With Christmas coming around the corner in under three months time I thought I’d share seven of the best deals or the best places to get your gear from post-production to the final product I’ll cover places where to shop for your music gear for the producer/musician/band or other out there on a budget. They have been out for quite some time now most of them anyway and this is sort of a review on the plugins at least what I think and like about them, yeah a review! This is my first review and I’m not that technical with the plugins so I don’t know how this is going to turn out but like I said I can tell you what I liked and didn’t like about them and why I would personally recommend them to you. I do love a bargain I’m actually a sucker for one and I like to do my research before choosing whatever I’m choosing so this is from a lot of research and scrolling websites to see what the deal is and price etc. You might want to jump ship from your subscription you may have or even if you are just starting out you might find this useful. I hope you do find it useful give it a thumbs up if you did so I know if you did and to do more when I have enough for more, This is personal opinion and no way am I paid or endorsed by anyone to write this I just wanted to share the good news so to speak.
Another blog post I digged up from my old website using Wayback Machine so prices might have changed by now so it’s worth looking into. The V Collection by Arturia is my favorite synth’s right now and what I first love about it is the price, it’s a rent to own product that can be rented for $24.99 (£20.26) (22.77 Euros) a month for 20 months then it’s yours to keep. It is one of the highest amounts for prices per month on Splice.com which is where you can rent it from but the quantity and quality you get is worth the price if you ask me. I use it on all my productions and suits best with Vaporwave. Electronic, Electronica, Synthwave and Prog Rock music but I have tested them on other genres and they worked quite well as they are modeled on classic hardware. It has not one not two not three but 10 analogue synthesizers and 4 digital synthesizers hence why they call it the collection and has everything you need to make tracks with such as keys, leads, bass, brass, organ, sequencer, pads and strings it also has extras like percussion and FXs which I yet haven’t used but I will do one day when I find use of them not that they are not useful. The plugins are modeled on the best 70s and 80s synthesizers and cover the Moog to the Prophet 5 and Prophet VS, they all have lush and gritty sounds in there and you can get some really good melodic stuff out of it whilst getting some edgier tracks out of it too. You can never get bored of the sounds as there is plenty to choose from and if you know-how, some will even let you recreate sounds yourself but I don’t know how to do this on this plugin at the moment having too much fun with the presets anyway. It is a circuit synthesizer so it has a motherboard interface (I think that’s what they call it) and as I said it’s confusing to use you might need a manual if you ain’t experienced if you do want to create your own sounds. That’s the only downside to the synthesizers it’s tricky to create your own sounds with but the presets make up for that and it takes a little while to load the plugin up but apart from that it’s great. What I also love about it as most of the synthesizers have built-in 16 step sequencer so at the flip of the button you can turn any of the sounds into a sequencer but each synthesizer has plenty of good sequencers to use but it’s just more options. You can find more details, videos and try it out for 3 days before rent to owning at Splice.com.
If you are looking for old skool analogue sounds like old drum kits and synths like the Roland 808 and 909 the Lindrum and all legendary drum kits be sure to check out Mars sample packs. It is a collection of old skool hardware that covers drums to synths and if you buy everything on the website you can get it for only $99.00 (88.40 Euros) (£74.94) or which is usually priced on the website as $2,503 so it’s 96% off. It was cheaper when I first got it a couple of years ago and got it for something like £39.00 but I still think for all the sample packs of one-shots with a staggering 46.5GB it’s worth the money. I don’t use the synths that much as they are ungroomed sounds that take work to manipulate into something good and you need something with the ability to use low and high pass filters to refine the sounds I did use Magix’s Independence a free sampler that can do that and more. The synths sound’s at first sound horrendous and as I said before takes a bit of fiddling with the knobs to get decent sounds out of them, sort of like Serum just not in a synthesizer but sampler. The most useful stuff to me is the drum kits and is a collection of all the best drums kits from Roland, Lindrum, MPC 60 and Drumtrax and covers all you need to make your next drum pattern with. It also has a percussion sample pack from a famous drum machine which I always struggle to find as there are so many sample packs but I think it’s by Roland but don’t quote me on that. They are all welled sampled and after EQ and compression it sounds good, I like to use the compression first in FL Studio to make the sound a bit clearer before compressing and EQ it so there is a little work to do but not that much. They do sell just the drum kits sample packs you can get all of them on their site for $89 (79.45 Euros) (£67.36.)
