Do you have a theme for your plugins?

I have several themes:

Low resource usage: CPU, RAM, savestate, HD space, Load time, etc

Cross platform/portable: DAW builtin or Mac & PC implementation

Surround: 8ch or 6ch support

Recreation: A bit of everything, so I can recreate my favourite songs If I so desire.

Free: Preferrably legit

Examples:

• FL Directwave is a very comprehensive sample player, but because it has a large savestate, adding it to any project will jack up the project size by ~500kb-1MB. I've started avoiding it since a few years ago.
• Kontakt is a RAM beast. It sucks up 70MB of Ram, and that's with nothing loaded! I avoid it.
• Sylenth is quite the ubiquitous synth. but it uses up 1-4%? CPU(x4 for a single core figure) and ~29MB of RAM . I'll try to use reasynth, mono_synth, euterpe, or synth1 instead.
• I won't download the latest compressor, EQ or w/e that came out last month, unless it supports surround. Thus, I have a few Voxengo plugs (most of his modern things support surround)
• You guys probably have big, good-sounding piano libraries, but if they're buried in the mix, they probably can't tell if it sounds good or crap. Which is why mda Piano (although it sounds crap sometimes, esp. at extremes, has glitches, but is free, low resource usage) is my go-to piano. I have a few of Yohng's VSTis, Spicy Guitar is good too (if you tweak the settings).

Exception:
QuikQuak mashtactic, as an FFT imager, uses up 2.4% of CPU (and is x-platform), but R-Mix (Winsuck-onry) uses up 0.3% of CPU. 7x reduction in CPU is too hard not to take up. Thus, I use R-mix.

 

I have one.

It has to sound, look and cost like an old analog piece of gear, so I can get it for free on another site and feel like I made a huge bargain

 

I might just amend my vote in hindsight coz my plugins are filed in an orderly manner according to there capabilities (reverb, delay, compressors, etc) but not like how you've outlined them. Themes like that would not make any sense for me. Seems like CPU usage is a big deciding factor for your plugin choice. Only the likes of Ozone 5 Advanced for mastering is something I avoid due to it's CPU load (but then I don't bounce down the mix before 'mastering' so it's my own fault)

 

I tend to use the available plugins inside the DAW first, and only add what I really need soundwise.
In Ableton Live, for example, I would add a good transient shaper, a good exciter, and some vintage emulations.
Otherwise Live has plenty of good stuff inside already, just like Logic Pro.
If, and only if I actually have a choice between different great plugins, I'll choose the one that

• is easy and quick to use
• does everything I need but not necessarily more (see above)
• is somewhat future-proof, and at least available as AU and VST2 in 32 and 64bit.

High CPU use is something I just have to accept when there's no alternative sound-wise.
Surround is not an issue for me, although I'm a big fan of Voxengo plugins too.

Kontakt is my go-to sampler and it's not *that* ineffective. I don't care how much RAM it eats without samples loaded, I rather care how fast it loads my 10 instruments that I want to use simultaneously on 10 MIDI channels and if it runs stable with 8GB of RAM, and it does. And it is not a RAM beast considering that these libs sum up to over 40GB of uncompressed samples, all instantly playable with 8GB RAM. There might be room for improvement in Kontakt, but currently I can see no alternative. I got to love the custom GUIs of various sample libraries that allow for exchange of individual (drum kit) instruments with only a few mouse clicks, for example. Scripting and GUI is what puts Kontakt in a different class.

Errr, if you have to switch from Sylenth to Synth1 then I'd say put a new machine on your Christmas wish list and focus on your music, not your cpu.

 

Only one, does it help me to make my music sound the way i want it to sound.

 

Themes? No, I have folders and subfolders (categories such as favorites, chiptune, analog, FM, FSU, reverb, compression, EQ, samplers, etc etc).

 

my go to piano is truepiano, never touched directwave but allways used flstudio....

kontakt is my go to plugin for specific libary's like some 808's, harp, strings etc.
Don't forget to use the purge samples option if your low on ram.

this makes me ask if your fruity has properly set settings or these simular options in your daw, like multithread generator & mixing processing, smart disable, your mixing sample rate and ppq settings ,
last week I found out that reaper is handeling far more plugins then fl studio does in simular settings,

freezing tracks is also a option, a must if I want take my tracks elsewere, my plugins are my taste and allmost never match with someone else

 

Confirmed.
FL Studio is powerful, but definitely eats more cpu for doing the same job compared to Ableton too.
Not good if you want low latency.

 

"I got to love the custom GUIs of various sample libraries that allow for exchange of individual (drum kit) instruments with only a few mouse clicks, for example. Scripting and GUI is what puts Kontakt in a different class."

I'm in desperate need of learning those KONTAKT tricks. I've got a couple of great drum kits that I'm unable to use because I haven't been able to figure out those "few mouse clicks" that will allow me to build kits out of separate instruments. Or add for example, crash cymbals to an existing drum kit that opens by default. I hope that I'm explaining myself well enough for everyone to understand my dilemna. Can anyone point me towards a good Youtube video or anything else that may help me please? I'm not even sure what terms that I'd need to use for punching into Youtubes search engine. Thanks a lot and forgive me please for getting off of topic.

 

Hi Fiction. I used one of your sentences as a setup for a question that I have and that I asked of everybody. Not only am I confused about said question, but I'm also obviously confused about how to get around in this forum. Ha! Sorry, hope I didn't make this all too confusing. Anyhow, Hey! It looks like you definitely have the knowledge that I seek. Any help, please?

 

i organize them by Broadway Themes... I have a folder for "West Side Story", another one for "Mama Mia", and then I think another one for "Rent."

those are the only three themes I need


"in the navy"

 

O5 Adv isn't too bad with CPU with what it does, esp. if you make a few tweaks.

I have an Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz and 3.8GB of RAM. It's no beast, but it's no slouch either. My projects typically use <1GB of RAM in REAPER.

I'm also sorta stuck on VST2/x86 forever because there's that 1 specialist VST that does its job nicely, and there's not much else that does it quite as well, or does that job at all.

I know bridging incurs some overhead. Does a mixed 32/64 VSTchain (in a 64b host) even have any speed increase over just 32bit VSTs (in a 32b host)?

Ironically, the heaviest VSTchains are on my longest projects (that I do regularly) - 24 min episodes. Those take about 11 mins to render. 2 tracks (with 4 VSTs) cross-feeding 2 buses (with 7-8 VSTs) or 11-12 VSTs for one signal path. This is where CPU usage does matter.