Reply To: Don’t miss this

Sounds like everybody’s having loads of fun with the one-knob deal. Fortunately, my recording PC is off-line only, so I wasn’t about to go through any of this unless it was a top-notch freebie. But they want you to create an account and all that other nonsense. All together I was totally put off this “thank you, Waves, for the free gift’.

Now, I’m as much of a hound for freeware as anyone here. I get a particular joy in finding things for free that often work as well or even better than the plugins all the snobs at forums such as Gearslutz (an apt name for that place IMO) make 30-page threads out of UAD compared to Waves, etc. Good for a laugh any time you’re bored.

At this point, I think it’s well worth mentioning Stillwell and Scwa’s website. If you don’t mind paying perhaps as much as $35USD for some compressors that totally rival the gang of the $200-300 range of compressor plugins, this is the place.

http://www.stillwellaudio.com/?page_id=28

These guys are two of the devs for REAPER. Looking from their work on this highly respected and loved DAW onward to their plugin designs, It becomes very obvious that they know what they’re doing. Of course, if you still want free, you can always start with their collection of ReaPlugs. These work well in other DAWs besides REAPER, and practically every site (e.g., Bedroom Producers Blog) rates them in the top ten. But if you want better, I certainly suggest a test drive of these others. Their controls are numerous — no one-knobbing it here — and each suits its designed purpose extremely well. Although compressors/limiters is my fattest folder aside from instruments, I find I’m relying on Stillwell’s creations more and more to get the best possible sounds.

Have a look if you aren’t familiar. They are hassle-free to install and test, no codes or registration needed to try them out. Being the freebie hound that I am, it is rare that I would suggest commercial plugins unless they were priced sanely and were some of the best.