Your gems

[thebutant]

As I am sitting with a project, once again stretching and harmonizing sound in Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch, I realized it would be fun and helpful to hear which tools people end up using again and again.

Of course it's easy to come up with the Calf suite, Ardour, Qtractor and so on. But I was thinking of the less obvious ones. The gems, the ones you have to discover. Preferably tools that does something unique (rather than a good reverb, for instance).

To give you an idea - here are the first gems that comes to my mind. As I'm making a lot of experimental sound, these are some of the tools I use over and over and truly love:

- Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch
- C* Scape (the Ladspa one)
- MDA DubDelay
- MDA Degrade

And I'd really like to discover more gems.
So which are yours?

[lucianodato]

Mines are:
- x42 Convolv.lv2 (simple realtime convolver)
- x42 Tuna.lv2 (tuner)
- EQ10Q LR2MS and MS2LR (M/S enconder and decoder)
- MDA Sub-Bass Synthesizer (Bass enhancer)
- Infamous Lush Life (all-around chorus delay doubler)

And probably some more that I'm forgetting at this time .

[ssj71]

Here's a few that are often overlooked, but really useful:

- TAP Tubewarmth
- Barry's Satan Maximizer
- EQ10Q CS10 (afaik its the only open compressor with feedback mode)

There's probably more but I find myself recommending those a lot and people usually don't know about them. Ladspa is a big lake with only a few fish worth catching.

[ufug]

I know you said Calf and Guitarix are obvious, but there are some *parts* of those collections that may be overlooked and are quite special and unique IMHO.

GxSVT.lv2 for bass--really fat, classic bass amp sim. Relatively new and not in the main Guitarix, so some may not be aware of it.

Calf Organ. I've never heard anyone mention the organ specifically. Lovely sound and versatile for classic organ sounds and pads.

The Guitarix Tube Screamer is great for adding saturation to almost anything. It's got a unique smoothness to my ear when you add just a dollop. I put the plugin version on a buss and send a little bit of the vocals to it to soften them up, sometimes other instruments as well.

The DISTRHO LUFS meter is very cool. I do wish ee had some other no-brainer volume tools like the Dynameter but this one is super simple an helpful to me.

If proprietary but native is allowed: Tracktion's "DAW Essentials" are basic, quality tools that sound good. I use them as a compliment to the Calf collection. If one isn't sounding right I switch to the other--you never know what will work.

[thebutant]

What a great load of tips!
Thanks.

And so many I didn't know about. For instance:

- EQ10Q LR2MS and MS2LR (M/S enconder and decoder)

and

- EQ10Q CS10 (afaik its the only open compressor with feedback mode)

I had no idea. Thanks!

Calf Organ. I've never heard anyone mention the organ specifically. Lovely sound and versatile for classic organ sounds and pads.

I agree! Calf Organ definitely deserves more recognition. For a project a while ago, I needed a mellow jazz organ with tremolo. After trying all kinds of rhodes samples, different organs, softsynths and so on, Calf Organ was where I found peace. Rich sounding, easy to tweak where you want it. Yea, there's no doubt it counts as a gem.

I also realized it's useful with instructions, so I'll explain where I think my gems shine the most:
- Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch and C* Scape are pretty self-explanatory.
- MDA DubDelay: I love the effect you get when putting LFO Depth on max, feedback on almost max (like 0,992) and LFO Rate on something like 0,266. Use this on 1 sound or 1 word, and you'll hear the result: An everlasting echo where each echo changes pitch and character, in the end you cannot recognize it. Unpredictable and great.
- MDA Degrade is really nice sounding when adjusting the Rate in such a way that some of the sound comes through and some is distorted. Not very far from a bitcrusher, but sounding a little different. A tool I really like to play around with.

For me this thread is really useful. And I'd love to discover even more.

[Luc]

I often get the impression that Rakarrack is underrated. I like it a lot.

I also love Freq Tweak, which is rarely ever mentioned here, if at all.

[mclstr]

Although I am a big supporter of Open Source, I will also support companies that produce products that are Open Source friendly.

Items that never get mentioned on this forum that I use extensively and why,

Bitwig - Some consider it expensive, but it has lots of features and built-ins that basically replace most plugins and external software and hardware that I was using before.
The big bad thing about Bitwig is it does not support Jack MIDI, Jack Audio yes and I think they are working on the Jack MIDI part.
The Jack MIDI ended up not being an issue for me in the end, once I got used to it.

