*** Plugins Poll ***

Support and feedback for Acoustica's Mixcraft audio mixing software.

Moderators: Acoustica Greg, Acoustica Eric, Acoustica Dan, rsaintjohn

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Acoustica Greg
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*** Plugins Poll ***

Post by Acoustica Greg »

Hi all,

1. What kind of plugins are you interested in?
2. If there are good examples of this type of plugin, please mention them.

We want to know what kind of plugins you'd find to be useful. Thanks for your time!

Greg
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geobee
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Re: Plugins Poll

Post by geobee »

Hi Greg, probably the difficult ones to find, for me anyway, are some clean sounding amp sims, and things to suit acoustic guitar recording. Plenty of distortion plugins, but not a lot of clean, but useful ones I feel. Mostly end up using just compression and a bit of reverb from the ones available, but something different would be nice.
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Rolling Estonian
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Re: Plugins Poll

Post by Rolling Estonian »

Parametric eq like Fabfilter Pro Q2, my buddy has one and it's the best eq I've ever seen. It's definitely on my short list.

M
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chibear
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Re: Plugins Poll

Post by chibear »

Hi Greg,

Don't know if an affordable one exists, but a poor man's version of Ircam SPAT. Closest I've been able to come in the freebies is Panagement, but it seems to be buggy, at least in the free version.
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aquataur
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Re: Plugins Poll

Post by aquataur »

I gather you are investigating for V8 freebies.
I already suggested TB Fix (or Flex). A very flexible EQ and dynamic EQ.
There is many work-arounds you can make for this or that plugin, but if you need a dynamic EQ there is no way around.

Unfortunately there is little information around on that type of EQ, but it appears a powerful weapon. People would hopefully find more creative scenarios if it came along in the pack of goodies.

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Acoustica Greg
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Re: Plugins Poll

Post by Acoustica Greg »

aquataur wrote:I gather you are investigating for V8 freebies.
Not necessarily freebies. We'd like to know if there are any plugin voids out there, and also what kind of plugins people want in general.
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freightgod
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by freightgod »

Trim control.

Limiter.
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by carllackey »

i would love to see a chord plug in, like in reason 9 . it creates chords with one finger on a key. great for guitarists like me who aren't good keyboard players!
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by Manfred »

An equalizer with spectrum cloning function would be useful, especially for beginners. It's nice to have a start from where you can go on to match a certain sound you have in mind. I use the MAudioDynamicEq from Melda-Productions which is affordable and does a good job. Curve-EQ from Voxengo is another example.

Since I moved from Samplitude to Mixcraft I miss a true channel strip (gate-compressor-eq-desser), escpecially for vocals. I know I can build it myself (which I did), there are presets in Mixcraft (not good) and there are freebies (maxsynths DSP series, NastyVCS, Easyvox) which come close, but not quite. A simple, overseeable channelstrip for basic use makes vocal treatment so much easier. Voxengo Voxformer is a nice one.

A real, editable tuning device like Melodyne is essential for professional purposes (and nice for others). Your competitor Magix Music Studio has the build-in Vocal Tune. Zplane's Vielklang (http://products.zplane.de/vielklang) is a much cheaper but still useful alternative to Melodyne.

Here are some freebies I use in every mix, so they must be kind of essential for me:
1. The A1 Stereocontrol (http://www.alexhilton.net/A1AUDIO/index ... reocontrol) - with mid/side controls and a safe-bass function which keeps the bass in the middle when spreading the stereo image. I often use it to get a mono-signal back out of tracks mangled by stereo-delays or reverbs.
2. The TDR Kotelnikov Compressor (http://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/) - absolutely clean and transparent, just does his job and nothing else.
3. The LimitedZ Limiter (http://lvcaudio.com/plugins/limited-z/) for the mix and LoudMax Limiter (http://loudmax.blogspot.de/) on single tracks.
4. The Ferric TDS Tapesimulation (https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/).
WhiRz
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by WhiRz »

An "autotune" in the way of Melodyne would be killer but impossible ^^.

