Spot On! Learnt using waves, big respect for them...but I hate waiting 45 minutes just to load their plugins. Plugin Alliance and Slate get it all done, and respect my time lol. Thanks, worth it!

Imagine a world where every KZfaq tutorial was this focused, accurate and straight to the point? What a cool world would that be. Thank you!

I use Plugin alliance, Slate and Wave the most. Own a good amount of UAD plugins but man im tired of having to carry a damn hardware with me in order to use them so i've been moving away from them over time.

I use some waves plugins but I love izotope. Nectar and neutron allows me to start mixes really fast and get 90% of the work done for me. Ozone 9 advanced is the absolute bomb. But as with everything, it's what works for you.

Softube and Eventide...they definitely need to be added to this list.

Good analysis and I had lots of fun with your humor. I left Waves around 2016 because of their crazy pricing, and their too big to move forward attitude. I had exactly the same experience with them as you’ve detailed here. And I agree with your picks. I now use Slate, Fabfilter and Soundtoys mostly. Slate’s virtual tape machine is incredible, and the virtual bus compressors too. The neve EQ is awesome. I could go on and on about Slate. I use VBC and VTM on every song. They cover so much ground. With the VMR, You can quickly throw a preset on a track to match your vision, then tweak a few knobs to dial it in. It’s a quick process and the sound quality is exceptional. I sold all of my outboard gear and now track with plugins sent to the takes. I’m using the Black Lion Rev 2x2 and my recordings sound so much better than they used to. Fabrice G has given us the golden years of plugins.

🤠 I haven't done much comparisons but my goto are: MeldaProduction for creative FX. You get updates for life, resizable gui & multiband processing. For mixing/mastering I use iZotope as I was intrigued by AI features & waveform analysis. Gullfoss is great for reducing muddiness. Reverbs I use Liquidsonics for orchestral stuff, smart:reverb for pop, MeldaProduction for rock.

LOL. You nailed that Steven Slate analogy. I was dying with laughter

Saved me time in deciding my subscriptions, looking forward to your extended list and any further insights; subscribed.

Interesting, I'd love to see an update of this video considering UAD now offers Spark, and Plugin Alliance have new convenient subscription options.

Missed some great indie vendors like Valhalla for reverbs, Klanghelm for compressors and saturation, and others like Togu Audio Line, Cherry Audio, Tokyo Dawn, Cableguys, CraveDSP, and u-he.

Toneboosters have great plugs and are very underrated.

I feel like fabfilter is the s+ tier, yes initially it costs much but there is never a regret. They are rock solid, with great support and well tested updates. Pay once and get updates for free. Installer that can install all of them at once and amazingly free licensing system.

Just wanna offer some positivity based on your comments in the video. I appreciate your time. Blessings to you and yours ✌️

To everyone who may read this I hope y'all make it, let's keep grinding 🙏🏽

Fabfilter is S for the fact that you can add saturation in order to try to replicate something from Slate or pa.

S-Mcdsp/fab filter/waves/izotope A-plugin alliance/ soundtoys/ slate B-UAD/psp This is purely based off how I like them I didn’t include pricing or Ilok just purely how I feel while using, don’t have any uad yet so that’s in B just because I at least know their decent.

The copy protection schemes are a risk to the user. In that regard, of the companies mentioned in the video, iLok-based protection lands at the very bottom of the pile, as the user is burdened with the greatest risk. At the other end is Fabfilter where you copy/paste a text key that is easy to backup.Plugin Alliance lands in the middle, as three authorizations is better than just one which is what iLok users usually get. Waves gives you one additional activation per year, which to me rates higher than PA. Izotope has two methods. Their Exponential Audio plugins are iLok-only. All other are disk-based(including usb drives) or iLok and they‘re pretty lenient on the number of authorizations, so far. I have several iLok-burdened products. Stratus, Sound Toys, Protools, McDsp, Eventide. But since the keys can break, and Pace has had nuclear-level f*ckups in the past, I try to avoid them as a less predictable risk factor now. I tend to rely on Fabfilter, Valhalla, Klanghelm, Harrison, Voxengo and free options such as Analog Obsession(support his Patreon). As a 20 year dialogue mixer, I don‘t like having risk factors like copy protection schemes hang over my head. All that stuff has been cracked anyway, so I no longer see the point in taking that risk as a paying customer.

