Your top 3 favorite plugins?

[FluidMoShun]

VSTi or VST [including stock DAW plugins, cause there's some gooduns]. I wanna see what other plugins you guys have been fiending over lately so I can broaden my horizons (and hopefully of others who read this). A brief description would be appreciated, too.

My top 3 are currently:
Massive: I'm still a synthesis noob, but I've finally started to grasp this subtractive synthesizer. It does everything I need and more (beyond your typical mid range wobbles). Going to be my main synth until I sack up and learn FM synthesis
Gross Beat/Dblue Glitch: Been using Gross beat basically since I started using FL9. Its simple yet effective at gating and time stretching, etc. I've been getting into using Dblue more lately because its much more capable than gross beat.
Battery: Sooooo many different drum sounds/kits I don't think I'll ever need to use sampled perc hits again, battery has everything I need to make anything from glitchy dubstep drum beats to realistic jam-type drums to jazzy ride rids.

SliceX is a close runner-up.

[dapper]

I came in here to research this exact question. I'm looking to broaden my horizons past the Massive VST, which is my main instrument at the moment.
What instrument makes the best dubstep whobbles+growls, and is it easy to control live? I'll keep searching, and check back here.

[hifi]

VSTi or VST [including stock DAW plugins, cause there's some gooduns]. I wanna see what other plugins you guys have been fiending over lately so I can broaden my horizons (and hopefully of others who read this). A brief description would be appreciated, too.

My top 3 are currently:
Massive: I'm still a synthesis noob, but I've finally started to grasp this subtractive synthesizer. It does everything I need and more (beyond your typical mid range wobbles). Going to be my main synth until I sack up and learn FM synthesis
Gross Beat/Dblue Glitch: Been using Gross beat basically since I started using FL9. Its simple yet effective at gating and time stretching, etc. I've been getting into using Dblue more lately because its much more capable than gross beat.
Battery: Sooooo many different drum sounds/kits I don't think I'll ever need to use sampled perc hits again, battery has everything I need to make anything from glitchy dubstep drum beats to realistic jam-type drums to jazzy ride rids.

SliceX is a close runner-up.

massive is a wavetable synth... and some other sh*t

[lloydy]

Massive for sound design(fm8 a close second)

ozone 4,really good transparent limiter(although i do tend to use logic's adative limiter more which is not so transparent)Also the ms processing is the bomb!!!!

guitar rig 4 grrrrrrrrrrr say no more than it's a beast got more growl than the wife in the morning .

[FluidMoShun]

VSTi or VST [including stock DAW plugins, cause there's some gooduns]. I wanna see what other plugins you guys have been fiending over lately so I can broaden my horizons (and hopefully of others who read this). A brief description would be appreciated, too.

My top 3 are currently:
Massive: I'm still a synthesis noob, but I've finally started to grasp this subtractive synthesizer. It does everything I need and more (beyond your typical mid range wobbles). Going to be my main synth until I sack up and learn FM synthesis
Gross Beat/Dblue Glitch: Been using Gross beat basically since I started using FL9. Its simple yet effective at gating and time stretching, etc. I've been getting into using Dblue more lately because its much more capable than gross beat.
Battery: Sooooo many different drum sounds/kits I don't think I'll ever need to use sampled perc hits again, battery has everything I need to make anything from glitchy dubstep drum beats to realistic jam-type drums to jazzy ride rids.

SliceX is a close runner-up.

massive is a wavetable synth... and some other sh*t

Massive is a clusterfuck synthesizer.

[benjam]

I came in here to research this exact question. I'm looking to broaden my horizons past the Massive VST, which is my main instrument at the moment.
What instrument makes the best dubstep whobbles+growls, and is it easy to control live? I'll keep searching, and check back here.

Theres no best synth for dubstep bass. Massive gets used a lot because of its very simple modulation system. You could say that certain synths make it easier to achieve a thick bass and give you more control over certain parameters. Eg massives LFO is more flexible than fl studios 3xosc. But really if you apply the same principles say 2 detuned saw waves dropped a couple of octaves put through a low pass filter with an LFO assigned to the cut-off. You can make a dubstep style bass on pretty much any synth. Anyway

SliceX - brilliant plug in. I use it all the time.

Fruity Parametric EQ 2. - really quick and easy to use. Nice layout

Voxengo SPAN - freeware spectrum analyzer because I cant afford any software atm haha

[hasezwei]

first is reaktor, i still have to actually learn it but the factory plugins are already endless fun.

second is guitar rig, gets used on everything except drums. neverending source of inspiration!

third would be battery. i finally managed to turn my samples into great percussion with it. it's everything you'll need for drums.

reason gets an honorable mention, but it's not a plugin by definition (though i see it more as a plugin than a DAW tbh). it's interface scared me away back when i got it for bday, but now that i'm actually knowing shit about production it's such a comfortable environment.

i know fxpansion's geist will be somewhere in the list once i've bought it. the videos i've seen already gave me a nerdboner

[Depone]

This is extremely hard!

So im going with these three -

NI Battery 3.1

Elysia M-Pressor (the best damn compressor ever!)

