Which Plugins to Buy?
 

waves have a 50% off deal at moment
anyone had any experience with their Renaissance Maxx bundle
what other type of plugins would people suggest
don't mind spending some money on them

actually the waves deal is only for students :-/

Quite frankly, I think Waves is way overpriced.
If you want a starter bundle, you can't go wrong with Blue Cat Audio:

http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Home/

For mastering, however, Izotope's Ozone is the way to go:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/

My thougths - be sure and try demos before dropping a lot of $ on Waves.

I only tried them in one DAW - in FLStudio... and while many of them were not bad I wouldn't say they would have enough impact on my music to justify the price tag. I also couldn't get the VSTs going in FL at all, as I recall I had to use the DX versions at the time (that was a couple of years ago), which meant I couldn't even use automation. As I said the plugins themselves were fun but not remarkably better than what I already had.

I might have had better luck and a different opinion if I used Cubase or such?

A couple that I really do like are Arts Acoustic Reverb and CamelSpace for multi-effects like great gating.

I recently looked into this for compression, however, you are requesting plugins in general. Maybe more specifics would help us help you.

What host/daw you using?
Do you want effects in the mix?
Do want plugin instruments?
What do you want to achieve mastering?
Maybe a good quality external compessor is more use to you?
What are recording?


While waves is reputeably the main stream 'name' standard and good at what they do, they are not the ''be all and end all''. Waves do not and have no intention to support x64bit in the immediate future. They charge a lot of money yearly for updates (not upgrades) just updates. They sound good I agree but there are many other that do a good, if not better job.

As mentioned try some demos.

Personally I would recommend (commercial) :

Sonalksis (soon to have x64bit support and VST3 planned),
De La Mancha (Cheap and very effective),
Fabfilter vst3 already supported.
PSP Audioware products
Native Instruments

Others I do recommend from experience :

Voxengo (take a look at elephant).
Izotope Ozone4 and channel strip
URS
UAD
Soundtoys (Great quality plugins and not over priced imho)

There is loads of freeware again what I personally use and I promise you there are many articles comparring what I am about to share with you to waves (some believe better or as good as waves)

Variety of Sound <Bootsie is an amazing guy with a heart of gold for the work and generosity he gives in his plugins> Worth checking out before you buy anything.

http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/

Antress (Not so hot but the tools are still great and may suit your needs.

http://antress.er-webs.com/

Here's some links to take you into the underworld of plugins :

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewto...light=#3181911

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3321417

http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products..._FreewarePack/

http://www.dontcrack.com/freeware/so...s/plugins/VST/

http://hem.bredband.net/tbtaudio/

http://elektrostudio.ovh.org/index2.php

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products <Tal not much I dont use here in productions on every track :)>

If you are interested in this, I am trying to sell mine. Let me know. :)

I use Waves:

C1 + C4
L1, L2 and L3 Ultramaximiser
Q10 Paragraphic Equiliser
IR1 Convolution reverb
Supertap Delay
MaxxBass

In terms of modulation (phaser, chorus, bitcrusher etc) I use:

http://www.d16.pl/index.php?menu=212

What sort of effects are most important to you? In my opinion, C4 and L3 get the most use....

DS

You can hear me using the Waves IR1 reverb, Supertap Delay and L3 on my Juno 60 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koWUu8GT_4o&fmt=18

DS

I have Blue Cat's big bundle (i.e. everything) and I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Blue Cat's stuff is really good, especially the Parametr'EQ and the Dynamics. I bought a Metric Halo ULN-2 + DSP, though, so I don't really need them anymore. The Metric Halo stuff is simply amazing!