Voxengo Crunchessor
After a phase of trying other plugins, mostly analog emulations, by other makers, I once again have to commend Voxengo for the quality of their plugins.
If you want a compressor that can tame the peaks of a vocal while giving it a polished sheen, I highly recommend Deft Compressor.
For giving warmth to vocals? Or a bass compressor that (in my opinion) works much better than most LA2A emulations? Use Crunchessor. I use the 2A preset to keep the levels of bass tracks consistent without sounding squeezed (something I often hear from LA2A plugins).
Deft Compressor going into Crunchessor is my preferred version of "1176 to LA2A", that is, a fast attack compressor going into a smoother attack compressor.
I still highly prefer CRTIV Tape Bus compared to other tape plugins I have if I want to keep an open high-end sound to the track. It's really good at keeping the punch and transients on the master bus while improving the crest factor (push the record gain).
I have to say that Warmifier is great since unlike other saturation plugins, it's not easy to overdo the amount of saturation. It's super subtle, and these days I find that using too much saturation has a blurring effect on tracks.
Sobor is just unbelievably good. You have to try it.
Voxengo is just really good DSP - high quality digital - without the mask or crutch of trying to emulate old, classic analog gear. There are a handful of small devs like that, and just like Voxengo I highly suggest you try them out.
Thank you again for your products. With every new project I find new ways to get the sounds I want with your tools. Voxengo VSTs are truly part of my workhorse arsenal.
The latest example is LFMax and LFPunch. At first I thought they were nice enough to buy, but I didn't use them much until recently. In fact, I had almost considered giving them up. But recently I sat down with the tools to really see what they're made of -- and that's when I came to really discover their potential in ALL my mixes!
With a clever combination of Crunchessor for sidechaining, LFMax, and LFPunch for all tracks with low-frequency content, my tracks sound ten times better. I had always thought 'low end will always be sloppy, there's no way to make it sound good'. I was wrong!
I was always trying to repair slop in the midrange and unbalanced highs with simple EQ, but with LFMax, LFPunch, and Crunchessor, I'm able to tame the low-end and get the sort of solid, even response I've wanted in a wide range of listening conditions -- headphones, studio monitors, and consumer systems with a wide array of subwoofer quality, tone, and loudness "features".