DAW questions thread

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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Just making a general thread for questions about DAWs like Ableton, Logic etc.

My question: after using Reason for a while (great interface, shit sound), I've got Ableton :) and now have the luxury of using plug-ins at last. Don't want to collect hundreds and hundreds, so wondering if anyone has any recommendations for really good freeware FX plugins? Just want a decent compressor/saturator/delay etc so I've got the basics there ready to use.

Thanks in advance
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
baboon2004 said:
Just making a general thread for questions about DAWs like Ableton, Logic etc.

My question: after using Reason for a while (great interface, shit sound), I've got Ableton :) and now have the luxury of using plug-ins at last. Don't want to collect hundreds and hundreds, so wondering if anyone has any recommendations for really good freeware FX plugins? Just want a decent compressor/saturator/delay etc so I've got the basics there ready to use.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Kjaerhus Classic series are solid and do what they say on the tin.

Blockfish by DigitalFishPhones (don't ask me...) is a nice stripped down 'character' compressor, as well.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Slothrop said:
Kjaerhus Classic series are solid and do what they say on the tin.

Blockfish by DigitalFishPhones (don't ask me...) is a nice stripped down 'character' compressor, as well.
Click to expand...

Ah yeah, downloaded the Digital Fish Phones FX yesterday, but thought the name too silly to include!
 
nomos

nomos

Administrator
i used to use these quite a bit. iirc the delay is nice and simple. some of the others are silly/useless.
http://mda.smartelectronix.com/effects.htm

mostly i'm happy with the ableton ones, though it could use a stripped down delay. doesn't version 8 have a new overdrive? mac has the advantage of coming with some good basics like eq, low pass filter, etc. i use those a lot because they're easy on the cpu.
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Thanks for all the tips.

http://lesitedeburnie.free.fr/lalistedeburnie1-en.html - I found this list of free synths. Very well annotated so you can save time in choosing the one you need.

What do you mean by a stripped down delay, by the way, nomos? (may be a silly question)

Must say, from my investigations so far, Ableton is a brilliant interface (only minor exception being that I quite like a step drum machine where you see patterns easily, and I don't see one of those in Ableton). Whoever wrote the manual deserves a medal for clarity, too (which is obv not often the case)
 
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massrock

Well-known member
Digitalfishphones Endorphin is quite nice too.

Bionic Delay is a good tape style delay. http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml

Electri-q (Posifohpit) - one of the most flexible free EQs. http://www.aixcoustic.com/index.php/posihfopit_edition/30/0/

TLS Saturated Driver and Pocket Limiter. http://hem.bredband.net/tbtaudio/archive/archive.htm

I like the Slim Slow Slider compressors. http://www.geocities.jp/webmaster_of_sss/vst/

Flux Bittersweet II Transient Shaper. http://www.fluxhome.com/products/Freewares/bittersweet2

Free stuff from Voxengo - the amps are surprisingly good. http://www.voxengo.com/group/freevst/

Camel Audio Camelcrusher is a good extreme distortion / filter / compressor. http://www.camelaudio.com/camelcrusher.php

But the Variety Of Sound stuff has to be the best free mixing tools out there. This is really next level for freeware I think.

http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Thanks for all the recommendations, massrock. Having looked through lots of discussions about free synths, consensus seems to be around Synth1 and Crystal. Apparently there's a free version of Zebra which, tho' not as powerful, still sounds amazing.
 
nomos

nomos

Administrator
baboon2004 said:
What do you mean by a stripped down delay, by the way, nomos? (may be a silly question)
Click to expand...
Oh I just meant that all of Live's delays have extra bells and whistles when sometimes I just want a very straightforward one (no multiple delays, no panning, no filtering, etc.). I think that's one of the factors in things sounding Abletonish. I'd like it if one of them was as simple as a regular delay pedal, or Delay Line in Reason. Overall I love it as a DAW though, especially Rewired with Reason.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
nomos said:
Oh I just meant that all of Live's delays have extra bells and whistles when sometimes I just want a very straightforward one (no multiple delays, no panning, no filtering, etc.). I think that's one of the factors in things sounding Abletonish. I'd like it if one of them was as simple as a regular delay pedal, or Delay Line in Reason. Overall I love it as a DAW though, especially Rewired with Reason.
Click to expand...

Ah, i see. Yeah, I'm using it Rewired with Reason, so I use Reason's delay unit 'cos I can't see much wrong with it (unlike other of its FX units, which aren't so great).

Out of interest, what elements of your tracks do you do in Reason, and which in Ableton? At present I'm just rewiring my Reason tracks into Ableton, stripping out most of the Reason effects and replacing them with Ableton's reverb etc (and adding the saturator to most things cos it sounds good...), with the intention of adding further audio lines with guitar, or maybe some warped vox...
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Also, can anyone recommend a cheapish but good brand of monitors? I just realised how different my mix sounds through my headphones and my speakers :eek:
 
nomos

nomos

Administrator
It's the drum programming in Reason that I can't let go of. I really like the drum computer and I hate doing them in Ableton. So that's the main thing I rewire, usually each sound with its own track. But I also don't mind doing synths in Reason so I use it for that too. Ableton for longer samples, recording and bouncing. Sometimes synths. I have a pretty messy workflow though when I even get that far along with a track :rolleyes:

I like my KRK Rokit 5 monitors though I'm pretty much resigned to not being able to do judge bass properly in my cube of a room. Luckily I have somewhere else I can go for that. Bit of a pain though.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Yeah, i suspected it might be the Redrum that kept you using Reason. I find it and the Regroove swing feature ridiculously easy to use and get a goodish drum loop in 5 minutes.

I do like the Thor synth in Reason, esp when heard through Ableton's sound engine/FX, but I was using Crystal last night and, in comparison, it sounds next level (and it's free, of course, which makes me love it more).
 
pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
oatmeal is supposed to be a really good synth, a lot of people are surprised its free

ferox is a pretty nice tape saturation simulator which can be really good for subtle distortion/warmth. it does do extreme but i prefer nick crow's plugins for harsher distortion. i also used to really dig bram from smartelectronix's cyanide 2 for distortion, but somehow it just doesn't sound as pleasing to me as the other ones

audio damage's rough rider is a really good comp for squashing the shit out of things

and i recently came across admiral quality's naive lpf which is a pretty excellent sounding filter for the price
 
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