Who's on the Sonar X diet?

mixmkr
 
Am I alone in this thinking?

I hope not, I think you make a lot of sense. I have a select repertoire of proven plug-ins and leave it at that. I also think limiting the number of plug-ins helps stability.
 
True story: When Sound on Sound magazine did one of their "Mix Rescue" features, the person who did the recording went and got tea for the SOS crew. They started the way they usually do, by bypassing the plug-ins to get a sense of the tracks themselves. When the host returned to the studio, he was taken aback. "What did you do? It sounds great!"
 
SOS says this has happened more than once...
 
Great topic, by the way.

Anderton
 I also think limiting the number of plug-ins helps stability.
 

I can't say for certain if that really affected my situation, but my last XP computer running Sonar 7PE.... I'd crash about once every 10-20 hours of use. 
This current setup (and I'll credit the builder too), doesn't crash at all. I mean not at all.  And I boot up in seconds and projects load instantly.  Shutting down the computer to reboot when you're hot laying tracks was about the most counter productive thing I could think of that was happening.  I've REALLY noticed that difference in a big way.

MakeShift
When I installed a new 2TB hard drive 6 months ago, I did a clean install of W8.1, X3e and only 64bit Plug Ins and only the plug ins that I use on a regular basis. I have run nothing but smooth, since.

Yeah...I'm running 64 bit only as well... except for stuff like Perfect Space...   I do have to think that limiting stuff outside of Cake's real hemisphere, makes for a smoother drink.  On a good machine, they know what works, with what they've released to the public.

I should have qualified.  I do have some 3rd party VSTi... like Toontrack for instance (and wasn't adversely affected by the EZD2 fiasco).  I wouldn't expect Cake to put out an *Omnisphere*...  but Z3ta2 and Rapture are pretty unique.  DimPro works too.

I had a clear out quite recently as Sonar was listing all of the free stuff you tend to download when starting out in DAWland and which never gets a look in when you grow up.
I believe my plugin scan went from the high 700s to the mid 600s. I felt quite liberated and finding the plugin I wanted got much easier.
I also managed to kill SD3 but that's another story.

Grum.

Well, I never meant for it to sound like I had only Sonar plug ins on my system either, so if it came across like that, let me correct it.  I have EZD2, IKM Amplitube 3 and T-Racks, Toneboosters, S-Gear, Valhalla, to name a few.
 
However, if I had not used something in the last year, it didn't get installed on this go round. My goal was to thin down on choices and to use and learn the plugs, that I use most of the time.

Minimalist here too. 
I don't even install half the Synth plug ins that come with Sonar anymore. 
I had tried them on last install and had no use for them so figured why bother. 
I tend to only install what I actually use and after 8 years not much has changed for me. 
Probably because I'm not a "Synth" user. I only seem to use tradition instruments you have in a traditional Blues, Folk or Country Rock band. I realize I'm probably a minority group here. 
 "Mr Tramp" is my only 3rd party / 32 bit plug in. But I'm hoping my purchase of Dim Pro 1.5 will have a good Wurly in there. Haven' had time to install yet. 
 
And I find all I need is Sonars Effects Plugs. There way more than I will ever use. Some of the plugs from Wave Lab are added and I downloaded the freebies that came from Focusrite but found them so so.  So next install they are gone too. 

Anderton

mixmkr
 
Am I alone in this thinking?

I hope not, I think you make a lot of sense. I have a select repertoire of proven plug-ins and leave it at that. I also think limiting the number of plug-ins helps stability.
 
True story: When Sound on Sound magazine did one of their "Mix Rescue" features, the person who did the recording went and got tea for the SOS crew. They started the way they usually do, by bypassing the plug-ins to get a sense of the tracks themselves. When the host returned to the studio, he was taken aback. "What did you do? It sounds great!"
 
SOS says this has happened more than once...
 
Great topic, by the way.

This happens to me all the time. I'll be going around in circles in a mix trying to get tracks to sit together nice, ending up with these ridiculous chains (multiple compressors/EQ's on each track, as well as tape emulators, modulation, stereo narrowing/widening, distortion, amp/cab sims, multiple layers of reverb) and eventually I end up thinking nothing is going to work. So I turn everything off and hit play....and it sounds great with everything sitting in it's own space and working together.

I don't mind having a lot of plugins though and I never "spring clean." There are loads that I never use but I keep them just in case - you never know when they're going to come in useful. Like recently I was having trouble with an (intentionally) lo-fi drum track that needed a bit of sparkle, and I'd tried all my usual avenues without success. Finally I ended up loading Native Instruments Driver plugin, which was a freebie I'd never used. It worked perfectly.

With synths I think a lot of people forget how much processing they can do "on board" without even loading a plugin. If a synth has onboard EQ, compression, chorus etc then I'll try and do as much with those as possible before using track effects. You just have to remember to save the preset in case anything goes wrong.

Some VSTi's have such good effects that you rarely need to load a plugin. For instance I often have 5 or 6 drum engines running in Geist without using a single external effect or sending the drums to their own tracks - Geist's effects are so good I can do absolutely everything in there and just have each engine output to it's own bare stereo track. Heck I even arrange all the drums in there, no need for any MIDI.

bapu
I have a few 3rd part VSTs and VSTis.

I'm thinking where people have D drives for audio, E for samples.... you've got F-M for VST(i) .dll files.
I did keep my crazy collection of impulse responses though.  Those seem safe in their own small folder.

Mostly Pro Channel,  Nomad Factory and Cake synths here. Occasionally and depending on the song I'll use VOS plugs but that's about it. I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going to clutter up the new PC with a gazillion plugins I never used and I'm sticking to it.

I must have accidentally ticked an option somewhere...suddenly the forum is all in Greek. What the heck are you guys going on about, anyway?
 

I think it may be a learning process .
I used to have a bunch of the free / low cost plugs and synths on my older computers .
it got to be a real pain weeding out the turds from the diamonds .  
 
imho….sometimes "free " is the highest price a person can pay for something 
 
On my current Win 8 machine I was very pleased to have done my best to keep my X3 install lean and mean .
the only 2 plugs that i added that to me were holdovers / keepers are the VC 64 and the MPL-1 ….
everything else that I added to my X3 install came from Cakewalk and IK …..( so far  )
 
I have a few other DAW programs that get a lot of use around here , many of their plugs have shown up in my plugin mgr…it is very rare that I use them in SONAR …they are there . I much prefer to use them in the apps they came with .
 
one nice thing that I'm pretty happy about …the stuff thats locked to X3 is locked and the stuff that isn't locked to X3 is free to roam around freely ..
I happen to like that because a number of the bread and butter Cakewalk plugs and synths do show up in my other music apps .. 
 
Kenny