waves plugins are fairly affordable they sound great and there's a waves plugin for pretty much
any situation which is why i reach for them quite often and in this video i'm going to look at seven
waves plugins that i use in every project plus i have some notable ones near the end that i may not
use in every project but i do use quite often i'm zane welcome to audio tech tv i've included links
down in the description to each of these plugins so you can easily check them out for yourself
and right now let's look at the first plugin on the list which is the waves req or renaissance
eq so this isn't the coolest looking plugin or anything it's just an eq but it's a great sounding
eq you can see it has up to six bands you have mono or stereo versions of this plugin and it's
extremely easy to dial in the user interface is just so simple and easy to use you can click here
on whatever band you want to change and you can use the dials or you could drag these around if
you want and it also has a really nice real-time frequency analyzer so let's have a look at that
but you can purchase this on its own or it also comes in the gold bundle
plus a bunch of other bundles but i highly recommend the gold bundle if you're just
getting into waves plugins it's a great starting point and it includes pretty much
everything that you'll need now let's look at a situation where i use the waves renaissance eq
all the time which is on my guitar bus so let's start this with it off and then i'll enable it
you can hear it's a little muddy when the eq is off but then when you engage the eq
it kind of brightens things up and takes away those muddy sections plus there is another plugin
that i always use in conjunction with this and we're going to get into that a little later so
it's going to change the sound even more but next let's look at a compressor plug-in this is the
CLA 76 which is actually based on two 1176 hardware compressors that are owned by chris lord algae
now i'm a big fan of 1176 compressors i actually have a hardware compressor that's kind of like
this plugin it's based on chris lord algae's bluey but this one also has the blacky version
so you have bluey and blacky in here and they both have a different sound character to them now
why do i use the plugin if i have the hardware compressor well that's because i only have one
hardware compressor and this can do stereo i can put it all over the mix if i want as you can see
in this project here i have one here here here i have them all over the place in the mix
and one of the things i really like about 1176 compressors is they're really easy to dial in
and use plus this one can give you a nice sort of analog flavor to it you can get the cla 76 on
its own or in the cla classic compressors bundle it's also available in the horizon bundle which is
an incredible bundle if you get it you're going to have absolutely everything you want and more
but let's just quickly check this out on a vocal track again i'm going to
start it off so you can hear the vocal with it off friday night and you're mad at me again
if you were the queen of hearts to be off with my head on friday night and you're mad at me again
if you were the queen of hearts to be off with my head oh yeah it smoothes it out it
adds a little bit of an analog sound the next plugin that i use all the time in every mix is
the ssl e channel strip this is based on the solid state logic 4000 series channel strip
and this is another plug-in that i'll use all over my mix even if it's just to get the console sound
onto that track i'll use it so sometimes it gets used on every track in my mix you can see i even
have it on the mix bus right here you've got a great filter section here you have a dynamic
section you can turn the analog sound on and off if you want you can turn the eq section on
and off for the dynamics on and off you can buy this plug-in on its own or it's also included
in the ssl 4000 series collection or in the studio classics bundle which has some other great effects
in there as well so i'm going to actually show you two instances where i use it all the time
and it's on the drum overheads and the room mic so i'm just going to disable both of
these and we'll start playing it and then i'll enable them and you can hear the difference
it just really livens up that drum sound and like i said i use this all over my mixes it's
everywhere in here just even to get that console sound in there which is pretty cool
now another waves plug-in that i use in every single project
is the dbx 160 and i use this all the time on my kick drum you can see i have it right
there but you can use it in other spots too i know it's popular to use this on drums but
you can see there's presets in here for other things like lead vocals this can actually sound
great on vocals rhythm guitar it's a simple compressor plug-in but it can sound great
all over your mix and i do use it in other places but where i use it every single time in every mix
is on my kick drum so let's just listen to the drums and i'm going to start it with this off
and just listen for the kick drum here
you can get this one on its own or you have to go up to the mercury bundle if you want it bundled
with other plugins and if you do get that mercury bundle you're going to have pretty much everything
that waves makes and here's another waves eq that i use in every single project this is the api 550a
and with this plug-in you actually get the 558 and the 550b and the 550b gives you more eq centers to
work with but i've always just really liked the 550a it's the one that i've used and i'm kind of
used to so it is the one that i use all the time it's so easy to use you have your three knobs
here but there's actually six because there's an outside knob and there's this inside knob here
and the outside knob controls the amount of the frequency that you either want to add or
take away and then the inside blue knob here controls the frequency that you want to set it at
so you can see each one has five frequencies that you can select from and you can go
from negative 12 to plus 12 for each frequency that you choose and now let's just listen to this
on our guitar track that we are listening to earlier so i'm going to start with it off
it just really brightens up that guitar track and let's put it in the mix so you
can hear it on and off in the mix because it really helps the guitar to cut through there
you can hear it really helps that guitar to cut through in the mix and i love the way it sounds
on electric guitar but i've actually been using this on drums lately and even vocals as well and
i think i sometimes use it on acoustic guitars now the next waves plug-in that i use in every
mix is another api plug-in and this is the api 2500 compressor it's a very versatile compressor
and in addition to your typical compression settings you also have some cooler stuff in here
