As the title asks, what are your favorite plugins for 2017? Any plugins that you wish would come out?
Feel free to break them down by category and please give a reason if possible 
I dunnoā¦ Iām not game to mention the ones I like and use all the time, for fear Iāll get slammed by all the kool kidz!.. 
2 Likes
Bryan, do you mean plugs that are newly released in 2017, or those that are new to us in 2017?
Yes 
1 Like
Unless you recently started making beats in Fruity Loops Studio or something Iād be much to intimidated to slam a ācertified golden earā member!
Hmmā¦ perhaps I should have said I didnāt wish to be ā¦slated 
Soundminer Pro, Wwise, and Basehead.
Well, I certainly donāt wanna get āWavedā or āPsPeed onā. Nor do I want to be āScuffhamed atā because I āPapenā to be insecure about my omnisāfearsā. Oh well 
Iāll just go back to my little corner and play with my āSoundToysā while you Pros play with Tools.
1 Like
Bozās new whizz bang de-esser thing is THE best Iāve seen this year.
Closely followed by Fabfilterās Pro R which is THE finest reverb Iāve seen.
Goodbye
Because Danny D said he didnāt like Slate?
I had fun playing with Gatey Watey. I think it could be helpful in some situations.
I have a lot of plugins so not really looking to add, but I see IK Multimedia is having a sale on Ampeg SVX. It may not be new in 2017 (?) but it got my attention. I donāt use Amplitube now though, just Guitar Rig. I hesitate to have to pile into another platform just for a few cool bass amps. If it sounds as good as the hype I might consider it though.
1 Like
Aweā¦go onā¦ 
1 Like
Iāll wade in here. Itās not a new plugin, but itās new to me, super cheap, easy to use, nice clean no nonsense UI, and one of those, ānow THATās a great ideaā 21st century plugins! (At least for me.) Itās the āVU Meter MKk3ā by Hornet Plugins.
As I am learning this digital mixing thing and practicing with lots of mixes, it has made the initial gain staging a snap. Simply set your āReferenceā and āMax Peakā, assign it a Group, put an instance on each track, then hit āAutoā while your track plays through and each track is gain staged to your āReferenceā level with your faders at unity. When you stop, the plugin is taken off auto gain and youāre ready to go. Really slick.
2 Likes
This guyās pretty cool. Not your run-of-the-mill verb!
I think the only plug Iāve acquired thus far in '17 is the Sonarworks headphone calibration one. I havenāt sent my actual set of cans in to them for calibration, but just use the settings for my make and model (Sony MDR-7506). According to the data plots, the 7506s accentuate the high end significantly.
Complicating this is my recent acquisition of hearing aids, to address the fact that my hearing has seriously deteriorated above about 5KHz. So if I donāt have the aids in, and donāt use Sonarworks, it actually is pretty accurate once the cans boost those freqs. With the aids in, I can really hear the accentuated high end, so using the Sonarworks plug is very helpful.
This gettinā old thing really gets old, know what I mean?
Thatās cool to know that you regain some of that upper end with them!!
Itās really distinct-- if I have my hearing aids on and donāt use the Sonarworks, the high end is massive. If I ditch the aids but leave Sonarworks on, things sound pretty normal. If I engage the Sonarworks and donāt have the hearing aids in, it sounds like I have cotton in my ears, but if I have them in and use Sonarworks, it again sounds pretty normal. Iām still coming to grips with how the hearing aids are affecting my mix decisionsā¦ one of the reasons I havenāt posted but a couple of cover projects over the past few months.
1 Like
I have a hearing aid for my left ear, ear blown at a gig years ago. But i donāt use it for mixing. I use ARC 2 for room correction , Sonarworks is great also. but the important thing for me is a reference track . As long as my mix EQ is similar to a pro mix then it must be close in real terms. I also use SPAN and Izotope Mix match to get my mix more balanced.
1 Like
I went ahead and sprung for the IK Ampeg SVX. Got a pretty sweet deal on it I think, considering I had some Jam Points to apply to the purchase, and it was already heavily discounted. Turns out the NAMM video was from 2009 so itās almost legacy software! But heck, itās new to me in 2017 so Iām trying to not take the thread off topic. 
Itās an amp/cab/effects package (electric bass) for Amplitube, and that was part of my hesitation was having to sink into the full download for just one gear package. I had tried Amplitube Free on my other computer a couple of years ago, and liked it okay but there are only a few things that come with the free version and they tease you with the 95% that are not included ā¦ plus all the full version presets and crap are listed so itās hell to navigate. So far, Iām happy with the Ampeg stuff and I can sort the presets by mfr so I can get all the Ampeg lined up in one place. Amplitube was okay to work with, though my brief attempts at the Noise Gate werenāt very impressive.
My other beef is with the preset volume levels; theyāre all over the place, and itās frustrating trying to test drive them sequentially. I get that in Guitar Rig too though.
Honestly, Iām having a little trouble getting excited about plugins at the moment. I knowā¦who am I and what have I done with Jonathan!?
Is anyone else in this same boat?
Yeah, same here - my plugin apathy set in about a year and a half ago. I have a lot of plugins, but I mostly end up using the same ones on each mix. At this stage itās a case of āif it aināt brokeā¦ etcā.