Although I had used Ardour, Qtractor and LMMS in the past, I thought I would try the Bitwig demo and found it way more friendly and efficient than the others.
This is probably because of the way I work, but I found I was able to use it in the way I liked and not restricted to the way the developers wanted to work. I won't go into the details here, the developers of the other DAWs know my complaints.

I don't waste anywhere near as much time mousing around as I used to have to with other DAWs. It is flexible and works just as well for "clip" fans or "piano roll" fans or combinations of the two.

I can copy a section to another area of a track or to another track without having to worry about whether any edits to the copy are going to modify the original or other copies of the section elsewhere. This was always a BIG problem with Ardour and Qtractor. At least Qtractor allowed you to change a setting in the track to turn off this behavior, but you had to do it every time you made a copy, a HUGE waste of time since I copy and modify a lot.

Bitwig treats a copied section as a copy. What a breath of fresh air for me.

Bitwig has a good sampler, OK subtractive and FM synths, excellent dynamics(compressor, limiter, gate, de-ess, side chain, multiband), saturation, cabinet simulators, modulators, delays, reverb, EQs, time stretch, pich shift, arpeggiator, and audio and MIDI manipulation tools.
You can have an EQ, limiter/compressor and many other plugins on each individual track without a major CPU hit. And no need for external mastering tools. They are all built in.

It would be hard for me to go back.

U-He, most notably Bazille and Zebra2 are more powerful than any usable Open Source synth plugin. Zebra2 by combining various types of synthesis in one plugin. And Bazille by replacing any external modular hardware I used. It feels and sounds like a real modular synth.

DiscoDSP - DiscoveryPro, The owner has had health issues and has closed down the web site, but this plugin still lives on as a great subtractive(analog style) plugin. It replaced my Nord Lead which was my go-to instrument. It has features that make it more powerful than the Nord.

I still use other plugins, bet the U-He and DiscoveryPro plugins get by far the most use.

[Luc]

Bitwig - Some consider it expensive, but it has lots of features and built-ins that basically replace most plugins and external software and hardware that I was using before.

I think that is a major negative aspect of Bitwig.

What if you DON'T want the extra features, all of which can be easily replaced by similar or even better plugins, many of them free? No, you don't have that choice. At all. They don't want you to sidestep theirs in favor of others and they will do everything within their reach to prevent you from doing so. You're free not to use them, but you will have to pay for them, the whole package, whether you want it or not. You're not buying one product, you're buying many, whether you want all of them or not.

When they upgraded to version 2, there was a long laundry list of fixes being asked by users in their own forum or KVR. They ignored nearly all requests and added a bunch of modulators. Modulators! Who the hell needs more modulators??? There is plenty of them on the internets.

That's an insult to our intelligence. They're obviously adding features that nobody asked for to "increase the value" (for themselves, not us) of the product and postponing fixes, keeping the donkey marching faithfully after the dangling carrot of badly needed fixes until as late as they can. When the fixes finally come (hopefully still in this decade), they will have added so much junk to it that one can always claim that hey, it's expensive, but look at all those "features"... Like you just did.

Their MIDI mis-implementation is criminal. It works, but not until you turn off JACK MIDI so NOTHING ELSE in your machine can have MIDI anymore. If Microsoft did something like that, it would be war. I can list a dozen open source (as in the code is widely and prompty available) programs that handle MIDI in Linux just super duper fine. They don't do it right because they don't want to. They want to keep their users at edge of their seats so they keep buying upgrades ranther than be content with an old version that works.

[mclstr]

...What if you DON'T want the extra features, all of which can be easily replaced by similar or even better plugins, many of them free? ...

Many of the Bitwig plugins are superior to free and commercial plugins of used. The EQ, dynamics, delays, reverb are top notch. I don't use their synth plugins much, but have been happy overall. I still use some free plugins from time to time, but many of Bitwg's plugins are superior.

...You're not buying one product, you're buying many, whether you want all of them or not.

I bought Bitwig because I preferred the environment more than it's built in plugins.
It is probably because other DAWs didn't fit my style of composition and I wanted to work in Linux.

I did contact the Qtractor and Ardour developers about adding a setting to customize the work environment. They unanimously felt that I was an odd nut and said it wasn't going to happen.

Bitwig just worked the way I like by default.

... They ignored nearly all requests and added a bunch of modulators. Modulators! Who the hell needs more modulators???

