I think when it comes to vsts you have to make a decision as to how serious you are when it comes to producing. For example say you have a loose nail in your kitchen, you can either screw it in with a rusty knife or a good quality screw driver…
There are far too many people in the music production world looking for cheap or free alternatives, too much of ‘its not the plugins, its the person using it etc’. This is understandable because production is expensive BUT would Sebastian Vettel put on a few cheap tires to save some money before a grand prix? No! This may be an extreme comparison but im guessing everyones ultimate goal is to make tracks up to a proffesional standard and so unfortunately for your wallet this means getting proffesional expensive tools.
Its not all bad tho, think about this. A cheap or free vst you got might be a bit of fun, you might glance it a bit, surf the presets and your off looking for the next set of presets. But say you boaght a synth that ran you back a few hundred, do you think you will be as quick to put it on the shelf or do you think that because the monetary investment you made that ya might spend a bit more time with it and really learn it inside out?
You have to be clever, theres far too much getting every plugin and vst and not knowing what to do with them all. Try for ****s n giggles to make a track and only usr one synth or 5 vsts max. This will also force you to learn your gear and after a while you should stop worrying about getting the latest crap to fill up your pc.
Finally, I know we are not millionaires but there are ways around not having a lot of money and getting high end gear. Software companies are constantly practically giving away their ****, with high discounts, group buys etc etc, you should be in the loop with all this anyways because you should be constantly downloading demos to try and find out what you really need! All in all you need to make a commitment, you need to see something that you know you NEED and save up for it or beg borrow steal to get it. Also this isnt gonna set you back thousands amd thousands of pounds because tbh you shouldnt need more than 5-10 high end vsts and you really need to start getting into the habbit of taking what you have and learning it inside out. This is so important because it will get you out of the habbit of thinking you need all these vsts etc to get better because you dont. Also alot of plugins will come with your DAW to start you off. You only really need 1-5 sample cd’s and maby 1-2 processor packs for your high end processing, may I personally reccomend, Sonnox, Waves and Soundtoys. As for synths im gonna be bold and say you need 3 synths and if you just cant help yourself, 5 synths MAX with one dedicated drum synth. Yes zomg a drum synth!!! It really scares me how many people dont even know what a drum synth is, its ridiculous. Your making dance music where the most important part of any dance track is the drums and you dont have a synth for it??? Now im not saying you need to synth up every drum but one drum you 100% definately need to synth up yourself is your kick. But w/e say im wrong and say you can do it all with vengeance samples but dont come crying to me when you get over proccessed ****, dissonance and a low end that doesnt fit cos it aint in key…
Sorry for the long essay but I hope this may clear up alot of the ‘what vst should I get threads’.
-J
The biggest mistake that new Producer do is that they try to use 5 different synth to .create 1 sound. Just stick with one synth . then when you already know how to program every sound you want with your synth , then you can try maybe hardware , or a more expensive VSTI Synth ..
[quote]jjdejong0 (01/08/2011)[hr]I think when it comes to vsts you have to make a decision as to how serious you are when it comes to producing. For example say you have a loose nail in your kitchen, you can either screw it in with a rusty knife or a good quality screw driver…
There are far too many people in the music production world looking for cheap or free alternatives, too much of ‘its not the plugins, its the person using it etc’. This is understandable because production is expensive BUT would Sebastian Vettel put on a few cheap tires to save some money before a grand prix? No! This may be an extreme comparison but im guessing everyones ultimate goal is to make tracks up to a proffesional standard and so unfortunately for your wallet this means getting proffesional expensive tools.
Its not all bad tho, think about this. A cheap or free vst you got might be a bit of fun, you might glance it a bit, surf the presets and your off looking for the next set of presets. But say you boaght a synth that ran you back a few hundred, do you think you will be as quick to put it on the shelf or do you think that because the monetary investment you made that ya might spend a bit more time with it and really learn it inside out?
You have to be clever, theres far too much getting every plugin and vst and not knowing what to do with them all. Try for ****s n giggles to make a track and only usr one synth or 5 vsts max. This will also force you to learn your gear and after a while you should stop worrying about getting the latest crap to fill up your pc.
Finally, I know we are not millionaires but there are ways around not having a lot of money and getting high end gear. Software companies are constantly practically giving away their ****, with high discounts, group buys etc etc, you should be in the loop with all this anyways because you should be constantly downloading demos to try and find out what you really need! All in all you need to make a commitment, you need to see something that you know you NEED and save up for it or beg borrow steal to get it. Also this isnt gonna set you back thousands amd thousands of pounds because tbh you shouldnt need more than 5-10 high end vsts and you really need to start getting into the habbit of taking what you have and learning it inside out. This is so important because it will get you out of the habbit of thinking you need all these vsts etc to get better because you dont. Also alot of plugins will come with your DAW to start you off. You only really need 1-5 sample cd’s and maby 1-2 processor packs for your high end processing, may I personally reccomend, Sonnox, Waves and Soundtoys. As for synths im gonna be bold and say you need 3 synths and if you just cant help yourself, 5 synths MAX with one dedicated drum synth. Yes zomg a drum synth!!! It really scares me how many people dont even know what a drum synth is, its ridiculous. Your making dance music where the most important part of any dance track is the drums and you dont have a synth for it??? Now im not saying you need to synth up every drum but one drum you 100% definately need to synth up yourself is your kick. But w/e say im wrong and say you can do it all with vengeance samples but dont come crying to me when you get over proccessed ****, dissonance and a low end that doesnt fit cos it aint in key…
Sorry for the long essay but I hope this may clear up alot of the ‘what vst should I get threads’.
-J
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Thanks for this post! It is good info. I am just starting to learn music production and I’m totally lost on the subject of VSTs. I do have Sylenth, but most of the others I know little about.
You see all of these people on different forums talking about how you need this VST and that VST, and it is really confusing. Plus who has the money?
After I feel comfortable with Ableton’s pre-loaded package and Sylenth I will try out a few more. (Making sure I have a good drum synth in there of course) 
Tbh Sylenth is a great synth to learn on and you should be able to get most sounds you need out of it. But please for the love of god everyone NEEDS to get a drum synth it really is pretty disgusting how many people just throw in some vengeance samples without even checking the dominant frequency to see what note it is. With a drum synth you can set the note of it yourself.
Now obviously some synths are more catered to different genres and its up to you to expllre your scene and see what everyone is using, then try it out and see which you want to buy.
I know dubstep/dnb/breaks etc love the Massive synth, the trance guys love the Virus TI and the JP8xxx stuff. Sylenth seems to be a popular piece of kit for the house guys and so the lists goes on. But dont feel restricted by these guidelines, if you absolutely love the Z3ta and you make progressive house then **** what anyone says and use it! Dont listen to chodes on internet forums who say you need this synth for that and that synth for this as most likely those guys have no clue.
Just to give you an idea of a real pro, Sean Tyas uses a virus TI, v-station, Vanguard and that logic standard synth exs24?? Cant remember what its called lol. Thats 3 vsts and one hardware synth and I think for his processors he uses the logic stuff…
So far I like Sylenth and it seems to have wide range of sounds. I haven’t had time to check out any other synth VSTs yet.
I would think Sean Tyas would be using more VSTs. But I guess it all depends on the sounds you are trying to create. If you have a few that do what you want, you don’t need a folder full of them.