Stillwell Audio Plugins

[lolzgreg]

Stillwell Audio is a rather small company that makes monster plugins. I currently own Stillwell's "The Rocket" "1973" "Transient Monster" and Schwa's "CMX."

"The Rocket" is an awesome compressor with SUPER FAST attack times (in MICROSECONDS, not miliseconds) that can deliver a variety of great compression styles from subtle to all out smashed. It is very transparent when you want it to be and sounds great on a variety of sources. It does a great job of analog compressor modelling.

"1973" is an equalizer, designed for drum tracks, based off of the Neve 1073 EQ section. It is a great plugin that pleasantly adds and subtracts the frequencies you want, even drastically, without introducing major issues with the original tone or negatively coloring the sound in the process.

"Transient Monster" is a great transient designer plugin that is super straight-forward, yet super effective. It increases or decreases the attack or sustain of your tracks and can really help with drum bleed or lack of "snap."

"CMX" is a stereo-microshifter that can help "seat" a certain track in a mix without making it too upfront. It creates a duplicate of the centered or panned track to the left and right of that respective track and allows you to choose a pitch shift, up or down and a delay time from the original track. I've used this to mix guitar solos into the background of songs and to make the lead vocal sound "larger" without being too upfront. This plugin can be a blessing if you use it properly.

I was turned on to these plugins by a pro engineer who loved them, so I figured I'd share the love. Here's their site:
Schwa Plugins… | Stillwell Audio - It's About The Sound

[Audio~Geek]

I never figured out CMX, I love the GUI for it though. I just listened to their demos, I don't remember it sounding like that. I was using it in PT but maybe I didn't try it in stereo.

The Rocket is excellent.

Major Tom gets quite a bit of use too, it's like a DBX 160 where The Rocket is more like a hot-rodded 1176

[aristonrr]

Let me add the following:

+1 for the Rocket: a versatile, great-sounding compressor which can be used either with the delicacy of a butterfly or with the unstoppable force of a herd of elephants.

- Oligarc (by Schwa): a multi-fx plug encompassing filter, phaser, drive and chorus sections that are tied together through a modulation center that uses several different types of tweakable envelopes. It can add severe aggression and over-the-top saturation, but is also capable of ducking effects and gentle swirls. And it sounds GREAT, ****, fuzzy, and instantly lovable. Plus, it comes with three stand-alone fx (chorus, drive and phaser). I've got to say that the phaser is the best I've heard from a plug, and the saturation can make you cry.

- 1973 Equalizer: one major specialty of this baby is its ability to enrich the upper end of the freq spectrum without introducing distortion or unpleasant digital artifacts. It's really quite astounding.

- Vibe Eq: the 1973 is close to neutral, whereas the Vibe's specialty is, as the name suggests, VIBE. It adds subtle harmonics to the sound, which, if used correctly, has all the effect of high quality dog food: it will give your tracks a beautiful, lustrous sheen.

- Bad Buss Mojo: simply put, you can dial in analog imperfection to dirty up your digital tracks. It sounds harsher than it is, it's one of those plugs aimed towards a more subtle effect than in-your-face modulation. It's more easily felt than heard... but if you REALLY want to, you can emulate a crude, broken-down guitar amp with it, as well.

-TinMan by Schwa: this is an exotic little plug. What it does is to automatically detect prominent pitches in your sound, and then add either subtle or very prominent harmonic resonances. It really depends a lot on the source material: vocals can generate spooky side effects, long-held and modulated notes create interesting swirls, and even drums, when using the "oink" button (check it out yourself ), can benefit from a little weirdification. While not an essential purchase, I've found that I'm using it more often than I thought I would.

It needs to be added that all of these plugs come with a reduced price tag for non-commercial Reaper-users, that their prices are extremely fair, that the demos are uncrippled (yes, you heard right), and that the support is fast and excellent.