About Audio Plugin & Software Quality
Audio Plugins can make or break your project, your day, your life as an audio engineer. Here are the 3 types of audio engineering plugins and software you’ll find discussed at AudioEngineering.co.
1. High-Quality Free Audio Plugins and programs from established developers who have established themselves and are not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Why? Platform (system) stability and a quality studio experience for you. Examples of high quality free audio plugins are those from Slate, Waves, SoundToys, BlueCat Audio, Voxengo, Melda Production, and more.
2. High-Grade Commercial Audio Plugins & Software that is completely free for a limited time due to a giveaway, promotion, new product launch, or celebration. Keep your eyes out for these posts as these plugins are very valuable to your studio and music production projects. Examples from the past in this category are: Sound Toys, AVID, Eventide, and iZotope.
3. Top Industry Brand Commercial Audio Plugins that are on sale at a considerable cost savings from vendors such as Waves, iZotope, Native Instruments, AVID, Plug&Mix, Plugin Alliance.
Why these ground rules? The bottom line is your bottom line. Whether you are purchasing on a crazy deal we’ve found or using freebies, your time is valuable and your audio project and session quality is critical. We work in the studio every day and have neither time nor tolerance for crashes and freeze-ups. Does it happen sometimes? Of course. There are thousands of audio plugin software projects live at any given moment, with new ones being constantly launched.
We are very appreciative of and excited about the work these developers are sharing with the audio engineering community, most of them freely. But let’s be honest, in between the unintended and accidental glitches that are a normal part of developing software, there are many unintentionally unstable releases (though often great ideas) from first-time programmers, and these software releases can cause a lot of grief in a production recording studio or a serious home recording studio.
So hats off to all the developers out there delivering incredible audio plugins and rocking our worlds. And that includes all the “n00bs” and beginners because they are potentially next year’s superstars. And hats off to you for hanging out here at AudioEngineering.co. We know your time is valuable and we appreciate you!