Waves GOLD vs Izotope Studio

Teetonetal

So I am about to embark upon recording my band as a bit of a project. Normally I am just recording my own music but I thought it would we good to branch out.

I am using Reaper with a Zoom R24 and a laptop running win 7

Primarily I will be recording audio buit I plan to use a few VSTi to add in a little bit of keys, synth and also to replace my floor effects (guitar)

As part of this project I thought I might be good to invest in a plug in package, I know reaper comes with a fairly decent free set many of which I use, but I was wondering if getting either the waves GOLD or Izotope studio package would be an upgrade... given that I am going to be mixing and mastering 18 songs it also seems to me that now would be a perfect time to invest.

Izotope Studio comes with Ozone 5, Alloy 2 and Nectar 2
Our singer is ok, but not great and does warble a bit..., so having Nectar could make life much easier, I also like the idea of doing all my mastering in 1 plug - being able to create a skeleton preset to give all 17 songs some cohesion. I am unconvinced about alloy 2 though. I am also thinking that once I have nailed using these 3 packs mixing future projects will be less time consuming (I am not a fan of mixing) as I will be restricted to the confines of the packages...

Waves gold seems pretty comprehensive, but I understand that some of the plugs are now quite old? However having individual components strikes me as being a bit more flexible and means I don't have massive of required components loaded into the project (one of my fears with alloy), however getting to know 30+ plugins well enough to make good choices seems daunting.

I am going to trial both, but having only 7 days with waves makes it really hard, where as Izotope offer 30 days, I can get both for around the same price so that is not a factor.

Any thoughts, opinions or experiences you'd care to share?

guitarfishbay

Do you know what you don't like from the Reaper Plugins?  I've never used Reaper so I've got no familiarity with it.  But unless you have clear goals then you might just be spending money before you need to.

Firstly though - what price are you looking at paying?  Waves stuff varies in price according to monthly special offers.  Right now I'm seeing Izotope Studio is £349 at Studioexchange (first hit on google shopping).  And I can see Waves Gold for £199 from several sources.  You might even be able to get both cheaper from www.audiodeluxe.com - you need to create an account to view some of the discounts but it is legit, I've bought plenty of stuff from there.

If you are not a fan of mixing I'd suggest something with easily tweakable presets might suit you better - in that case the Izotope bundle might be a better choice, but I've never used it.  From what I understand though it contains lots of preset chains which you might find useful.  Another option when it comes to easily tweakable presets is Toontrack's EZ Mix, I think there is a demo for that too.  It really is very easy to use, the prests only have two knobs, so it suits the kind of workflow where you want a quick result without spending time dialling everything in.  Though you can't do any deep editing in EZ Mix, so bear that in mind.

I do own Waves Gold but haven't tried the vocal tuning plugin because I own Melodyne.  If I was going to suggest a 'buy once' set of plugins I'd look at Fab Filter stuff but it isn't the cheapest.  Since I bought them I hardly use anything else though.  You can get demos for them, depending on how many plugins you feel you need to buy it might be an option for you, but the total bundle is way more expensive than the Izotope/Waves stuff you're looking at.

Danny1969

Why not see how you get one with the stock Reaper plugs first. Most guitar, bass, drums projects use nothing more than compression, EQ and some aux based reverb and delay effects. We have quite a big plugin collection here but I rarely use anything except EQ compression with  delay and  reverb set up on aux buses. I firmly believe the better you track the recording the less plugs you will need. 

Waves Gold is quite old now but Waves Tune for vocals is massively unrated. I recently did a Gospel project with stacks of BV's and I used Waves Tune to tune em quickly and discreetly. Maxx Bass is useful as well on certain things but a lot of the other stuff in the bundle is too quirky for me

Teetonetal

Thanks for the input - I 100% agree that recording good audio is a must - I have been using the reaper vst stuff for quite a while (2 years I guess), but I just struggle with them - mainly it's down to the interface as some of them are not intuitive to me - I especially don't like the delay and reverb plugs.