A phase analyser. Very usefull to have on the master bus.

A tape plugin ? Not really usefull but always fun.

A good delay plugin ? I use the Replika from Natives Instrument. Sounds reaaaally good for digital delay stuff and ambiance.

A trim.

That's all I think. Other EQ / Comp etc... are overwhelming the market so not really usefull to add.
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by vizionheiry »

I also would like a native Melodyne competitor that includes harmony function.

I also want a Chords plugin similar to Reason 9.

I'm excited about native sidechaining and sending.
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MeanMrMustard
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Re: Plugins Poll

Post by MeanMrMustard »

Acoustica Greg wrote:
We'd like to know if there are any plugin voids out there

Good quality clean amp sims seem far and few. Vox, Fender....
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by AHornsby »

... Ampeg...
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outteh
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by outteh »

More "mastering" plug-ins. Multi-frequency compressor, loudness analysis and adjustment by frequency, multi-band EQ, gain adjustments.
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msnickybee
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Re: *** Plugins Poll ***

Post by msnickybee »

Some of this has already been mentioned. I'll stick to freeware thoughts too.

(1) EQ
The mixer EQ could be more of a useful channel strip? With Q control.
And the excellent GLX4070 is consigned to ProStudio, how many folks use this? I do.
Similarly, the TB Parametric in ProStudio is perfectly fine, but is not made obvious.
Some of this comes down to how Mixcraft forces you to do your own organisation of the Plugins.
TDR Nova is the Fabfilter freeware beater here. It has a brickwall hipass, Dynamic EQ, and spectrum analyzer. Great stuff.

Low and High Pass metering is sadly lacking currently, as I personally don't care for the clip level implementation. The ProStudio only TB Parametric is reasonable here, but only TDR Nova (or Fabfilter - payware) offers 72dB brickwall.
It would make most sense to build this into the channel strip direct perhaps.

(2) MASTERING
TDR Nova again, but also those things that add character/console emulation eg the Klanghelm products IVGI and DC1A are excellent.
There is an excellent EQ from TDR labs called TDR VOS Slick EQ and it really does add character, but perhaps more useful at the mastering stage.

(3) COMPRESSION
Limiter no.6 has been mentioned, and this gives excellent multiband limiting (see also Mastering) which can be unlinked.
MJUCjr is also an excellent characterful compressor. I haven't had much luck with the valve, tube etc etc compressors built-in to ProStudio tbh.
TDR Kotelnikov is also excellent for mastering, and very smooth, with a configurable hipass, but those who are desiring those pumping effects I guess are waiting for the native side-chaining....
Final callout for the excellent Toneboosters stuff, eg TB Barricade as a Brickwall limiter (which can be scary) it's subtle and ace when used right. This contrasts I think with the Kjaerhus stuff built-in which is less useful.

(4) REVERB
I'm open to Freeware suggestions here, but I would say that the Acoustica Pro and Fusion Field are both very good, but again consigned to the ProStudio product.

(5) PITCH and VOCALS
A cutdown Melodyne version? Gsnap calls itself "state of the art", but it really really isn't. I purchased Izotope Nectar Essentials (grudgingly), but am sure many other folks have good ideas here (I could never got on with the zPlane one).

(6) METERING and OTHER
We all miss metering I think. And probably start with Span. I've not actually gone out and purchased better, but I really wish I had some Loudness metering, instead of having to measure LUFS and all that stuff after I've rendered the final mastered WAV. Ah well. So, even something like Span built-in would be better than nothing, eh?

Transient control and colouration is an interesting one, we've all messed around with the Pultec (but found it hit and miss perhaps and CPU heavy), but how many people know how good the Treblecream and FAT++ (both Prostudio only) actually are??
Because - they're hidden within the mass of other VSTs I feel, unless you manually and painstakingly get organised.

:D
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