what are the top 5 plugins i should get?

[myxedgyrl]

hello.

so i'm working with my home set up, which is mbox 2 with pro tools 7.3
(i should probably upgrade)

I have the Bomb Factory plug ins that came with the box.

I want to get all my songs up to broadcast quality.

So what are the suggestions on the top 5 plug-ins I should get?

thanx.

 

[mattr]

For a lot of the time, the answer (like many things in life!) lies not in what you have, but how you use them

Yes, some plugins are nice and can make a contibution to achieving a particular effect (e.g. UAD emulations of vintage hardware), but if you can't achieve even a passable level of quality with bundled plugins then no amount of other plugins are going to help you. On top of that, the expensive plugins aren't a magic wand that make your mixes sound professional - you still have to work with them and set them up properly. And expensive compression plugin is still a compressor, and you have to use it such in a way that benefits the mix otherwise there's no point having it.

In fact you can make mixes worse by worrying more about plugins than how you're using them, especially if you don't fully understand them or aren't competent in using them. In the age of the DAW its all too easy to put another compressor into a mix without even thinking about what you are trying to achieve by doing so.

And it is possible to get professional results with basic plugins - I read something in Soundonsound magazine about the engineer for one of the recent Lilly Allen songs using only the bundled plugins in Logic. I don't claim to get professional results, but I find myself using the Sonar compressors and EQ quite a lot, only resorting to 'nicer' plugins for tracks that need that little extra.


Hope that answers you're question in the most indirect way possible

 

[myxedgyrl]

yeah i understand,
i had an old version of sonar and actually loved the eq sound i would get out of that, and it wasn't some deluxe expensive version.

 

[Massive Master]

I want to get all my songs up to broadcast quality.

Plugins have absolutely, positively nothing to do with "broadcast quality."

 

[R!ck]

For a lot of the time, the answer (like many things in life!) lies not in what you have, but how you use them

Yes, some plugins are nice and can make a contibution to achieving a particular effect (e.g. UAD emulations of vintage hardware), but if you can't achieve even a passable level of quality with bundled plugins then no amount of other plugins are going to help you. On top of that, the expensive plugins aren't a magic wand that make your mixes sound professional - you still have to work with them and set them up properly. And expensive compression plugin is still a compressor, and you have to use it such in a way that benefits the mix otherwise there's no point having it.

In fact you can make mixes worse by worrying more about plugins than how you're using them, especially if you don't fully understand them or aren't competent in using them. In the age of the DAW its all too easy to put another compressor into a mix without even thinking about what you are trying to achieve by doing so.

Well said man.

Everyone's guilty of taking a stab in the dark occasionally with plug-ins and processors, but its crucial to keep in my the saying "if it's not broken, don't fix it".