Anderton
Danny, what are these plug-ins you find so essential? I'm curious.
I soo knew someone would ask and embarrass me into telling. LOL! j/k
I use this reverb from Anwida Soft which is DX....incredible for drums and has one of the best gated sounds I've ever heard. The cool thing about this verb that is unlike others is when you crank it up and make it 100% wet, you don't have to use as much "send" level as you would anything else. So in turn, it doesn't raise the level of your instrument at all. You know how you sometimes have to really jump on a send to hear the effect you want and it raises the level? This doesn't happen.
Some old Beat Model suite that has some very cool pieces in it. They sound VERY analog which I normally don't go for, but these do it in a good way without the ugly coloration and saturation we get out of today's "so called" analog pieces.
The first version of Clone Ensemble. Totally love it moreso than the latest one. Neither are 64 bit. This gets used on just about all my back-up vocal tracks.
The old Q Sound plugin suite. I really get some good results out of these mixing them with other plugs just a touch to create sounds within sounds that I just can't get elsewhere. I'm surprised they still even work.
Antares Mic Modeler....I don't believe they even make this anymore, maybe they do....could of sworn it was D/C'd. Whatever the case, I love it and have all the mic models for it. Yeah I know it's probably just some form of eq or IR type of deal, but whatever it is, it can make a huge difference on things just by adding a model to your tracks. Works on everything.
An old Blue Tubes bundle that sound better than the updated one. The multi delay plug is off the hook.
PSP Stereo pack....not sure what they did to the new one I bought, but I hate it compared to the old one. You can dial in the exact same settings you used on the old version into the new version and it sounds completely different. Smaller, not as effective enhancing stereo feeds like the older version I bought. The new one just sounds sterile and...well, sort of too digitally imaged if that makes sense.
ARC 1 version 1.1.1...the only version of this plug that keeps the correction for me upon loading a saved project. I have this weird anomaly that I think only happens to me and one other person. Any version of ARC 1 over 1.1.1 will not hold correction. I can do the correction procedure on all of them, it's the plug that fails. I'll explain...because this is too easy for people to miss and it could be happening to some and they don't even know it.
So I use, lets say 1.3.1 which is the latest...and I'm forced to use it now because X2 crashes horribly with 1.1.1. I load up a project, save it. The next time I open that project, I press play and notice I'm getting my un-corrected sound. I open the plug to see if it's enabled because it's giving me the sound of disabled. When I double click the plug in my master bus bin, as it opens...it IS enabled and THEN applies the correction sound as it's being opened. I've had a support ticket with them for 3 years that is still open to this day because they can't figure it out. Now here's the weird thing...
I recently played drums for Frank Tanton (notnat on the forum) and when I open the project I did with him, ARC literally behaves correctly upon opening. It plays the correction as it should. But all other projects (it doesn't matter what version of Sonar I use) do not play my correction until I double click the plug in the bin and then it kicks in AS it opens. So this was my reason to stick with ARC 1.1.1.....plus I just like it better than ARC 2. But I'm screwed now with ARC 1, so I may have to go to 2 since I can't find a version that will hold correction. It's so weird man!
The above are game changers for me and actually, part of how I get the over-all sounds I get on my recordings. I've tried to substitute them whenever possible and have come up with fair results....but they just aren't strong enough results to write them off in my opinion. The ARC 1 thing is driving me crazy currently.
-Danny