Black Friday Sales and Deals: 5 Strategies for Buying Plugins.
It's been a little-known secrete that black Friday deals on plugins tend to be the lowest prices of the year. But this year, everybody seems to be on the early bandwagon. Throughout forums dealing with audio and music technology, people ask which plugins they should get this year. This article is going to help you decide what you should focus on when you are choosing plugins. The answer to the question "which plugins should I get" is often very dependent on the type of production you do. *Disclaimer*: This is an unsolicited blog post. None of the companies I mention pay for endorsements. If I mention a company, it's because I have personally used their plugins.
My plugins list is long. Before you ask the question, yes, they are all legal, and I have paid for most of them unless they were free. But I also search for the best deals whenever I can, and over the years, I have collected thousands of plugins. I often buy them on Black Friday, or with my teacher discount. I rarely purchase plugins if they are full-price.
What are plugins?
Plug ns are digital signal processors (DSP). People sometimes get put off by what "digital signal" is, thinking it's some sort of code or fancy algorithm. In Music Technology or Audio, a digital signal is just your music. It's that simple. So DSP is how you process your signal (or effect it) to make it sound different. Different can either be sounding better or changing it to sound like something else. Plugins help you achieve this. Your digital audio workstation (DAW) should have a section dedicated to injecting plugins into your mix. This might be called different terms depending on the DAW company.
Plugin wrappers
Plugins might come in different formats or wrappers, such as VST, VST3, AU, AAX, RTAS, TDM. Sparsh Gupta does an excellent job explaining the different wrappers here.
The biggest thing to understand about wrappers is what format your DAW needs the plugin to be. For example, Apple's Logic primarily uses AU (Audio Units). So if you download a plugin in VST format, Logic won't recognize it. Most plugin companies give you an option to what format you would like to download the plugin, or you have the opportunity to download all the formats of a particular plugin. This is usually the way I go because I use multiple DAWs. Some people just download VSTs or AUs to save hard drive space.
Types of plugins.
Let's separate plugins into 3 categories: Synthesizers, Traditional DSP (EQ, Compression, Reverb/Delay), and those plugins that do all that for you in one package.
DSP Plugins.
Let's ask ourselves this question: Do we need to get granular and make our effects chains by scratch, or can we use a plugin that does it all for us? Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, but the deciding factor is your experience level and user comfortability.
If you want to build your own effects chains, you might want to invest in high-quality DSP plugins like EQs, Compression, Gates, expanders, and Reverb/Delay. This will give you the most control over your signal processing. These individual effects are either emulators of original analog equipment, such as the API and SSL plugins, or specifically designed software plugins with no hardware counterpart.
Pros: Companies have spent years and a lot of money refining their algorithms to replicate the sound and quirks of their legacy hardware, to the point where the differences are almost unnoticeable.
Cons: Individual effects are not worth the money on their own unless you are looking for a particular piece of hardware emulation, such as an LA2A compressor or API 2500. It would be more cost-effective to find a bundle of plugins with the one you want and purchase that than to go ala carte.
Usability: These plugins usually have a much larger learning curve than all-in-one types of plugins. Using them to their maximum capabilities helps to understand how an EQ alters the frequency of a signal and how a compressor shapes the amplitude of a wave. The plugins often come with presets, but these are really just starting points. I might reach for a preset on a vocal compressor to get a basic compression on a track for a rough mix. Still, my end result settings are often times completely different than what the preset might be.
All in one plugin: (Boutique Plugins)
Boutique plugins are often those that have limited adjustments on the user interface. These types of plugins might, for example, have one, two, or three knobs only and alter the sound of a track dramatically depending on the setting. They reduce the need for multiple plugins to achieve one effect. In the early days of non-linear editing, computer DSP power was at a premium. Computer processor speeds were slow, and available RAM usage had to be carefully managed. If you have 1GB of ram in your entire computer, your DAW used 250MB to run. Each plugin you put in requires 50MB or more to run. You can see that putting an EQ on each track might cause your computer to crash on a 24 track project. As computer speeds nowadays are breakneck and RAM isn't much of a problem anymore,
One Knob Pumper Plugin
by Waves
All in one plugin often combine several individual DSP plugins into one plugin to streamline an effect. For example, the Waves' One Knob Pumper plugin creates that classic ducking effect heard on EDM tracks. Usually, this would require you to buss a copy of the kick track into the sidechain input of a compressor. If you need to EQ the kick copy going into the side chain, then the full effect would take 1-4 plugins to create vs. the One Knob which has all that routing and effect chain in one plugin.
All in one plugin have created an unusual second market where famous artists will bundle their effects chains into a plugin and sell it. Alternately, suppose an artist or producer creates a preset using a boutique plugin. In that case, they will also sell the presets that they used on a hit song release.
