This is continuation of synth setup post. It got bit long as it is. If you don’t want to read it it basically says I will limit the number of hardware synths in setup to learn ones that are in setup. Post tells more about the reasons why I want to do it. One reason why I do it is mess that is my plugin favorites. It takes long time to find plugins I want to use and I don’t know any of them really well. I have tried to separate favorites from rest but favorites still have too many plugins.
I am trying to apply three effects of a type in favorites folder and have those three be ones which all have different purpose for being there. So I can easily pick one I need in each specific case without thinking which one to choose. Not going to put three effects there if I have one which can done everything I want. Also not limiting number to three if there are more than three plugins of a type which each to something useful other plugins don’t do but fourth and fifth really need to bring something extra.
This should help with gear acquisition syndrome. It helped with guitar and bass. Maybe I develop own sound when I use same gear all the time. When ever I get to releasing something all guitars will come through same pedalboard and amp. All basses come through same pedalboard. There will be limited number of synths and effects to use.
Did first iteration of sorting. Some effects were quite easy. I can do saturation and distortion with two plugins. I can add subtle saturation with mixing and mastering plugins. Those two can do everything else. One can do normal saturation and distortion with quite extensive modulation. Another can go more lofi and trashy. Delays were other easy selection. One plugin which do many different styles and two which can do more specific and extreme delays. There was other good candidate for generic review with basic delay models but I don’t want too many options. One I selected can do little bit more.
There were couple surprises. Delays and saturation plugins I pretty much knew before testing. Testing just conformed what I knew. I tried which plugins gave good sounds easiest and fastest. Modulation plugins gave biggest surprise. I have some modulation effects based on vintage gear and thought that is the way to go. Native Instruments Mod Pack plugins gave me best results and did it fastest. I didn’t expect that. I had kind of given up with Native Instruments’ plugins. So modulation will be handled by Mod Pack in future. Added Arturia’s Juno chorus there incase I want chorus quickly because it sounded so good on every setting I tested. Four modulation effect but I don’t need to think too much which one to pick.
Reverbs are really hard to limit to three. I don’t know what I want or have any reverbs I can use really well. Not well enough to know if I can get everything from ones I own. Tested them but couldn’t get all sounds I wanted fast enough. Went to Youtube to watch tutorials. Try to figure out what I really want. Which is basically really good plate and spring reverbs. After getting real spring reverb plugins haven’t sounded that good. Convolution would be nice to get sound of real spaces. Something for generic use and something to drown sound into. How ever I tried to approach this setup would include four or five reverb plugins.
This is where things went of the rail. After watching tutorials I was curious to check if there was really good plate reverb. Ones I have sound good but have limited control. Well there was one which could do mind blowing things. And it was on sale. Got two reverbs from that sale and one saturation plugin which can do what those two plugins I had already on list can’t do. Don’t know if other reverb gets use but it costed only few euros thanks to more you buy more discount you get thing.
Then I started to wonder if someone had made good spring reverb since I checked them last time. Well there was one on sale. Got demo of it and compared it against three spring reverbs and spring reverb on convolution reverb. Now I have four spring reverbs. It looks like you have to use impulse responses to get really good sounding spring reverb plugin. Convolution reverb and the new one which uses impulse responses sounded best. Don’t know why I have bought all those algorithmic spring reverbs. New reverb isn’t as good as real thing but it is good enough until someone makes better and sells it on reasonable price.
Three plugin limit was broken and I bought first music related gear this year. Those synths were bought and paid last year. Reverb plugin list will have plate, spring, shimmer, room/hall/cathedral, convolution and one general purpose reverb. That is more than three but I shouldn’t have to be thinking too much which to pick. One reverb having most of those would have reduced number but the number isn’t the thing. Not having too much redundancies on list is. These six don’t have redundancies unless you count convolution reverb can do some of things others can do. Not as good.
This got quite long already. I will continue this later. Didn’t get to synths yet. To be honest I am not yet sure what software synth setup I will have. Don’t need to buy any more of those but have to decide which to have on setup and which not to have.