Wish they focused more on efficiency and stability than adding new stuff every update (and then more instability is added as a side effect): after all, it was suppposed to be a live performance software, wasn't it?

 

I going to jump in the Ableton wagon as well, and it's my go to DAW but the constant crashes are exhausting. I really like the Max4Live ecosystem and that's what I'm chained to ableton for the moment. But geez that sandboxing thing on bitwig is really useful. I wish they focus more on that and less into stupid things nobody asked for like the splice bullshit.

 

Man, you are so me. Exact same thing here. For years, Sylenth1 was the my only synth, except the occasional Nexus and Sytrus in FL Studio. Serum has always been on my system, but I have never used it. I don't even remember the last time I opened it.

 

so true...

 

Does Scaler 3 count? Not sure if it's considered "popular". Big fan of Scaler 2, but they took that and decided to make it a lite DAW, for some reason.. something no one really wanted... and I just don't find it intuitive to use now.

OUtside of that, I'd say Waves plugins. I own the Diamond package, but I never use it. There's maybe a handful of things in it that I could use, but I've replaced it with other stuff. The main reason is due to Waves Central, and also WavesHELL.dll, which probably sounded great in their heads, but update one plugin, and now your DAW (or at least Reaper) is re-scanning every single Waves plugin you installed. I also find many of their plugins to just have ugly UIs to me. OK, not an important feature for most, I know.. even for me, kinda down on the list, but it is a bit of a factor for me.

I also am not a "sample guy" so all the Rompler type VSTs, I haven't got time for those. If it's a large install (outside of maybe Arturia, which I actually don't use a whole lot anymore, but do have *some* use for), I tend to not bother.

I will disagree with the main post though and say I have a lot of time for any GForce VSTis.

 

I've never uninstalled as many trial versions as Dawesome synths.. never got the warm fuzzies with them....

Apart from...Dawesome Love, which does illegal stuff to pads. Which is an effect.

 

Last edited: Oct 29, 2025 at 10:21 PM

Cakewalk, UJAM, arturia, ableton live, Frewty Lewps, Safarty Pedals (just too juvenile to take seriously) - there are others that don't come to mind just now...

 

I never could get on with Propellerheads Reason, which I believe goes by the name now of... Reason.

I was sort of made to try and learn it, this was around 20 years ago when I was studying music production at college, and I was using FL Studio then which the college tutor took the piss out of me for. They were teaching Cubase (some old version which was probably terrible at the time. and Reason as a plugin I guess)
I use Ableton now, but uhh I mean Reason might be alright now. Probably not though

(On further inspection Reason now looks exactly the same as it used to, the only people who can get away with that sort of thing are Fender with their Stratocaster, which, to be fair is a lot better than Reason)

I do think that the 'bad workman always blames the tools' adage applies though so, to sum up I'm going to say that everything is brilliant

 

Last edited: Oct 29, 2025 at 10:27 PM

Fruity Loops. I used to promote it non stop back in the day, but when I dabbled with Studio One, it was a revelation.

To their credit, imageline are copying Studio One now and trying to catch up, but I don't think I could ever go back to that clunky interface.

Whenever I receive stems from a client, I can tell if he used FL Studio due to the absolute mess I have to work with...

I agree. Scaler 3 is so bloated now, and it feels like it takes 3-4 extra clicks and menus to get basic things done, as compared to v2. I downgraded to v2 and didn't look back.

 

here is my slight defense of reason, which to be honest i haven't used in about the same time since you've used it. BUT I will say that having to route it like actual gear was a good learning tool for me to wrap my heads around things. i rest my case now.

 

Sure, the sounds are probably fine and there's a half decent selection of synths and whatever for an 'in-the-box' type of thing, I just could never get on with the sequencer and the workflow it offers. Just a personal preference I guess.

I could probably use whatever I have to these days, just sort of probably would enjoy certain workflows more, I do think it's what you're used to and whatever works best personally though

 

Kontakt, Ujam, some Arturia Plugs, Safary Pedals.

