Which Plugin Company is Best? Tier List with, Waves Audio, Slate Digital, iZotope, Plugin Alliance
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- Presented here is a Tier List of several plugin companies that the up and coming engineer and music producer may be interested in. Each of these companies has their strengths and weaknesses.
Plugin companies are compared with regards to the following criteria: audio quality, price, compatibility, copy protection, and overall usefulness.
The plugin companies compared include: FabFilter, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Slate Digital, Sound Toys, Universal Audio, Waves Audio, & McDSP.
Websites for the discussed companies:
Waves Audio
www.waves.com
Universal Audio
www.uaudio.com
Slate Digital
slatedigital.com
Sound Toys
www.soundtoys.com
McDSP
www.mcdsp.com
FabFilter
www.fabfilter.com
Plugin Alliance
www.plugin-alliance.com
iZotope
www.izotope.com
These companies carry plugins that consist of EQ, Compression, Reverb, tape emulation, analog emulation, delays, digital limiters, SSL emulation, Neve emulation, console emulation, pitch shifting, pitch correction, audio restoration, audio mastering, and many others.
Written, produced, and presented by Lorne Bregitzer, a professor at the University of Colorado Denver.
All opinions are those of Lorne Bregitzer and do not represent those of his employer.
#musicproducer 
Видеоклипы
Imagine a world where every RUclips tutorial was this focused, accurate and straight to the point? What a cool world would that be.
Thank you!
LMAO, this tier list is completely obsolete, Slate Digital has gone full subscription, that makes them fall down to C tier at best, and SoundToys is iLoked.
And did he say that Plugin Alliance is $50 a month ??? This is absolutely ludicrous. Is this guy paid ?
@@lolilollolilol7773 what are you smoking man? Slate is top tier now with SSL combined for 15 bucks a month. I see all these posts of people paying as much as almost a year subscription worth for 2 plugins… which who knows for how long they’ll use it.
I regret endlessly for buying like 95% of my purchases plugins. Slate is all you need in life.
Spot On! Learnt using waves, big respect for them...but I hate waiting 45 minutes just to load their plugins. Plugin Alliance and Slate get it all done, and respect my time lol. Thanks, worth it!
45 minutes what are you using ? I had a session opened yesterday with with around 15 different waves plugins but probably upwards of 40 or more in total and they open within 2 minutes
Saved me time in deciding my subscriptions, looking forward to your extended list and any further insights; subscribed.
You have the best tutorials and recomendations, true profesossor!
Loved your tier list and your delivery, I agree almost 100%. Slate bundle replace most of my other plugins when I switched little less than a year ago, and I've been really happy with what they offer. Fabfilter together with Slate are my desert island plugins for sure.
LOL. You nailed that Steven Slate analogy. I was dying with laughter
I use some waves plugins but I love izotope. Nectar and neutron allows me to start mixes really fast and get 90% of the work done for me. Ozone 9 advanced is the absolute bomb. But as with everything, it's what works for you.
absolutely !
Thank you for your analysis, I was looking for this specifically, it's greatly appreciated. I currently am subscribing and have bought 4 of your name brand reviews and I'm looking to see which one's I should keep. This helps a lot.
Lmaaooo you know what this track needs? More enigma! 😂😂😂 subbed because of that and your take on waves plugins. I recently just switched to slate solely due to waves piss poor waveshell version updates & old projects not loading them. Great video 🔥
I use Plugin alliance, Slate and Wave the most. Own a good amount of UAD plugins but man im tired of having to carry a damn hardware with me in order to use them so i've been moving away from them over time.
one word m1
@@aviatedviewssound4798 oh I'm ready to get one. iMac M1 16 gigs, 1TB ssd with Logic. It will cost me 1600.00
@@aviatedviewssound4798 M1 isn’t a word. It’s a letter and a number.
@@tuneunleashed true lol, then one word and number.
I love the comical puns in between explaining the ins and outs. 💯🤩
Thanks that was a really helpful review. Now I'm aware there's more out there than just waves. Oh and I believe you're a professor!
Softube and Eventide...they definitely need to be added to this list.
and analogue obsession
He mentions Softube at the end
Toneboosters have great plugs and are very underrated.
