Many of us have two types of audio plugin on our system. These can either be the ones that no longer see the light of day versus a handful of go-to favourites. The former category can be a result of impulse purchases fuelled by discounts, promos, or perhaps just curiosity, leaving the user with something that might be great, but nonetheless redundant. Certainly, their presence in your session can quickly be replaced with a gap filled with the familiar ‘buyer’s remorse’. Those in the latter category often earn their place by sounding great, and being concise in their feature set. Many can offer both traits, and after winning the user’s friendship, find themselves in the enviable position of being the ‘go-to’ for certain tasks. Sometimes, the right tool for the job can be the one that cuts out any distracting little-used features, and sometimes it can even be free to use. Here are six tools that I use on nearly every music mix I do.

1 - Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate

Once in a while a new audio tool comes along offering the thing you didn’t know you needed. For the uninitiated, Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate (ODG) is the dynamics processor that can discern between kicks, snares, and toms thanks to its machine learning tech. Why is this so powerful? If you’ve ever wrestled with ‘overlap’ while using a conventional noise gate this one is for you. ODG effortlessly deals with contesting sources that sit in the same frequency range that cannot be cured with ‘classical’ sidechain filtering. The scenario where one sound opens the other is fixed by a gate that knows what it’s listening to. If you’re into sample triggering, layering sounds, or other augmentation techniques take note: ODG can help you trigger samples or single hits from that one or two mic sketch or live recording by firing MIDI notes to your destination of choice to deliver the illusion of a multi-mic recording.

2 - Softube Console 1

There is so much to be said for having your filters, EQ, and dynamics in one place. The immediacy and conciseness of a channel strip plugin is hard to beat, and of all my six plugins, Softube’s Console One is hands down the single most useful audio plugin I own, offering transient shaping, filters, EQ, dynamics, and saturation in one place. This is married to Softube’s excellent hardware controller that resurrected the one-control-per-function paradigm that others have since latched onto, and with good reason. As one who grew up with mixers and consoles, Console 1 is the continuation of reaching for the thing I want to do. Not only that, I can have different channel models on different tracks, and even swap out individual modules within each strip. The original SSL 4k model that it ships with is not unique, but despite the myriad of options offered by the platform I come back to it on every single mix I do. Of the other strips, I have previously written about the Weiss Gambit strip for the platform which offers sublime digital processing that is ported directly from the legendary Weiss EQ and dynamics boxes. It’s not unusual to speak to an engineer who favours their favourite channel strip plugin over the real thing (often when the latter is in the same room!). For me, Console 1 is the real thing.

3 - Blue Cat’s Free Amp

I do not consider myself a guitarist, but I can do a convincing impression of one who's been relegated to just shutting up and playing! With other things vying for a finite budget, Blue Cat’s Free Amp is so much better than it has any right to being. This AAX, VST, and AU offering brings three combos to your DAW that sound better than many hardware amp sims I’ve used (and a few real amps for that matter). Having used it a very long time ago I was reminded of its existence recently by long time champion Julian Rodgers, and I have not been disappointed since. What constitutes a ‘good’ sound is admittedly very subjective, but if you like responsive saturation that doesn’t sound like it’s been painted on, with a well-chosen trio of models then this one could be for you. You can even load your own cab IR’s if you need to. I find it’s perfect for layering or creating stereo doubles of an existing recording, or for amp-less sounds from the ground up. Far from being a minus point, the lack of options or photorealistic GUI allow me to concentrate on what’s important: the sound. Free with no sign-up or licensing restrictions. What’s not to like?

4 - FabFilter Saturn 2

Let’s face it, there aren’t many tasks in this article that are not covered with total precision and finesse by FabFilter audio plugins. With too many to cover here, including staple dynamic and EQ tools that speak for themselves, my fourth choice instead is the developer’s distortion and saturation powerhouse, Saturn 2. While there are many saturators to choose from, what it does do is bring FabFilter’s trademark ‘simple-yet-exhaustive’ functionality to something that you thought was fairly straight forward. Yes it can absolutely do ‘just crunch it up a bit’, but conversely it also offers crazy routing and modulation possibilities along with various different flavours ranging from aping analogue gear through to total obliteration and beyond. Particularly useful is the band-split functionality that lets the user keep it clean where it needs to be. Whether you’ll ever use all that functionality is for you to explore, but for everything else, and in true FabFilter style, there’s not a lot you can’t achieve with Saturn 2, either in terms of features or sound.

5 - Soundtoys Little Plate

Tweakheads look away now. With so many incredible reverbs out there, my reverb choice is one that excels in what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t have a single parameter that I do not use, nor does it charge me for it. It doesn’t eat my time while I adjust something that won’t make any major difference to the mix as I hear it, let alone how the audience will. When I just want some reverb it doesn’t get easier than Little Plate. It sounds good, has a feature set that is verging on offensively simple, and takes EQ just fine when I need to reign in its signature zinginess. OK, so it only does plate reverb and doesn’t do anything else at all, but for me at least, that’s where all the other amazing tools out there come in.

6 - Sonible smart:limit

It’s true to say that many artists are unaware of how the big subject of loudness ultimately has a big influence over their audience’s enjoyment of the music. Delivering to the correct loudness is not just a consideration for audio professionals, and with independent creators being the masters of their own destinies, they too must deal with the reality of loudness normalisation. Smart:limit from Sonible is the tool that essentially gives musicians and creators a ‘deal with it’ button that allows them to keep their energy focussed on their craft rather than on the meters. The plugin essentially allows the mixer to choose the target loudness, hit Learn, and it does the rest. There are some expanded controls and metering as well for some light-touch surgery when required, but make no mistake this thing is easy enough for anyone to use if they’re aware of why it exists! As an added bonus it takes more provocation than you might think before things get gritty, ideal for those times when a more-heavy handled version is needed for listening copies, etc.

Over To You…

Given the amount of software tools out there, it’s still surprising that many workflows can be distilled into a process involving so few audio plugins. I can live happily with just these six. Let us know what yours are below in the comments.