Freesound Forums

What's your poison?

IZOTOPE • RX 9
https://www.izotope.com

Hands down the best tool for editing / processing recordings before mixing in a DAW environment. RX 9 Elements and Standard have plenty of tools. Recently got RX Advanced but, to be honest, it's expensive and there's not too much difference (apart from some extra tools) when compared to Standard.

BOOM LIBRARY • ReCenter
https://www.boomlibrary.com/sound-effects/recenter/

Handy tool for balancing / repairing off-centre stereo recordings. Simple to use and gets results quickly, really useful tool.

SONIBLE • Smart:Comp
https://www.sonible.com/smartcomp/

I love this compressor, it's not like anything else. Works like a standard compressor but has a sweet feature called spectral-dynamic compression. Once you wrap your head around what it's doing (think of it as a multiband compressor with thousands of bands) it works amazing!

SONIBLE • Smart:Limit
https://www.sonible.com/smartlimit/

Fab-Filter ProL has always been the limiter to used, however Sonible's smart:limit (to my ears) does something a little better. It might be the best software limiter at the moment, espshially with the built in metering and loudness standard profiles. Super easy to work with.

PLUGIN ALLIANCE • Black Box Analog Design HG-2
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/black_box_analog_design_hg-2.html

Really like this Tube distortion plugin. Many different flavours to it.

FABFILTER • Pro_Q3
https://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-q-3-equalizer-plug-in

If not, but one of, the best EQs out there, for sure.

iZotope RX 9 - This is an essential program for me and it also changed the way I think about audio engineering. I mostly work on mono and stereo audio files in the audio restoration and sound design fields. I have Pro Tools and Live also, but I use RX for 99% of the work I do currently.

Zynaptiq UNFILTER & UNCHIRP & INTENSITY - Very useful plugins for audio restoration use.

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE & MORPH 2 - These are both awesome for sound design use.

oeksound Soothe2 - This is a new plugin to me and so far it's been nice for audio restoration use as well as general purpose smoothing. Their other plugin called spiff also looks useful, but I haven't tried it out yet.

Novation’s V-Station plugin and their BassStation plugin (of course, also OTT for hard bassdrums)

Fabfilter Pro-Q3 - The best EQ filter I ever had, and I like the multi monitoring features to check the muddiness.
Fabfilter Pro-MB - An EQ Filter at the same time a compressor. Best for sidechaining bass and drum/low percussion.

Valhalla Room - A low CPU usage reverb for my bus. Mostly for Orchestra purposes.
Guitar Rig 6 (Studio Reverb) - Optimal for studio style reverb.
Rev Intensity - For synth style reverb.

OTT - I helps opening up the sound and it adds more balance. Mostly for synth style.
Fabfilter Pro-C - A good compressor for any instruments I had.

Recenter - It helps to get a stereo feeling mono from stereo recording.

Guitar Rig (general) - for guitar filter.

Migfus20 wrote:

Valhalla Room - A low CPU usage reverb for my bus. Mostly for Orchestra purposes.
Guitar Rig 6 (Studio Reverb) - Optimal for studio style reverb.
Rev Intensity - For synth style reverb.

Love the Valhalla reverbs, Shimmer, Room, VintageVerb - all great plugins. A good reverb for sound design, Smart:Verb. It has some pretty unique features that let you warp the sound in interesting ways.

Eventide Audio BlackHole is another good reverb to add to the list too, along with EW Spaces 2 (great for orchestral stuff).