input on creating the Fx Chains under Modern?

No, all the credit there goes to Cakewalk. I think they were done mostly by Jimmy Landry and/or Dan Gonzalez but they would need to confirm. My gig is to come up with the weird stuff 

I wonder how long it will be before there are commercial operations and ads on daytime TV to beat plugin addiction.

Anderton

kennywtelejazz
In truth I did put Amplitude on there but I haven't touched it other than to see if it installed OK .
I'm really digging all the CA stuff ...it is really nice sounding and it responds as if I'm playing out of an amp
 
Kenny 

Wow, thanks for the compliment!! It's particularly gratifying because I really wanted the amps to feel responsive.
 
The only comment I'd make is the amps default to being fairly bright, on the assumption that its easy to pull back on the highs but harder to add them where they're not.
 
More are waiting in the wings...
 

 
A few things I noticed right off the bat . The gain staging was right in the sweet zone .
The voicing of the tones you made available reacted dynamically to my playing . I was able to get pick chirps at will using the medium to high gain settings . I didn't have to start messing around with setting noise gates like I have to all the time with everything else I have used to even approach that territory .
IMHO, the top end you dialed up has the right amount of Glass in the tone .
 
You certainly did a Great Job on the amps I have enjoyed opening up the template and playing my guitar within it .
 
thank you ,
 
Kenny
 
 

bitman
I wonder how long it will be before there are commercial operations and ads on daytime TV to beat plugin addiction.

Or maybe a Reality TV show called VST Hoarding,Buried Alive

mcdonalk
What is the correct way to remove a VST or DXI?
 

Good question . . . you can just exclude them in Cakewalk plugin manager (in case you want to get them back)
. . . but the complete uninstall is done in windows control panel.
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
If you have the Waves suite you get around 600 plugins just from there :)
FWIW I've tested with over 1000 plugins and SONAR still does the startup scan in less than 5 seconds for me.

My systems lists about 800+ due to WAVES, NI and others, 32/64 bit, VST2/VST3 dplicate installations etc.
 
However, I don't worry about the number as Sonar does a really good job scaning quickly. I don't install freebies at random or for the fun of it, so my system is "clean". I don't even bother about deinstalling old 32 bit versions because Sonar does a great job hiding them (and there might be a chance you need them in other applications like video editing software etc.).
 
But I do use my custom plugin list to access the go-to plugs quickly and have the less frequently used ones only a sub-menu or two away.  I reorganise that list a few times a year and have the same list on main and backup system and live system (although the live system contains much fewer plugs but by itself presents me with a shorter but still custom list)
 
 

Proud to say I have less than 30 plugins (not including the ones native to Cakewalk or Studio One), all paid for. It has been a gigantic struggle against 'gear lust' but it allows me to have a very streamlined, efficient workflow: gives me the time to learn and get the most out of the plugins I use everyday. Money savings is a significant consideration, too.

I feel one of the factors leading to musicians drowning in plugins is the useless, quixotic search for "the truth'' in sound: we want a guitar VSTi to sound EXACTLY like a real guitar or, worse, even a very specific guitar model. We want 'saturation' (whatever that is) in our tracks, perfect compression, flawless vocal tracks, 'vintage' this and 'modern' that, we reject 'old school' elements, but love all things 'abbey road', like the studio or the noisy Pultec were the reasons for yesterday's hits. We talk about 'surgical' eq, as if the life of a badly recorded track is worth saving. We are always putting ourselves exactly one step behind the perfect music-making situation; we are always forgetting the public does not care (or even know) wether that little hook they love about song X is a banjo or a freaking trombone!

I remind myself every day that good music is a harmonious whole, not a collection of little anal-retentive sounds. I'm trying...with as few plugins as possible!

irvin
...we are always forgetting the public does not care (or even know) wether that little hook they love about song X is a banjo or a freaking trombone!

True point.
 
But the latest tech has often been a driver in the music production scene.
 
Everybody wants the Cher-Believe effect. Some have based their musical careers on it (Daft Punk?).
 
Then there was the Disco Handclap (TR808) sound. On nearly every song.
The Linn Drum sound. It was everywhere.
The Phil Collins massive gated reverb snare.
More recently we have the stutter effect.
Synthesizers with vocal-like formant filtering (nee Frampton's Voice Box)
Impossibly tight harmony, algorithmically generated.
And absolute pitch-perfect singing.
 
And not forgetting convincing full orchestral backing
without so much as a violin bow in the studio.
 
All technology-driven. And depending on the zeitgeist, often essential if you want to compete in a particular genre.

Thanks for the kind words. I feel we often don't get the best of the wonderful tools at our disposal. I'm 55, a 'veteran' of the music scene, going back to the 80's and tape machines. I went through the ADAT 'revolution' and my journey has made me very appreciative of all we have: it's a small marvel to think what products like Sonar and others I won't mention can get us for a very small price.

We can do far more in our PC than what the best engineers could do at the long-deceased multi-million Variety studios in midtown New York thirty years ago (young guys know about Pultec emulations, but nobody talks about the balls needed to do tape splicing on a 2" master - there was no Control-Z back then) The only thing the digital revolution has not made available to us is a nice recording room, but even the cheap microphones and audio interfaces are delivering great quality. All we need to enjoy this great era is to spend enough time learning our tools.

Does it detract from performance to have so many VSTs available?
 
I didn't think it did.
 
BTW, I still use the old Direct X Sonitus stuff over Waves in many situations. Also Direct X Tape Sim from Cakewalk. Oldies.

I literally use maybe about ..... ten plugins.  I'd rather record music than play around with plugins.