You have the best tutorials and recomendations, true profesossor!

For classic gear emulation, the UAD plugs are in their own league. For example, the AMS-RMX and Lexicon 224 & 480 use the exact code of the original unites.

I love my UAD plugins, they’re the best, like ever!! In all seriousness, I love the unison amp sims. I don’t have to deal with latency no matter what’s going on with the daw or computer. The only UAD mixing plugins I have are what came with the Heritage edition. They’re too expensive when there’s so much more affordable options that sound great.

Waves is simple to install. I like their GUI's, and their prices are affordable now. I like Waves, Plugin Alliance and T-Racks.

I love the comical puns in between explaining the ins and outs. 💯🤩

i came here for music knowledge and left with music knowledge and laughed my ass off LMAO. ur great man keep up the good work!

Good ranking. I have UAD working on a PC but it’s no walk in the park. To me that’s their biggest issue..getting seamless performance with Windows. I like Plugin Alliance but there are some performance, stuttering and dropout issues I’ve been having, particularly on the Amek 9099, Maag eq, and the Black Box distortion. Seems like it started when I got the UAD…hmm

Nice vid! I am currently in a holiday buy for Plugin Alliance. Also use stuff from Solid State Logic and Empirical Labs. You definitely get what you pay for but with patience it can be a lot less!

why does this channel not have more views/subs? Man the UAD joke, the reaper/studio one user joke, the steve slate joke, I GENUINELY LAUGHED MY ASS OFFF HAHAHAHHAA YOU'RE GOLDEN!!!

Damn I was wanting to see what you ranked Arturia. Very impressed with them. Definite S tier for me. And I am also very impressed with XLN.

Where do you rank Acustica Audio (my favorite), Kush Audio, Denise Audio, PSP Audio (that infinity strip is the truth), IK Multimedia, Toontrack, Valhalla, Arturia, Softube Antares, Wave Factory, Leapwing, Sonnox, Tone Empire, Analog Obsession, and Sound Theory (Gulfoss is a necessity)? And yes..... I've spent over $30,000 on plugins and plan to buy more

Loved your tier list and your delivery, I agree almost 100%. Slate bundle replace most of my other plugins when I switched little less than a year ago, and I've been really happy with what they offer. Fabfilter together with Slate are my desert island plugins for sure.

I removed all Waves from studio. Plugin Alliance is solid af. Softube. Melda. Denise. D16 Group. Kirchoff EQ. Fabfilter less nowadays. Arturia there is loads. But as a one stop. Plugin Alliance. IZotope are good but really CPU heavy..

I would mention Oeksound plugins as well. Can't live without them

Lmaaooo you know what this track needs? More enigma! 😂😂😂 subbed because of that and your take on waves plugins. I recently just switched to slate solely due to waves piss poor waveshell version updates & old projects not loading them. Great video 🔥

Tokyo Dawn Labs... Inspiring! 😎

Plugin Alliance for Life!!

SoundToys, Fabfilter, and UA make up 90% of my workflow. Special shout-out to oeksound’s soothe!

Thanks that was a really helpful review. Now I'm aware there's more out there than just waves. Oh and I believe you're a professor!

You're blunt. Straight to the point & trasnparent. Subscribed!

kilohearts is also S tier, all their stuff is amazing

Thank you for your analysis, I was looking for this specifically, it's greatly appreciated. I currently am subscribing and have bought 4 of your name brand reviews and I'm looking to see which one's I should keep. This helps a lot.

PA is definitely S tier. And I just got their AI mastering tool. It really works well! I’m gonna struggle not to subscribe to that mastering service.

Softube???

