Plugins

Clean, visually legible wavetable synthesis. The stereo-wide sawtooth run into distortion is the rage lead template.

Half-speed drops, tape stops, stutters and rhythmic gating applied to audio already playing. Reached for the transition and the last bar before a switch-up.

Wide, filtered, cinematic. Sustained pads and bell tones that sit behind an 808 without fighting it.

Serum-shaped wavetable clarity with spectral warp modes. Reached for rage leads, bells and bass by producers who will not pay for Serum.

Whatever the library is. Reached for 808 one-shots with real glide control and for melodic libraries that would take an hour to program.

Instant tape wobble and noise floor. The sound of a melody loop that has been through something.

Five analog circuits worth of grit, from a gentle warm-up to full destruction. Reached for weight on 808s and live drums.

Three decades of digital reverb character in one box. Reached for vocal plates and the wide, slightly grainy tails plugg leans on.

Echoes that come back warped and corroded rather than faithful. Reached for robotic artifacts and broken-machine fills, though it tames into a plain delay.

Everything pushed forward and levelled, the upward compression that makes a sound instantly modern. Reached for hats, textures and synth loops that need to seem bigger than they are.

Clean and versatile rather than characterful, with several synthesis engines under one roof. Reached as the free option when Vital's wavetable sound is not the fit.

Enormous, blooming, slightly unreal space. Not a room simulator.

Five analog circuits worth of grit, from a gentle warm-up to full destruction. Reached for weight on 808s and live drums.

Half-speed drops, tape stops, stutters and rhythmic gating applied to audio already playing. Reached for the transition and the last bar before a switch-up.

Bright, glassy additive tone that can resynthesise a sample into something new. Reached for pads and leads with movement that is hard to build subtractively, at the cost of a steep learning curve.

Whatever the library is. Reached for 808 one-shots with real glide control and for melodic libraries that would take an hour to program.

Transparent to the point of invisibility. Reached for surgical cuts, dynamic notches and carving room for an 808 under a kick.

Instant tape wobble and noise floor. The sound of a melody loop that has been through something.

Band-split distortion with modulation on every parameter. Reached when the 808 needs harmonics only in the mids.

Clean, visually legible wavetable synthesis. The stereo-wide sawtooth run into distortion is the rage lead template.

Punchy, ready-made low end with the glide and distortion already in the box. Reached for an 808 that lands hard without building a separate saturation chain.

Two thousand vintage presets with the programming hidden. Reached for Rhodes, pianos and polysynth pads in plugg and melodic trap.

Modern wavetable movement with a sampled layer underneath for body. Reached for melodic leads and pads that need motion without drawing automation.

Five analog circuits worth of grit, from a gentle warm-up to full destruction. Reached for weight on 808s and live drums.

Warm, forgiving echoes that never turn brittle, with a different flavour per style. Reached for vocal throws and dub-style adlib delays.

Instant formant and pitch shifts, from a subtle thickening to a full robot. Reached for adlibs, pitched-down villain vocals and hard-tuned hooks.

Widening that reads as a second take rather than an effect. Reached for hooks and stacked adlibs that need width without losing the centre.

Wide, filtered, cinematic. Sustained pads and bell tones that sit behind an 808 without fighting it.

Clean chops and pitch shifts that hold together when stretched a long way, though opinion splits on how natural the stretching sounds. Reached for flipping a sample inside the DAW instead of a separate editor.

Not a sound, a subtraction. Reached when a distorted 808 or a bright bell is stabbing and nothing on an EQ curve fixes it cleanly.

Bus glue: a couple of decibels that pull a beat together rather than an audible effect. Reached for the drum bus or master, used lightly.

Less a tone than a move: risers, filters, stutters and tape stops under one macro. Reached for the bar before a drop or a section change.