[Sticky] What was your FAV Instrument, Audio Effect or MIDI Effect purchased in 2020?

I bought a Sonic Academy Ana2 (-70% off) - I think it sounds nice. Also, I've found an old Air Music Tech Mini Grand at good price - not too bad lightweight piano. Apart of that, I'm happy with my old plugins running within Unify.

I just bought Vital which looks like a serious contender in the synth marketplace and was released on 24 November. It was only $20 for the Plus version on pre-order which included extra presets.  The release version is already updated to v1.0.3.

https://vital.audio/  

KVR thread is here --> https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=555319  

I also got the deal on ANA2 but I think it came out before 2019. In fact looking through all of my purchases this year there are very few that came out in 2019/2020.

MassiveX came out last year I think and it's pretty nice but I haven't used it a lot.

I have and love OVox by Waves and that came out in 2019.

Then there are all the scale/chording/composition plugins - Scaler 2, Orb Producer Suite, Captain Plugins, Rapid Composer (now v4), ChordPrism, Instascale/chord. I love all of these and each has their uses. Some of these are great with Unify!

How about iPad options? There some crazy good iPad apps for doing MIDI stuff e.g. Chord Maps2, Navichord, ChordPolyPad, PolyPlayground, Xynthesizr etc. These can be used wirelessly to control and play Unify.

I bought i chronical order:

1. Scaler 2

2. Feelyoursound Sundog

3. Feelyoursound ChordPotion

4. AAS Chromaphone 3

5. Xhun LittleOne Bundle (totaly overseen and underrated; it is a gorgeous little synth)

6. DCO 106 and CA2600

7. KV331 Synthmaster u Synthmaster One in special bundle

8. ANA2 from SonicAcademy (special Price, two days ago....48 Euro)

Lately i found Equator2 from Roli...we will see; looks interesting...

The industry should look more to intelligent software emulations like Chromaphone oder the LittleOne,

than to bore us  with the next 1 Terrabyte sample library...in this thinking take a look to the italian

software manufacturer "audio modeling" ( https://audiomodeling.com).

At last all software manufaturer should make their "gui´s" available in variable monitor resolutions...

nowadays a lot of user have 4k Monitors...(last year i bought Turnado from Sugarbytes, wrote to them, to 

make their gui variable... until now the never wrote back to me... that isnt a good costumer relation...; on the

other hand, look to Unify with Mr. Lehmkuhl oder U-he with their gorgeous plugins an value for their customers...

A big bravo and thank you for your efforts and enthusiasm!!!!

Sorry for my english, i am from Germany (NRW - Münsterland)

Best regards from Germany,

Ralf

DCO-106 by Cherry Audio - great bang for the buck. Also picked up some F9 Audio Ableton packs (excellent) and All The Samples From Mars. 

Snagged the Arturia Modulation pack on sale - the Dimension D is amazing, so close to the original. Adds nice stereo width to anything without being an obvious chorus when used judiciously.

D.

Although I'm not a fan of Waves' method for upgrades or how long it takes to load their plugins into Logic, I use Abbey Road Studio 3 constantly. It gets me to the finished mix a lot faster.

I forgot to mention the Unify - that is one of the coolest things I purchased this year 

Posted by: @pluginguruforums

Hello GuruNation™!!!  Please select your FAVORITE NEW PlugIns that you've purchased in 2020 that came out in 2019 or 2020.... PLEASE only mention PlugIns you actually purchased - not just saw a cool video about. I'll be making a video on this topic so please share if you wish in this thread and your feedback might help shape the video. Let this be a nice topic to share information with others in the GuruNation™ community!

 

I wish to thank you in advance for all of your replies.

It's Unify, of course.

first and far ahead of Unify.

Afterwards I acquired Pigment Arturia, Irid Tritik, Valhalla supermassive, BBC Discover, Intimate strings, Original brass and wind, Felt piano, LABS, Surge. Most of it on your advice and I think I'll definitely go for Plasmonic. I'm a little hesitant about Generate. there are rumors about its high CPU consumption .

But Unify -> number one 🥂 ❤️

Posted by: @zinct

I just bought Vital which looks like a serious contender in the synth marketplace and was released on 24 November. It was only $20 for the Plus version on pre-order which included extra presets.  The release version is already updated to v1.0.3.

https://vital.audio/  

KVR thread is here --> https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=555319  

I also got the deal on ANA2 but I think it came out before 2019. In fact looking through all of my purchases this year there are very few that came out in 2019/2020.

MassiveX came out last year I think and it's pretty nice but I haven't used it a lot.

I have and love OVox by Waves and that came out in 2019.

Then there are all the scale/chording/composition plugins - Scaler 2, Orb Producer Suite, Captain Plugins, Rapid Composer (now v4), ChordPrism, Instascale/chord. I love all of these and each has their uses. Some of these are great with Unify!

How about iPad options? There some crazy good iPad apps for doing MIDI stuff e.g. Chord Maps2, Navichord, ChordPolyPad, PolyPlayground, Xynthesizr etc. These can be used wirelessly to control and play Unify.

I have to say I downloaded the free version of Vital and it certainly rocks.  High quality sounds, create your own waveforms, warping, twisting, low CPU and easy to program.  I already created around 15 patches for it and BONUS it's MPE compatible.  Highly recommended for a freebie!!!

