Why You Should (or shouldn’t) Read My Reviews

I’ve written quite a few reviews at this point, and I think it is worth going over some of my thought process as well as some of the areas where my reviews may fall short. If you are new to my content, welcome and I hope this article provides insight as to whether or not my reviews will be helpful for you. If you’ve already been reading my content, perhaps this article can add value to my reviews by giving them some context. There’s quite a few topics I want to cover in this article

First off, you don’t need everything. I want to make it clear that I am not encouraging you to buy anything, I rarely (if ever) say you “need” any plugin or tool. I do have affiliate links, and make it transparent that I get 15% commission per purchase through those links, but I also frame it under the premise “if you’re buying this anyways AND you plan on purchasing it through that site, AND want to support me, please use the link”. I don’t want anyone to feel pressured to use any specific shop just because I have a link and I don’t want anyone to use an affiliate link without knowing.

As for my personal affiliations and connections, I think it is safe to assume at this point that EVERY plugin I review was sent to me for free. I am often times a beta tester, and sometimes I get paid to make presets for these plugins. This obviously imposes some level of bias on my reviews. I try to mention at the top of every review what my connection was. So if I downloaded a free demo or purchased a plugin I’ll likely say “I just picked up…” or “I tried the demo of…”. If I was gifted the plugin, or was part of testing/preset creation I’ll say “So and so sent me a copy of…” or “I was involved in making presets for…”. This isn’t always the first sentence, but is usually included in the first paragraph of the review. If I am paid to write a review or make a video I will included “sponsored content” in the title, usually in the thumbnail, and in bold large text before anything else in the review. I am rarely ever paid to write reviews, and in the cases where I am, I would likely review the plugin anyways (though maybe not as soon).

With that covered, I want to go over “what” I review. I try to review only plugins I find interesting, this means I rarely cover mixing/mastering tools or vocal effects. I cover mostly plugins that are useful for sound design and experimental music: multi effects, plugins with loads of modulation, crazy synths, weird delays etc. In general I’m always looking for at least one unique feature or user interface element. As for music, I am mostly thinking in terms of how each plugin would be useful for industrial, IDM, glitch, and dark ambient genres, with some overlap into breakcore, psy-trance, and other bass genres. If you’re looking for the perfect reverb plugin for vocals, or a dynamics processor for acoustic guitar, or the best electric piano VST, you should look else where.

I cover a LOT of software, I’ve used hundreds of plugins and again, I don’t think you should buy all of them. With that said, I don’t have favorites or “best”s, I am covering everything to compare and contrast them so you can decide what fits your needs best. Perhaps 01.ms delay isn’t important to you, but 12+ LFOs is. Or maybe you don’t care about granular synthesis but are excited to discover a plugin has an additive synthesis mode. I only have “everything” because I am trying to review everything, I think you should find what fits your workflow and I hope my reviews can help you with that. I am really bothered by reviewers who claim every new plugin is “the best ever” or reviewers who have only ever used a couple plugins. It is understandable that if any one of these plugins is someone’s first purchase, they will likely assume it is the “best ever”. So having spent hours with a large segment of options, I have context for which features are actually unique and special with each synth/ effect.

I have spent uncountable hours playing with synths and effects, I got my first synth over 15 years before I even started this website. You can watch hundreds of hours of sound design on my youtube channel (wont be too long until that hits a thousand hours). That’s just what I have recorded, having made thousands of presets and spending time “off camera” playing with these tools I try to really dig in and learn as much as I can. I avoid any misleading information, and even avoid omitting features if I can. I try not to get too much into tiny details though as the review needs to be readable, not a manual. Hell, I have even written a user manual for a synthesizer at this point. I feel I can safely say I am a reliable source for the technical details of various plugins.

Technical details are my main focus, I try to avoid too much flowery language like “glassy” or “thin” or “warm”. I find this language is seldomly helpful and far too subjective. I will mention if there’s particular effects/filters or sounds in a plugin that I enjoy, so these colorful words do come up, but I try to keep things more focussed on features and workflow. I particularly avoid words like “best” or “better than”. My focus is on what makes a plugin “unique”.

However, there are some technical details I tend to avoid. I avoid talking about CPU usage, personally I am interested in the sound, while CPU usage will affect your ability to use a plugin, the sound is the sound regardless of optimization. This does matter, but I think other reviewers would be better suited for this aspect. I would absolutely love some sort of objective CPU measuring system for plugins. I’d love to see a reviewer install the plugin on several computers and stress test them in different DAWs to give a rating, this would be far more useful that saying “it’s expensive on the CPU” with my specific setup.

I also don’t really cover price, as well as tuning support like MTS-esp or even MPE all that often. I don’t really look at install size or emulation accuracy, hell, I rarely cover emulations anyways. Off the top of my head, “what I’m not interested in” isn’t quite coming to mind, so I’ll probably expand this paragraph in the future as I’m reminded of things I don’t really focus on. I also don’t perform live with any of this software, so I can’t speak to any of its stability in a live context, you can get a bit of an idea of this via my streams, but I don’t really keep track of crashes and audio drop outs unless I am testing, in which case it will usually be addressed by the developer anyways by the time it goes public.

Finally, as for my qualifications as a musician, I am not a paid or professional musician, I am however a professional sound designer. Specifically preset design, I make presets for several companies, though the work is less abundant than I’d like. If you work for or run any company that wants preset design, please contact me. I make music as a hobby and would love to do it professionally. I have played guitar and synths for over 20 years and some of my presets have been used in video games and other media, I can never be sure how much of it has been used by professional musicians. I’ve also done a ton of testing and product consulting, I help with the design of some plugins and have started dabbling in the code side of things as well. The last five years of my life have been dedicated exclusively to sound design/music and with luck and help I’ve barely been able to scrape by. I mention all of this to say I have experience, but don’t assume I am working in a high end studio doing music or sound for big budget games or films.

I hope this breakdown convinces you to read my reviews if you are the target audience for this content. As well, I hope this article saves you some time and you can find a better fit for your personal requirements. To reiterate, you may want to skip my reviews if you’re looking for info on CPU, stability durring a live performance, MTS-ESP support or any sort of analog style mixing and mastering tools. I’d like to direct readers towards better sources for this information, so if you know of any solid reviewers for CPU or analog style mixing plugins or any of these other subjects I don’t normally cover, please contact me or leave a comment so I can link over to their congruent content. To those who have and will continue to read my content, thank you again for taking the time to read my thoughts, and to those who find a better fit, please still consider suggesting my reviews to anyone who would benefit from them. 

And again, if you want to support me, please use my affiliate link: http://pluginboutique.com/?a_aid=61c378ab215d5

or purchase some sounds: https://databroth.gumroad.com/

or if you want to simply donate you can join my patreon or youtube membership (these offer no additional benefits): https://www.patreon.com/c/databroth