I have tried EZ drummer and EZ keys before and I'm not a fan... might look into the Mix though just in case..

In terms of price I am looking at waves for 199 and Izoptope for 249 (with upgrade to Ozone 6 on release)

At the moment I am not sure I even will buy anything. I think first port of call will be to trial Izotope for the first 30 days then see if it offers me anything over and above the reaper plugs. I am just a bit lazy I guess and Nectar and Ozone sound right up my street for ease of use vs time spent chasing "it" with single plugs.

Just interested in peoples opinions.

indiansummer1

I probably wouldn't recommend Waves Gold - you'll end up with a load of plugins you don't use which aren't that good, and the plugins that are good within that bundle are quite dated, such as Renaissance Reverb. The VEQ series is not bad either but to be honest I much prefer the API bundle (in particular the 2500 compressor).

If it's mainly the reverb and delays you don't like then you might be better off looking for separate delay and reverb plugins - I personally like convolution reverbs but don't know which one to recommend as I primarily use Space Designer in Logic. In terms of delays my preference is Fabfilter Timeless, but again I've been happy with the standard of the Logic stock plugins.

I've used Ozone (which is obviously primarily a mastering tool) and got okay results out of it, but to be honest i didn't really like the feel of it and found I could get better results with separate plugs (I also never really used the harmonic exciter/stereo widening tools). A lot of people use it and just rely on the presets which is obviously pretty stupid when it comes to mastering! I imagine Alloy will have a similar preset based feel, and also bear in mind that I found the iZotope stuff quite processor intensive compared to single plugins which would be a pain if you wanted to use it on every channel.

Having thought back I too would recommend some sort of Fabfilter bundle were they not so expensive. The EQ, compressors and limiter are really well thought out.

Deijavoo

I really fancy Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 9, just for the piano sound of Giant. I haven't bought it yet and I'm not likely too either, as most of it is too quirky for what I actually need/want.

Drew_TNBD

I'd recommend going for single plugins to be honest. Tend to be better value for money, because you don't end up with a bunch of crap that you wouldn't need.

I really rate quite a lot of the Waves plugins. The CLA compressors are the bomb dot com. Valhalla for reverbs and Soundtoys for delays.

You could also checkout our plugin (I work for FXpansion) called Bloom:

http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=197

guitarfishbay

Definitely check out Valhalla plugins if you feel you want more options for reverbs.  Valhalla Room, and Valhallla Vintage Verb are what I use most of the time, and they're very reasonably priced too.

Heartfeltdawn

Teetonetal said:

Any thoughts, opinions or experiences you'd care to share?

Yeah....don't go splunging all that money on software right now. 

Check this out:  --> http://www.meldaproduction.com/plugins/product.php?id=MFreeEffectsBundle

Then this: --> http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/

And finally: --> http://www.tokyodawn.net/tokyo-dawn-labs/

For reverb, snaffle Valhalla Room or VintageVerb. 

I find delays vary quite considerably in plugin world. Currently I'm mostly using RP Delay by Rob Papen and the ever wonderful NastyDLA by Variety of Sound. 

If you do find yourself wanting more, then join KVR and browse the classifieds there. 

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=43

Teetonetal

Deijavoo said:

I really fancy Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 9, just for the piano sound of Giant. I haven't bought it yet and I'm not likely too either, as most of it is too quirky for what I actually need/want.

Can't you just buy the giant then? 

Deijavoo

In theory, yes. But that many plugs ins for the price of only a few separately seems good value.... Ha ha

Jez6345789

There is a whole mountain of stuff out there these days and to be honest I would get the basics down on a track if you have nothing in this style to work with. Then audition the various stuff out their. Complete suites are fine but you often are paying for stuff you never use. 

There is also some good free stuff as well if you hunt around.

regards Jez