A brief introduction

Back in the good old days, making music required actual physical instruments, finding (the right) people to play them, and lots and lots of equipment to record and process them. Nowadays, with a few notable exceptions, most instruments can be made available from your hard drive as a ‘Virtual Instrument’. In fact, it’s not all that uncommon for many of your favourite producers - yours truly, included - to create complete pieces of music without any physical instruments whatsoever.

But let’s go back in time a little; to a quaint era when you’d pass your audio signals from instrument or mics through a mixing desk and then onto a tape deck. As (some of) you might imagine, this required a lot of equipment and a large room, because - aside from the bulky mixing desk, you needed additional processing units for each audio signal. So, again, a lot of equipment to make music.

At the most basic level, “processing” audio signals included EQ and compression, which are the basic requirements for good sound. If you want to add space, you need reverb or delay. On top of that comes a host of other effects like distortion, phasers, flangers etc. As you might imagine (or perhaps not) these devices have a tendency to rack up and occupy entire sections of a room. At the time, all of these effects were analog hardware devices that literally “plugged in” to your mixing console (hence the term “plug-in”). Undeniably, hardware plugins have a certain kind of sonic quality that has shaped music into what we know today. To get that sound, you need to get the exact hardware and a mixing console - not to mention that big room to fit it all into!

So, welcome back to the comfy home studio! The great news is that modern software plugins (VST) do a great job of emulating the sound of the devices mentioned before. Even commercial music industry studios are utilising software plugins more and more these days! In fact, the prevailing trend in 21st century music production is to capture the same “character” and “personality” that characterises vintage records and apply it to modern day music production practices. The more powerful and sophisticated these digital tools become, the more widespread music production becomes in home studios - and even bedrooms.

Coming back to the focal point of this post, there are two main categories of audio plugins: Virtual Instruments and Effects Processors - both of which I’ll get into below and hopefully give you some insight into how I achieve my production sound!

Virtual Instruments

Assuming you’re a music producer – and not just an audio engineer – virtual instruments are pretty much essential investments. The sophisticated, heavy duty ones will most likely take up more CPU than your effects processors or samples, but they really are the driving force of most modern productions. As you are most likely aware, these plugins are (sometimes) referred to as VSTi, and they are played using a MIDI controller (or with your computer’s keyboard if you’re seriously pressed for space!). Of course, you can skip these if you only plan on recording acoustic instruments, focusing on hardware or just interested in the audio engineering aspect of music production.

In most cases, your music software or DAW will already come packed with a number of (stock) virtual instruments - it’s a great idea to explore and get the hang of those before you blow your budget on expensive new stuff. That being said, here are some additional pieces of kit that I recommend checking out:

Massive X

In my humble opinion, the original NI Massive was the best VST plugin soft synth on the market for years. The completely revamped MASSIVE X, delivers some serious improvement on the much-loved industry standard. With over 170 wavetable options available and two different oscillators for you to layer your sounds within the plugin, it’s safe to say your options are very far from limited.

There’s a really cool drag and drop routing portal within the interface (that I love), which allows a seamless link to your MIDI device or other virtual instruments. Additionally, you can draw in custom modulation patterns for maximum flexibility and variety.

In terms of variety, along with hundreds of possible synth sounds, you also get a powerful sub bass modes for your oscillators. And, lest I forget, there’s an ever-growing number of expansion pack (something NI do exceedingly well) for those time periods when you’re stuck and out of inspiration!

Battery 4

Also from Native Instruments, Battery 4 is undeniably one of the most popular drum machine VSTs on the market. Featuring a a sleek GUI (something of a NI specialty) and a simple kit-making process, the Battery 4 is a percussion powerhouse that’s also straightforward to use.

Also in keeping with their regular MO, the good people at NI really make this VST stand out with the massive add-on library. No matter what genre you’re working in, you’ll hardly have any trouble finding useful and inspiring elements in the add-on kits from the expansions library.

Additionally, the NI Battery 4 boasts 128 layered cells - providing you with as much space as you could ever need. You can get creative by adding complex kits, performing sophisticated sound editing, and integrating insert/send effects.

Reaktor 6

Strictly speaking, Reaktor is so much more than a VST - it’s also a Audio Unit, RTAS and AAX plugin. Simply put, it is widely considered to be a virtual Swiss Army knife for synthesis and beat making. It is best known for its collections of ready-made synths, drum machines, sequencers, and its design feature that lets you create your own custom instruments.

Version 6 is without a doubt the most impressive and authentic sounding Reaktor version yet. Its anti-aliased oscillators sound incredible and the Zero Delay Feedback (ZDF) filters are as close as you can get to analog designs. And for those getting into modular synthesis (very fashionable these days), the Blocks engine is really exciting, as it allows you to explore in a friendly software environment.

Reaktor’s power and cutting-edge sound design capabilities have consistently and unsurprisingly garnered praise. I feel that with the sonic quality of the oscillators and filters - which now sound better than ever - Reaktor 6 is undeniably up there with the best analog emulations available. If you like designing your own instruments as much as you like tweaking readymade synths, there really is nothing else like it.