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Addons that you definitely need...maybe

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Duration: 60 minutes

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Addons that you definitely need...maybe

About This Event

Come geek out with Tony Wijs, our audio engineering instructor and get a glimpse into all the wonderfully "necessary," addons and tool you could get to make your life easier in the editing process.

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Event Summary

When it comes to engineering audio for voiceover or music or even sound design, you can do some pretty amazing things with the built-in controls and functions of your preferred DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

However if you want to delve into a world where you are mixing and mastering audio for more than just a quick audition or a simple podcast, then you'll want to build yourself an arsenal of addons - aka plugins!

Tony shared a list of some of his favourite plugins that uses all the time on a wide variety of audio engineering work, and we've collated that list below for your reference.

NOTE: All prices are in USD and were accurate as at the date of the event – 30th August 2021 

There are no affiliate arrangements with any of the companies listed below. This is just a list of awesome plugins that Tony finds that he uses a lot and genuinely wants folks to be able to mix and produce the best possible audio!

Tony's Plugin List:

RX by iZotope.com

Compare the differences between each version of RX and what is included in each here:

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MV2 Compressor from Waves.com

  • MV2 - https://www.waves.com/plugins/mv2
  • Normal cost is $99, on sale usually for $49.99, and various specials often see it reduced to as low as $29.99
    • Waves often has sales / offers where you can select a free plugin when you spend a certain amount in their store.

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Infinity EQ from SlateDigital.com

  • Infinity EQ is an incredibly advanced equalizer with a smooth visual interface that helps you make the finest settings and adjustments to your audio.
  • https://slatedigital.com/infinity-eq/
    • Included in the Slade Digital "All Access" pass, which is a monthly membership-based subscription and gives access to all their software & plugins.
    • Standalone perpetual license is typically $149.99

An alternate EQ Tony mentioned as being similar to Infinity EQ:

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Soothe2 from oeksound.com

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Fresh Air from SlateDigital.com

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DeEsser from Waves.com

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Dear Reality dearVR PRO from Plugin-Alliance.com

  • dearVR Pro - https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/dearvr_pro.html
    • This is an incredible plugin that simulates 3D environments to allow the engineer to edit audio as if it had been recorded in the space being simulated - you can get some pretty incredible soundscapes mixed with this!
    • Cost is typically $349 and has a fully functional 14 Day trial.

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Pigments from Arturia.com

  • Pigments 3 - https://arturia.com/products/analog-classics/pigments/overview#en
  • Available as both a standalone program AND as a plugin, this is described as being a "Polychrome Software Synthesizer" and with this you can do some pretty incredible sound design and synthesis!
  • Tony showed us an example he'd created, which was of crickets chirping!
    • There is a free demo, and the cost is typically $199

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Nx - Virtual Mix Room over Headphones from Waves.com

  • Waves Nx - https://www.waves.com/plugins/nx#introducing-nx-virtual-mix-room
  • Similar in function to dearVR Pro mentioned above, but this is more for monitoring while editing rather than reproducing an Impulse Response reverb
    • Cost is similar to most Waves plugins, just has a higher initial cost - Normal cost is $99, on sale usually for $49.99, and various specials often see it reduced to as low as $29.99

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Another fun plugin, but isn't cheap...

Shared as an "honourable mention" towards the end as the event moved into the Discussion / Q&A portion, Tony demonstrated some of the amusing and fun things you can do to voiceovers and recorded sounds using this plugin.

Dehumanizer by KrotosAudio.com

  • Dehumanizer 2 - https://www.krotosaudio.com/dehumaniser2/
    • Cost is typically $399 - it does have a free trial, but be warned that you will have so much fun with this that the temptation to buy it may be too hard to resist! 😂

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Other Plugins Mentioned:

Attendee and one of Tony's Audio Engineering 101 alumni Andrew (Awesome604) mentioned the below to plugins that they've found helpful in their work also:

DeBreath from Waves.com

NS1 Noise Suppressor from Waves.com

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Q & A + Discussion

Below are questions asked by attendees both in the chat and verbally during the event, and the responses by Tony and/or Laneth.

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Q - Tash - Can I get RX on Logic Pro X?

A - Chat - Yup / Yep yep / Yes

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Q - Thomas G Burt - I usually use spectral de-noise rather than Voice De-Noise, do you reckon I should swap around?

A - Tony - Yeah, no, that's fine. I mean, if spectral works for you and you're able to kind of notch out what you're looking for, that works. It's really a kind of workflow thing. I prefer to set things up and just let it go, you know; set it and forget it. Cause I mean, a lot of the time, especially when I'm working on a lot of projects or I have a lot of auditions or engineering I'm doing, I just don't have time to sit and finesse everything. I'd rather put something on there, it's doing what I need it to do, and I can move on to the next thing; it's efficiency.

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Q - Ryan O'Boyle - (Regarding Slate Digital) Would their other cornucopia of plugins be worth getting the monthly license while just starting out?

A - Tony - If you're getting the All Access Slate Digital stuff, this (Infinity EQ) is probably the one that I use the most. There's a bunch of other ones in there; the compressors and EQs, and I think there's a DeEsser in there, too. But the thing you have to remember too, is that a lot of that stuff is probably more geared toward music, but that doesn't mean that you can't try some of these things out and see if they sound good on the VO or whatever else you're working on.

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Q - Ryan O'Boyle - (Regarding demonstration of Pigments synth plugin) Does Trash from iZotope work like that?