Great Review, thanks your tier list makes sense for me

Pretty fair and accurate assessment of all of these plugins. But damn dude….sounds like you been hittin that talk chalk

These Days I find myself using slate digital as my base, unfiltered audio bundle from plugin Alliance, and studio rack from waves. I definitely agree that Waves has a lot filler But their studio rack plugin is amazing.

UAD are amazing and rock solid. But plug-in manufacturers have all come a long way.

Just a quick note, the copy protection from iZotope is iLok hardware only if you choose not to deal with their software center’s licensing (which I think is limited to 2 or 3 computers). Despite this, I think you’ve rated them fairly. If you do another one of these videos (which yeah, would probably not be for a while unless you’ve already spent the money or demo’d the plugins), I’d like to see how you rate some of these companies: Arturia’s effects, Valhalla, TDR, Acustica, Softube, IK, Melda, Fuse Audio Labs, Goodhertz, Nugen Audio.

I don't use ableton but I subscribed because this guy is STRAIGHT to the point.

Spot on. Totally agree

As a REAPER user, I lol'd at your REAPER comment. Did you know I use REAPER? ;-) Subscribed.

Entire vid was spot on

good evaluation! for me UAD is key for their low latency features and plugins, specially useful for guitar, bass, vocal tracking. but for mixing you are likely right that Slate or others have similar futureset and great emulation. i have the izotope bundle, and as you said, Ozone seems the be the best, but i never got into Neutron and others as my DAW tools are faster and less CPU intensive (ableton in my case). i am really eager to get FabFilter,,…. and, i couldnt live without my soundtoys (combination of ease of use and great sound). thx for the vid!

Please do T-racks next time. Thanks bud. I love Plugin Alliance

0:17 - Classic! Thanks for the video!

Plugin Alliance is the best for sure.

I cant agree with you any less, you got a new subscriber Teacher

Totally in agreement! Thanks Professor...

Acustica hands down 🔥🔥🔥

Fabfilter, oeksound, a handful of T-racks (room verbs, and stealth limiter.. ozone.

*So I'm not saying Waves has the best plugins (they don't) - but I have NEVER had a problem with licensing* I've upgraded computer 4x...2 times while on Windows and 2 times after switching to Mac. I have all of my music projects on an external harddrive...and I license all my Waves plugins to that harddrive. So whenever I access my DAW files...Waves will be ready to go since its on the same harddrive. Never had a problem with licensing.

A lot of good plugins. Love izotope and waves. Mcdsp has really nice plug ins as well (SA2). I do films, editing and I score just films so I use a lot of different plugins. Including enigma lol

Bruh that slate joke was everything. lolz

All but i really love KUSH AUDIO and SSL NATIVE

“I’d be using Logic” I laughed out loud. I do love and use LP but you’re not wrong at all 😂😂😂

You can connect the Izotope licenses to the computer only, but else I find the list spot on. There are some changes as spark from UAD, but it's not yet for everyone.

Thanks for that summary, Spot on IMO!

Thanks so much for the video man! Really helpful and hilarious. Was looking into the slate bundle but needed an unbiased opinion of it. If he steals my girl at least I'll have more time to use my new compressors

Slate is not my desert island plugins, because if the desert island would be really desert one, there would not be internet connection, so no plugin would work. 😃Fab Filter for the most work. Analog Obsession for adding color. Sonible for their user-friendly interface. Izotope for their AI capability. SSL Bus Comp, for ... just being SSL Bus compressor 😃

Thanks so much. As a newbie again after 30 tears, this was very helpful. Because nothing has changed in 30 years, right?

Well you just earned a sub! Great video!

What about Kush?

I love my slate plug-ins most but I use them with some waves and some UAD

Best plugin company: Native Instruments. 2nd: Arturia. IMO

I think you nailed it!

Newfangled Audio is another company that deserves serious attention. Even Tome Projects, a relatively young company, is killing it with their Kelvin Tone Shaper and now even a souped up SSL Six channelstrip style plugin and an Overstayer with automatic gain compensation that costs 1/10 the price of Softube’s version. The days of one or two plugin companies rolling the roost are very much over.

