Some of the team have published lists of their must have plug-ins over the last few weeks. It was interesting to see what they nominated but initially I was reluctant to write a list of my own because I felt like my choices hadn't changed significantly in such a long time that much of what I had to say, had already been said here on the blog. However, during a conversation with Russ, he suggested that in itself was a point worth making. In spite of all of the activity in the plug-ins market, many of us stay with the choices that we've been making for years.

Do new plug-ins offer anything that old ones don't? It's an interesting question and there isn't a single answer to it. It depends on the plug-in. There are some plug-ins on my list which are there precisely because they do something which wasn't previously possible or wasn't done as well as these do, but there are also some extremely old choices which, in spite of more sophisticated options being available today, I stay with because they do the job and I know them so well.

So what's on my list and what isn’t? There are some choices that I really wanted to include, because the products are just so good, but the premise here is plug-ins I can't live without. There are some fantastic plug-ins that I really, really like but ultimately I can live without. For example, I have no Pultec EQ on here. I really like Pultecs for specific jobs. However, if one isn't available I’ll use something else. It won't be the same, but ultimately it's not a showstopper. So what is on my list?

LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Pro

I was kind of reluctant to have this on my list because it's been on other people’s lists as well, but if there's one area where the sonic difference between premium and stock plug-ins really makes itself known it's in reverb. There are other contenders in the LiquidSonics stable I could have chosen. For example Cinematic Rooms is no slouch, and having taken some time to get to know Reverberate well, I wish I used it more often. But when it comes to reverb I just want something that sounds fantastic and I don't want to have to spend a long time getting there and that's exactly what Seventh Heaven does so well. I would be perfectly happy with the regular version of Seventh Heaven, but Seventh Heaven Pro offers more variety so it makes the list. I never feel like I've chosen the wrong reverb when I use this. What more could you ask for?

Nugen VisLM

Ultimately, Seventh Heaven makes the list because of how it sounds, but it also save time. The only reason VisLM is on the list is because it saves time, but it saves a lot of it. If you're working to loudness specs you can use other plug-ins but VisLM is the best. I used to use Avid Pro Limiter when mixing the podcast. It works and I got used to it. I could mix to target using the short term and integrated displays and as a final check I would use the offline loudness analyser to confirm I was within spec. VisLM is easier and faster, and that's why I use it. The fact that you can replace sections or tweak levels within a longer project and VisLM keeps up with the changes without me having to do anything at all is a bit of a masterstroke at times like this. If I'm doing that kind of work, I want this plug-in available.

oeksound Soothe 2

Soothe 2 is hardly a secret but if you haven't yet tried it, what are you waiting for? The reason I like this plug-in so much is because, unlike some ‘clever’ plugins, it doesn't try to do the jobs I can already do for me. It does a job that I find really hard and makes it go away. Harshness is a tricky issue to fix using conventional tools. EQ goes a long way, but often isn't the whole solution. If I find myself getting deep with dynamic equalisers then I know things aren't going well. Soothe 2 addresses a problem that is difficult to fix, and does it in a way that so benign it really qualifies for the status of ‘must-have’. That being said, I'm yet to try McDSP’s SA-3 which I'm told also does an excellent job. However, my next example, might illustrate a reason why no matter how good subsequent plug-ins might be, I might just end up sticking with Soothe 2.

Avid EQ III

This plug-in is over 20 years old. There are alternatives which do stuff that this doesn't and I have several of them. For example, I have been FabFilter Pro-Q 3 user for some years, but in spite of it being a better plug-in in almost every way, it hasn't replaced EQ III as my default EQ plug-in. Why?

As a Carbon user I could say that it's because Pro-Q 3 isn't AAX DSP. This is a valid reason, but actually it isn't the reason that I continue to use EQ III. I’ll use EQ III in native mixes which have never been anywhere near my Carbon and so I'm not maintaining plug-in choices which have been made in a Hybrid Engine environment. The reason I use EQ III is because it does the job, and I know it's so well. It's not that it does anything better. It's that if this does the job well enough, then it is sufficient and if I need something else I can use that instead, but honestly most of the time I don't. If I use Pro Q3, it's usually because I am doing something very surgical and Pro Q3 has some great facilities for that, including one of the best spectrum analysers out there, a feature EQ III lacks entirely. Something worth saying is that I use EQ III over the EQ in the Avid Channel Strip. The EQ in that for me, is both less usable and has fewer features, something of a head scratcher considering it's the more modern of the two.