like this thrust mode here now i don't think i mentioned it on the last api plug-in but you can
buy these on their own each one individually or you can also get them in the api collection bundle
which includes other api plugins or you can go with the studio classics bundle which includes
these and the ssls some great plugins in there now let's check out where i'll use this and one place
i use it all the time is on a guitar parallel which helps the guitar to really cut through
in the mix and this is a trick that i learned from david nazi over on his channel mixbus tv
if you don't follow his channel definitely do he has some great videos over there and
he's actually a lot of fun to watch as well he just tells it like it is
now let's just check it out here on the guitar parallel so i'm actually just going to turn the
guitar parallel off altogether and then i'll enable it so you can hear this enabled in there
now let's just unsolo those and we'll listen to it all together in the mix here
and you can hear when that parallel is off and this compressor isn't working
the guitar is fairly thin but when you add that channel in there in this compressor it really
brings out some of the growl of that electric guitar and helps it to cut through in the mix
all right so we're at number seven on the list but like i said earlier there are more plug-ins
after this because they're ones i use all the time just maybe not in every single project but number
seven on the list is the waves j37 tape saturation plug-in so where i use this all the time is on my
mixbus this is a great tape saturation it's based on the actual abbey road j37 tape machine that's
being used on hundreds or thousands of hit songs and you can also use this as a delay effect or
some modulation effect as well but i always use it on my mixbus as the last plugin just to add some
tape saturation smooth things out a bit and add some warmth to the track now this one you can
purchase on its own or it's also available in the abbey road collection bundle now let's just
listen to it on our mix bus here and i'm going to start it again off and then i'll turn it on
so you can hear it just really excites things and kind of livens things up it's pretty dull when
that's not enabled so that's why i use the j37 all the time all right so now we're beyond those
seven plugins i use all the time and the next one that i use quite often maybe not all the
time maybe i do use it all the time but i do use it quite often this is the abbey road plates reverb
it's a really nice reverb plugin it has a great user interface that's easy to use down here you have
four different plate selections that you can choose from and each one does sound different
you have a nice dry wet mix here so if you want to use it on a bust you can or if you just want to mix it in as an insert
you can do that as well you have pre-delay drive to give it a little bit of warmth on there
and you also have this analog control to get some great analog goodness and a little bit of an eq
section in here as well i typically use this all the time on acoustic guitar so
if the song has acoustic guitars in it i'll use it there and i also use it quite a bit on vocals
and even on drums as well and like the last abbey road plug-in you can get this one on its own if you want
or you can buy it in the abbey road collection bundle so let's listen to it on our acoustic guitar here
and i'm going to start with it off now i'm actually using this on a bus track it's an acoustic reverb bus so let's listen to it off
now let's listen to it in the mix on and off
so you can hear it adds some nice space to the sound again here it is
makes it sound like i was playing in a really nice room but really i was just playing in my
basement so it doesn't have the greatest acoustics in here but that really sounds
nice now another waves plug-in i use quite often is the manny marroquin delay and this
one's actually kind of like five plugins in one so you get your delay in here you have a reverb
distortion doubler and phaser plus you also have some high pass and low pass filters in
there as well and one of the things i really like is you can control the delay for the left
and the right separately so it gives a really cool effect that way now this one is available on its
own you can also get it in the manny marroquin signature series bundle or in the mercury bundle
and like i said i often use this on my vocal track so let's check it out there you can see i have it
on this vocal reverb send so this is a bus track i'm just going to disable that we'll start listing
and then i'll enable it
it's a very nice delay plugin and we could add distortion to that delay and if we wanted we
could add some distortion to that delay the phaser and really mess around with this thing it's just
really a great plugin now this next waves plugin you don't actually hear the plugin itself on the
finished track but the effect that it has while you're mixing you hear all over the finished
track and it's the waves nx ocean way nashville plugin and what this is is a virtual mix space so
if you're mixing in headphones this plugin puts you into a virtual studio actually the ocean way
nashville studio into their mix room and this can help you to get more accurate mixes that are going
to translate better across multiple devices now this plugin can be purchased on its own so we'll
just quickly listen to what it sounds like when it's on but you want to turn this thing off when
you do your actual mix down so you wouldn't really hear this anyway but here's what it sounds like
so you can hear it just puts you into a mix room space which is pretty neat now another waves abbey
road plugin that i use quite often is the reel ADT plugin now this one is based on the abbey
road artificial double tracking process that was used quite a bit in the 60s and i like to use this
one on my backing vocals quite a bit and depending on the project i'll also use it on my lead vocals
and sometimes on my lead guitar track as well it's got this cool sort of retro user interface it's
pretty easy to dial in your sound and it comes with a ton of presets as well to get you started
and like the other waves abbey road plugins you can buy this on its own or it's also included
in the abbey road studio collection now let's check this out on a lead vocal track so i
actually have it sent to a vocal double bus so i'm just going to mute that bus and we'll hear
the vocal on its own and then i'll enable it
so this is
a very cool plug-in that you can definitely find a use for in some of your projects now check out
seven more waves plugins that i love on vocals by clicking the video on the screen now and if you
liked this video please give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel for more videos like this
thank you so much for watching for audio tech tv i'm zane keep creating and we'll talk soon