- Diva bank: Neo Future.   Blade Runner sounds, like you are there

- Biotek 2                         well, little strange interface, but also nice happy accidents with this one possible

- Mirage Music Box suite    music box goodness

- Pigments                        from Arturia, already mentioned above ... I was also thinking about Equator2 from ROLI

- Crowd Hype        yes, a crowd generator

- Harp Storm         they say: "a rainstorm of tiny orchestral details" ... yes, it is and for some "sonic textures" perhaps

- OFF-World Vol.1  another Blade Runner type

- High Score          video game sound generator, high quality and succesfully started as a Kickstarter

- Digeredoos         Didgeredo: but a little different with respect to the instrument and it's aboriginal history etc.

- Flatulus              ... euh ... just for fun

I picked up MSoundFactory by MeldaProduction - a ridiculously flexible and deep modular soft-synth with lots of preprogrammed instruments. 

I find its matrix based UI for signal routing (similar to u-he Zebra2 routing) much easier to visualize and debug than cable based modular routing synths. Quite an astonishing piece of software.

Generally MeldaProduction plugins are some of the most flexible in the industry. But, because of that, probably more difficult to get into for music makers with a strong attachment to the visuals of classic hardware. But the UIs are consistent, so if one gets into the MeldaProduction ecosystem, one can become very productive in advanced sound design.

I'll list my top 3. Hands down, Unify is my # 1 favorite plugin for 2020 (and man, it couldn't have come at a better time with the pandemic swooping in). Tons of time and fun spent with it.

This created a domino effect. With all the great libraries that John has created for Omnisphere, I had to purchase it. It's my #2 favorite for 2020.

#3 is actually a free download but I use it very much. It's Vallhalla Supermassive. Fantastic audio effect.

1. Unify - It's like nothing else, and definitely my favorite plugin.  I made a 17 instrument patch with Omnisphere, Garritan CFX, Pianoteq, Keyscape, East West Play, Guru Sampler and it ran it with no stress and all stacked together so well.  Plus all the updates!  Wave sequencing, Combo Box, Midi Box, the drum grooves, definitely the best piece of musical software I purchased besides my DAW.

2. Chord Potion - Gives me so much inspiration to work with from my chord progressions and alternative ideas.

3. Scaler 2 - What a cool plugin Scaler 2 is.  The audio and midi detection and playback features allow awesome creativity. Can give me cool ideas of chord progressions from my melodies. Also, the different playback methods are really great.

4. ModArt Pianoteq Standard 7 - The new engine is great and the new Steinway D is so beautiful. I own Keyscape, Garritan CFX, East West Play and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite plugins for its low resource impact and beautiful sound.  If you own Pianoteq and don't have v7 it's worth the upgrade.

5. Spitfire BBC Discovery - What a great library for such a small amount of HDD Space, and really beautiful sounds to layer with East West Play.

Honorable mention to Ozone 9 Advanced, it sure makes mastering a lot easier when it gets you 90% there in under a minute.

For me was Unify to get an intrance to music and Midi. Reason i did search for Something that IS simple to use and IS something for the Future. I use Musescore for Midifiles (100000) and something i can use together with DaVinci Resolve i can be creative for Film and Video Scoreing.

Main aspect to use 2 Midicontrolers for DaVinci APC40 MK2 and Beatstep

https://posttools.tachyon-consulting.com/davinci-resolve-controllers/apc40-mk2-resolve-edition/?v=3a52f3c22ed6

Advantage: i can make simple things so iZotope Breaktweaker and Megadrums. Long time plan absolute No Techno, Hiphopp or other Modern Disco Style. I Like to Go for Classic, Balkan Style and Worldmusic. My favourite Rhythmns are Waltz and Tango. AS soon there is a Libary with Patches from John, i am the first that will buy IT. 

By far, Unify is the plugin of the year for me!

Also bought Breaktweaker plus Guru's libraries for, then bought Guru's libraries for SuperMacho Drums because Breaktweaker is such a CPU hog almost none of the presets run on my old music laptop. Computer upgrade coming soon!

Other highlight buys of 2020 have been Sampleson's Klavee (Czech electric piano) and ElectroNylon (guitar/piano hybrid). Both are fun instruments.

Best hardware purchase of 2020 is Sensel Morph. On sale through 11/30. Haven't received it yet, but looking forward to MPE and touch sensitivity fun.

Unify is #1 for sure...
Also picked up Pigments a while back which was nice that it was a surprise UNIFIED release over the weekend.

Edit - Sugarbytes Aparillo and Factory are really interesting as well as Luftrum Bioscape.  Finally also got around to getting Zebra 2 & HZ, Nordsund Unfinished sounds are beautiful.

(Apart from Unify) - Purchased Dune 3 & Spire in 2020 Black Friday Sales, Hive 2 was probably 2019 and Vital is the latest addition.

For FX - the free Valhalla Supermassive

For me - Dune 3 is the best of the bunch closely followed by Hive 2 with Vital having lots of potential.

All time favourite - Zebra 2, but Dune 3 is so quick to create your own patches from scratch with the possibility of layered patches withing the synth...

Bioscape - Luftrum https://www.luftrum.com/bioscape/

Acousmatic Engine - Cymatic Form  https://www.cymaticform.com/acousmatic-engine

BBC Core Library

Valhalla Shimmerverb

Scaler 2

And as I said previously. My very favorite is Unify.

we are still in 2020.

So I can still add some VST that I have just acquired very recently. RAPID by Parawave and thanks to you the extraordinary PLASMONIC from Rhisomatic.

also 2 very nice libraries for Omnisphère at Sonic Underworld: Auralis and Pandora (there was a nice promotion at the moment)

Rapid Vst - became my beloved tool.. (expecting update this year)

Pigments 3.5