Izotopes Ozone 4. Has for me the best choices of dynamics/eq combo ever. It's EQ is fantastic, its limiting is the loudest I have heard (stick it on intelegent 2 mode for real transient limiting), its all multi band as well as mid/side. cant beat that really.

[hasezwei]

This is extremely hard!

So im going with these three -

NI Battery 3.1

Elysia M-Pressor (the best damn compressor ever!)

Izotopes Ozone 4. Has for me the best choices of dynamics/eq combo ever. It's EQ is fantastic, its limiting is the loudest I have heard (stick it on intelegent 2 mode for real transient limiting), its all multi band as well as mid/side. cant beat that really.

do you use ozone on the master or individual tracks? i tried it on the master a few times to make WIP's i send out for feedback seem a bit better but the inevitable drop->everything gets quieter has put me off. also it's really really cpu-hungry

[Depone]

This is extremely hard!

So im going with these three -

NI Battery 3.1

Elysia M-Pressor (the best damn compressor ever!)

Izotopes Ozone 4. Has for me the best choices of dynamics/eq combo ever. It's EQ is fantastic, its limiting is the loudest I have heard (stick it on intelegent 2 mode for real transient limiting), its all multi band as well as mid/side. cant beat that really.

do you use ozone on the master or individual tracks? i tried it on the master a few times to make WIP's i send out for feedback seem a bit better but the inevitable drop->everything gets quieter has put me off. also it's really really cpu-hungry

I dont know, thats prob down to your mixdown more than anything (but i cant be sure). I use it for both tracking and mastering. Do you perhaps use the presets? I have not touched them, i only choose what i need, prob 2-3 modules at a time

[djdeadb3ats]

Id have to say massive, Alchemy (even though i cant seem it to sound dirty has some other great sounds) and omicide distortion is pretty good

[hasezwei]

This is extremely hard!

So im going with these three -

NI Battery 3.1

Elysia M-Pressor (the best damn compressor ever!)

Izotopes Ozone 4. Has for me the best choices of dynamics/eq combo ever. It's EQ is fantastic, its limiting is the loudest I have heard (stick it on intelegent 2 mode for real transient limiting), its all multi band as well as mid/side. cant beat that really.

do you use ozone on the master or individual tracks? i tried it on the master a few times to make WIP's i send out for feedback seem a bit better but the inevitable drop->everything gets quieter has put me off. also it's really really cpu-hungry

I dont know, thats prob down to your mixdown more than anything (but i cant be sure). I use it for both tracking and mastering. Do you perhaps use the presets? I have not touched them, i only choose what i need, prob 2-3 modules at a time

well i always leave about 3-5 dB of headroom and mix down groups separately and then mix the groups so they sound ok together. but i tend to keep my intros quiet and minimal, without any bass frequencies apart from the kick and an odd drone here or there. so obviously my levels jump once the sub kicks in, and when i use izotope on the master (presets with a little tweaking because i haven't found the time to really get into it, as i said i wouldn't use it that way on an actually finished track) the sub starts ducking everything else, or maybe the other way around, the intro gets too loud. depends on how you see it.

i guess i should stop using presets then but it's so tempting, just stick it on the master and everything sounds gorgeous as long as the levels stay consistent.

[slothrop]

This is extremely hard!

Yeah, difficult and it changes from week to week.

At the moment, though, the top three would be:
Ishiro Toda's Synth 1
It's fairly lightweight on the features, it's not got amazing sound, it's not even got a spectacularly intuitive interface the first time you use it, but for some reason this is the synth that I can draw for whenever I need a basic sound quickly. I think it's a combination of having just enough features to get a lot of sounds, having good usability and just being a plugin that I've been using for ages.

Big Tick Rhino (Computer Music version)
Not bad for something you get free with a magazine! It's just ludicrously powerful, particularly for ambient sounds, and reasonably easy to use for a big hybrid monster synth.

NI Kontakt
Not much to say here except that being able to draw for tubular bells or pizzicato cello or whatever whenever you want it is kind of hard to beat.

[Astral]

Going on what I simply use the most and could not do without Fabfilters Q and C

[legend4ry]

I guess it'll be my 3 most used..

Sylenth1

Sir 2

Reaktor

[JohnCaza]

Ivory Piano - best sounding piano vst on the market (take my word for it)
Omnisphere - pretty cool synth with complex sounds, also use Trillian for bass but they share libraries
T-Racks 3 - mastering wise, it's got an amazing compressor and limiter and stereo widener, you drop it and imo it's a lot better than Ozone, but that's just me, I also use Waves

[legend4ry]

Big Tick Rhino (Computer Music version)
Not bad for something you get free with a magazine! It's just ludicrously powerful, particularly for ambient sounds, and reasonably easy to use for a big hybrid monster synth.

Really enjoying this one at the moment too!

[3za]

FM8

Bass Station

Guitar Rig

I posted in a similar thread to this on another site, a few weeks ago, and don't think I said any of them. I only use like 10 plug-in (maybe a few more), but my fav's change all the time.

[lyons238]

malstrom, thor, kong

[3za]

malstrom, thor, kong

Oi!!! they're not plug-ins