A - Chat & Tony - Trash is more of a distortion plugin, a really cool plugin actually. If you wanted to this to distort or overdrive, or make it sound busted. (Tony plays an example - 46m 58s into the video) I think I used this on a Kylo Ren sound that I was making to get that extra distortion.

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Q - Alyssa Murakami - (Regarding Ozone 8 Exciter function) So the level of threshold is how much it reduces in order to hit the ceiling?

A - Tony - So yeah, the threshold; think of it like a compressor. You're basically saying, "I want you to give me more volume, but at the cost of possibly squishing it more. Right? So you're going to make it louder, but you're also gonna squish it, it's going to clamp down a little harder too. So you gotta find a nice balance between the two.

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Q - Alyssa Murakami - What plugins should you be using on auditions? Like, how plugin-heavy or how modified- how audio engineered should your auditions actually be?

A - Tony - That's a really good question. So for me, again it comes down to taste, but for me I like to use a little bit of compression. Definitely EQ, get rid of any mouth clicks and noise floor, cos that just sounds good. And at the end of the day the person listening, I just want them to listen to it and go, "Hey, this sounds really clean. It sounds really good. They have a nice professional space. It doesn't sound (sic) like they did a whole bunch of compression to it to make it sound like a radio announcer." — So really, I would veer on the side of more real, because at the end of the day they want to hear you.

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Q - Anjie - When editing do you want to work in chunks or can you edit it as a whole?

(Followed up with this after being asked to clarify) So if I've recorded 10 minutes of audio and I wanted to compress the whole thing, should I work in individual chunks? Like compress certain things, or can I just compress the whole 10 minutes of audio?

A - Tony - The whole 10 minutes of audio. So this is going to depend on what DAW you're using. So if you're using Reaper, Studio One or whatnot, the plugins work in what we like to call "real time" and the plugins are compressing as we go, so if I want to turn it off I can turn it off, right? Which is fantastic. So, because it just saves so much time, just set it, listen to it, it sounds good? You're good to go. Versus having to compress things individually (sic) and that would be too difficult, it would take far too much time. So I would say at one go for sure.

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Q - Guy Cunningham - Do all these plugins work ok with Adobe Audition?

A - Andrew (Awesome604) in Chat - @guy yes they do, I use Audition. I have Waves stuff, iZotope, and Fresh Air, and all work great.

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Q - Thomas G Burt - Do you recommend the Waves DeEsser or the one that comes with iZotope RX Standard?

A - Tony - Personally? The Waves one. It's not that the iZotope is bad, it's just - I've kind of A-B'd them myself, and I've just found - even between the Waves one and another one by Slate Digital, I think... - I just really liked the Waves one, it just did the job well. And it was easier to work with, in my opinion, easier to fine tune without going overboard. I mean, obviously it's going to come down to what you want to use in the end, if it's working for you, but y'know I have it and I like the Waves one more.

Q - Thomas G Burt - Yeah, cool, thanks. And also, where do you stick Fresh Air in your stack? (Laneth note: "Stack" being another name for an "FX Chain", and FX being shorthand for "effects")

A - Tony - Yeah, so Fresh Air will typically come after my- I'll typically go to my, what I like to call my clean-up chain, right? So I'll have my EQ first, followed by mouth declick, followed by denoise. Then I would go into MV2, or whatever compressor you're going to use. Then I like to go into something, I kinda call it starting over; cos Fresh Air is technically an EQ. I'll use that to kind of color the sound as I go, and then I'll go into Fresh Air and any other extra compressors that I like might come before that I guess, if I'm going to use any other colorful compressors, um but usually I go Fresh Air before those anyway... But anyway, then usually DeEsser is usually after everything - because if you de-ess before you compress everything, you're just going to turn up those esses again, so I'd rather just fine tune those esses after I've done everything else: make it sound nice, *then* I'll deess.

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Q - Tarooi - Is there a DAW that you recommend for a beginner?

A - Laneth - Reaper does come with a learning curve, but you can get a bit of an orientation by watching Kenny Gioia's introductory series "This is REAPER 6". (Laneth followed-up with Tony near the end of the video to get his thoughts on this question - 1hr 13m 50s)

A - Tony - I say Reaper because there are a lot of tutorials that help you kind of configure it and understand where things are. Pro Tools is fine, but Pro Tools is also probably one of the most complicated DAWs - it's got a lot of stuff in there and they're not the easiest to use. That's what I learned on, so everything else was easier. But I will say that...I mean, if you're getting into actually mixing - things like, you know, you're not just recording your voice and you can just use Twisted Wave or whatever to record just your voice - but if you're actually editing and adding plugins and looking for chains and things like that, I think Reaper is really awesome.

And you can use it for nothing, I mean you can use it indefinitely for free... Most other DAWs are gonna cost something, like Studio One or other things like that. So I'd say - or if you're like Andrew who pays for Adobe Audition... *laughs* (Some semi-related chatter before follow-up question from John Wang aka Voice Dubz)

Q - Voice Dubz - How often do you actually use Pro Tools?

A - Tony - Pro Tools? I only really use if I'm working with other engineers and studios that use Pro Tools, cos I can just open up the session in mine if they record something - that way I don't have to get stems and stuff, I can actually see their notes. And also I use it for anything with ADR or film, because there's plugins that are specific to Pro Tools that I can't that I can't use anywhere else...So, it's nice that I have it, but (sic) I don't use it that much on a day-to-day basis. I use Studio One a lot, I use Reaper a lot. I don't use Audition, I just don't want to pay for it.

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