Soundtoys 5 bundle - is it worth it?

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ok, liking soundtoys 5 demo, but is there anything else that can do the same with same quality etc?, got a couple of days to decide now

any ideas welcome

thanks

Tony

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tonymax wrote:ok, liking soundtoys 5 demo, but is there anything else that can do the same with same quality etc?, got a couple of days to decide now

any ideas welcome

thanks

Tony
Which effect? There are a lot of great distortion effects, filter effects, and delays. I have The Drop and Exponential Audio Excalibur, so I have filters and delays. I also have a lot of distortion.

I like the bundle as well but I'm trying to decide if I really need it. It'll cost me $170 for the whole thing...

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It's KVR. EVERYTHING is always worth it.

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comfortablynick wrote:
tonymax wrote:ok, liking soundtoys 5 demo, but is there anything else that can do the same with same quality etc?, got a couple of days to decide now

any ideas welcome

thanks

Tony
Which effect? There are a lot of great distortion effects, filter effects, and delays. I have The Drop and Exponential Audio Excalibur, so I have filters and delays. I also have a lot of distortion.

I like the bundle as well but I'm trying to decide if I really need it. It'll cost me $170 for the whole thing...
- Please skip all the way to the bottom for a summary (see bold writing) if you don't want to read the blah blah;) -

Personally, I had all "the littles" and really liked Little Primal Tap and Little Microshift. I was looking forward to perhaps one day getting the full versions, so when this promo came up and I saw that I could upgrade to everything for $130, I tried the demos of the other effects (figured I would talk my way out of it since I already had most areas covered). The 1st one that I tried was Crystallizer and I was pretty much blown away by how unique and cool it is. Right up my alley. I didn't have any other plugins like it and was missing "this sound". Pretty much fell in love instantly. Had a ton of fun for about 5 minutes messing with it on different sources. Then I was like "what's this tweak button here? Let me click it". Dang!!! Some more tweaking, having fun.. I had a huge smile on my face. Now I was starting to hope that I would find at least 1 more plugin that I would really want to justify getting the bundle. Then I tried Decapitator... Ahhh... I love "subtle" distortion, heating up sources without making the sound crunchy/distorted/fuzzy. But Decapitator can do that too, don't get me wrong. I tried it on different sources and could always find a "style" that worked (using the 5 style buttons). I have to say I was really impressed. Again.... Dang!!! I knew that if I got it, it would be my Flagship saturator. Plus it has a Mix knob! And a Low cut/High cut (which when used alongside the Mix knob, enables you to only affect certain frequency ranges while still hearing the unaffected sound blended in), and a Tone Control... I was sold. Then I played with Microshift, quickly saw that I indeed wanted the additional features compared to the little version. Played with primal Tap, and yup, I would definitely have fun with it if I had it.. Then I decided that I really needed to stay objective, and that I should quickly put Filter Freak to shame (I have The Drop). It was relatively easy to do that, but, I did also have fun playing with it, especially in the "Rhythm mode". The different styles sound good. Definitely a good sounding filter, but, not The Drop... I also have Volcano2, Etch, Quadfrohmage.. all great sounding but "Non Droppy" (as in "Not The Drop") filters. I could definitely have lived without Filterfreak (even though I just used it in a song :wink: ). Then I tried Devil-Loc Deluxe and still thought "This doesn't make the type of sound that I like". I like punchy/pumpy drums but never really liked how the little version always squashes things to death, brings up the reverb.. yuck.. "Rough Rider" is about as crazy as I go in terms of smashing drums. I typically use Supercharger GT for fattening up my Drums. It does turn out that I did end up loving it on a snare drum so it will have it's uses but I probably won't like it on 90% of the stuff that I try it on. Echoboy, I heard rave reviews about, but I wasn't really fazed before trying it. I have FabFilter Timeless2, H-Delay, OhmBoyz, Replika, Echoes, EchoBode, Permut8, RP Delay, DDLY, the list goes on and on.. and it's almost embarassing except that I love and use them all (I know right? How is that possible?) You should see my list of compressors :dog:

So anyway, I digress. I launch Echoboy thinking it'll be nice but nothing that I don't already have. And that's kind of the case, but kind of not at the same time. First, I didn't know that it had 4 "modes", easily switchable in the GUI. I immediately started playing with the "Rhythm Echo" mode. The Groove and Feel knobs are really cool. The different "Styles" (Eg: Am Radio, Telephone, etc..) have different sound characters and there are a ton of them.There are even more parameters for the styles when clicking the "Style edit" button. It's got the yummy "Tweak" button with more parameters as well. It's a bit different in the filter department to set up than your typical Filtered delay but you can still make some great sounding filtered delays. It's just not as "intuitive" as something like Timeless 2 and it takes more experimentation for the filtered delay effect. It takes a different method to get there. 1) The Echo Style that you pick will greatly affect the sound of the filter. 2) The MID EQ has a Resonance knob and if you turn it up pretty high and also turn up the Decay knob for that EQ band high up, you can get great results. You can turn the Decay knobs in the EQ and in the Saturation to make the sound brighter and brighter or darker and darker, and more or less Saturated and all these parameters react differently based on the setting of the feedback knob. You have to start tweaking all these parameters that are playing with each other to find the sound you are looking for. It's a ton of fun messing with all the parameters. Only the MID EQ has a resonance knob and there is no Q. The plugin has many other different kinds of nice colorful flavors too. The available "Styles" are numerous and distinct sounding. Different Saturation types are available (Try "pump"). A great Wobble effect, with several modulation shapes to choose from and control over what part of the sound wobbles. Wet vs Dry, In feedback path or not. Echoboy is... getting used a lot these days :oops:

PhaseMistress is definitely cool. Lot's of modulation types (Rhythm mode with Groove knob is cool), but also competing with Melda MMultiBandPhaser, Fazortan... A nice to have but not essential. PanMan is nice but competes with Melda MMultiAutopan (which has even more crazy modulation options), but it's quicker to use PanMan and it has some nice options as well. Same goes for Tremolator and MMultibandTremolo but I have to admit, while the Melda one is more powerful, customizable, more tweakable, etc.. It's fun to play with the Groove, Feel, Accent, Smoothing knobs in Tremolator and get instant results. The Rhythm editor is fun to use.

Sorry for the long post but to summarize, for me (someone that has a gazillion great plugins and has been in this plugin game since 2001):

The absolute Soundtoys essentials for me have become Crystallizer, Decapitator, and Microshift.
"Super happy to have" would be PrimalTap full version and Echoboy.
Adds something unique to my sound and doesn't replicate anything else that I have: Radiator
Great quality ones that I could live without: FilterFreak, PanMan, Phasemistress, and Tremolator, but frankly now that I have used them I would be bummed out if I didn't have them anymore.. lol.. I am so greedy and spoiled..
Not a huge fan, more miss than hit: Devil-Loc Deluxe (but then again, when it does hit for me, it hits like nothing else. Still glad to have it in the toolbox for that special occasion.

Something that I will add is that the GUI's are very intuitive I find, and fun to use. There are some very cool and creative parameters, the "Tweak" menus are fun. All implemented "additional things to mess with" in some of the plugins sound great (Eg: Saturation, Analog Styles). I just seem to always have a lot of fun when I use these plugins and it seems that I keep gravitating towards them these days. I don't know if it's because I got them recently or what.. I guess time will tell, but I sure am using these a lot now and I sure am having a whole lot of fun using them.
Last edited by pheeleep on Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:03 am, edited 7 times in total.
Play it by ear

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tonymax wrote:ok, liking soundtoys 5 demo, but is there anything else that can do the same with same quality etc?, got a couple of days to decide now

any ideas welcome

thanks

Tony
You could probably find equivalents (or near enough, but would get expensive) if you tried, but if it's all there in one package for a good price then the bundle is worth consideration. Having the rack included is a big bonus too.

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masterhiggins wrote:It's KVR. EVERYTHING is always worth it.
Or the opposite depending on the weather.

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Damn it, I thought I was safe and now they've extended the sale. A man can only hold his GAS for so long...:hihi:

I tried the demo and I was surprised by the decapacitator and the saturation thingy. Though I can probably get that effect elsewhere its nice to have it all in one rack. The GUI is pretty pretty as well :D

Alright...hanging on for one more day or so..

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masterhiggins wrote:It's KVR. EVERYTHING is always worth it.
Precisely. We like shiny things.
A well-behaved signature.

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