The Zen of Limited Plugins: How to Simply Mix

My buddy Graham at The Recording Revolution had a really great post this week about all the audio plugins we use in our DAW.

Specifically, whether we are actually using all of our plugins.

Well, are you?

The Overabundance of Audio Plugins

Stock plugins, Waves plugins, all the other cool new brands that come out all the time.
It just gets overwhelming doesn’t it? There are simply so many.

It’s easy to get carried away with wanting the newest plugin on the market because you’ve justified it to yourself somehow.

“If only I had this particular plugin my mixes would sound better!”

Well guess what?

They won’t.

All the Waves plugins in the world won’t save you if you don’t know what to do with them. Plugin overkill can create decision phobia where you keep testing one compressor after another. One EQ after another.
Until you’ve spent an hour of your mixing time doing nothing except switching plugins out.
Talk about a waste of time.

I realize that testing out new plugins to find one you really like is definitely something you should do. But if you’re constantly searching for the next best thing you’ll already got.
And once you’ve found the ones you like, then it’s time to have fun and…

Simply, Mix.
Stick with the EQ, compressor, delay and reverb that you like the most. Save some time and actually spend it mixing, not plugin-hopping.

What are some of the favorite plugins that you use over and over again?

 

Yes, we have way too much choice. So in general, creating your own shortlist for all the elements works best (same for samples). Of course, if you're new you'll need to find your favourites first - and that might take a while - but when you succeed, there's no need anymore indeed to keep adding more and more. If it works, it works. Another helpful tip would be changing the GUI from time to time, it feels new but it's still the same plug-in you're familliar with. Might be a bit psychological though and a GUI shouldn't be the guideline, but it helps keeping a fresh mindset. Same goes for workflow, if you'll need to go through a lot of tools first before actually doing something, valuable time is already gone. And if a developer 'demands' you to install their whole bundle, just disable what you won't use inside your DAW. I guess there are more tricks to keep everything focussed.

 

I have created the following folder, where I then copy the plugins as well as the manual and pictures:

Audio Meter, Channel Strips, Compressor, Delay, DeNoiser, Dynamics, Effekte, EQ, Exiter - Sonic Enhancer, Filter, Guitar, Limiter, Pitch & Tune, Restoration - Audio Repair, Reverb, Saturation, Scales & Chords, Stereo Imaging - Surround - Headphones, Tape Warmer, Vocal

The Google search resulted in the term VST Plugins Approximately 11,000,000 results