Yeah, when taking that choice you need to know you're spending a considerable amount of cash for the price of the workflow. As i said, not on a budget setup.

If want the best sound output for the lowest price i'd go for a computer with a decent amount of RAM and Nebula libs, since OP already got the converters.

 

Step 1 for sure, and the original post isn't specific enough to get much more in-depth.

Or a headphones amp with DAC and enough power to drive the nice new headphones you get since you won't be able to trust your monitors in an untreated, small room that you don't know at all.

 

Fabfilter bundle, Oeksound Soothe and do monthly subs to try out Softube, Plugin Alliance and UAD. You'll have everything you need in there and eventually you'll have your go to's. Except maybe some real niche stuff like Pulsar Modular's Sidecar or Tape. Be careful not to fall into the trap of FOMO on plugin sales. Give yourself some time to explore your subscriptions.

 

AnalogX and Nebula (third party libraries, Tim petherick, Cupwise, AlexB, VNXT etc )... and maybe a few UAD but the first are killers in terms of hardware emulations.

Reverbs VNXT and Tim Spaces are a must !

EQ Tim Classic Eqs and AlexB 4k 9k amazing stuff

Compressors Cupwise Neve and C660, Tim Opto1 etc

AnalogX DwFern, Distressors, Fairchild , Tape, Neve consoles emulation...

Lots of stuff to choose are not that expensive as well...

 

but they are CPU resources expensive.

So after all the common day-to-day analog and digital Mixing Plugins, but still for Mixing uses...


Oaksound Soothe2 - intelligent dynamic resonance surpression.
Oaksound Spiff - intelligent transient enhancer
Soundtheory Gullfoss - Automatic perceptual dynamic equalizer
Soundtheory Kraftur - Adaptive dynamic saturation processor
Kush Audio Electra DSP / UBK-1 – color, vibe, and analog-style compression
HG Blackbox (Plugin Alliance)- Analog style saturation and density
Waves Torque - Drum resonance pitch shifter
Waves Smack Attack - Transient shaping dynamics processor
Newfangled Articulate - Intelligent articulation enhancer
UVI Drum Replacer - drum trigger and replacement
Fuse Audio Drums SSX - Drum separation tool, not intelligent but sounds good
Sound Radix Surfer EQ – pitch-following EQ for dynamic musical correction
Sound Radix Auto-Align – phase and timing alignment
Synchro Arts Vocalign / Revoice Pro – automatic vocal and adr alignment
Melodyne Studio – advanced pitch and timing correction
Eventide SplitEQ – spectral and dynamic EQ separation
Eventide Blackhole - creative reverb
Eventide H3000 - multi-fx and harmonizer
Zynaptiq ZAP Bundle Adaptiverb, Morph Pro, Unveil – intelligent spectral processing
Exponential Audio R4 / PhoenixVerb – natural reverb with advanced control
Acon Digital Restoration Suite - audio cleanup outside of RX and without 50 Waves versions
Altiverb 7 (or 8) - Convolution reverb
Sonnox Oxford Inflator - Inflates stuff

 

Last edited: Feb 8, 2026 at 7:21 AM

Yes, Nebula is quite CPU resource expensive but I am running a simple Mac mini M4 and can actually load several instances. If the OP gets a new M5 Studio or Ultra (released this year), using Nebula won't be a problem at all. It's a bit tricky but worth it.

AnalogX is quite different, it can be supported by GPU (at least in recent computers)

 

room is build and treated for the job, i will just have to get use to it... still have my old little labs monotor around tho but i mainly work with monitors

 

Of course, but the way some people will use all of the individual components to replicate the "entire" signal flow of a device like a console mixer, and then spread that chain across many channels means the resources needed skyrocket. A lot of this analog emulation stuff really get noticeable only when you start summing them, because if they all carried enough "noticeable" character individually, it would get ugly.

That's a good thing. You're moving into the room on purpose, a lot of people are just moving and trying to handle the random changes.

 

Yep... it's my job after all, I just have to handle all the changes and adapt myself to this switch

 

i'm currently intrigued by these analog obsession plugins... since there's no way i can try stuff out now, do you guys have any experience with them?

 

I would take the opportunity and go brutally streamlined unless I carry some special inevitable workflow that forces me to go outside my daw stock plugins. then focus on arrangement instead of attempting of becoming a sonic Swiss Knife far outside my actual needs .

But, that can depend on where you are, what your work area in music is.

 

I really like their opto emulation...https://www.patreon.com/posts/lala-36128829

 

I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember they were built by a Turkish dev who had no idea about audio, or analog.

He relied (then - not sure now) on a plugin development platform and analog schematics to put the whole lot together.

If those are the plugins and the guy, I remember him asking people on various audio forums what they wanted, and pretty much fessing up that he didn't really know what he was doing.

In fairness, he was pretty transparent, not too duplicitous and we've all got to start somewhere - but still, why would you even bother when there are stellar plugins by at least two dozen reputable companies that 95% of folks couldn't tell apart by ear alone (in a mix).

 

There is an easier way to be able to trust things in a new room (or an old one too for that matter). If you're on the win platform, and you have decent audio hardware (converters/interface) with good drivers, you can grab Equalizer APO, and REW (room eq wizard) for free. Basically the only room analysis (REW) and eq correction (eq-apo) tools you'll need. You will need a decent calibrated mic like the Dayton Audio EMM-6 (~80$) and you already have the interface/converters. Lastly, you'll need a decent SPL meter. You probably already have a SPL meter (most audio heads already do), but if not some folks use free apps on the 24/7 boat anchors (cell phones). The rest is just doing the process to obtain and create your speaker/room profiles needed to feed to EQ-APO.

Plus, there's tons of headphone models with cal profiles posted on AutoEQ ready for use with EQ-APO. If you wanted to mix with cans you could very easily do that and do it accurately. I been using this system for about 6 months now and it has been working well. Basically the only real cost involved for most folks would be the calibration mic, which I already had to begin with.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2026 at 10:42 PM

Cubase is a fully featured DAW, if it does all you need, sure stick with it and don't even bother with additional third-party plugin bloat,
unless you got a subscription, then bleh...

speaking of "investments", skip anything that relies on online authentication, obfuscated installation, greedy publisher/owner etc...
because in the long run you don't want to rely on someone else's goodwill of being able to work on your projects, period.

gold standards for mixing and mastering are certain principles than can be achieved with countless plugins on the market,
most annoying are Dolby Atmos and DDP so unless you need those, you should be totally fine with stock Cubase