The Best 20 Plugins of ALL TIME (ranked)

[timball]

Some good plug ins here. Would have been nice to have heard some other genres particularly since the vocals aren’t particularly dynamic and the drums are programmed. Let’s face it, if they’re programmed then they’re already consistent transients that can be balanced by simply EQing, saturating and getting levels on the individual tracks.

[jon]

Voxengo Elephant totally deserved the shoutout! they got so many other great plugins too

[dannyonionz]

Do you prefer Oxford Limiters upward processor to Inflator? If so, why?

[simmermusic]

Everyone will always disagree with 'best of lists' of any kind because everyone has their own workflow (mine is mainly UAD) but I still appreciate the effort!

[EV-ER]

Old list so I reckon spec craft would be on an updated one 😉 I don't have others on this list but I agree on Imager and Arturias '76 (tried several 1176 clones including UA). Also have Kirchoff EQ although for some reason I still reach to Toneboosters EQ4 more often.

What gets imager a special mention from me is that it doesn't mess phase even though its multiband, has still a relatively low latency (like all izotopes multiband plugins which have the best crossovers i've seen so far) and you could combine it with other effects to make them multiband (without phase skew) and add the widening control too to specific bands.

Super useful plugin. Too bad you cannot buy it separately, but I think Ozone is a useful bundle as total and you can find some pretty good deals on it.

[DiegoMedina]

i started using Fabfilter Pro Q3 and after that Izotope Ozone and i´m loving what those 2 can do to my music!

[ourmindzdj]

Interesting to see an Arturia plugin (1176) make the list

[joel.muñiz.armendariz]

great info and video, will definitely be trying these...

[SMAAAASHTV]

Most of the differences your trying to suggest are nearly imperceptible due to the order of on/off and the length of time they are played, as well as not using the same exact clip between the 2 examples. Half the time you turn a plugin on or off is when a beat drops and makes it difficult to tell what if anything changed. You also seem to be randomizing the order as some examples have the plugin ON first and other examples have the plugin OFF first. Would increase the watchability of your content greatly to fix those things.

[htmm]

Can you do a seperate tutorial on how to set up something like the mythical 3D preset or go in detail on how it works

[drydessert]

Tone Projects Kelvin and Michelangelo, Flux IRCAM Reverb

[dallas-cole]

OFF > ON is better than ON > OFF

[michaelyolch]

SAGE...have all the MIXING tutorials been added to the plan yet?

[FredDeMassiveAlambic]

IMO, this isn't the best way to do a list, here's a personal take :

The best among the best are :
- TDR SLick EQM (best clean mixbus/mastering EQ)
- TimP L-Bus V2 for Nebula (best SSL/ mixbus compressor)
- UAD LA2A
- Arturia LX24
- Kazrog True Iron
- IK Sunset Sound
- Voosteq Model-N

For this list, there's no competitor that comes close, in term of sound and/or GUI/price.

Then, a good selection in each category :

EQs :
- clean : any eq that isn't cramping (logic's stock is perfect)
- sustain/transient : Ozone's last one is free and does the job :)
- bus : TDR slick EQ M is the best digital mastering EQ you can get. You can literally transform a mix with it without artefacts (due to coding quality AND GUI)
- colored : UA pultec, Softube EQF-100, Pulsar (Massive, 495)..etc


COMP :
- FET : UA 1176, Arturia FET76, Pulsar 1178 & Smasher
- Opto : UA LA2A, Softube TLA-100
- Vari-Mu : Magic Death Eye Stereo (does wonders on the mixbus), Arturia STA, Klanghelm MJUC

- VCA : TimP L-Bus V2 (better than some hardware), SSL Native (good but not as the previous one), UAD Api-2500

SATURATION :
- Tube : Arturia Dist-Tube Culture
- Transformers : Kazrog True Iron
- Tape : Softube Tape, UAD ATR-102
- Channel Strip (Neve-style) : Voosteq Model-N

REVERBS :
- Lexicon : Arturia LX24, Valhalla VintageVerb
- Room / Chambers : IK Sunset Sound, UAD Hitsville Chambers
- Creative : Eventide Blackhole, Waves Lo-Fi Space, Baby Audio Spaced Out
- Plate : Arturia Plate, UAD plates (lots of good options), plates in IK Sunset Sound
- Spring : Klanghelm TENS, Arturia REV-Spring, spring in UK Sunset Sound

DELAYS :
- Valhalle Vintage Delay
- Baby Audio Spaced Out

IMAGERS :
- Leapwing StageOne
- TDR Slick EQ M (Which has great imaging options)

MODULATION :
- UAD Space Echo
- Arturia Dimension-D ("what your vocals need")

LIMITERS :
- Fabfilter Pro L2
- still searching for a convincing analog limiter emulation :)

CLIPPERS :
- Fabfilter Pro L2 (A DIGITAL MODERN LIMITER IS A CLIPPER followed by a compressor's release)

DE-ESSERS :
- Fabfilter Pro-DS
- Sonible DEES looks nice, next purchase

MULTIBAND COMPRESSORS :
- Fabfilter Pro-MB
- Trackspacer

ANALYZERS :
- Sonible True Balance & True Loudness for tonal balance and loudness comparison
- ADPTR Metric A/B for referencing

OTHER :
- Soothe 2 for acoustic stuff
- Tone Projects Basslane for bass high-frequencies
- BX Subsynth for bass low-frequencies

Voilà ! This doesn't mean you need all of these to make good mixes, but that's quite a good selection IMO

[RJJ]

Missing:
- Any channel strip! People have been using SSL, Softube, PA strips and going back so long.
- UAD plugins (Especially Studer, LA-2A, 1176 - all available natively), Arturia over UAD's 1176?
- SOUNDTOYS! Used by millions. Yet UVI Shade makes it to number 8?
- Lexicon Native (Harrison), Eventide and Valhalla reverbs way more popular than Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven at quality or price. Eventide's have been around the longest and sound great.
- McDSP - used by many for over a decade
- Kontakt!
- Acoustica plugins like Gold, Magenta and Pink go way back. Celestial was free when it came out.
- SSL G Bus compressor (Waves or UAD).

For a plugins of all time list, this seemed to ignore so much history.

[kostyakonstantinoff]

Voxengo Elephant and IK Multimedia Stealth Limiter

[SiegelBantuBear]

Avengers 2 VPS not featuring anywhere🤔

[Acex]

Try demo'ing using music sometime.

[Mista]

From the window to the wall we getting lit up in this BIH? Worst fucking lyrics ever!

[dreamweaverhk]

I do not understand why you use this piece of music with programmed electronic drum sound and minimal instruments. The vocal itself does not have much dynamics. Not everyone listens to rap music exclusively.