5 PLUGINS that I USE everyday!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, I'm streaky. And I get asked a lot in the comments, what my favorite plugins. Well, these are five plugins that I use every single day.

So for mastering, I don't totally use plugins. I do sometimes stay in the box. There's nothing wrong with staying in the box. If a track just needs to say in the box, I'll do that. But I do have a hybrid system so I can use analog equipment and plugins. So I kind of tend to mix between the two, depending on what the track needs. So these five plugins are ones that are usually in my chain. I'd say probably 80% of the time. Some of them are a hundred percent of the time. So let's get on with it.

Number one is the Weiss Deess. Now, Weiss, if you don't know, they're a company that used to make hardware, digital stuff, which I absolutely loved. I've worked on their EQs from when it was a company called Harmonia Monday. And it was like this big rack with plug in, with big leads that you plugged in, in the early ages of digital. But they had a DS called a DS1.

And then that was the kind of a really good hardware de-esser to use. But since they've now turned that into a plugin and their plugins are mega, they've just bought out the Weiss EQ, which is brilliant. Check that out. You can get it on demo. But the thing that I use a lot and I use it as my favorite de-esser is their de-esser, the Weiss Deess. So check that out. It's brilliant. Super clean. You can't really hear it working, but it takes off the DS. It does exactly what you want, basically, without adding anything else, any color, any sound or anything like that. And it's just going to get in there. It's good for smoothing off the top end as well. I wouldn't go too hard on smoothing off the top end because it can sort of dial it down, but that's just using your air and mixing in the right amount. So yeah, that's number one, the Weiss Deess.

Number two, it's a bit of a boring one. Sorry about this, but it is a meter called it Klanghelm meter. Now this meter is just VU meters, but I'm used to using VU meters. I've used them all my career. I want to see how the track moves. And so these are perfect. There are about $4. It's called Klanghelm and they do RMS, which is what I keep them in most of the time. So I can see exactly what's going on at all times. I don't need loads of fancy meters, just a couple of venues. And I know exactly what's going on. These are $4 absolute bargain. I'd go and get them now.

So number three is the FabFilter multiband. So when I've used multiband in the past, it is normally a mass select multiband, which is amazing. But it does have limitations because it's hardware. Now the FabFilter multiband, can do loads of different stuff. You can bring the bass in, you can mono the bass, you can get it thumping. I've done a few videos on it previously. It's a great bit of kit. It's can get bass really nice and tight. You can also calm the tops down. Like I just mentioned with the de-esser. So, super versatile, all FabFilter stuff is great and very to use. So yeah, that is number three. It's filter multi-band.

Number four is the Dangerous Audio Bax. Now it's a Bax EQ, a shelving EQ and it is a Baxandall curve. A Baxandall curve is a shelf kind of goes on forever. So what it's very similar to a tone control in a car where you have traveling bass is essentially that, but it's a really good sounding.

The low end is really like smacky on it. Get a really smooth top end. It's just great. The reason I liked this as a plugin, rather than the hardware version, and I've had both. The UAD one is very similar sounding. They've got it really tight to the analog, which is perfect, but you can use it in Ms mode, which means that I can manipulate the sides and the mid channel, the outer side and the stuff in the center in a different way for each band. So that makes it really, really useful. And it's just a good sounding EQ so that's something that I use a lot or sometimes I don't even like turn the EQ on it. I just run through it. Because I liked the sound of it and I liked the high pass and the low pass filters on it. So check that out. That's a really good one, the UAD Bax.

And number five now, mastering plugins. You're always going to need a limiter for mastering. So I thought number five, I'll give you my limiter that I've been using recently a lot and it is the Invisible G2 Limiter. So what you need to know is that with the limiter, I just want to add level, I don't want to add color. I don't want to add sound to it. I can do all that with EQs. I can do that with compression. I just want to get it louder. I just want to go into, I want to shave the peaks off. I don't want to compress it too much. I want it to be dynamic, but I want just get a little bit more level out of my equipment. I'll gain stage through equipment, but I just need to add a certain amount of level at the end, like 3dB or more.

And this limiter is brilliant for that. It's just a really crystal clear, fast limiter that, you know, I don't hear any coloring. And a lot of the times with limiters, they seem to add a lot of top end because you're sort of bringing up the tops and it holds the button down a bit. So this doesn't do that. This just keeps it nice and clean and that's all I want. So this is my fave limiter at the moment. It's number five and it's the Invisible Limiter G2.

So there you have it. That's the five plugins that I use every single day in my kit, 80% of the time on some of them, you know, more or less, you can't just throw everything on there every time. Obviously, it depends what the track needs. Sometimes I need to go out into analog. Sometimes I need to stay in the box, but some of these plugins are there most of the time because they're so versatile. And they're just part of my chain now. So they're the five to check out. I'll leave links for those below. Make sure you go to anoraks.co where you can get loads of presets for free loads of other stuff in there that I've in. That's where I put all my stuff from YouTube. So go into anoraks.co or streaky.com if you want me to master for you and there's links to that below.