Pros: These all-in-one plugins are convenient. They reduce the DSP load and RAM requirement on your computer but also provide streamlined effect chains. You can often get an excellent sound out of a small package without the hassle of multiple buss routes and effects chains.
Cons: You often don't know what's going on under the hood of these plugins. How are they EQing your track? What type of compression are they adding? Is the plugin inducing latency, which might produce some phase problems? These plugins often don't have a lot of customization. You are stuck within a certain amount of adjustment rather than creating it on your own.
Usability: These plugins are often designed to reduce the learning curve to keep the creativity flowing. There are usually minimal knobs and adjustments which can make a significant impact on the sound.
Synthesizers.
The Prophet 5 Synthesizer
by Sequential Circuits
Synthesizer plugins are similar to DSP plugins with both hardware emulators and stand-alone softsynths (software synthesizers). These types of plugins are less complicated because consumers typically purchase them for their specific sound capability. I love synthesizer plugins because they allow me to have multiple classic sounds at my fingertips instead of owning all the hardware. However, what you gain in convenience, you lose in some of the translation of the hardware characteristics. For example, The Prophet V, a classic synthesizer from the '80s, has been featured in classic songs such as The Fixx's One Thing Leads to Another. However, the difference between the actual hardware synth and the plugin is stark because the Prophet 5's analog 2040 filters shape the sound in a way that digital sampling can't match. Most of this difference is how a plugin deals with the Least Significant Bit (LSB), where analog hardware is continually variable.
The Prophet 5 Simulator Synthesizer Plugin
By Arturia
Synthesizers also encompass virtual keyboards, guitars, drums, and other instrument emulators. I can't say much more than collecting as many as possible, especially if you are a pop music producer. Start with a preset and shape your own sounds. Nobody wants to hear a preset; it's been done. Develop your own twist to classic sounds, even if it's a slight tweak.
A Note about Price
I am often asked how much somebody should pay for a plugin or if the free ones are okay in professional productions. The answer is yes. It's not always the case that the most expensive plugin is the best, or the free one is garbage. I love using Dionysos by Serrano, which was free off on Pluginboutique.com. I also love using Serum by Xfer, which is a wavetable synth that costs around $200. I also use a suite of Waves plugins that I got as a bundled deal on black Friday. There are often trial periods which are great because you can use them in your own tracks to hear how they sound. When you try them, use them on a finished mix, on a channel that has a similar effect. This way, you can have an effective comparison versus just blindly playing with them.
Strategies for buying plugins
This is the time of year to stock up on your plugin list; there are some clever ways to see if you are getting the best deal on the plugin you want.
Go for bundles whenever you can.
If you have a plugin you have set your sights on, and it's included in a bundle, that might be the best price. Even if the plugin bundle is the cost of the regularly priced plugin, you are getting a variety of other plugins for free or getting everything else at a reduced price.
Shop the manufacturers directly.
This might be the best bet for a direct download and a great price. Manufacturers don't have to pay a retail cost and can often pass those savings to the customer.
Shop plugin-specific websites.
Ok, I know I just said the best way to get plugins is directly from the manufacture. But frequently, retail sites might bundle the plugin you want with other plugins for a reduced cost. For example, they might bundle a compressor you have been looking at with an EQ and a tape emulator and call it "the vocal chain" bundle.
Research your favorite tracks.
New pop tracks have lots of great new plugins and effects, along with interviews with the producers about how they processed their instruments. This can give you an idea about what effects you might want to use for an instrument you are working on. This will also give you a good starting point about what plugins might be popular with professional producers and if the company has released any presets by them.
Don't buy preset packages.
Preset packages are not the plugin themselves. They are settings that people put together that you could have easily researched on YouTube or done yourselves. Plus, from an education standpoint, presents don't teach you anything. The beauty of audio and music technology is trying to recreate what we here, but discovering something new in the process. As Bob Ross would say, they are happy little accidents!
Plugin redundancy is a real thing. With so many plugins in the world, in so many formats, that the differences between several plugins are negligible. I have my favorite EQs and other DSP plugins, and I often neglect the rest as they offer no real advantage. However, I have a lot of boutique plugins that help streamline my workflow and keep me in a creative headspace without having to put together multiple signal chains. Some of them end up in my final mix, some don't. But the most important thing is that you can quickly access the plugins you want, and you can use plugins to keep your creative flow.
When considering your purchases this holiday season, consider your needs and your workflow. Do you tend to do more audio engineering or EDM/Pop production? Should you focus on more DSP plugins or more boutique all-in-one plugins? Stay away from preset bundles and concentrate more on plugin bundles. These tend to have the most value for your money. As always, keep a spreadsheet of all your plugins. It will help you know where you bought them to re-download them in the vent you upgrade your computer.
