Plugins

Judging a plugin#

The way to find out what a plugin really does is objective analysis: listen to the delta, look at the frequency response, look at the harmonics. See null testing and measurement.

An honest developer should give you the means to check his claims, and even to debunk them. When no free tool existed to test what compressors do, I built one and gave it away, open source. I since built a better version, Delta Expose. The open source one is still up on my GitHub and you can use my more premium Delta Expose analyser against me if I'm talking nonsense.

Stock and free plugins#

Stock plugins did not suddenly become better more recently. Logic 5.5's effects and the original Cubase VST effects were already good, and the idea that stock EQs sound "cold, thin or harsh" is nonsense. All EQs sound the same.

A basic EQ, reverb or chorus is textbook code you can write in an afternoon.

Limiters are hard to code. Most free ones sound terrible.

Clippers are one line of code. Selling a trivial algorithm as a premium plugin is the closest thing to a scam I can think of in the plugin world. See clipping.

Learning a few tools properly#

Speed and creativity usually come from knowing a few tools deeply, not from hoarding plugins for different "flavours". Gear acquisition syndrome can be a trap, and a huge pirated library you don't know how to use is, to me, the most foolish version of it. Analogue modelling is largely bullshit.

Generic DSP at premium prices is older than AI#

Right now the market is teeming with AI-generated compressors, clippers and saturators. But textbook DSP sold at premium prices behind a flashy interface is not an AI problem. It predates AI by many years. AI didn't invent slop. It just made it cheaper and faster to produce. See AI.

A new plugin has to justify itself by doing something genuinely different. A plugin is an executable with the same privileges as your DAW, so it's worth knowing who is behind it and whether he will still support it after the next OS update.

But even in a saturated market there is still unexplored territory in unusual combinations, workflow and maths borrowed from other fields, which is what I have tried to do with my Dogma suite of plugins.

Plugin design#

Every process should be explicit, have its own controls and be able to be switched off. What I object to is hidden, unspecified processing. For me, function comes before looks. Some great plugins have no interface at all and can get overlooked because people want pretty pictures.

Tools should work for the engineer: juggling windows and friction reduces my productivity and joy while working.

Blank canvases are OK but random starting points sold as blank canvases are not.

It's better to ship opinionated defaults that sound good immediately.

Advanced tools require the user to know what he is doing. This is correct.