As much as I like Slate's plugins it has to be Slate. Their plugins are above average, but the hype and fanboy-ism is too much.

 

I love soundtoys but i agree with this so much. Freaking Devil Loc Deluxe is the worst offender. Why in the blue fuck would you make a plugin whose purpose is to squash and distort the hell out of the signal and then not put an output on it? It makes me just avoid it.

 

Wow. NI stuff is probably one of the better interfaces I think. What do you find clunky?

 

For me, I find using Kontakt the same as putting a pole very far up my arse.
Now, for Arturia, take that same pole but multiply its size by 3

 

hahahaha might be fun for some!
Yeah, ok... Kontakt does suck balls other than loading a library

 

nahhhh......don't say that.

 

Belize is over-rated, too
Haha, jokes on the side, FLUX plugs are incredible, nothing can touch it in transparency and clarity, but waaaay too much money

 

I see Pro Tools mentioned quite often and even though it is the DAW I've used from the start and I'm so stuck in my ways to change/switch to something else (I find it so fast for any multi-track recording, editing and so on).
I can't stand AVID and the way they handled absorbing Digidesign along with all the smaller stuff which Digidesign bought out.
I honestly thought that at version 8, They had seen the light by allowing us to use any interface we wanted with it and that future versions would just be improvements on that but that is not exactly how it went.
I knew many good people at Digidesign and M-Audio that got really screwed over and out of work just like that, They are all talented
though so luckily there services we're wanted and they got snapped up.
The stupid fee that developers have to pay in order for creating AAX format plugins is another just scum move which is only in place to lock some out that might support the platform if it didn't cost them as they don't make a living developing plugins among other scum moves just like implementing P.A.C.E's iLok crap...etc.
If I had an alternative then I'd love nothing more than to never give them another of my hard earned shekel ever again and jump ship.
I've damned well tried but like a filthy junkie whore I've scuttled back to the abusive, dysfunctional relationship which is always a one way affair.
I also use Ableton Live for a platform which is totally different to what I know as a typical DAW, I despised it at first but by v4 I was balls deep into it as I took the time to run through the built-in tutorials instead of the way I usually go into things by just picking it up instead of an extremely technical approach with a reference manual/guide open, Although I do not have a problem just knuckling down and RTFM when necessary, I like stuff which is intuitive (yeah subjective I know).

I may yet discover something to ditch AVID's Pro Tools for that I'm confident delivers everything I want/need and nothing that slows Me down. I do quite like Apple (E-Magic) LOGIC Pro, It is incredible value for shekels but I do not like apple MAC's OSX and the price that apple asks for stuff. I've thought over a Hackintosh long and hard but as said the OS is not my thing, However its good to know that its an option if AVID pull more shit I really dislike and hate supporting with my wallet.

overrated/over hyped stuff plugin wise, Well almost anything that has a good marketing budget will usually be and it is likely an easier job to list what I personally feel is underrated and/or not hyped even though it deserves some shine than to list devs/plugs that I've found to be and/or do the former.

All the best as always all

 

I get you completely, my friend ...We live in times like that where "they" makes us think that we need everything new and shiny, while everything is slowly going downhill.
What's funny, I've just read a similar response on KVR about new FL studio from a user trancema and I will copy/paste his response here:

"
Thank you for all videos xbitz, you certainly know your way around FL Studio, but again, I think this is just proving my point how un-intuitive and unnecessary complex and time wasting is simple stuff. For me, personally, I found all these new features just complicating things even more, with even more mouse clicks and digging into menus, a big step-back.
See, for example, I didn't play with FL since version 11 (as it's not my main DAW, not even my DAW at all, but still I am keeping my eye on FL12 and FL20) and there are so many new concepts and features to grasp, that I think I would need another couple of months just to find a way and new workarounds for my intended actions. Now, I have to say that I used to love things like that when I was younger (I was looking at them as challenges), to explore and learn every possible little detail of every DAW and trying to figure out "hidden-cool ways" of doing things, but I am realizing now that most of that would just made me a power user of a DAW, but realistically, while producing music (simple or complex) I would rarely use any of these more "advanced" methods that I've discovered during play, and it was mostly just a waste of time when I found out that I could do same things in other DAWs with 2 steps, but such is life...

We need to make decisions and choices, but I know as I am getting older I am losing my patience for new ways and technology of over complicating our daily lives (not talking just about DAWs here).
I just want to get in focus, make music quickly and straightforward, I don't want for DAW to be an obstacle, but transparent.
Of course, that is why I didn't chose FL as my main DAW, but I still like it and have huge respect for developers (as I have an IT background) but I just wish things are more streamlined and straight, instead it's getting more (unnecessary) complex, and this phenomenon present is everywhere in our daily lives, I don't know why.
I guess we are at point where we will have everything available with no boundaries, no limits, but that makes things very complicated (google: paradox of choice) and most of all, challenges and knowledge is getting completely new dimension and meaning as we are soaked daily with unnecessary information and time consumers that don't actually help in creating more comfortable and enjoyable life nowadays.