Good analysis and I had lots of fun with your humor. I left Waves around 2016 because of their crazy pricing, and their too big to move forward attitude. I had exactly the same experience with them as you’ve detailed here. And I agree with your picks. I now use Slate, Fabfilter and Soundtoys mostly. Slate’s virtual tape machine is incredible, and the virtual bus compressors too. The neve EQ is awesome. I could go on and on about Slate. I use VBC and VTM on every song. They cover so much ground. With the VMR, You can quickly throw a preset on a track to match your vision, then tweak a few knobs to dial it in. It’s a quick process and the sound quality is exceptional. I sold all of my outboard gear and now track with plugins sent to the takes. I’m using the Black Lion Rev 2x2 and my recordings sound so much better than they used to. Fabrice G has given us the golden years of plugins.
Interesting, I'd love to see an update of this video considering UAD now offers Spark, and Plugin Alliance have new convenient subscription options.
🤠 I haven't done much comparisons but my goto are: MeldaProduction for creative FX. You get updates for life, resizable gui & multiband processing. For mixing/mastering I use iZotope as I was intrigued by AI features & waveform analysis. Gullfoss is great for reducing muddiness. Reverbs I use Liquidsonics for orchestral stuff, smart:reverb for pop, MeldaProduction for rock.
Great Review, thanks your tier list makes sense for me
Missed some great indie vendors like Valhalla for reverbs, Klanghelm for compressors and saturation, and others like Togu Audio Line, Cherry Audio, Tokyo Dawn, Cableguys, CraveDSP, and u-he.
Pretty fair and accurate assessment of all of these plugins. But damn dude….sounds like you been hittin that talk chalk
Nice vid! I am currently in a holiday buy for Plugin Alliance. Also use stuff from Solid State Logic and Empirical Labs. You definitely get what you pay for but with patience it can be a lot less!
Good call. It’s a chunk of money for sure, but no regrets for me.
I feel like fabfilter is the s+ tier, yes initially it costs much but there is never a regret. They are rock solid, with great support and well tested updates. Pay once and get updates for free. Installer that can install all of them at once and amazingly free licensing system.
Fabfilter is S for the fact that you can add saturation in order to try to replicate something from Slate or pa.
Totally in agreement! Thanks Professor...
Just wanna offer some positivity based on your comments in the video. I appreciate your time. Blessings to you and yours ✌️
To everyone who may read this I hope y'all make it, let's keep grinding 🙏🏽
Thanks for that summary, Spot on IMO!
The copy protection schemes are a risk to the user. In that regard, of the companies mentioned in the video, iLok-based protection lands at the very bottom of the pile, as the user is burdened with the greatest risk. At the other end is Fabfilter where you copy/paste a text key that is easy to backup.Plugin Alliance lands in the middle, as three authorizations is better than just one which is what iLok users usually get. Waves gives you one additional activation per year, which to me rates higher than PA. Izotope has two methods. Their Exponential Audio plugins are iLok-only. All other are disk-based(including usb drives) or iLok and they‘re pretty lenient on the number of authorizations, so far.
I have several iLok-burdened products. Stratus, Sound Toys, Protools, McDsp, Eventide. But since the keys can break, and Pace has had nuclear-level f*ckups in the past, I try to avoid them as a less predictable risk factor now. I tend to rely on Fabfilter, Valhalla, Klanghelm, Harrison, Voxengo and free options such as Analog Obsession(support his Patreon). As a 20 year dialogue mixer, I don‘t like having risk factors like copy protection schemes hang over my head. All that stuff has been cracked anyway, so I no longer see the point in taking that risk as a paying customer.
Absolutely agree. As well, subscription based companies suck (Slate Digital for example).
Go for smaller companies. Their software will always work as long as you keep your licence file safe (I have them in my Google emails, I'm confident this will never disappear), and if they are still around after 20 years, they will even send you a new one if you happen to lose it.
i came here for music knowledge and left with music knowledge and laughed my ass off LMAO. ur great man keep up the good work!
For classic gear emulation, the UAD plugs are in their own league. For example, the AMS-RMX and Lexicon 224 & 480 use the exact code of the original unites.
acustica audio
@@adirsab too each his own. I worked in the biggest major label studios in LA for 30 years, using the original analog gear. UA’s proprietary approach best nails it. With the previous example of the AMS RMX…. One of the earliest digital reverbs… they emulate the analog input/output… but what they do NOT emulate is the reverb algorithm. It’s not an emulation…. It’s the actual algorithms of the original RMX units. Other companies are just doing various forms of convolution…. Not even close to the same thing.