If you want to make your own sounds for your projects then Serum is the answer. For those who don’t know what Serum is it’s a wavetable synthesizer that is ideal for the sound engineer who ever wants to create their own sounds. It is a digital plugin so not best for making analogue sounds but it is possible to do so. It has two oscillators and subfolders of wavetables to manipulate the sounds with, it also comes with built-in effects like reverb, delay, flanger, chorus and dimension expander to shape your sound to the desired effect. It’s quite easy to use but I had to watch a few YouTube videos to get me started but once I knew a few things it was easy to use and doesn’t take that much time to make sounds. The price is good and can be rent to owned at Splice.com for $9.99 a month (£8.13) or (9.19 Euros) for 19 months. It does have presets built-in as well and failing that you can buy add on’s from all your favorite sample packs boutiques but it’s always fun to be able to make up your own sounds with a few twists of the knobs. I’m still finding it hard to get them sweet sounds out of it and I personally think it works best with more edgier tracks but you might know something I don’t so again don’t quote me on that. I like the interface of it and makes it easy to use and can easily change things without too much trouble and also it is possible to build a step sequencer inside Serum for sequenced and Arpeggios sounds. The only downside is it’s the most used synth in the music production world right now but as everyone’s tastes are different you would be making different sounds from each other so I don’t think that is too much of a problem.
Another staple you may need or want in your music especially if you play keyboard like me is the Korg Collection 6 and has all the necessary and most famous Korg products that were hot in the day including the M1 a dance and House staple and also the Arp 2600, the Micro Korg, Prophecy, Trinity and the Mini Korg which is fit for quite a few genres but especially Electronic music and Synthpop as they were widely used on so many popular late 70s, 80s and 90s songs. I mean if you are looking to bring back that 70s earthly sound then the Korg Collection 6 may be for you as it has plenty of retro sounds for those throwback songs you may make or have made but it does have some nice pleasant sounds to but hey I like all the sounds apart from the unworkable. Not exactly the one if you want to make your own sounds as unfortunately and like most synthesizer plugins now a days they don’t come with their own bank so basically a opportunity to make your own sounds or a place to store your own sounds to but still always a good experience with it finding the right sound for the song but some sounds like most synthesizer plugins and hardware don’t shine through as well so they get axed like some of the M1 sounds which is thin thin thin like skinny thin. You can rent to own the Korg Collection 6 at Splice.com for $15.99 a month (£12.11) (14.27 Euros) for 25 months until it’s yours to keep. Oh the great thing about rent to own on Splice.com is you pay no extra then the valued price in this case it’s worth $399.75.
Waves.com is a great place to go shopping for effects plugins and has everything from reverb, taped effect, delay and flanger with all types of models and makers. I have always gone to this site and found a great deal it seems like they have always got a deal on. Now I have quickly looked at this site again and they have a different setup and now is rent each month and has two tiers one for $14.99 (£10.60) or (12.50 Euros) and you get.
120+ plugins:
All plugin updates included
Selected new plugins added
2 licenses
Waves Stream: Remote audio collaboration
StudioVerse mix chain library
Premium mixing courses
Cancel anytime (effective next cycle)
Or you can go for the $24.99 option (£18.92) and (22.31 Euros) which you get
240+ plugins
All plugin updates included
New plugins added regularly
2 licenses
Waves Stream: Remote audio collaboration
StudioVerse mix chain library
Premium mixing courses
Cancel anytime (effective next cycle)
2 Online Mastering credits / month
Another great plugin you may need in your bag is Massive and the newer Massive X great plugins you can use on most genres if not all genres as it is expansive and wide range it’s easy to pick the right sounds and there are a lot to pick from. What I like is the genres and sub genres of lists of sounds which makes it easy to navigate by section and you can pick by instrument or even by mood. The interface is some what easy to use if you are just going though the sounds but as I would go on to say and what I like a lot about both plugins you can make your own sounds which can be intimidating to use and may take a few YouTube videos or online guides to help you mold the sounds and get to know things like the Macro knobs a crucial part of molding your sounds other than the good old high and low pass filters another crucial step and also how to tighten up the sound as it can sound a bit far apart in distance also to dramatically change the sound like the use of a Macro knob or the high and low pass filters built in most synthesizer plugins. I made a whole lot of sounds when I could remember the ins and outs like my cat sound I randomly made just messing about knowing what I knew and they can make powerful basses as well I made a good Acid House bass using Massive following a guide but mine sounded slightly different but still good and gave it a powerful kick behind the track. You can rent to own both Massive and Massive X on Splice.com for $9.99 a month (£7.56) (8.91 Euros) for 24 months until it’s yours to keep and you’ll be saving quite a lot looking at the original prices you would pay say on a online retail shop. You can also rent them separately for also $.9.99 per month for the same length of time 24 months until it’s yours to keep but who doesn’t like two for the price of one, bargain quite.
