Early reverb vsts, not unsurprisingly... I remember Waves Truverb being utter sht. And all the stock effects in earlier versions of Sound Forge.

 

Overloud Breverb 2. When I was in school for sound engineering, I would see this advertised in all the audio magazines and would think I needed it so badly... until I got it. It was complete garbage. I've used so many stock reverbs that sounded much better than that thing.

And you were right, damn near all the plug-ins from the late 90s/early 00s were terrible, and that's mainly because the digital realm was new at the time. Of course we made the most of it but I now cringe listening to the effects on my old stuff.

 

I'd like to see Audio Pilz/Bad Gear venture into this domain

 

I'd go so far as to say almost every analog synthesizer emulation

 

I had such a disappointing experience with the Korg ARP Odyssey actually. Playing some distorted resonant sounds brought completely audible aliasing... This was the first time it happened with a soft synth, and I did not expect this behavior from a Korg product.

 

I forgot about reverbs, yes.
A lot of free/early reverbs are horribly metallic.

They sound like a can.

Epic Verb is a good example : ppl praise it because it is free ... but frankly it messes any sound you put inside
FL Studio Fruity Reeverb 1 is too sounding like a steel can.

 

or most of arturia's products (although the easel is fun) or cherry audio's everything

 

those sound forge effects were my whole life when I was 17, you leave them alone

 

My favorite horrid sounding plugin still is...

My Kazoo...https://www.g200kg.com/software/mykazoo060.zip

 

Well if we're going there-
https://plugins4free.com/plugin/633/

 

It was more "how can a generic plugin (reverb, EQ, comp ...) can mess a mix" spirit.
And YES clearly, a bad reverb or saturation can mess a mix.

BUT on the other side, most "stock" DAW plugins are good enough for decades.
I remember Sonitus suite from 1998 sounded good.

It is not really a matter of "old", it is more a matter of "serious dev and skills".

Freeware plugin from early 2000's, still sound "up to date" (listen at the end)

 

I think we should NOT gop there as there are too many to list.
I think that sticking with paid products is more in the spirit of the thread.

Let's continue to list "those to avoid".

Of course there may be unintended consequences of this...

Sometime later ....
"Oh, I remember someone mentioning this on AudioSex ... OK! I'll buy it!

 

Delay Lama anyone? Horrible, just horribly sounding!

 

AudioNerdz Delay Lama is from 2002, which is rather something for the museum.
Use modern plugins that meet today's requirements.

 

When I started making music, so many people said to me that Epic Verb is sooooo goood! Its F R E E!

 

Reverbs were never a strength of Variety Of Sound and Epic Verb was the only VOS plugin I immediately discarded. Even the recently released plate reverb sounds horrible. I love his non-linear, analog saturation stuff though.

 

Thanks for telling me the obvious. I'm not using it btw, that's not what this thread is about anyway.

 

Effect from Rob Papen are BAD too.
Good synths BUT bad effects.

I disabled all Albino effects since day one, whereas the synth itself is still up to date sounding.

Like VOS with reverbs, RP is not good on effects.

 

Oh yeah!!
I am glad it was not only me that felt their early Truverb sounded like someone built a scalable reverb inside a massive solid metal tank and you could not get rid of the tank.

 

It depends on your knee settings. If you have it set to hard knee the release is exponential, but it becomes logarithmic with softer knee settings. I rarely use a 0dB knee so it has never bothered me.