Entire vid was spot on
Damn I was wanting to see what you ranked Arturia. Very impressed with them. Definite S tier for me. And I am also very impressed with XLN.
They’re great. I have their big bundle and Pigments, as well. I was mostly focusing on audio mixing plugins here. I may do a video on synth bundles.
@@TheRealAudioProfessor - I don't really touch a lot of synth stuff, I know on Arturia's hardware side they're into that (yeah sw too). I am referring to my experience with their plugin pre's, compressors, reverbs, delays, etc (flange/chorus) and yeah even their filters from time to time which are fantastic imo
I would mention Oeksound plugins as well. Can't live without them
Thanks, I’ll definitely have to check them out
X2 for oeksound
I love my UAD plugins, they’re the best, like ever!!
In all seriousness, I love the unison amp sims. I don’t have to deal with latency no matter what’s going on with the daw or computer. The only UAD mixing plugins I have are what came with the Heritage edition. They’re too expensive when there’s so much more affordable options that sound great.
They have the 11 piece bundle for $49!
Well you just earned a sub! Great video!
Waves is simple to install. I like their GUI's, and their prices are affordable now. I like Waves, Plugin Alliance and T-Racks.
Yeah I’m not sure what hassle he was talking about. Also, professional studios should have at least one clone of their hard drive in case their boot disc crashes. It’s super easy to restore right back to before the crash with licenses in tact.
You like Waves GUI's??? 😆
Naw.. really??
Track is trash
Just a quick note, the copy protection from iZotope is iLok hardware only if you choose not to deal with their software center’s licensing (which I think is limited to 2 or 3 computers). Despite this, I think you’ve rated them fairly.
If you do another one of these videos (which yeah, would probably not be for a while unless you’ve already spent the money or demo’d the plugins), I’d like to see how you rate some of these companies: Arturia’s effects, Valhalla, TDR, Acustica, Softube, IK, Melda, Fuse Audio Labs, Goodhertz, Nugen Audio.
0:17 - Classic! Thanks for the video!
Really helpful, thanks!
Good ranking. I have UAD working on a PC but it’s no walk in the park. To me that’s their biggest issue..getting seamless performance with Windows.
I like Plugin Alliance but there are some performance, stuttering and dropout issues I’ve been having, particularly on the Amek 9099, Maag eq, and the Black Box distortion. Seems like it started when I got the UAD…hmm
Thanks for the heads up !
I am a PC guy, and PCs tend to be allergic to Pro Tools, and other Imperial Remnants from the Old Galactic Empire . . . UAD did strike me as being part of that old Yacht Club where you need an Apollo Interface, a Mac, and some sound cards just to run their software . . . The simple fact that there is a Company called "Pro Tools PC", dedicated to building expensive Custom PCs that will reliably run Pro Tools . . . Hmmn . . . I will passed on the UAD, and stick with PA and Slate.
Thanks so much for the video man! Really helpful and hilarious. Was looking into the slate bundle but needed an unbiased opinion of it. If he steals my girl at least I'll have more time to use my new compressors
Thanks so much! Glad I could be entertaining and informative.
You're blunt. Straight to the point & trasnparent. Subscribed!
Thanks su much for the kind words!
A lot of good plugins. Love izotope and waves. Mcdsp has really nice plug ins as well (SA2). I do films, editing and I score just films so I use a lot of different plugins. Including enigma lol
I removed all Waves from studio. Plugin Alliance is solid af. Softube. Melda. Denise. D16 Group. Kirchoff EQ. Fabfilter less nowadays. Arturia there is loads. But as a one stop. Plugin Alliance. IZotope are good but really CPU heavy..
I don't use ableton but I subscribed because this guy is STRAIGHT to the point.
S-Mcdsp/fab filter/waves/izotope
A-plugin alliance/ soundtoys/ slate
B-UAD/psp
This is purely based off how I like them I didn’t include pricing or Ilok just purely how I feel while using, don’t have any uad yet so that’s in B just because I at least know their decent.
PA is definitely S tier. And I just got their AI mastering tool. It really works well! I’m gonna struggle not to subscribe to that mastering service.
These Days I find myself using slate digital as my base, unfiltered audio bundle from plugin Alliance, and studio rack from waves. I definitely agree that Waves has a lot filler But their studio rack plugin is amazing.
