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