Today, I am questioning myself should I revert back to either Logic 9 (even Logic 7), Studio One V2 or even try FL Studio 10 and stick with it.
As I can see, there is currently almost no company that is going to right direction in making our lives easier (in any area of our lives) and that makes these times really sad when we have everything that we can wish and accomplish, but we are losing ourselves in the sea of daily distractions.

Now I apologize for slightly philosophical OT, I am not being negative or criticizing anybody, just saying whats on my heart.

"

I tend to agree with him, completely.

 

Yes, true. But where I am now the temperature is -10º F right now and 1-2 feet of snow and ice. I hate it. So any place that has palm trees, ocean, and warm weather is good enough for me right now, really.
But I'm not gonna lie, Flux is very amazing stuff. I'm gonna be honest, I did buy the "studio session" bundle from them this week. It was only $149 on JRRshop (great website for amazing deals). I always wanted Bittersweet Pro after I tried the demo back in 2016t Since then I been trying to get my hands on it again. Now I finally have it. They truly are amazing products. But like we said, wayyyy too expensive. They're good but not that good. As I have previously demonstrated, I could buy a lot of much better things with $699+ than a plugin or several. I could get a used vehicle for the price of some of those plugins (like that Spat Revolution one).

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 31, 2017

8Dio

 

Exactly, and Radiator as well. I love how it sounds but the input and output knobs do exactly the same thing and literally negate the entire point of the plugin if you want to match the gain to the original signal. It's crazy how they can create such complex effects yet forget the most elementary stuff.

 

tone2. all plugs sound same and is the only plugin designer that put spyware and corrupts keys in your registery . luckily on mac he doesn't do too much of this crap.

 

I nominate Waves and Arturia. Purely soundwise. Both sounding like it's still 2007 and people just fall for pretty GUIs. There are others like that, of course. These days I'm not using nearly as much of plugins as I used to and they mostly come from small developers. These are the driving force of VST world. Without them we would all see huge and pretty graphics sounding like MDA compressor and EQ.

 

Man alive, 8Dio and Soundiron are the WORST! Back in the day, when they were Tonehammer, it was one of the best companies (in my opinion). But nowadays almost everything they release has some over-compressed, plasticky, unusable sound/feel.

Also, I tried A LOT to like (and use) vir2 guitar colections (electric and acoustic). Never understood the hype in some forums.

 

Waves by far, because they have an image from the past that they still rely on now while making some of the most awful sounding plugs in the world. Their mega packs for mega bucks are a serious joke.

Nebula/Acqua plugs. Total hype and awful to work with.

then...

UAD.... placebo in effect, DSP dongle makes people think they sound better when they don't (some just happen to sound good but no better than the best native).



Slate's getting mentioned a lot but I think that's wrong, because he isn't over-rated due to getting a metric shit ton of abuse/detractors everytime they release something. Hardly over rated (and the plugs are usually some of the best hands down! sometimes better than UAD and Nebula), that isn't over hype that's just good quality plugs. The rest comes from hate for Slate himself due to his confident persona and marketing BS. I can't call them over-rated though as they are great plugs. simple.

 

I agree. Ok so we all know Avid/ProTools suffers from serious 'over hype' and is quite clunky and old fashioned in places (vs great new stuff like Studio One) but it does actually work extremely well for pure mixing, keeping you in the zone, very solid, with some great hardware controllers, less distractions than more full featured DAWS. In other words ProTools is a very useful and solid mix solution that brings with it ease of project handling/transfering around the world.

Studio One is easily the 'best' new modern Daw. Slick, beautiful and rapid, you can do stuff in S1 10x faster than ProTools. Together they make a case for owning/using both, or at least co-exisiting. S1 is great for production/writing/composing (and mixing of course) and ProTools is great for mixing.

Now reaper? where the holy fuck does that get hype from? It's shit for creation/production/writing (far too idiosyncratic and convoluted makes even ProTools appear slick and easy), it's not the best for mixing and has awful workflow. Most people seem to like it purely based on it not sucking much CPU power and that they can customise the balls off it. Wow. Give me Studio One and ProTools and I'll get music done. Keep tweaking on reaper until the cows come home and tell everyone how it's the best DAW since sliced bread, maybe one day you'll really believe it yourselves too! ;)

 

Overrated plugins ? Hands down Slate. Waves are quoted a lot but everyone knows they are at best average plugins. No one buys a waves plugin full price nowadays.
But Slate...I can hardly believe anyone could buy those low quality plugins, they sound terrible, they come down hard on the cpu. I'm not even talking about weird people who rent those. Money doesn't grow on trees, don't waste it on useless gadgets.

 

1)Celemony Melodyne 4
2)Antares Autotune 8
*in any specific order

i was promised that my voice through my shure sm57LC after a couple of edits and a bunch of cuts with these programs would resemble , Kurt Cobain's , Jim Morrison's , Bob Dylan's.........instead it still sounded like crap .......guess they still haven't found the right algorithms because when i sing without mic and off the box i sound better that all of them ;p Happy new year everyone !!! keep up the musicmaking !!!

 

Get yourself to a dealership and audition a tc-Helicon Voicelive Touch. If that can't do it, you just can't do it. 400 semolians.