I wonder if uad goes up a grade since it's now going native with a ton already on native. And if you own the uad version you get native of it free
I love my slate plug-ins most but I use them with some waves and some UAD
You can connect the Izotope licenses to the computer only, but else I find the list spot on. There are some changes as spark from UAD, but it's not yet for everyone.
So informative thank you !
What do you think of Acustica Audio?
Spot on. Totally agree
SoundToys, Fabfilter, and UA make up 90% of my workflow. Special shout-out to oeksound’s soothe!
I cant agree with you any less, you got a new subscriber Teacher
Where do you rank Acustica Audio (my favorite), Kush Audio, Denise Audio, PSP Audio (that infinity strip is the truth), IK Multimedia, Toontrack, Valhalla, Arturia, Softube Antares, Wave Factory, Leapwing, Sonnox, Tone Empire, Analog Obsession, and Sound Theory (Gulfoss is a necessity)? And yes..... I've spent over $30,000 on plugins and plan to buy more
The five I would agree on adding, because of popularity, are: PSP Audio because of their Vintage Warmer, Valhalla because of their widely used Delay, Softtube because of their awesome compressors + reverbs and Sonnox as an old friend most people know (never used them). Acustica Audio is upcoming. I don't know about their quality.
I’d also love to see how TDR and Fuse Audio Labs measure up to the rest of the competition
Acustica audio and plugins with AI have no magic for me. I do not consider AA upcoming, they release and relase and release for years, but the issues remain (high latency and cpu , no resizable gui, bad compression and saturation, questionable pre-amps etc). I know two devs who obviousely do not care about their custumer's opinion and complaints and I read posts/replies from the devs, that won't make me buy their products: Plugin Alliance and Acustica Audio. Arrogance is not attractive to me. But that's just me.
I am with you.
Acustica Audio For me I would need Peta Drives there so large they eat up my SSD space so they went bye bye
I used FF, UAD, and PA a lot - till I found the SSL range. Not cheap, but O M G.
Are these the Solid State Logic plugins? May I ask, How are you finding them; do you still stand by your original comment?
@@KitKalvert Yes, Solid State Logic. I use them a lot. My absolute favorite nowadays: the Weiss suite from Softube.
thank u brother. great vid!
kilohearts is also S tier, all their stuff is amazing
I think you nailed it!
Please do T-racks next time. Thanks bud. I love Plugin Alliance
UAD are amazing and rock solid. But plug-in manufacturers have all come a long way.
why does this channel not have more views/subs? Man the UAD joke, the reaper/studio one user joke, the steve slate joke, I GENUINELY LAUGHED MY ASS OFFF HAHAHAHHAA YOU'RE GOLDEN!!!
Thanks so much! I keep trying to get my numbers up.
@@TheRealAudioProfessor i agree with slate digital all access being the best. Did the math with waves uad stuff, PA stuff is goodd too but I have found the best combo which I am using for my daily mixing needs. I purchased the PA plugins which are an absolute hack (won't mention, there are just a few and they have NO alternatives) when they are in offer, for example bought 300$ plugin with 40$ and use the all access pass instead of the PA bundle as the slate stufff is better for the plugins they have in common or that have similar usage. Take that 1200$ UAD Satellite with 300$ plugins each.
Tbh the Logic joke with the sarcastic cough was great as well🤣
Uad plugin ever best forever i used all company plugin after i buy uad plugin I'm fully happy with this and others also sound Great ever
Fabfilter, Brainworx, Oeksound, Eventide (SplitEQ especially) and Valhalla.
As a REAPER user, I lol'd at your REAPER comment. Did you know I use REAPER? ;-) Subscribed.
Great video 👍🏼
What's your take on Native Instruments Komplete and the like?
Thank you sir! ✌️
Thanks so much! It's an honor you stopped by!
Tokyo Dawn Labs... Inspiring! 😎
What about Melda productions or Ik Multimedia?
Softube???
What's hilarious is that I just watched a big time producer on RUclips talk about how awesome Enigma is how frequently they use it.
Nice! At least somebody’s getting some use out of it
Plugin Alliance for Life!!
Bruh that slate joke was everything. lolz
I’m wondering if ua is worth it for the price
What about Kush?
Thanks so much. As a newbie again after 30 tears, this was very helpful. Because nothing has changed in 30 years, right?
Newfangled Audio is another company that deserves serious attention. Even Tome Projects, a relatively young company, is killing it with their Kelvin Tone Shaper and now even a souped up SSL Six channelstrip style plugin and an Overstayer with automatic gain compensation that costs 1/10 the price of Softube’s version. The days of one or two plugin companies rolling the roost are very much over.
