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Another one of my favorite plugin suites is Soundtoys Native. I would rate this one as essential. The plugins are designed by former Eventide engineers, and based on analog designs. The main thing that I like about them is the UI. It is very easy to use, and intuitive to make presets. They have plenty of pre-packaged presets, but often I just play with the controls a while until I get the desired result. Echoboy is used on about 95% of my sessions….production, recording, mixing, etc. I have it on most of my templates. One of my favorite ways to get a distinctive sound quickly is to change the “Style” setting. This is a sort of sub-preset. It adjusts the filters and effects that are applied to the echos. You can have chorused sounds or filtered, distortion, etc. My favorites are Telephone, Space Echo, Echoplex, and Analog Delay. You can also add saturation to any echo with the saturation knob. Echo time settings are very easy to set on the left side of the plugin, and the Feedback knob controls the number of repeats in a very analog feeling way. There are “Master Filter” Low and Hi Cut knobs on the bottom left of the plugin. The mode section you can set the delay time and Sync settings to get Tempo Synced delays, as well as Single, Double, Ping Pong or custom Rhythmic Echos. The “Tweak” and “Style Edit” buttons open up sub-menus that you can further edit the preset, but I hardly ever find myself on these pages. I usually prefer to add other plugins before or after Echoboy in the chain to add additional effects. Working in that method allows me to use the effects I want and have them easily accessible.

The other Soundtoys plugins that get the most use from me are PanMan, Filter Freak, and Decapitator. PanMan is great for adding panning effects. It has a similar interface to Echoboy, and is a snap to program. Filter Freak 1 and 2 are a little more in depth. They can vary from light to very heavily audible processing, and have many options available for tweaking sounds. With the Filter Freak, I usually flip through presets until I find something similar to what I am looking for, and then lock it in. Decapitator is a high quality distortion plugin. Its good for analog distortion sounds, and emulates popular preamps, consoles and distortion units for some serious dirt. Decapitator is excellent for “fattening up” or “warming” sounds.

The Soundtoys plugins are multi-platform, which is nice because I bounce between 3 DAWs (Pro Tools, Logic and Ableton Live). I prefer plugins that are available in all 3 because then I can get used to the specific plugin workflow and pull it up in whichever environment I am working in, and use plugin-saved presets. Those features are essential for bringing sounds and settings to different sessions.