Commercial plugin short reviews

[nakedzen]

Slate Virtual Bus Compressors $99 (when there's a sale on Slate, which is often)

Three compressors, modeled after the Focusrite Red (FG-RED), SSL 4000 (FG-GREY) and Fairchild 670 and Manley Vari Mu tube compressors (FG-MU).

I like the RED for pretty much everything. It shines on drum bus and master bus, gives everything a sort of expensive sheen. The rack version that has all three plugins in series Red-Grey-Mu is a good thing for vocals when you want to just shave a dB per compressor.

Honestly I haven't messed around too much with the Grey and Mu, but just the Red is already worth the price of admission. It has made a big difference in my mixes.

http://www.slatedigital.com/products/virtual-buss-compressors

FabFilter Saturn $189

Parametric multiband Saturation/Distortion plugin with a ton of versatility. You can use it as a subtle tape or tube saturation sim, or a guitar amp sim, or a step sequencer, or an automated filter sweep. Pretty much sky's the limit in creativity. Has unlimited (I think?) amount of bands that you can separately control the amount of saturation on, so you can for example leave the low end clean and only saturate the highs.

So far I've used it on drums, vocals and synths for subtle saturation and it adds a good deal of harmonic content to the sound.

It is pretty expensive if you just want subtle saturation and don't need all the crazy tweakability and automation. In that case go for the free TesslaPro or Variety of Sound FerricTDS.

http://www.fabfilter.com/products/saturn-multiband-distortion-saturation-plug-in

FabFilter Twin2 $189

Virtual analog synthesizer, again crazy amount of tweakability, and pretty easy to make your own sounds on if you watch a few tutorials. Comes with 1600 presets I believe so you don't need to start from scratch. All of which sound good to boot, I haven't come across a bad sounding preset yet.

The sound is very clean and clear, so in that regard it sounds pretty hifi and digital. You can make it sound gritty but that's not what it's best at. Overall it has a hifi, cold and icy sound to it, which isn't a bad thing, it makes it have a distinct place in a mix.

http://www.fabfilter.com/products/twin-2-powerful-synthesizer-plug-in

Stillwell 1973 eq $25 for Reaper users, $39 for others

Modeled after the Neve 1073 eq interfacewise, not soundwise. Has limited amount of bands to use, but the bands are really well picked. Limitations of choise helps to get a consistent sound on your mixes, especially if you put this on every track as your main eq. Smooth sounding high shelf.

High pass at 50, 80, 180 or 300 Hz
Low shelf 35, 60, 110 or 220 Hz, gain range -20dB to +20dB
Mids 360, 700, 1600, 3200, 4800 or 7200 Hz, wide or narrow band switchable
High shelf 12kHz

http://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/1973-2/

Stillwell Rocket $25 for Reaper users, $49 others

Modeled after the dbx 160 compressor. Great for smashing the life out of snare and kick drums. Sounds great for that, not necessarily for anything else, has a distinct sound to it.

http://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/rocket-compressor/

Apulsoft APTrigga2 $50

Affordable drum replacer trigger plugin. Can load multiple samples that you can individually control the pitch and amount of, can be stacked and mixed for a new single sound , or randomly triggered as separate samples for more realism.

Was a great deal when your only options were to get either this for $50 or Drumagog for $300. Now there's Slate Trigger for $99 and Drumagog 5 Basic is $89.

http://www.apulsoft.ch/aptrigga/

[RustyMetal]

This is a great thread. Because when it comes to spending money on plugs, it helps a lot to understand what they do and how good they actually are, instead of a sales pitch. That can be a real money pit of plugins that don't do what you're wanting to do.
I hope you and others keep adding to it.

[nakedzen]

Slate Virtual Console Collection $99

I was a bit skeptical about this, but I had a gift voucher for thomann so I only paid 35 euros for my copy.

But it really makes a difference. I put the channel plugin on every instrument stereo bus except the guitars since I felt it made them too harsh/bright (not on every track, only the buses in other words) and the master bus plugin on the master. The mix very much went from sounding like a ready mixed track to sounding like a ready mastered track, and it hasn't even been mastered yet!

The Neve console model gave the drums a heck of a lot more punch and clarity in the mix, that's the most immediate impression. I highly recommend this plugin for those that want/need that extra 2% final improvement on their mix. The difference is subtle, but noticeable. I'd think even more so if it's loaded on every single track.