Four items on sale, and imo all are good. The bx_digital V3 EQ in particular is great imo with the unique and super useful feature set it has, and the fact its clean with no analog emulation. And includes two versions. Equally great imo, is the Purple Audio MC77 version of 1176. Beats my UAD 1176 collection every single time on drums.
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There are a lot more than 4 on sale for $9.99 now!
Over the years I’ve collected far more of these than I’ve actually used, but I’ll try to comment on ones I know about. Keep in mind that if I say, for example, “it’s an EQ” - a Plugin Alliance EQ is never just an EQ. They always fancy things up.
EQs
- bx_digital V3 is a clean EQ with stereo manipulation capabilities.
- bx_panEQ - can be used as a 3-band EQ, but you can also pan each of the three bands individually.
- bx_dynEQ is an eq/compressor that is focused on mid/side processing (you can process M and S separately). There’s a bunch of fancy sidechaining stuff too, including the ability of M to sidechain S or vice versa.
- Maag EQ 2 - I have the EQ 4, which is mainly the same thing with more channels. It emulates a hardware EQ. It’s known for having a high frequency “air band” to add air to a track - I’m not sure I particularly recommend it (there is at least one free plugin that exactly emulates the EQ 4).
- bx_hybrid V2 is a very nice EQ - I like that it has a visualization right on the plugin.
- PEX-500 - this is a Pultec EQ emulation. Actually, it’s an emulation of Lindell’s hardware Pultec emulation.
- 6X-500 - an emulation of Lindell’s 2-band boost-only coloring EQ with additional HPF and LPF.
- bx_boom is for tweaking kick drums. Literally that’s all it’s intended for. If I remember right, there’s a setting on bv_dynEQ that does the same thing, so that might be a better option.
Compressors/Limiters
- DSM V3 - this is a powerful multiband compressor. It’s supposed to be able to impose the harmonic curve of one source on another one, which is what I wanted to use it for, but I didn’t find it useful for my purposes. It can be VERY aggressive.
- 7X-500 - an emulation of Lindell’s FET compressor, with saturation built in.
- bx_limiter is a nice little limiter with a lot of visual feedback, so if you struggle with hearing it this is arguably a good way to learn.
Delays
- Instant Delay is, as you might expect, a delay. It can be simple or complicated, depending on your needs.
- Sandman is a fancy delay with a function that can make it keep repeating forever.
Distortion/Saturation*
- Dent 2 is for tweaking sounds - the original Dent is a distortion plugin and this adds to that. Indent 2 has a similar purpose.
- bx_subsynth basically accepts an input and adds subharmonics. I’ve used this with good success to add weight to an anemic bass part.
- bx_saturator V2 is a mid/side saturation tool with a high and low band so you can do things like widen your highs and mono your lows.
Filters
- bx_Cleansweep Pro is basically a fancy HP/LP filter. I’ve used this from time to time to HP vocal tracks.
I’ve used many of these in actual projects, but I can’t say that I’m a screaming fanboy of any of them. That’s probably more from not really putting them through their paces than from anything else.
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bx_digital V3 (EQ) is a real standout imo. Has expanded M/S, has five parametric bands with an option for proportional Q (or not) and two can do shelf instead, has three flavors of the “Pultec bass trick” in addition to the 5 bands as well as three flavors of similar trick on the highs, has isolation preview to quickly dial in frequencies, has a single band of dynamic EQ (in addition to all of the others) for when thats all you need (like D-essing), has both high and low pass filters with selectable slopes in addition to the bands, has zero aliasing since its pure EQ with no saturation. And comes with two versions, one for busses that has two banks of controls that can be linked or not, and a compact track version with a single bank of knobs. The buss version include well above average metering. Both run at zero latency and are light on the cpu. And they also have a control for scaling so when you like the curve but want less (or more) of a good thing, a single knob makes it happen. And finally, they have a graphical representation of what the knobs are doing to frequency, as well as gain trims on both input and output. I own an absurd 43 different EQ plugins, all paid from top makers (not including channel strips), and if I only get to have one EQ, its this one by a mile.
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