that is something i think about often.
will i be using mostly the same plugins in 10 years? or are they all gonna become obsolete?
what about prices? are they going to be same price, more expensive or basically free ?

 

Many plugins we use are old. Waves or maybe Brainworx, as the worst examples. Some of this is a good indication a plugin is one of the better processors of whatever type. The developers freshen them up to current standards, but are the "same" plugins. They only become "obsolete" when your computer, os, DAW, etc. can't even run them anymore. You can also get a ton of mileage out of older plugins that people either slept on, or didn't tell anyone about.

Example, I would "gamble" and say that Altiverb 8 is probably somewhere at the very top of this list; and I haven't even demo'd, used, or seen anyone else use. Altiverb is 20-ish years old now. Just v7 on it's own was 13 years old. A great developer doesn't need to sell 40 different new plugins.

 

yes, very true.
good guess, this stuff will probably still have lots of good use

 

I think the plugins have not changed too much during the last years. As processors get more powerful, plugins can use more processing power and will sound "better" in general as you can have more oversampling or you can simulate stuff that you couldn't simulate before. But other than that, the math did not change during the last years. So yes, I think we will use more or less the same plugins. Compressors, Reverbs, Equalizers, Delays etc will still exist and will still be essentially the same.

Sampled Instruments got so much better during the last 10 - 15 years and they will continue to sound more natural still.

 

Most effects you are going to use are up to current modern "specs". If you have some older "dated" plugin, but it's not the last processor in your chain; your audio will be hitting other "more current" processors before hitting your DAW's channel. So as an example, your 32 bit synth or plugin is then sent through a few 64 bit plugins, in serial; you are hearing the sum effect of all those plugins and then catching the output of modern ones at the end of the chain.

 

ten years from now will be a completely different story. with AI etc

 

Gosh, I never counted them all but now I know why it takes so long for my DAW to scan my plugins on startup. No Avenger, you are a cherished fount of knowledge!

 

That's not a plugin. That's a "turn your head in the right direction".

 

I feel like arturia doesn't get enough credit .. I looove their plugins .. I get the whole png thing but it's 2024 and HD space isn't nearly as expensive as back in the day and as far as sound quality and cpu usage I'll except the trade off .. but it's odd to me that they aren't up higher in the great plugin chain as they should be

 

This

could become one of my new favourites. It's a bit sparse, as you can see no input or output knob, not displaying the freqs for the lower knob but it adds only harmonics above the dialed in frequency. Very useful to leave the lower ones untouched and/or to add air (@Auen Fred).

Sadly, the dev doesn't offer a direct dl (you have to subscribe to the newsletter first) so I prefer the peeplinks at AZ. Just look for Mannix Squared Audio Super Saturator v1.0.

 

Last edited: Jul 21, 2024

i tried it, as i try pretty much everything, and found it very un-useable. Theres many fully featured multiband saturators, of much better quality.

 

Sure, if you already have MB saturators this one's useless for you. But for anyone who doesn't, it's free, try it.
I forgot to mention, you should use 4x OS 'cause it's creating an infinite number of harmonics.

 

Maybe you should have linked the developers website, instead of sister site xD But thanks, I'll try this plugin.

 

Sonible - SmartEQ4 (use as reference tool, as a virtual assistant that can give nice eq suggestions that i'm probably not aware)
Airwindows - ConsoleLA and ConsoleMC (uninstalled 90% of console summing emulations after those were released)
iZotope - Ozone 11 (all the modules are sounding superb; i'm in love with the eq, it's hard to not use it on every submix/buss)

 

acustica Dove. Acustica's verison of Soothe. Like all Acustica plugins, its finicky at best, an absolute pain at worst, but when you lock it in, its superb.

 

A lot of my favorite plugins are 10+ years old and most of them 5+ years old. I don't know, i think i like vintage gear

The truth is, a lot of newer plugins are comming with more CPU and space tax but in general i don't feel that the processing power increases with the same amount of CPU (computers are more powerful right now; but devs don't need to abuse that). Some basic insert channel plugins/channel strips that don't need a lot of fairy dust and are hogs. Sounds good? Yes. Usable? Not for me.

 

Artic,
there's a link around to test Xenia (Mac)?

 

Last edited: Jul 20, 2024

I already shared a few things about forward thinking companies that makes good products in 2024 on the first page of this thread and will add this :

This year, companies that are creating DAWs gave their users significant updates and great new stock plugins, Bitwig as never looked that good and seems to have much more under the hood, Live 12 is a beast and even Apple stepped their game up with the Mastering Assistant, Alchemy sampler and Beat Breaker amongst other things. I have no experience with Reaper and FL but I'm pretty sure they did their thing to stay competitive.

2024 is the year of plugins you don't hear about but are actually amazing like this one :
https://www.submissionaudio.com/products/flatline

And plugins that looks like scam with gimmicky marketing from 10 years ago that are in fact absolutely great :
https://www.musikhack.com/products/

Brainworx also did a lot of great things at PA but please, guys, update the GUI for the Mäag Audio EQ4, this is madness to leave such an iconic tool with such an outdated and tiny UI.

Also, Tone Projects plugins are awesome :
https://www.toneprojects.com/products.html

And you better believe that if Steve Duda is coming up with Serum version 2.0 for the 10 years anniversary at the end of the year he's going to reset the standard for another decade, fingers crossed !

 

Last edited: Jul 19, 2024

I also think that their FX plugins sound amazing, but the thing about using raster GUI's doesn't only have to do with disk space, it's also about RAM, loading times and how incredibly annoying it is to install and uninstall their plugins. The problem is not that they are using PNG files, but rather that they don't package the hundreds of thousands of UI files in some kind of resource zip library. If all of the the GUI files were packaged into just one or two resource files the installation and uninstallation of the plugins would be maybe 50-100x faster. Uninstalling their whole FX bundle takes about 45 min for me, even though I'm using a fast M.2 NVMe drive. Especially Analog Lab takes forever to load when you first insert in your DAW, and whenever your try to open a project with just one instance of Analog Lab it takes forever to load. Same thing happens if you use a lot of different Arturia FX in a project.

I don't get why they don't package all of their files since practically all other developers do exactly this. Is it just incompetency, or some other reason? Even Pulsar Audio, a company started by former Arturia employees, package their resource files into either the .exe or some kind of zip library. It's so goddamn irritating!