I Know that since R2R cracked AA there are dozens of threads about their plugins, but they're full of criticism and controversy, which are legit and even fun, but they end up making super long posts with loads of filler.

So to focus more on the products: In your opinon which are the top 3 or 5 AA plugins, and how those compare to other label plugins for the same purpose?

 

Nebula 4

 

Haha. The real question is how does AA’s plugin stack up against our favorite Nebula libraries.

 

https://justpaste.it/AcquaRecommendations

 

I found your post looking to whittle these down to a useful variety of the best ones. This list helped a lot for this. I am looking up each one and comparing how many times the aqua appears on the list.
The most versatile ones appear the most amount of times. Mostly it is just confirming my own favorites anyway, but not all.

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2024

Aquamarine5, Ash Ultra, Gold5, Salt, Scarlet5, Tiger. ciao. these work @ 48khz, many only at 44.1
i use the ZL version for gold5 and tiger

 

To list a couple ones that I think are dope:

-ARCTIC
-ASHULTRA
-COLA2
-DIAMOND (everything)
-ELREY2
-FROST
-GOLD5
-GREY
-MIDNIGHT
-MYSTIC
-OLIVE
-PUMPKINPRO
-RUBY2
-SMOKE
-TAUPE

To list a couple ones that I don't have, but think LOOK great:

-CREAM
-GREEN5ULTRA
-JAM
-LACE
-PURPLE
-TIGER

 

Off-Topic :

Are Acustica Plugins CPU and RAM monster?

 

They are not that bad, on Mac anyway. They are not much heavier on CPU than most other current mixing and mastering plugins. I have plugins that are more taxing, and people never really mention them being so. If you put many of them in a project they will add up pretty quickly if they are active. If you bounce stems and add them to the channels right before printing, it doesn't even matter. I never automate anything that is just for "color" either way. They can be considered demanding.

 

This may be an unpopular statement, but I uninstalled all of them - they are all resource-heavy, clunky, with bloated anachronistic UIs, and rubbish workflow.

There are far better alternatives for each and every AA plugin. I have to deliver high quality productions/mixes/masters for my clients on strict deadlines, and I cannot deal with clunky, heavy, unreliable plugins in 2024.

I did keep Voxa (because it does something nice to the vocals), and Diamond (nice color EQ), but even these I am reluctant to use due to their design (esp. Diamond, as Voxa has a decently modern UI).

 

Last edited: Mar 31, 2024

While that list is great, I find it to be outdated, as it doesn't include any recent plugins (which tend to work the best from a performance standpoint). There's been some amazing insight to some plugins in the AA thread of this very forum, and I've found them quite revealing.

As for some actual recommendation, I've been digging MYSTIC as the first effect in a chain, or even for busses. It's got a lovely preamp that warms up the sound, some bax-like EQ to brighten it and a nice compressor that functions well for glueing. It has a mid-frequency bump that can ruin the air of the mix if used mindlessly, but otherwise it's so nice. We really need more lovely plugins, really.