So I was at pluginboutique splurging on the $1 Vacuum Pro (sweet synth btw), when I stumbled upon the Soundspot plugins, many of which are about $1 each right now.
I took the budget for one fast food meal and grabbed a few plugins. Then to try these plugins out I went to work on mastering a practice mix that needs real effort.
Plugins I enjoyed:
Voxbox
This is a doubler. Not particularly fancy but to the point and enjoyable. Click a couple of things and you have a nice thick sound tailored to taste. I see myself using this all the time.
Velo
Solid limiter when not pushed. I really enjoyed using this thing. I like the simplified interface: 4 comp styles, 3 (transient) punch styles, a slider for the release character, and otherwise just crank until it’s loud but not broken. If you don’t drive it too hard it sounds fine and every style has its own character so click around until you find the right one for the mix – or for a track, no reason you couldn’t use this to drive up say a drum track or guitar. The real-time display is mighty useful as well. Probably not the tool for a track that needs much more than a few db gain, it wasn’t the most flattering sound when cranked hard (but it is not a hardware unit either so I don’t expected it to hold to abuse like a legendary limiter).
Halcyon
This is a focused saturator / drive. I’m not sure I particularly love the character of the saturation itself, but the ability to do laser-target eq is great. My test mix was dying for some air, so I used Halcyon to drive the range of 2k through 16k at around 15%, and you get presto glimmer on an otherwise depressive track. It also has a built in LFO and other controls, so overall you can help a track by adding targeted boost/drive with LFO movement in just a few clicks. It also does negative drive, so drive-based reduction - which is pretty weird to me and opens up interesting possibilities. Very useful in small dosage.
Nebula
An effects package including delay, chorus, flanger and an eq filter. The unique part is that there is an LFO control to make the effects further come to live. I didn’t get to test this thoroughly and quite frankly don’t understand the LFO controls yet, but the effects are fine and straightforward with nice graphs to help guide the choices.
Check these guys out. If your toolbox is missing any of the effects I listed here, I would recommend any of them for $1 each right now. I don't think any of them are the best at what they do, but they all have a nice interface, a generally minimalist approach that helps move faster, and the sound is good if you keep in them in the sweet spot.
Small Soundspot plugin collection for under $10
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- KVRian
- 1233 posts since 8 May, 2018 from Sweden
Yeah I also bought a bunch of Soundspot plugins during the sale. I pretty much agree with your assessment. They're not the best at what they do, but they're quick and simple to use and sometimes offer some clever twist on a concept (nothing ground breaking you couldn't achieve yourself with an FX chain, but neat to have in a single plugin).
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1030 posts since 26 Feb, 2018
BTW, I have to add some negatives.
I did not get on with Focus. For my test I tried moving around the settings but I couldn't find a spot in which it added focus and clarity to what I wanted (the lead vocals of a printed mix) without hurting something else around the edges of the target spectrum. I've heard that it can work in electronic music, which makes sense ‘cause it might introduce some natural-sounding roughness to a mix that is too pristine. So I think it might be a genre style. It definitely does something, but it doesn't sit right on "just anything", instead it may be one of those tools that works for some things. After my limited test, I might grab for Focus if I have a track (not a mix) that could use a shift in focus and clarity. I think if you need this in your master, you've made a few mistakes around the mix worth going back to fix instead of trying Focus at the end.
I also wanted to add that Velo fell apart pretty quickly when pushed to compress more than 5db. I don't expect most inexpensive compressors to hold their own in a tough spot. In fact, free Kotelnikov that is a beautiful compressor doesn't even go to 8:1 ratio, and we still love it plenty. But Velo could not handle its weight at 10db+ compression. So a limiter that has a narrow sweet spot at around 3db is not the most useful tool in the box. The concept is very good, and if you have good gain management and compression before the master than this thing can take you the last mile to increase loudness into a brickwall and tweak the character of the mix. But it won’t have your back if you are in a tough situation. Again, your results may vary for instance if you are making electronic music, because a compressor that introduces artifacts at 5db+ may rough up a mix that actually needs some roughness. But it’s not elegant roughness like an LA2A, in case anything I’ve said so far gave you that impression
I did not get on with Focus. For my test I tried moving around the settings but I couldn't find a spot in which it added focus and clarity to what I wanted (the lead vocals of a printed mix) without hurting something else around the edges of the target spectrum. I've heard that it can work in electronic music, which makes sense ‘cause it might introduce some natural-sounding roughness to a mix that is too pristine. So I think it might be a genre style. It definitely does something, but it doesn't sit right on "just anything", instead it may be one of those tools that works for some things. After my limited test, I might grab for Focus if I have a track (not a mix) that could use a shift in focus and clarity. I think if you need this in your master, you've made a few mistakes around the mix worth going back to fix instead of trying Focus at the end.
I also wanted to add that Velo fell apart pretty quickly when pushed to compress more than 5db. I don't expect most inexpensive compressors to hold their own in a tough spot. In fact, free Kotelnikov that is a beautiful compressor doesn't even go to 8:1 ratio, and we still love it plenty. But Velo could not handle its weight at 10db+ compression. So a limiter that has a narrow sweet spot at around 3db is not the most useful tool in the box. The concept is very good, and if you have good gain management and compression before the master than this thing can take you the last mile to increase loudness into a brickwall and tweak the character of the mix. But it won’t have your back if you are in a tough situation. Again, your results may vary for instance if you are making electronic music, because a compressor that introduces artifacts at 5db+ may rough up a mix that actually needs some roughness. But it’s not elegant roughness like an LA2A, in case anything I’ve said so far gave you that impression
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- KVRAF
- 4710 posts since 26 Nov, 2015 from Way Downunder
Voxbox and Focus are the ones I find useful. Nothing reovlutionary, just some tried and tested psychoacoustic techniques for width/space - nothing you can't do in your DAW with stock plugins, but these get you there really fast and have clean interfaces to do so.
Despite SoundSpot having a rep for being crap quality, their plugins do have double internal precision.
I don't write off their plugins automatically. Well, the ones that don't saturate (alias) anyway. But definitely don't pay full price, half price or even quarter price
Despite SoundSpot having a rep for being crap quality, their plugins do have double internal precision.
I don't write off their plugins automatically. Well, the ones that don't saturate (alias) anyway. But definitely don't pay full price, half price or even quarter price