Im that one friend that won’t shut up about UAD plug ins 😅

What do you think of Acustica Audio?

My desert island plugin brands are Fabfilter, Plugin Alliance, Soundtoys, Valhalla, Slate and some Waves stuff. It depends on what type of plugin. Eq and comp Fabfilter and Plugin Alliance Reverb Valhalla and Liquidsonics Analog emulation Waves and Slate Distorsion, saturation ecc Fabfilter, Soundtoys and Plugin Alliance

Waves got some legendary shit

3:18 this was the best part 😅😅😅😅😅

I wonder if uad goes up a grade since it's now going native with a ton already on native. And if you own the uad version you get native of it free

Thank you sir! ✌️

I agree with some of what you’re saying but putting Universal Audio in the middle just because you don’t own their hardware is kind of stupid and unfair. They really do make some of the best plugins and now slowly becoming Mac-native. Plugin Alliance mix and Master bundle is second to none and they are by far the best plugin company today, but Slate is the absolute worst subscription I’ve ever tried out and opted out after a couple of months. I don’t care how much of a crush you have on him, and that subscription is a mess. Very problematic copy protection as well. Waves are easily the most overrated plugin company over the past three decades.

I used FF, UAD, and PA a lot - till I found the SSL range. Not cheap, but O M G.

As for reverb... Heavenly... Seventh Heaven convolution reverb plugin... just sayin' ;)

Waves apparently put profits over software functionality and customer use flexibility. Barely used any of the plugins in the gold bundle, felt a little underwhelming with dusty looking UI's. Now trying to install on my laptop, and you've gotta pay them 100$ per year for some update program, and then manually swap a license to and from my workstation and laptop?!?!? Sorry, its 2022, 3 device limit is like basic operation. Looks super greedy and tight wad. Not sure who is running the business model team over there. Figure something else out. Basically only was using HComp and a couple others anyway. iZotope looks better, going to try those

Interesting and professional comparison, one point I want to add: IZOTOPE offers not only iLok authorization, but to the computer harddrive, too. And you are allowed to install it on multiple computers at the same (after only buying one license), minimum 4 at a time

Excellent analysis, does anyone else feel distracted by the hands or is it just me?

Couldn’t of said it any better my friend

No project without Waves. Waves developed "legends" years ago and they are still being used like RBass, CLA comps, RVox, MV2, Super Tap delay, H Delay, Vitamin and many more. I do not like and use Plugin Alliance, Slate Digital and Acustica Audio at all. I also do not like AI plugins. There is a huge choice of plugins today. My fav plugins are Waves, Softube, IK Multimedia, DDMF, Klanghelm, TDR, Soundtoys and some more If Arturia had faster plugin loading and a lower cpu usage, it would get some more use. To pick one strange gui by Waves to bash them, well, they have the by far best guis imo and only a few might be for the younger generation or whomever, but they have more than 100 plugins!!! Plugin Alliance amazing quality??? Lol Why haven't you presented PA's sloppy SSL or Bettermaker guis or Slate's for me unattractive huge Mix Rack or Meldaproduction guis?! I had a one year PA subscription and would rarely use a PA plugin, because I always found some better plugin to do the job and am glad I could re-sell all plugins. iLok is nice? I am sure many a man would disagree lol To make a video about the best plugin companies without including so many other companies, it's like talking about best car manufacturers without mentioning Mercedes. Desert island plugins: Waves Horizon bundle gives me all I need. That's just my experience and opinion.

thank u brother. great vid!

Universal Audio

Really helpful, thanks!

Waves the best by far

I kinda agree with this list. Fab Filter should be in the S tier except they way overprice their plugins

So informative thank you !

This is the first video I watched of yours today, and all I have to say is.... brother from another mother, we must have gotten separated at birth. Dam sounded like me talking on these plugins. Well done and spot on!

Sonible needs a spot in there!

Great video! But not to be confused with best "quality" plugins.

Fabfilter, Brainworx, Oeksound, Eventide (SplitEQ especially) and Valhalla.