Softube FET Compressor

While for utility gain control I'll happily use anything. I do like to use something with more of a character as well and while there are so many choices when it comes to compression, the one I think I couldn't do without if I had to choose a single one is Softube’s FET Compressor. Not the Mark II version which I've tried and is really good, but this version because like EQ III I know it's very, very well and it's AAX DSP. It sounds great. It offers some flexibility not available with more straight ahead 1176 emulations and in spite of its age it still measures up. I wouldn't like to restrict myself to a single compressor choice, but I think the combination of this and any DAW stock compressor would do everything I need. It offers really low compression ratios, a side chain filter, a mix control and I much prefer one click past 20:1 for parallel compression rather than the unhinged All Buttons In setting. It’s for more than crushing drums!

Valhalla Delay

I'm a huge fan of this plug-in. Yes you can do straight ahead delays with something like Mod Delay in Pro Tools, but it's always going to be a bit vanilla taking that route. With the Valhalla Delay, you've just got everything. Tape delays, bucket brigade delays, vintage digital and loads of other stuff as well. Combine that with all of the ‘in between’ delay-meets-reverb settings you can get when you start to introduce the diffusion control and you've got endless possibilities. If you want something dark and moody you can tuck in behind the sound, you've got it. If you want something that does space-filling ‘event effects’ you've got them. And most importantly of all in a delay plug-in there's no zipper noise when you move the delay control. There are other delay plug-ins out there, but I haven't seen another that does everything like this one does.

Acon Digital DePlosive:Dialogue

Pulling back from effects which draw attention to themselves like delay does, Acon Digital’s DePlosive:Dialogue plug-in solves a bugbear issue of mine at a stroke. This is a part of the suite of plugins which comes with Acon’s Acoustica editor and isn’t available as a standalone product. I do quite a bit of spoken word work and something I have a zero tolerance of is plosives and mic pops. I can mentally tune out noisy dialogue if I hear it in other peoples content. As a listener I can put up with reasonable levels of distortion or data compression artefacts but I simply can't bear mic pops. They're just so distracting.

The de-plosive plug-in I used to use is effective, but with any reasonable level of application it did thin the sound audibly so I used to select the pops individually and de-plosive them. On a bad pop, you could still hear the thinning, but it was an acceptable compromise. Acon's DePlosive:Dialogue is completely transparent to my ears. When I'm working on dialogue, as soon as I hear a single pop, I'll just process the entire track. I know the results will sound effectively the same as the unprocessed dialogue, but with the pops gone. What more could you ask for?

APL Virtuoso

The last entry on this list is the newest, and while it's too early to say whether or not this is the one which will stick around long-term, it is definitely the one which has solved an issue and opened up a new way of working to me. I don't have Atmos monitoring in my studio, but I'm very interested in the workflow and while a headphones-only workflow isn't recommended when producing Atmos content. If a lack of monitoring is all that's stopping you from experimenting with the techniques then this is the plug-in you need.

A really convincing binaural render which delivers height and front to back perspective in a convincing manner is very difficult to achieve and Virtuoso is the best one I've heard. Coming as it does at a time when Pro Tools has gained an integrated Atmos Renderer, all the pieces are in place for me to engage with Atmos workflows. It's really not a tempting proposition to have to redesign your studio and spend a significant amount of money on monitoring to find out whether or not mixing in Atmos is for you. This plug-in enables me to mix Atmos for my own consumption with just a pair of headphones. This is a fast moving area and I expect new products to arrive and the bar to be raised further and further over time. But at the moment Virtuoso is the best I've heard and it's enabling me to do work in my studio I couldn't previously do. In that sense it very much qualifies as a must have.

What are the plugins you couldn’t do without?