FXpansion Cypher 2
Dmitry Sches Diversion
D16 Software LuSH-101

 

• PSPaudioware
• Voxengo
• TokyoDawnLabs
• McDSP
• Flux
• Melda
• Cockos

Absolutely great, but under-rated companies!

 

Acon Digital
Boz Digital Labs Hoser
TBproaudio
AIR Music Technology xpand! 2

 

Honestly, unless you're an FL Studio user Image-Line plugins are pretty underrated and definitely under-utilized. Not to mention they are one of the very few DAW-makers that actually allow for you to utilize most of their native effects plugins and synths.

 

I discover recently Overloud, I'm very impressed, it beat all my other emulators from Waves and Plugin Alliance.

 

Xils Lab
Fuse Audio

 

melda!

 

After your post I tried the 'Focus'. I was stunned how good it is at sharpening the sound. (just 163 KB!) I also tested it with Plugin Doctor, and it fared great.

 

Reaper. $60 and an 11mb download. Simply incredible. I`m in awe of this DAW...

 

goodhertz
u-he
mcdsp
klanghelm
exponential audio (ex lexicon developers)
pspaudioware

companies that are fairly popular but you wish you would see more people use their tools (you could basically say the same of the list above tho):
softube and t-racks

 

I think almost all AIR Instruments are horrible. The only good one is The Riser. I feel sorry for anybody who paid full price for this shit. Also: AIR has insanely stubborn customer support! When it comes to resetting iLok Activations, they want to know so much about the software and then they don't react for months until they initiate the reset. Definitely not recommendable, imo

 

A bit under the radar but affordable and quality stuff for production:

AudioThing
Togu Audio Line (TAL)

 

Consider when my post comes from. There's been a lot of water under the bridge in three years. That's how it goes. I am a proud four-dollar-a-month supporter of his, and I've been doing it all this time. It seems a lot of people have been sharing the sentiment and now Chris is not in the money hole he was at some point.