That is, what are the personal criteria (the ones you believe in) and the standard criteria for classifying something as an excellent product? Whether it’s an individual sample or a VST?

For example, I understand that Omnisphere is very good, but to me it’s not that extraordinary. In its day, it was undoubtedly spectacular, but… setting emotion aside, what characteristics make something like that excellent quality?

 

Some things that came to mind that are related to criteria of an excellent or not plugin:

The ease of use,
Longevity since the first release,
Updates (how often, free or paid),
Speed of fixes if problems,
Reliability (does it crash or not, can you go live with it),
Customer support,
Latency it might add or not,
Availability of add-ons, libraries etc.
Range of plugin formats (au, vst, RTAS etc.),
Connectivity to other programs (daws, plugins, controllers...)
Possibility for cross operating system (linux, win, mac)
Sound quality (bits, kHz, artifacts, distortion...)
User community, online material/support by users for users (tutorials, tips, blogs, message boards...)
Does it fit to your pipeline or not,
Do I like the interface and working with it or not,
Years I've used (the inside-out knowledge, habit)

The excellency will show up with time, it's usually quite hard to say from the first try.

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2026 at 5:37 PM

Basically, everyone has different tastes; what's very good for one person might be bad for another. It also depends on where they were born, how they were socialized, and how often they've come into contact with other instruments. Some have even learned an instrument. Some even work professionally in music.

On the other hand, from my personal perspective, there are very good VSTs, decent but usable VSTs, and bad VSTs.
It depends on what kind of music you want to make and what your requirements are.

Key quality features are certainly sound quality and modulation options.
The VST instrument should also work with modern operating systems.

I've attached a few pictures of instruments that sound good to me and that I use.

 

What makes me stick to a plugin is how quickly and efficiently it can get me from point A to point B. If it takes too long to install, set up, load, or resize, it's a no-go. If it crashes a lot, freezes my DAW, or requires too much tweaking to get a decent result, it's also a no-go. That's primarily what I'd consider excellency, and it's quite subjective. Details like '64 bit resolution', '16x oversampling', etc are mostly marketing schtick and won't make a difference if using the plugin makes me want to kill myself.

 

If someone has cut your ears off then I do not know...

usem if they are still strapped on your will power otherwise maybe stop

 

I could make a track using only Live 12 stock plugins.

I choose to mix that with Serum 2, Fabfilter, Devious Machines and Boost.
Episodically I will choose Dune 3, Valhalla, Tone Projects and Kazrog for a different approach.

I have tried to integrate Izotope, Soothe 2 and Gullfoss in my workflow but somehow it made my music worse.
Less processing, more intention, fitting ideas and sounds together from the start.

I used Spire, Serum 1, Kick 2/3, Microtonic, Raum, Replica XT and DS-10 not so much anymore.
Tome, all these plugins sounded better than other options and the the visual interface inspired me to learn and create.

I love the sound of The Usual Suspects OsiTIrus but I can't program it and do interesting sound design with it so I don't use it.
If it sounds, look and feel good to you, then it's the right tool for you.

It's not always from the start, I avoided using Serum for 7 years but now that's almost all I use.
No need to overcomplicate or overanalyse why you like something, you just do and are naturally drawn to it.

 

I lately heard some stuff from a composer that uses A LOT of Omnisphere and it was amazing. I guess it's quality is that it is out that long that there are several hundreds libraries from very talented sounddesigners out there.
And that is something I consider important. I'm bad at sounddesign, that's why I prefer a system with a lot of support. Like serum or spire or some others. Or viper, it can load virus sound banks and there are sooo many out there.

 

Omni and Reaktor are the mothers of all virtual synths, almost every virtual synth released, does a small fraction of what these two can do. I don't even have to justify why these two pose as the holy grails of the virtual world, it's common knowledge.
Your phrase on quote, shows you probably know very little about electronic synthesis. Anything about emotion is irrelevant. Even the word "quality" sounds wrong. Just answer me, what do we do with bullshit music made from quality vstis. Which nowadays is more frequent than the common cold.
Just learn how to make sounds with a synth. And train your ears. Simple as that but hard. Means you have to learn the howtos of electronic synthesis and music as a language at the same time. But then you 'll be able to tell, instead of initiating this kindergarten type of discussions.
Sorry for being harsh but i have to be pragmatic, at least within my humble -or maybe not so humble- opinion.
Cheers

 

It's a simple loop: how do I make it sound good? does it sound good now? repeat. If gear is in my way of doing the process of making it sound good it's not good.

But then we get to the point that "good" is subjective and is not inherent in any sound process.

 

I would just like to know which plugin makes you want to kill yourself please. You seem to favor what works quickly like it's a matter of life and death. Which is not. Don't you still have to read a bit of the manual to get familiar with a new vsti? That's time spent. If your answer to this is "if a synth needs manual reading i skip it", then you probably like to get done things fast, but to what outcome, can be debatable mate.
For the marketing hype, all i can say is while too many exploit those words, there is substance to be found behind them.
Because 64bit res/precision allows for truly complex math to decide what happens when a synth i.e. is self oscillating in a loop feedback, avoiding disastrous situations like "bomb" sounds or even worse the plugin becoming unstable. Even if you were going for the unknown with a loopback feed, instability is something you don't want.
And oversampling helps avoid aliasing. Most peeps don't hear a difference after x4. Does this make x16 a gimmick? It's like max speed, what do we need a car the can go beyond 240km/hr. Or 0-100 in 3 secs. Turns out there's more than a few who favor that type of car and not necessarily rich.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2026 at 10:51 PM

I start judging synths by audio engine.
And by reference to a personal gold standard.
Does it have punch ? definition ? dynamic ? good modulations ? ...

As an example, Razor additive synthesis is better than any other additive synthesis i tested.
And so, it is MY gold standard additive synth engine.

I hate most virtual analog synths. Too much redondant "bread and butter" sounds.
Even if i had some love story with ImpOSCar and such gems.
Here, it is a matter of TASTE. Nothing related to quality.

Quality is one thing.
Taste is another.

Fun fact : i was one of the first guys on KVR pointing out Tone2 synths were using psychoacoustic tricks ... even when "disabled".
Because i heard phase troubles. It was obvious to me ... but we were only 1 on 10 hearing it.
Later, it was confirmed by stereo analysis.
Tone2 admitted it, and even praised it as an "enhanced sound", whereas it leads to many stereo / transients / bass ... troubles.

Since this day, i train AND trust my ears. And simply don't care about what others pretend about "quality".
Because it seems i catch quality troubles more than 9 on 10 ppl

 

Skeuomorphic channel strips with teeny-tiny knobs that have weird rotary behavior and aren't scalable at my current DPI, for example. Even worse: skeuomorphic channel strips that take a shit ton of CPU and are a pain in the ass to install and back up (like AA plugins). It's not a matter of life and death, just what I prioritize. After all, I can choose to do whatever I want to do (most of the times), so why wouldn't I?

Reading the manual is something I do once or twice, depending on the plugin. But having to deal with a plugin that I don't like using or have a hard time getting good results is a constant pain.

Never in my life has that made any difference or felt like a necessity. Be my guest and provide audio examples! I don't care about technical flamboyance, I care about double-blind testing and pragmatism. I'm aware of what oversampling does, but like I said before, if I can't get a good result, or if it takes me a long time to get one, why would I care that it has x16 oversampling? It would be the least of my concerns. Time is valuable, why would I choose to use a tool that takes more of my time and patience? Even tho my taste is a personal thing, I believe anyone here would agree that there's no reason to waste time on a tool that gives you a hard time overall.