I am curious to know what plugins were popular in the first decade of the 2000's.

I started in the late 2000's so I remember some. ReFX Vanguard was very popular. Z3TA was another one. Albino by Rob Papen. They don't have to be synths.

I imagine the early 2000's was still more hardware based.

I liked a freeware on by Superwave called P8 probably one of the best SynthEdit plugins I ever touched. Most SynthEdit ones were really lackluster but that one was a Diamond in the rough so to speak. Ones made with Synthmaster (now called Flowstone) ones tended to be really good though. The G-Sonqiue ones come to mind.

Anybody got any others?

 

I'm not sure about the dates, but somewhere between 2004 & 2010 I enjoyed a lot using Cakewalk's Dimension Pro and Rapture. They both sounded very realistic to me back then.
Also Soundfont players were really dope.
Absynth was huge.

 

Hypersonic 1 (released 2004), NI Reaktor (released 1996), NI Kontakt (2002), Rob Papen Sub Boom Bass (released 2009), ReFX Nexus (released 2006). Just a Few to mention there are many more.

By the Way the Yamaha Motif Series was heavily used at this Time.

 

Last edited: Dec 26, 2022

Sylenth. URS Compressors still to an extent. I liked Metallurgy from Ugo. Reaktor. Absynth. Halion. Camel Space, Camel Phat, Alchemy. PSP Plugins. Waves L1 Ultramaximizer and S1 Imager. PaulStretch and Akaizer. Reason and Rebirth. Rebirth Europa. Drumagog. Drumkit from Hell. BFD. Sampletank.

Synth Warmer. I'll think of more vintage things I would put on a nostalgia machine.

 

Last edited: Dec 26, 2022

Oooooo.....here's some early 2000s :

reFX Juno X2
The beast
Stomper (Stand alone)
Hammerhead (Stand alone)
PRO-53
FM-7
Orchestral
Plex
V-Station
Gigasampler
Spectrasonics (the first really big plug-ins)
...GRM tools (fx),
WAVES powerpack (DX)
Hyersonic (DX)
Orange Vocoder (fx)
Pi Warp (fx)
Attack
Rubber Duck (stand alone)
Tuareg 2 (stand alone)
ReBirth (stand alone)
Recycle (stand alone)
Wave Surgeon (standalone)
Simsynth (stand alone)
Hyperprism (DX)
Wavelab & Cubase (fx)
TC Electronics Native Bundle (DX) (maximizer would be abused in those days)
TC Millennial Pack (DX)
Lexicon PSP fx (DX)
DSP FX (DX)
Thrill Me
Discovery

 

Last edited: Dec 26, 2022

https://audiosex.pro/threads/must-have-plugins-from-before-2010.66428/

 

Atari Pro Tracker

 

Slayer. Delay Lama. Swar Systems Swarplug. VAZ.

 

I totally agree about Cakewalk Dimension Pro and Rapture, these instruments was fantastic!
First I was used when I've started C.M. during 2013.

 

Cakewalk's Dimension Pro and Rapture was like the old school Omnisphere

Slayer was the only decent VST to get some guitar sound.

Vanguard was the only decent synt VST.

 

For nostalgia, I'd like to get my hands on a Pro-53, B-II (or I which I liked better), SimSynth, and Orange Vocoder. That was a good 'un because you didn't have to fuss with any fakafka carrier-modulator routings since it had a synth already built in.

 

Here are what were the most popular plugins in the KVR Database in November 2010:
https://web.archive.org/web/20101126132754/http://www.kvraudio.com/plugin-ranks.php
Browse down to the section "30 Day Rank" then down again to check what was the situation for the previous months.


But the plugins which were the most popular before 2010 were in my memory:

• Synth1 from Ichiro Toda (obviously the most popular free VST instrument of the 00's decade, probably the most popular VST ever in all leagues)
• Green Oak Crystal
  
• Superwave P8
• Oxe FM
• Sam VOPM
• TAL-Bassline, TAL-U-NO-60/62, TAL-Elek7ro (and all the TAL effects)
• Tone2 Firebird
• AlgoMusic CZynthia and String Synthesizer
• Andreas Ersson LazySnake
• Artifake Labs Redtron (under its former name : Meltron)
• BigTick Angelina, Cheeze Machine, EP-Station, TickyClav
• Cakewalk sfz
• DSK (many instruments very popular but which appear so poor now)
• Elektrostudio (all his awesome instruments)
• E-phonic Drumatic
• Fuzzpilz Oatmeal
• GSi MrRay, MrTramp, ORGANized trio
• Gunnar Ekornas MinimogueVA, ArpPe2600VA
• HGFortune (almost all his freeware synths)
• Jeremy Evers Atlantis
• Krakli (several very known little synths)
• Kriminal (idem)
• Majken Chimera
• Rumpelrausch Taips AZR3
• Siegfried Kullmann SQ8L
• Stumm PG-23P
• Tascam CVPiano (awesome for these years!)
  
• Teragon Audio KickMaker
• UGO Audio Motion, Rez, String Theory, Texture
• WOK (many famous excellent little plugins)
• AMVST 3-OSC VA, Analog Warfare, Freehand, Wavedraw
• AM Music Technology Pro SoloVst
• ... and a few others.

Some of the most popular payware VSTs in the 00's years were:

• NI Kontakt (already), Reaktor, Absynth, Massive, Battery, Pro-53, FM7 (then FM8 after 2007)
• All the Korg KLC (Mono/Poly, Polysix, M1, WaveStation, MS-20)
• U-He Filterscape, and mainly Zebra 1
  
• E-MU Proteus VX
• GForce (originally Ohm Force) ImpOscar, Oddity, Minimonsta
  
• ImageLine DirectWave, Morphine, Sytrus, PoiZone, Toxic Biohazard
  
• Novation B-Station and V-Station
• RefX Nexus
• Acustica Nebula
• Camel Audio Alchemy
• Cakewalk Triangle, Square, Dimension, Z3Ta
• Linplug Albino, Alpha, CM-505, Cronox, Octopus, Organ, RM IV then RM V
  
• DiscoDSP Discovery, Discovery Pro
  
• Lennar Digital Sylenth1
• KV331 Synthmaster
• IK Multimedia Sampletank
• Waldorf PPG Wave 2.V, Attack, D-Pole
  
• ... and a few others.

These are pretty much all my memories of the most popular VST instruments of the years 2000-2010. In no particular order.

 

Last edited: Dec 27, 2022

FM7, Absynth and Reaktor.

Beside these, I was kind of amazed when I used the first version of Reason with its moving cables: At the time, I thought that Cubase and Co did not stand a chance against Reason. Times changed.

Also, not a vst but Gigastudio was very popular in the sampling world before Kontakt.

 

Last edited: Dec 27, 2022

The big daddy Hypersonic and then Hypersonic 2, Dimension Pro/rapture, Purity, Novation Bass Station, Emu Proteus VX, Absynth, atmosphere, fm7, Kontakt 2, Vangaurd, slayer, Edirol orchestral, a whole bunch of terrible sounding Reason banks, orkester.rfl.... ect.

A whole bunch of Modern Beatz kits: (Dr. Dre's Kit, Timbaland kit, ect)

 

duy, mcdsp

 

Good old 00's, when i made music for TV on my single-core celeron, and now people complaining that their PC is not powerfull enough....

 

Some of my personal favorite vsts and utilities from back in the day:

 

Last edited: Dec 27, 2022

BigTick Rhino was one that I always used. Too bad they never updated the GUI.

 

This is the worst Plugin I've ever installed btw. It made my Ableton crash on loadup until I removed the VST from it's corresponding folder. Wtf.