All but i really love KUSH AUDIO and SSL NATIVE
*So I'm not saying Waves has the best plugins (they don't) - but I have NEVER had a problem with licensing* I've upgraded computer 4x...2 times while on Windows and 2 times after switching to Mac. I have all of my music projects on an external harddrive...and I license all my Waves plugins to that harddrive. So whenever I access my DAW files...Waves will be ready to go since its on the same harddrive. Never had a problem with licensing.
I kinda agree with this list. Fab Filter should be in the S tier except they way overprice their plugins
Nahhh the prices are straps for the quality they have trust me there are plug ins that’s are like 4-500 that don’t give you richer sounds than FF products and their plugins for for 200 or a little less each
Love my Slate stuff
Plugin Alliance is the best for sure.
Good call on waves, bought ADT which i love, but dont think i would buy another waves due to the licensing app. A nightmare
Acustica hands down 🔥🔥🔥
The best
@@MrlegendOr swear 🔥🔥🔥🔥
I love them but some are killers on my computer and mine is a beast lol going to need to upgrade because I can't live without Crimson
@@msp420 swear
Great video! But not to be confused with best "quality" plugins.
What do you mean?
@@ronaldinocrosdale7622 I have access to, and provide support for every plugin by each of these companies except plugin alliance. While he was pretty upfront about his ratings being subjective to his own experience, the metrics for judging a plugin could be so diverse that its almost impossible to do. For example, if you need a plugin suite with unmatched user friendly UI, Izotope cant be beaten. You get a code, enter it into the portal, click a button twice and its ready to go. You can open it and have it easily create an entire reference for a track, which no other company in this list does (master EQ matching is close). If you want plugins that emulate analog gear better than anything else, UA does just that. The difference between their plugins and the hardware they emulate is negligible. And with Waves, if you follow their instructions, the licensing methods can be annoying but they work. Its not a bad list, but some of the B tier plugins far outshine the S tier, depending on what you use them for and how diligent you are with file/license maintenance.
Where would you rank Native Instruments?
I think they’re pretty great. I didn’t really include them because they’re mostly soft synths, but their compressor and transient shaper are great. My only real criticism is that there’s a new Ultimate bundle every year. It’s like Madden for the Xbox where you buy a new thing for an updated roster.
Couldn’t of said it any better my friend
Whew... I have taken the plunge on two of these companies, and they both got your "S" rating. The rest were either out of my price range or laughable in the bullsh*t department (looking at you, Waves Goodbye). Nice work, and thanks for the ego boost this rookie got knowing I am a smarter shopper than I give myself credit for.
Great video
Excellent analysis, does anyone else feel distracted by the hands or is it just me?
good evaluation! for me UAD is key for their low latency features and plugins, specially useful for guitar, bass, vocal tracking. but for mixing you are likely right that Slate or others have similar futureset and great emulation. i have the izotope bundle, and as you said, Ozone seems the be the best, but i never got into Neutron and others as my DAW tools are faster and less CPU intensive (ableton in my case). i am really eager to get FabFilter,,…. and, i couldnt live without my soundtoys (combination of ease of use and great sound). thx for the vid!
Thanks for the comment. I really did like the sound quality of UAD, but it was too cumbersome to deal with. iZotope is cool, but really overpriced, imo. But FabFilter's EQ is amazing. With with dynamic EQ, Linear Phase EQ, and matching. Definitely check it out. I'm an Ableton Certified Trainer, and I'm quite happy with the quality of their effects, for the most part.
@@TheRealAudioProfessor yes. Me 2. I keep coming back to stock plugins for ease of use.
Ableton Live Intro is the best $85 you can spend...Period.
A necessary post, thanks
“I’d be using Logic” I laughed out loud. I do love and use LP but you’re not wrong at all 😂😂😂
instant sub
Slate is not my desert island plugins, because if the desert island would be really desert one, there would not be internet connection, so no plugin would work.
😃Fab Filter for the most work. Analog Obsession for adding color. Sonible for their user-friendly interface. Izotope for their AI capability. SSL Bus Comp, for ... just being SSL Bus compressor 😃
Softube and solide stade Logic for me 🙏🎧
Sonible needs a spot in there!
Im that one friend that won’t shut up about UAD plug ins 😅