I ordered the Softube Console 1 yesterday and I'm really looking forward to getting it tomorrow.
I would like to use it as an initial spark to clear out my plugin jungle and concentrate on the essentials.

Softube Console 1 now also supports some plugins from Plugin alliance .
And I would like to use most of the plugins I use for mixing natively in console 1.

Otherwise I have always used plugins from pa , arturia,black Rooster,native instruments and so on.
Now I would like to cut down and only use the essentials and here are my favorites.
Do you think something is missing ?

Api - American Class A Softube
Neve Style - British class A Softube
Ssl - Native channel strip from Ssl
SSL Bus Compressor - SSL Bus Compressor 2
1167 - plugin alliance Purple Audio
La2a - maybe uad ?
Modern compression and Eq - Fabfilter

What else do you think would be nice to have ?
Vari mu, distress or,pultec ?

 

You have some good choices there, I too have been trying to do this. A big change for me was getting Luna Pro, I could mix if I had to just with this plus SFX, but mostly I can get about 80-90% using Luna API processing, on certain channels I would use external plugins, kick, snare ,bass vocals & mix bus. British Class A can't do true parallel comp as the dry signal is effected by the gain, I don't like Buss Comp 2, too grabby. Those early SSL plugins were programmed by someone without any audio experience, except X series, made by Algorithmix. Best LA 2a is Opal or ST Optocomp or Trackomp & Cenozoix, best 1176 is FET III, Tracomp, Cenozoix or UAD, Purple has no harmonics. Best G Bus comp is The Glue, TracComp & Cenozoix.
You could narrow it down even more, firstly Kiive KC1 does API, Neve & SSL in one configurable plugin better than anything else, I could also replace all those comps with DMG Trackcomp which will sound better too, Metric Halo Channelstrip is another standard used by Pro's for years, and 2 other options are TB Tech Cenozoix comp & Kirchoff EQ. PSP InfinityStrip is also very good, as is McDSP 6060. Sonimus Stone EQ is the best SSL EQ I've tried. Add to this the UnFairchild & forget the rest, for Pultec Mixwave EQP 1S3 & forget the rest, it's the only one that sounds like hardware that I've used, great box tone.
I've been using & testing plugins for 25 years, every day for the last 2 years I've tested using Plugin Doctor to match settings, most of the time they don't & knob values are never matched, also some plugins have added gain or there are compressors with an EQ curve that doesn't exist in hardware. Some of the best plugins are "ugly" so don't get mentioned a lot, eg DMG, McDSP TB Tech, but these are some of the best. I also run everything at -18RMS as with most modelled plugins this is 0 VU, everything sounds better it reduces aliasing. I increase the final gain right at the mixes & in mastering.

 

This is probably the 50th time I've seen some iteration of the same thread on here. Everyone likes the idea of "buy xyz new thing and it will reduce xyz". Wether that is the "too many options", "too many distractions", etc etc that developers and manufacturers use in their marketing to sell people more stuff. Ironic. It never happens. Read the post above mine to see it in action. Luna can..... but then here's all the stuff I have to pile into it anyway. Some of the things in the above list I would delete in a NYC New Years Eve second, and that is every list you will see.

I could mix with nothing but Logic, Fabfilter, and some kind of repair plugins like Acon, Zynaptiq, etc. Or just Softube everything, McDSP everything, Sonnox everything, and on and on it goes. You could use nothing but Waves, but that can also mean up to 300 plugins, like PA on steroids.

It's not going to happen, unless it is someone else's studio computer you can't get bored, curious, or even nostalgic and install some stuff on.
You could be better off just uninstalling any junk plugin that is not going to deliver an equal quality result to others you have. Takes up too much disk space, too much CPU for what it does. Or you could move every plugin on the machine to a folder your DAW cannot see. Leave them there for a few months and when you open an old project, drag the ones you need back in. You do not have a better way to establish a historical usage of your plugins than that. Things that remain in that backup folder for months, delete when you are comfortable getting rid of them. You never used them anyway. Comparing 500 plugins in Plugin Doctor to figure out which to get rid of so you can be more productive, is the ultimate in irony. That's a waste of your time.

 

Reverb, Delay, Stereo Imager

 

Thanks for the thoroughness of your reply, I agree with a lot of your choices here esp TrackComp and Cenozoix. Need to spend more time with Opal and that Kiive channel strip more. Had no idea about Algorithmix coding the X series SSL plugs, do you know if they've done all of the X branded ones or just the initial batch?