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2025 at 12:36 AM

“warm fuzzies”… I got Love as part of a free with a purchase from plugin boutique for Black Friday two years ago, definitely still holds up today, should start going back to it

Does waves count? Every time I see the bundle in the museum it makes me GRRRRRRR cause how the heck are you supposed to hatch all these gigabytes, even if there’s a good few effects in there… another thing that makes me GRRRRRRR are the IK Multimedia effects, the tracks, amplitude and tones updates, Maschine/Traktor updates, Ableton updates, and especially Kontakt updates… there’s nothing I don’t really dislike it’s just I can’t remember which ones out of the many monsters I’ve seen have terrible licensing and business practices… it’s just the size to speed ratio when I grab a demo to try if there’s an update important enough and grabbing offline backups of some larger plugins I own…

If there’s a plugin manufacturer out there poisoning the industry, maybe I’d have some distaste, but otherwise it’s just my preference of if I even need several similar effects models, like a bunch of compressors or equalizers or Roland space echoes… I’m very neutral here

I see “scaler 3 is bloated” and a voice is telling me to post “just don’t install the sound library for it” like you only need the hundred megabytes without the gigabyte of samples, but I know you mean feature bloat

Yes, you’ll have a lot of time with MAP for sure, but you’ll probably want to have more options like ImpOSCar 3, Odyssey and Bass Station

Ableton gets so big, I want to use more max for live but it’s really made for bigger screens so I’m stuck waiting for a Mac mini before I can get a clean slate with Ableton, Bitwig is my main choice on my ROG Ally because it’s the only touchscreen compatible workstation and it’s just so compact and densely modular… it’s like it makes up for the lack of a m4l type of extension

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 30, 2025 at 3:55 AM

I don't really hate any of them, just individual aspects of most of them.

Waves (just for the installation, WC, waveshell bundle, separate mono/stereo list items in DAW plugin manager. Not so much for "bad plugins".
Melodyne.
Komplete Kontrol. They have had about 12 years to get AU integration actually working. A new version, some new marketing, still not working how anyone might expect.
Apu Software. I like to stay current, but sometimes it feels laborious; repetitive even. Not sure why.
Plugin Doctor. Does it ever fix them, or just let you know it's going to sound bad?
RipX. (not the DAW) Why is this application 2gb? Does anyone ever use any of the features beside its stem separation?
Serum2. CPU use, but the part about "Quality" setting being assigned by preset creator per preset. (unless locked). What preset maker is ever going to set this to anything but High as default?

 

I have almost all of the GForce VSTis. I am not sure there's one that I don't like. I haven't used a few of them very much yet though, like Bass Station and Minimonsta2 (mainly because I prefer some other stuff for Model D sound), but I really like Axxess and SEM in particular. I actually completely forgot about Oddity3 (Odyssey). I'll have to revisit that one soon.

 

Surprised no one has mentioned Omnisphere.

If there is such a thing as ”too much of a good thing”, it’s this. Yes, it sounds (now in version 3) incredible, and the sound creation options are vast.

But it’s still so over-used, despite having probably tens of thousands of presets (how many more do you need…), you can almost recognize an Omnisphere patch by its character when you hear one. There’s also tons of cinematic sound-designey stuff that has zero place in a track.

Also, at least in the past I’ve also had a real problem getting even one simple Omnisphere patch to sit in a mix. They’re somehow all so huge and overpowering. They now say they’ve remastered ”all” the patches, so maybe that has changed.

 

You nailed it, that's exactly what I meant. I usually delete the libraries for all Scaler versions and just route the plugin to another synth (e.g. Pianoteq). But workflow is the issue.

We're kinda spoiled for plugin options these days, and since workflow is key for me, I've possibly dismissed some good tools if they're too clunky, or convoluted.

 

FL Studio feels like a ball of patches and band-aids, we all know it'd never look like that if FL had the chance to start all over.

Ofc by now ppl are used to it and think it's good

Ableton Live, well, how can you make something so advanced but pay almost no attention to DAW-level (not device-level) modulation, that's beyond me but ok i guess a LOT of ppl dont care about this. Bitwig did this right, thankfully. Stock devices dont sound great but i can live with that.

 

Fabfilter Reverb Pro-R2. Was astounded how mediocre it sounds and the "create algorithmic reverb setting from an impulse response" does not work properly at all, even though in theory it's a nice idea. I have at least 3 (but probably more) free reverb plugins that sound better than Pro-R2. In fact I get better reverb sounds using free impulse responses captured from rooms and halls with the free Convology XT or Ableton Hybrid (convolution) Reverb.

Also, Modo Drums, while I got it bascially free with the recent Group Buy, the demos I watched did not really convince me. I understand that it's based on some type of hybrid physical modelling and sampling approach. While this approach seems to work for bass sounds (Modo Bass), for drums it results in a distinctively semi-synthetic sound, that sounds inferior to offerings like Addictive Drums 2, that are based on heavy sampling. Also, IK Multimedia's T-Racks line, which forces you to download the entire product line, even if you only want to use a few selected modules. My understanding is that UAD does the same and does not properly oversample to a degree where aliasing becomes negligible.

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2025 at 9:58 AM

hello friend. do you mind explaining a bit more what you mean? just curious