@kerushlow and I are murdering another topic with a gear discussion so I would move it here.
We’re discussing DAW plugins as a replacement for effects, amps, and other gear. This Splice post talks about how far technology has advanced a bit in the context of the current Shoegaze renaissance:
At this point, the digital plugins have reached a level of quality that rivals the analog pedals themselves. Palermo shared an anecdote about his collaborator Nick Bassett (formerly of Deafheaven, Whirr, and Nothing) buying up thousands of dollars of vintage equipment in order to get hyper-specific tones, and then selling it all two years later because the plugins sounded better.
Most DAWs can load plugins, even the free/limited versions. (Sorry Audacity users, you need a MIDI-capable DAW for virtual instruments.) Essentially most plugins ship for all of these container formats, but check before buying:
VST/VSTi: Steinberg standards that nearly all DAWs can load
Audio Unit (AU): Apple products (Logic/GarageBand)
AAX: Avid standard, for Pro Tools
A number of plugins are Windows-only.
I’m having super good luck with moving to purely using plugins instead of pedals/amps/etc. I’ll keep editing this list with some of my favorites; we can collect others recommendations too. I use many of these every day.
Ignite Amps SHB-1 / NadIR (sounds a lot like an overdriving tube amp)
Effects
Kilohearts Snap-Ins - ~35 effects, all the usuals like compression, distortion, chorus, phaser, reverb, etc, plus many unique ones
MeldaProduction - big bundle of free tools and effects; their paid effects include an excellent multiband chorus and a decent compressor
NeuralDSP Darkglass Ultra - The official Darkglass plugin (NeuralDSP is owned by the owner of Darkglass); a perfect clone of the Darkglass B7K Ultra and Vintage Microtubes Ultra.
Valhalla Reverbs - some amazing, pro-level reverbs at a reasonable price. I like Valhalla Room and Valhalla Supermassive (free!).
Vocals
Celemony Melodyne - pitch correction without artifacting. Made for vocals but works with any audio
iZotope Nectar - great channel strip for vocals and mixing
WA Productions suite - Some nice plugins for vocal compression, cleaning, limiting, and so on.
Utilities
Kilohearts MultiPass - a multiband splitter that lets you build effects chains separately for different frequenct bands
MeldaProduction MeldaFreeFX bundle - lots of good utility stuff in it, for free
Mastering
iZotope Neutron - a track analyzer and mix assistant. Very smart dynamic EQ powered by machine learning
iZotope Ozone - a smart ML-driven mastering assistant plugin; mix with Neutron, master with Ozone
Mastering The Mix Animate - a dynamics expander that helps “fix” your sound if it has been squashed a bit by compression and limiting
d16 Group Frontier - a tone-enhancing mastering limiter
Guitar Amp/Cab Sims
Kuassa Clarent (Orange amp sim)
Kuassa Matchlock (vintage Fender amp sim)
Synthesizers
Kilohearts Phase Plant (Amazing modular synth, my current favorite)
Arturia Pigments (really great UI)
Vital Audio’s Vital - great wavetable synth with a freeware option
Xfer Serum - classic EDM Wavetable synth
Arturia V Collection - a set of really well modeled vintage synths that you can buy individually; Analog Lab is also great as it is the presets from all of them
Drums
Steven Slate Drums 5 - a great set of kits and additional software for riffs and fills
d16 Group Drumazon - a great TR-909 clone
Air Music Tech Boom - another TR-808/909 clone, part of Pro Tools, purchasable by itself for other DAWs
A quick followon to mention is there’s a number of good places to find and buy DAW plugins. The most central are probably KVR Audio and Plugin Boutique.
As advice: never buy plugins at full price if you can avoid it. They go on sale all the time for drastic discounts.
Splice also has a rent-to-own system for some of the more expensive ones that helps make them affordable:
One I swear by…the Behringer BDI-21 bass driver…it is a DI pedal. It is $33 new, and has a DI. Supposed to be a copy Sansamp…but I find it warmer and tubier if you have the blend knob all the way up. You can get a bit of the Sansamp clank in there too with presence knob at about 3 o’clock. In any case, you can use it to get a bit of baked in tone prior to DAW plugins.
The bass tone here is DI from BDI-21 pedal and then an ampeg SVT plug-in. If you like that tone, it’s a great investment for only $33 bucks, plus gives you a DI.
Hmm…not sure, it’s our pro studio guy and he uses Pro Tools. I saw him use it and it shows a picture of the amp interface…but I think a lot of them do that.
Yeah, the Sansamp is $200, but has a mid control, but that seems to be the difference. I love my BDI and don’t care that it’s a cheap knockoff lol.
The original BDDI didn’t have the mid control - the BDI-21 is an exact copy of it
Pro Tools has a lot of cool plugins. It has a neat little drum plugin called Boom that is actually a quite good TR-808/909/etc emulator that I like. Should add it to the list i am making up above.
Bass for just under two years now. However I have a few years of computers in music experience - I was a synth programmer and player in a band in college for a few years a couple decades back
Came back in with a head full of steam it seems! That’s great. I love seeing people passionate about music. It’s been amazing for me. I can’t believe I got in a band and we released an album, and can’t believe it’s actually pretty good! But been a LEARNING experience. To bring it back to topic, we recorded our first release ourselves, and sent the raw files to a pro mixer…it took like 6 months to release the damn thing. Then we were running into difficulties on the second song we tried. Decided going to a studio would probably be worth it…and oh man! Only time limitations involved his availability, he gets booked out in advance. But made things SO much easier and better sounding. It’s just a HUGE amount of information to learn yourself and get the type of results a pro can do. That said, we will try to keep learning the recording side.
I’ve used the Ignite and Kuassa amp sims they mention - I just bought Kuassa Cerberus, Matchlock, and Clarent, and all are great. Ignite’s Emissary is good but a little extremely overdriven; however Ignite’s free SHB-1 is a great bass amp sim.
So what’s your general take on finding stuff that is (mostly) suitable for bass? As always, there seems to be a ton of stuff for guitar, but for bass it seems much more difficult to find something suitable, much less dedicated to the bass? Is that a wrong assumption?
So far I have had really good luck with the effects with bass. Basically finding ones I liked better than my pedals were what made me decide to sell them. I like MeldaProduction’s multiband chorus more than I liked my bass clone; NeuralDSP’s Darkglass Ultra sounds exactly like both a B7K and a VMT, and goes on sale for a quarter the price of either; there’s a ton of great compressors; etc. No issues with effects at all.
One thing that helps for bass is something like Kilohearts MultiPass, which lets you build separate effects chains for individual frequency bands. Here’s an example that took me about 10 minutes to make, and sounds a whole lot like a Darkglass bass-preserving distortion:
As for amp sims, there are definitely more for guitar than bass, but at the same time, the ones I have found for bass are outstanding. Ignite’s SHB-1 is free and sounds better to me than any tube amp I have seen for under $1k. And I like Kuassa’s Cerberus even more.
Just wanted to link to softube and then something apparently happened to the link…