Companies I like everything: Izotope, Cytomic, U-he, Slate Digital.

Companies I like a few things or are newer developers: Sugar Bytes, Reveal Sound, Credland Audio, DMG Audio, NI, Arturia, Audio Thing, Dmitry Sches, Nomad Factory.

 

Shout-out to the smaller but just as essential plugin devs.

xoxos
tonecarver
arcDev
Psychic Modulation
Inear Disaply / Glitchmachines

 

Yes Twin2 has lot of modulation but not enough personality.Massive,Diva,Reaktor or Zebra or Serum or Sylenth1 ( for its filters ) brought really something ( for me of course ! ),but Twin2 is far to be a revolution,isn't it?

I never read on topics people using Twin2,and I understand why.

 

u-He

Certainly, as many people have mentioned, one of (if not the) leading developers of malware. His trojans are some next-level shit, and as a bonus u sometimes get a VSTi cleverly hidden deep within the layers of spyware. Genius! And not just because the developer is called Urs Trolleman-Hardu, or soemthing. Well, maybe because that mostly.

Anyway, plenty of <3 4 lame spyware devs who (accidentally) release 1 good plugin. No <3 4 Spectrasonics, iZotope & KV331? At least one guy mentioned Sonic Charge, who are fucking excellent. Much of (all?) NI's output is garbage, they seem 2 dump or marginalise or fuck up their best work (Reaktor).

 

Izotope, Soundtoys and Fabfilter.

 

Care to elaborate? I've read about Tone2 delivering their software with maleware. But I don't care about their stuff anyway. I didn't know that u-he does it as well. I'm an old school person keeping my DAW rig strictly offline. I have never encountered strange events with my copy of Zebra.

Indeed, Reaktor is NI's best work. Notably their other stuff could be so much better if they were focusing on important things instead of adding and adding new features without ever completing and fixing their old stuff.

 

Similar sort of thing, they spend more time developing (malfunctioning) protection instead of the stuff it protects. Also, all of his stuff calls home / bombs / fails etcs even when legit. I think Urs once went on a hissy fit online when customers fell victim 2 his VST timebombs, he even went as far as 2 email someone when they called him Urs, or something! Not a company 2 trust with ur info...

 

My top 5:

UAD - The most amazing thing for me is being able to track wet through it. I get commited to the sound from the get go. Good habit.

WAVES - When UAD resources run out, I go to them, especially the CLA bundle. The SSL stuff is also invaluable. BTW, being a subscriber to their mailing list gives access to amazing discounts.

HORNET - These plugins have a serious commitment to gain staging. He developer creates very interesting tools that simplify studio life. In fact, the Autogain plugin from them has put my Wave Rider at $150 bucks to sleep.

SLATE - I know the Fabrice/Slate team create some of the best stuff around, but I have a love/hate relationship with their stuff. Sometimes I give them fair use, sometimes I let them rest for months. These days my love goes to VBC, SSD 4, but FG-X is now six feet under. It doesn't sound good to me anymore.

The fifth position is impossible. It's shared among the following: Parallax Audio (VirtualSound Stage), U-He (Satin), Melda Audio (some of the plugs), and Air Instruments (Xpand2), SKNote (Distro), PG Music (Band in a Box) and NI (I barely use Kontakt now but when it's needed, it's the ticket).

 

Last edited: Aug 17, 2016

SPECTRASONICS! their plugins make me happy, also I must mention NI - this guys are best devs on the Earth. Reaktor is the beast, Massive so massive and huge=)))
and ofcourse XFER - this guys are awesome devs and especially Steve Duda
Ableton team is very nice

 

Last edited: Aug 17, 2016

And a few more not-so-knowns' which I favor: Artificial Audio, Pensadia, Sonimus.

 

My man.
Obelisk is the sh!t.

Meaning 'I love it' for those not familiar with the vernacular.

 

1. Steinberg. Yes . The new channel strip has everything I need. Magneto is cool. Reverbs are great, especially Reverence with snapshot automation.RoomWorks is lovely too, small rooms king.
2. Waves
3.Plugin alliance. The only thing I use is Dynamic Spectrum Mapper. Nice to copy other people sound
4.Slate, but trying out Nomads Factory channel rack.

 

OMG those plugins rock! So glad I took the time to read this thread, thank you.

 

Ah yes, Plugin Alliance does some nice stuff. What a pity that their protection code is eating up so much CPU to fight the inevitable. Using their plugins is like paying extra EUR 500,- for the biggest CPU possible. Add EUR 25,- per month on electricity bill just to run their protection code. LOL (I'm exaggerating a tiny bit, but why developers put so much time, money and CPU demand into their protection code and still being cracked is beyond me).

 

@Pinkman , yep Obelisk is the shit. Shhhhhh...

 

And, their latest code has got some issues in CuBendo. White noise bursts. I agree on the CPU. Millenia sounds sweet though....

 

Wait what?

I guess my first question--since you say legit copies bomb--is do you own anything from u-he? Maybe this has happened in the past, I don't know. But it can't be that big of a problem since in the two or so years I've been around here, I haven't heard about it.

IMO he treats his customers better than most. Directly offers tips and support on his KVR forum, constant news about updates and difficulties, continuously updates old and free plug-ins, and generally has a level of transparency with his user base that would alleviate a lot of the frustrations that communities like the Ableton forums suffer from.

Please understand that I don't mean this to be insulting, but most of the time when I see people hating on U-he the hardest, it's because they are salty about the fact that he develops tricky protection schemes and doesn't like warez. I don't see him getting this kind of criticism on GS or KVR. Just Audiosex. Tone2 on the other hand, seems to be a different animal, if the horror stories I've heard are any indication.

This one I don't understand. Everyone calls him Urs. His username on KVR is Urs.


I know Urs has poked his head out here on AS once or twice. Mostly to clown some wannabe cracker (who shall remain nameless) who was peacocking about having worked with some people that tried to crack a uhe plugin, and later backtracked on his statement. Some say the ghost of the wannabe cracker still haunts the boards of AZ, gloating about reversing plugins no one cares about for his private stash, or correcting no0bz on the minutia of cracks, keygens and retail copies. Spooky.

 

Forgot PluginAlliance and Spectrasonics too,God excuse me !

 

Waves
Has everything, could be enough on it's own to make a proper song from A to B.
all the other companies just are not that all inclusive

Slate
Fabrice Gabriel, is a mastermind in my book, so I secretly include Eiosis with this.
I do not think these are top notch emulations,
but his mathematical solutions stretch the physical boundaries of the digital signal,
this non-linearity's his plugins have sound really pleasing to my non linear ears.

Izotope
I only use Ozone at this point, Alloy was actually the first plugin I ever bought (1.xx student license)
Ozone's maximizer does not need a introduction anymore I think,
Alloy/nectar are great tools for education, great readouts, very predictable response.

Soundtoys
Poked my interest subjectively late, decapitator is really something. (kinda pricey) definitely on my buy list.
but already that valuable (where have you been all my life )
echo boy is worshiped all over the net, and radiator is also going to test-drive soon.

Native instruments
Massive, Fm8/9, Kontakt, Reaktor do I need to say more?

 

No, tis true. He even pretended it was because he "didn't want to get confused with UPS or URS", or something. He was obvs just salty. Or his web-slave hadn't been properly trained.

I've had sum experience with legit stuff doing exactly what I described. I just use cracked versions of the only good synth he released, nowadays. U only get one strike, afaic.