Lets talk recording with UAD Plug-ins

Chewie5150

Fractal Fanatic
I'm going to be purchasing the Apollo X6 later this week and getting the promo with a suite of plug-ins. I'm goin to be seriously upping my game in home recording. Up til now i've just done basic mixes and honestly havent used plug-ins in general much at all. I decided its time to take it a bit more serious and dive in. I've been reading a lot and watching lots of youtube vids on the various plug-ins.

Please chime in with your fav plug-ins and settings for guitars, bass, drums and even keys

one thing i'm curious about is whether users tend to set up a bus vs running multiple instances of the same plug-in. I know the reasons for saving on dsp but if that's not so much a factor, what do you find works well. For example, a compressor bus for say drums etc

TIA
 
My favorites are:

bx digital V3 eq collection: Super-precise great-sounding eq with great features. Lets you solo narrow bands when the center frequency is being changed. Easy to pinpoint desired frequencies.

AKG BX 20 Spring Reverb: Totally unique spring reverb sound with no chirp or flutter. Very cool. Nothing else like it.

Neve 88RS Channel Strip: Great sounding preamp with eq, comp, gate.

Elysia Alpha Compressor: Best compressor plugin I've ever used. Extreme squash (if desired) with no pumping. Very transparent and super flexible. If I could only use one compressor, this would be it, hands down. It can handle any signal or situation. Hardware unit is over $10,000.

UA 610 Preamp: Great vintage preamp sound. Prefer the B version. Sounds great when pushed.

Ampex ATR-102: Fantastic on the master bus for final render. Superb tape emulation for the entire mix or isolated tracks.

Lexicon L24: Classic quality digital reverb. Familiar historic algorithms.

DreamVerb or RealVerb: Awesome reverbs with great flexibility.

Studer A-800: I use it on every track. Fatens up any source. Adds transient limiting that sounds great, especially on drums. With drums, you can lop off peaks before a parallel compressor (such as the Elisia), or even get away with no compression at all. Drums still sound dynamic, but the attack is transformed into something amazing while peaks are brought way down. Essential plugin for me.

EP-34: The most accurate Echoplex simulation you will find, anywhere. Accurately simulates sliding the record head while playing. No other product that I know of can do this.

I don't worry about multiple instances, as I have two Octos. I only use a bus when I want to process a bussed mix.
 
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I have the Neve Pre, LA2A, 1176 and EMT 140 all of which I've picked up on sale. The Studer and Lexicon emulations are amazing too. I stuck to the bread and butter stuff and I use a few other plugins (Valhalla, Soundtoys, Izotope RX, TDR Nova) to get what I need.
 
The Distressor for me was life changing
I ended up buying a real Distress or I liked the emulation so much. The real one is better, and adds the Brit mode which is a little much for most situations, but perfect for those times you need more more.
 
I get a free plug-in on top of my purchase deal via a referral on the UAD forum. which would you choose from this list :

1176 Classic Limiter Collection
Brigade Chorus Pedal
Cambridge EQ
Century Tube Channel Strip
Cooper® Time Cube Mk II Delay
DreamVerb Room Modeler
EP-34 Tape Echo
Fairchild Tube Limiter Collection
Precision Buss Compressor
Precision De-Esser
Precision Enhancer kHz
Precision EQ
Precision Limiter
Precision Maximizer
Precision Multiband
Pultec Passive EQ Collection
Pure Plate Reverb
Studio D Chorus
Teletronix® LA-2A Classic Leveler Collection
Teletronix® LA-3A Classic Audio Leveler
 
The tape machines are awesome. They really do add some nice character to anything being recorded. I concur, the UA-610B is a really nice sounding pre. Also been liking the V76 pre for vocals. The classics like 1176 and LA2A are essential. For drum and vocal EQ the Pultec EQP-1A is great. I’ve been curious about the Ocean Way Studios plugin for adding some room vibes to drum tracks. Anyone here using that one?
 
I’ve been curious about the Ocean Way Studios plugin for adding some room vibes to drum tracks. Anyone here using that one?
DreamVerb Room Modeler
EP-34 if you want an Echoplex sim


You can demo all plugins to see which you like.

That Ocean Way Studios looks like a great Reverb solution to have on hand. I believe once i buy my apollo i will have period of time where plug-ins are 50% off so may get the Ocean plugin then. For my free plugin that echoplex would be great. Not a bad way to go
 
That Ocean Way Studios looks like a great Reverb solution to have on hand. I believe once i buy my apollo i will have period of time where plug-ins are 50% off so may get the Ocean plugin then. For my free plugin that echoplex would be great. Not a bad way to go
Give it a try. I tried the demo. It sounds fantastic, but was limited since it uses impulse responses of those rooms. It wasn't flexible enough for me.
 
I pulled the trigger today. Set things up and just having fun applying inserts to my music library. I can see this is gonna be addicting once i really dive in. Don't laugh too hard at the aphex 204. I havent touched it in years
 

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