Weirdly enough this is another one of my favourites and is quite a useful tool when needed and is always good to have on hand just in case. The RX10 or more by Izotope is an audio repair kit and can be used to repair your audio from unwanted noises to de-essing. It has so many useful and easy to use features which can save your song or as I use it for samples from being canned due to bad quality of audio. It’s especially good at cleaning up from a bad mic recording and with a few of the settings it comes out quite well though experimentation with settings is best advised. What I like most about it and is why it’s one of my favorites it can make acapella’s out of songs that have background music in so, to put it bluntly, you can take your favorite song from your favorite artist and remix it yourself. Now, this is hit and miss and the heavier the background instruments are the less of a better outcome you will get that’s what I personally found though it does vary. Soul and slow jams and R’n’B works best something that hasn’t got that many instruments in. The other factor is how it’s going to come out is how the song was originally made and how it was laid out in the first place so this can be frustrating at times when trying to second guess and balance it all right. I’m still practising on all these issues but it’s still a good tool that is better and cheaper than any other plugin or subscription that works and done without to much struggle sure you may have to wait a few minutes whilst it processes but the outcome is worth it. Now don’t get me wrong there is another issue some words are inaudible and some weird glitching sounds does happen probably from the way it is processed in the studio and the FXs they might use but you can work around if you don’t have that part in mind which has happened to me. You can rent to own this plugin at Splice.com for $15.99 (£13.01) or (17.96 Euros) for 25 months then like the other plugins it’s yours to keep, also they all come with a seven-day trial.
Once you are done making your track you need a good music distributor and Ditto Music or Distorkid and is what you are looking for. For unlimited distribution for one artist, it is £19.00 a year ($23.35) or (17.37 Euros.) for both distributors. This is a good price and beats competitors miles off by doing unlimited and for that price and just to price compare. I’ve only been with Ditto Music for a couple of years but I have been mostly happy with them, not too much of a deal but a couple of problems along the way but they were always friendly and sorted the problem quite fast. They both distribute to all leading music platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Itunes, Deezer, Google Play, Beatport (Though you need to pay an additional one-time fee to sell on Beatport) and Vevo and many more. It takes 11 days to get your music live and you get to choose what day it comes out so all the reins go to you. Also talking of leading it’s 100% royalty-free so you keep all royalties just as long as you get rights to all of the sounds on your album if not your song could be taken down or at worst pay royalties off that sell so the money for that sale say for your Whitney Houston remix would get rejected I mean the whole album or EP which means you have to upload the album or album without the offensive track. Also which is a great feature I think is the free ISRC and UPC codes which most distributors ask for a fee which can be costly if like me you have multiple albums out. The ISRC and UPC codes are unique codes that identify each album with special codes and is essential for this digital world industry, you can’t sell albums online without these codes so to have them for free is something I think most people would overlook but it saves a lot of money in the process. Now you be like me and have two artist names and you may want to have it under a separate say Spotify pages you can spend $59.00 (£44.63) or (52.63 Euros) that’s a year with Ditto Music and have up to two artist names or you may want to go for the cheaper price as I noticed and spend $44.99 a year with Distorkid (£35.99) (44.99 Euros) for also two artists and you can get up to five but your reading this so your near broke right….there there LOL!!!
Now in before you release your music you may need some mastering yes that old thing. Mastering clarifies, enhances and makes it louder it also adds the cushion behind it which is why I like to master tracks but is one of the final steps of the production line. Now there are many options like Iztope mastering suite but I use the Landr plugin and their online tool on their website which is what they started off as. The plugin and website is easy to use and is less intimidating then some of them and it has a few options you can do on their website I always use Balanced for the options and on the plugin you can click the button like Iztope and it will do itself and it sounds alright if not better then what is on their website which would make sense if true as it’s more wired up so to speak. If you know what you are doing or just experiment with the different knobs you can tweak to taste as they say in the ad. The plugin is rent to own on the Splice.com and Landr website for $19.95 (£15.10) (17.81 Euros) or you can spend on their tool they have on their website.
£10.00 a month ($13.21) (11.79 Euros) for
Unlimited MP3 masters
Unlimited distribution for 1 artist
(5 to 7‑day release review)
100 samples credits per month
14 extra plugins from partners (£1,000 value)
Or £16.00 a month ($21.41) (18.87 Euros) you get
Unlimited MP3 + 3 WAV masters per month
LANDR Mastering Plugin SE
Unlimited distribution for 3 artists
(2 to 5‑day release review)
Unlimited WAV & HDWAV masters.
LANDR Mastering Plugin PRO
Unlimited distribution for 5 artists
(2 to 5‑day release review)