I don't use the one knob stuff.... I am suspicious of the mystery controls on the signature plugins too.... I have been trying to gear myself up to try the Maroquin, Puig and Mazerati plugs but I dunno.... so far I have only sued the Butch Vig Vocal with the steampunk GUI and the Chris Lord Alge stuff that just clones specific pieces from his rig -- oh, and I sue the Puig-child Fairchild emulation as it sounds better to me than most other farichild plugins... for the msot part the waves plugs I use the most are the tried and true ones that aren't emulating a specific piece of gear like the renaissance compressor and reverb, maxxbass, L1, L2, trueverb, sometimes the crazy flange/phase one, linear phase EQ sometimes, the multiband compressor is really handy and easier to dial in than a lot of my other multis... I do often use the CLA2A because its in the ballpark and once in a blue I'll use a blue line 1176 plugin, but usually for fet compression I use the presonus eureka strip and print, a lot of times while tracking! I just commit to a heavy 1176 type squash and do that. Occassionally I do a 1073 EQ emulation or just need some simulated transformer color for style and use that.... I'll occasionally dicker around with the REDD and TGA abbey road emulations but I rarely use them for anything. They sound hyped and cool and all, but they don't fulfill a musical role making the isnturuments play together.... they're justs tylizing.
its funny, one thing I swear by is this freeware VST DBX 160 clone:
http://xclusive-audio.com/free-vst-dbx-165a-compressor-by-sixty-five/
I use this on tons of inserts because at moderate settings it responds like a 160 and its easier to use one of these versus plugging up a 3630 and running a track through another pass of AD/DA.... it has a parallel blend knob so I'm happy because generally during mixing there's a specific way I use VCA channel compressors and its gotta be parallel tog et the sound I'm after
I really like this bundle of bread and butter VSTs that are freeware: https://www.meldaproduction.com/MFreeEffectsBundle apart from their excellent comb filter that I use now as much as the old Steinberg comb? its all basic stuff, but it has wonderful host sync and stuff so you can lock everything to host tempo including dynamics processors without doing and math and the comb and pitch effects can be tuned with a piano roll inside the plugin so you can really dial in musical frequencies for filter cutoffs and stuff. The limiter is really exceptional. It responds like the L1, but it has parallel built in as wella s a complex harmonics engine that gives it a little character. I was always a fan of using L1 or L2 in parallel but its a bear in the box avoiding phase problems between the processed and unprocessed busses... anyway, I like this gadget. I also am really find of Toky Dawn Research. I sue Slick EQ like crazy and love their parallel feedback compressor. If you really know compressors this is a great plugin.... if you're used to just whacking a setting on some hardware by ear with no logic to how you dial that in? well, not for you, TDR's compressor can sound really bad, but with care it sounds hella good. I mean, I ostly use the same stuff as everyone in the box. Soundtoys echoboy gets used. Altiverb...
people on here are always asking me about plugins and stuff but I don't do anything that special. Its a mix of (often free) digital tools with super specific controls that suit my way of doing things, some good emulations of my favorite hardware and soemtiems just shit that came with the DAW. I'm not real picky unless something just isn't sounding as good as it did when I was recording it. I think maybe I use them differently than a lot of people on EB? I dunno, I am pretty sure I have a different philosophy on whena dn why I reach for a compressor or limiter and how I might employ it... and that's definitely going to cause me to use different tools than a lot of people whoa re like "its gotta be an SSL G bus compressor emulation because EVERYONE mixes into the buss compressor man! and I have to have 20 isntances of 1176 emulation on the channels because its the standard and and and..." No, I'm not like that. I want something tht will excel in that particular application and I don't care what its supposed to be like, often tis better to sue something that has no 'character' and just has really fine, control of every parameter so you can get it just right.
