Plugin chats - one of my favourite studio pastimes! Getting stuck into a discussion about the technical applications of a fancy new plugin will quickly sort a room, attracting the audio production nerds like a magnet and repelling everyone else (also like a magnet).

Before we go any further, I want to make my perspective clear: it’s about the engineer, not the gear! The mixer or producer making the decisions will influence your mix’s end result far more than the specific tools they do or don’t use. We’re spoiled for choice in plugin territory these days, and while some can make our jobs quicker and far less finicky, a talented, experienced engineer can deliver a great mix even if they’re restricted to stock plugins.

That said, I still love checking out the latest plugin releases to see what those talented plugin developers are coming up with, and I’ll occasionally be convinced to open my digital wallet in the hope that I’ll improve my workflow.

For the hundreds of plugins installed on my system, though, probably no more than a couple of dozen make it into my sessions, and fewer still are regular favourites.

The next few articles form a mini-series focused on these plugins that have earned their spot in my regular arsenal. I’ve split them into three categories:

Workhorse Utilities (Part 1)

The first five - and the focus of this article - are utility plugins that do the basics incredibly well. They don’t necessarily have fancy interfaces or complex features, but they end up in the plugin chain more often than other plugins.

Creative Problem Solvers (Part 2)

These plugins can be used for utility or troubleshooting tasks, but they each also offer distinct creative possibilities due to the unique ways that they are designed.

Occasional Gems (Part 3)

Some plugins won’t make it into most of your sessions because their use cases are quite specific, but when they do, they can make a real difference to the track. This third instalment will focus on these occasional gems.

So, to kick this article mini-series off, here are five of my favourite workhorse utility plugins.

DMG Audio - TrackControl

Pro Tools is my DAW of choice; I’ve been using it for seventeen years. When I was composing music that would eventually become my second n1ghtmar3cat album, RAT RACE (2022), I took the opportunity to get familiar with Ableton Live. Ableton really excels as a creative DAW, and I enjoyed its horizontal-scrolling plugin layout and the functionality of its stock plugin suite. As I became more familiar, one of the most basic plugins - “Utility” - became indispensable, adding core functionality that extends the standard track controls. When back in the Pro Tools environment, this was one of the things I missed the most, so I began the search for 3rd party alternatives. Enter: DMG Audio TrackControl.

This is a completely free plugin that offers a heap of core controls that aren’t always included on DAW channel strips, including phase flipping, L/R switching, width control, L/R balance, input and output gain, and a high-pass filter - all automatable. Nothing fancy here, just a whole lot of fundamental controls in one place.

Fabfilter - Pro-Q 4

I’ve written an entire article about how, despite having accumulated dozens of EQ plugins, I now use only this one. It has all the EQ functionality I need in an incredibly streamlined interface, and sticking to one EQ means I’ve completely eliminated the “what EQ plugin should I use” decision. Because EQ is the most common type of plugin I pull up on any track, removing that repetitive decision has saved me a lot of time.

Fabfilter - Pro-C 3

As with my preference for one EQ plugin, by the third iteration of FabFilter’s Pro-C, they incorporated all the compressor features I need into one plugin. It’s now a rare occasion that I reach for another compressor, as the efficiency of a pre-made decision tends to win out.

Oeksound - Soothe3

I’ve been a fan of Soothe since its first iteration, and each version has added genuinely useful new workflow features. While several other plugins now incorporate spectral dynamics (including FabFilter Pro-Q 4), I still get better results for what I’m trying to do with Soothe. Glassy vocal harshness, electric guitar noise bands, and overly bright synths are some of the regular culprits I tame with Soothe. Targeted resonance suppression pairs particularly well with a broad EQ boost for a smoother high end.

Black Salt Audio - Silencer

Silencer is a specialist drum gate and debleed plugin that does an exceptional job of reducing, and often completely removing, unwanted spill from individually miked drum tracks. The first time I heard Silencer on some drum stems, I was pretty stunned (a reaction similar to that of YouTuber Wytse from White Sea Studios in his first-impression review). Until recently, dealing with spill from cymbals and hi-hats in drum recordings has been a massive challenge; if you want to boost the snappy high-mids in your snare track, you’ll unfortunately boost all the harsh hi-hat frequencies the mic captured at the same time. Want to bring out the attack in your rack tom? You’ll also get a healthy dose of crash cymbal, and you’ll often want to turn that EQ boost back down again.

Thanks to the intelligent combination of gating and de-bleeding working behind the scenes in Silencer, you can simply do more with your drum mix. As I understand it, it’s basically a multiband gate set up for specific drums, letting the high end through in the initial transient to give the drum definition, then quickly cutting the top end (where the cymbals live) while letting the body of the drums sustain. It can be a massive time saver!

Nailing the Basics

These five workhorse utility plugins form part of the foundation of my workflow by handling core processing tasks efficiently. While they might not be the flashiest tools in my plugin collection, their reliability and speed make them invaluable. If you don’t already have plugins that handle these tasks, they’ve all got free trials (except TrackControl, as it’s completely free!), so you can give them a go for yourself.

ICYMI: My Latest Release

Copycat EP 01 is a collection of covers dedicated to artists who have influenced my musical identity. It was a gratifying creative challenge to transform the songs into something new with the sonic fingerprint of n1ghtmar3cat while retaining what made them special to me in the first place.

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