manning1,

I have a small request for you. If you choose to wade into this discussion, that you put on your optical computing/quad-core eyeglasses to look at plugins with the same reverence. We've all been making music successfully with our PCs that you would see has handcuffed, without much issue, for many years now. There are many folks here in this thread that dabble outside of PG successfully, with more and less expensive products, and this is a key shortcoming to PG products that we have asked for on wishlists now for the better half of a decade.

I have a very small set of plugins I depend on like old friends now. Rarely will I stray from using these in the composition process. In the mixdown/production process - I may add some flavor with other stuff, but this is the composing and rough mix setup. The list is rather short, but I post it here to demonstrate that because someone likes using plugins does not mean they are a plugin collector. This is a fairly similar list of products that a decently equipped studio would have in hardware, except mine didn't cost much of anything, except what a few yearly updates to PG products would cost - and that's with the Jamstix product. The rest are freebies or pay-for plugins I won as prizes in KVRaudio.com song contests.

VSTs:
Built-in Mackie plugins with Tracktion, specfically their dynamics processors
Kjaerhus' classic series; where their modulation plugins work on the host tempo with beat division controls
GVST lineup (as they have great signal display interfaces and work wonders as teaching devices)
Frohmage filter
Ariesverb reverb
Bionic Delay from interruptor.ch
Tracktion's parametric EQ

VSTis:
Jamstix (I'm about to re-up for version 3)
All of Mr. Ray's electric pianos and VB3 from GSi
Minimogue VA
Arppe 2600 VA

I'll experiment now and then with more, but these are the core. My go to plugins. My now old friends.

Regarding the 'low cost' claims, not necessarily from PG, but from the defenders of PG: The argument is now lost as there are dollar for dollar competitive products to the DAW aspect, that are more fully featured. I won't list them out. RB/RealTracks is still pretty unique as is BIAB capability. Not really the discussion topic of this thread however.

Regarding '2nd rate': I don't think that is necessarily the right terminology. There is something basic about VST implementation that PG programmers can't get around, that all of the little boys and big boys now support. Specifically the ability to hook into the DAW/host timing. Perhaps it's PG's ability to track SMPTE that used to be such an advantage when syncing to tape? I don't know, but there is something odd there that causes both effect and instrument plugins to be handcuffed or simply not usable at all. I would love to see, as a first step, PG have the ability to send the host tempo over to effect VST like Kjaerhus' auto filter. The fact that it still isn't implemented does make one scratch one's head and wonder why not when so many apps both lesser and greater cost than PG products can do the trick.

Pros can and do make hit songs without a computer, so trying to bring that into the discussion of a thread titled 'VST Disappointment' is a bit of a red herring.

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