Which Plugin Company is Best? Tier List with, Waves Audio, Slate Digital, iZotope, Plugin Alliance

Presented here is a Tier List of several plugin companies that the up and coming engineer and music producer may be interested in. Each of these companies has their strengths and weaknesses.

Plugin companies are compared with regards to the following criteria: audio quality, price, compatibility, copy protection, and overall usefulness.

The plugin companies compared include: FabFilter, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Slate Digital, Sound Toys, Universal Audio, Waves Audio, & McDSP.

Websites for the discussed companies:

Waves Audio

Universal Audio

Slate Digital

Sound Toys

McDSP

FabFilter

Plugin Alliance

iZotope

These companies carry plugins that consist of EQ, Compression, Reverb, tape emulation, analog emulation, delays, digital limiters, SSL emulation, Neve emulation, console emulation, pitch shifting, pitch correction, audio restoration, audio mastering, and many others.

Written, produced, and presented by Lorne Bregitzer, a professor at the University of Colorado Denver.

All opinions are those of Lorne Bregitzer and do not represent those of his employer.
#musicproducer

[alexanderita]

Spot On! Learnt using waves, big respect for them...but I hate waiting 45 minutes just to load their plugins. Plugin Alliance and Slate get it all done, and respect my time lol. Thanks, worth it!

[AkilisMusic]

I use Plugin alliance, Slate and Wave the most. Own a good amount of UAD plugins but man im tired of having to carry a damn hardware with me in order to use them so i've been moving away from them over time.

[meldmagic]

🤠 I haven't done much comparisons but my goto are: MeldaProduction for creative FX. You get updates for life, resizable gui & multiband processing. For mixing/mastering I use iZotope as I was intrigued by AI features & waveform analysis. Gullfoss is great for reducing muddiness. Reverbs I use Liquidsonics for orchestral stuff, smart:reverb for pop, MeldaProduction for rock.

[Dramatello]

Imagine a world where every YouTube tutorial was this focused, accurate and straight to the point? What a cool world would that be.
Thank you!

[perrykeshahwalker]

I use some waves plugins but I love izotope. Nectar and neutron allows me to start mixes really fast and get 90% of the work done for me. Ozone 9 advanced is the absolute bomb. But as with everything, it's what works for you.

[Todzuum]

S-Mcdsp/fab filter/waves/izotope

A-plugin alliance/ soundtoys/ slate

B-UAD/psp

This is purely based off how I like them I didn’t include pricing or Ilok just purely how I feel while using, don’t have any uad yet so that’s in B just because I at least know their decent.

[BreauxBobby]

Good analysis and I had lots of fun with your humor. I left Waves around 2016 because of their crazy pricing, and their too big to move forward attitude. I had exactly the same experience with them as you’ve detailed here. And I agree with your picks. I now use Slate, Fabfilter and Soundtoys mostly. Slate’s virtual tape machine is incredible, and the virtual bus compressors too. The neve EQ is awesome. I could go on and on about Slate. I use VBC and VTM on every song. They cover so much ground. With the VMR, You can quickly throw a preset on a track to match your vision, then tweak a few knobs to dial it in. It’s a quick process and the sound quality is exceptional. I sold all of my outboard gear and now track with plugins sent to the takes. I’m using the Black Lion Rev 2x2 and my recordings sound so much better than they used to. Fabrice G has given us the golden years of plugins.

[jeremias]

I feel like fabfilter is the s+ tier, yes initially it costs much but there is never a regret. They are rock solid, with great support and well tested updates. Pay once and get updates for free. Installer that can install all of them at once and amazingly free licensing system.

[Eric-gieo]

Just wanna offer some positivity based on your comments in the video. I appreciate your time. Blessings to you and yours ✌️

[bingbong]

Saved me time in deciding my subscriptions, looking forward to your extended list and any further insights; subscribed.

[hr]

Toneboosters have great plugs and are very underrated.

[pangloss]

Softube and Eventide...they definitely need to be added to this list.

[thepatzer]

Missed some great indie vendors like Valhalla for reverbs, Klanghelm for compressors and saturation, and others like Togu Audio Line, Cherry Audio, Tokyo Dawn, Cableguys, CraveDSP, and u-he.

[mikesmith]

I love my UAD plugins, they’re the best, like ever!!
In all seriousness, I love the unison amp sims. I don’t have to deal with latency no matter what’s going on with the daw or computer. The only UAD mixing plugins I have are what came with the Heritage edition. They’re too expensive when there’s so much more affordable options that sound great.

[AironExTv]

The copy protection schemes are a risk to the user. In that regard, of the companies mentioned in the video, iLok-based protection lands at the very bottom of the pile, as the user is burdened with the greatest risk. At the other end is Fabfilter where you copy/paste a text key that is easy to backup.Plugin Alliance lands in the middle, as three authorizations is better than just one which is what iLok users usually get. Waves gives you one additional activation per year, which to me rates higher than PA. Izotope has two methods. Their Exponential Audio plugins are iLok-only. All other are disk-based(including usb drives) or iLok and they‘re pretty lenient on the number of authorizations, so far.

I have several iLok-burdened products. Stratus, Sound Toys, Protools, McDsp, Eventide. But since the keys can break, and Pace has had nuclear-level f*ckups in the past, I try to avoid them as a less predictable risk factor now. I tend to rely on Fabfilter, Valhalla, Klanghelm, Harrison, Voxengo and free options such as Analog Obsession(support his Patreon). As a 20 year dialogue mixer, I don‘t like having risk factors like copy protection schemes hang over my head. All that stuff has been cracked anyway, so I no longer see the point in taking that risk as a paying customer.

[gTbeats_]

Interesting, I'd love to see an update of this video considering UAD now offers Spark, and Plugin Alliance have new convenient subscription options.

[rogelioespinosa]

Fabfilter is S for the fact that you can add saturation in order to try to replicate something from Slate or pa.

[DVTOM]

Waves is simple to install. I like their GUI's, and their prices are affordable now. I like Waves, Plugin Alliance and T-Racks.

[exootikkmusic]

To everyone who may read this I hope y'all make it, let's keep grinding 🙏🏽

[zerberk]

why does this channel not have more views/subs? Man the UAD joke, the reaper/studio one user joke, the steve slate joke, I GENUINELY LAUGHED MY ASS OFFF HAHAHAHHAA YOU'RE GOLDEN!!!