I was one of many beta testing Bitwig Linux, as you probably were.
When I would find a minor bug, they would contact me to help them fix it and they would usually fix it before the next release. And these were bugs in the Linux version!

I was also reporting bugs to the Qtractor and Ardour teams. And it's understandable that they weren't going to be fixed soon.

Modulators, They don't require a lot of man-hours to produce. They are usually easy to add, they can be vary useful to some of us.
I use a lot of the features in Bitwig. They are not useless to me.
It's how i work, I guess. Being able to imagine a process and find that it is a built-in is nice.

The dynamics plugins are as good as they get and use very little cpu. I feel like I'm using my old (classic) traveling rack when I use their EQs, limiters and compressors.

Their MIDI mis-implementation is criminal...

Agreed.
But there are ways to work with it. First off by disabling Jack MIDI.
I was using other software and hardware with it before. It wasn't pretty as using Jack MIDI, but worked fairly well.
I have since stopped using other software and hardware with it since I found I didn't need that stuff anymore. I can always seem to find a plugin to replace external stuff.

In the end, I find less problems with Bitwig than the other Linux DAW options, but again, thats more because of the way I work. Most people would probably work just as well with other DAWs.

I amortized the cost of Bitwig over time and realize it is cost effective considering how much it has made my life easier.

But, again, I do not believe Bitwig is the ultimate, it just works for me.

[sysrqer]

When they upgraded to version 2, there was a long laundry list of fixes being asked by users in their own forum or KVR. They ignored nearly all requests and added a bunch of modulators. Modulators! Who the hell needs more modulators??? There is plenty of them on the internets.

I think this was promised as a feature quite a while ago but they took a long time to implement it. I would actually say it is one of the best things about the program, Renoise has led me to really miss it when a program doesn't have in depth modulation. Not really sure what you mean about plenty of them on the internet, Bitwig's implementation of them goes far deeper than modulation fx like chorus, flanger, if that is what you mean.

[mclstr]

... Bitwig's implementation of them goes far deeper than modulation fx like chorus, flanger, if that is what you mean.

Which reminds me, "polyphonic pitch bend"!!!!

One of the great features of Bitwig. I have to use their synths and sampler to utilize it, but it is a real boon to electronic music.

I used to have to create a separate track for each string when I wanted to synthesize string bends when simulating a string instrument. Now the whole instrument can be on one track.

[Luc]

mclstr, the big problem with all of your argumentation is that you're happy with the bundle. Well, I don't mind paying for what I want either.

You completely ignore my point: what if I don't want the whole bundle? What if I am not happy with their plugins? What if I don't need them? I don't have a choice, and you don't seem to care about that at all because you like them, and you happily conclude that everyone must like them, too.

I'm old school. If you buy, say, a refrigerator, and you find it malfunctions, then the vendor says "Nah, we'll not fix it, but we have an exciting new model coming out next month, and it will cost you not a dime more than you just paid for the current one." How would you feel?

Why-oh-why do we put up with that in software?

Serious providers should fix problems first, think about new features later.

Meh. This thread has been completely hijacked. I apologize.

[mclstr]

...the big problem with all of your argumentation is that you're happy with the bundle.

Of course you don't have to use any of the plugins. I mostly like the DAW aspect. The plugins are the icing on the cake.
But it's not for everyone.

I can see why people wouldn't want the plugins, but ignoring the plugins, Bitwig has the best user experience for me. And that is why most fans like it.

I'd even use it if I were tracking real acoustic instruments and only used minimal processing. It is pretty good as a traditional multitrack audio recorder/mixer.
I wouldn't buy it for that, but it's better than the tape machines and mixers(Studer/Neve/SSL) that I worked with for many years. So for me it is a good stepup and I don't ever want to go back.

Maybe most don't like the user interface. They should use the DAW that fits their style.

[rghvdberg]

Bitrot plugins.
Old but fun.
Hunt github for sources

[sysrqer]

The Overtone plugins (PTC-2A, EQ4000, AF210, DYN4000 in particular)
Steve Harris LADSPA (AM Pitchshifter is fun)
Zam plugins (autotube, dynamic eq is a godsend)
Modulay
Glitch2
Refine
Loomer Sequent
Tal Dub
White Elephant plugins
Skei plugins (blur, fracdelay, grains)
Bstep/Monique

Loads of others that deserve a mention but these are a combination of what I use most and the most interesting for me.