STOAKES’ GEAR TALK – WAVES GOLD PLUGIN BUNDLE
The Waves Gold Plugin bundle has been touted as the industry standard and a ‘must have’ collection of plugins. Boasting an impressive selection of EQ, Compressors and other effects, this is the perfect collection for all you home studio folk out there. I have even seen videos from the likes of Warren Huart using some of these plugins. These are not to be sniffled at. In fact, Beatles producer Sir George Martin has even given Waves a thumbs up, commenting, “Waves is synonymous with excellence.”
I have had the Gold Bundle for the last three months and I have not just used these plugins for music, they have also been used to record my interviews on Stoakes Media and also my radio show on Radio TFSC. Let’s take a look at what is included in this fantastic collection of Plugins and I will demonstrate some of the sound quality that I have experienced.
Firstly, upon receiving the initial download, it took forever to install, but that is due to the 40 + plugins you get included in the Gold Bundle. After installation, it was quite a complicated process to actually get started, download Waves Central – a central hub in which all your downloaded Waves products live, but that was just teething problems. Finally, I was in. I will say this, there was no obvious user manual included within the download, the user manual for each plugin is in one of the drop-down menus and without knowing that it did take me a little while to get used to some of the controls. For instance, there is the option to have the GUI zoomed in, which isn’t super intuitive. Funnily enough, the drop-down menu that houses the option to zoom in is also where you’ll find the user manual for that particular plugin. Another example, on the GTR bundle that is included, there is an option to ‘link’ your guitar cabinets, which I discovered thanks to YouTube. I will say this however, there are so many tutorials online, that you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the answers to any problems or difficulties you are experiencing.
Being a guitarist, I headed straight for GTR3, an absolutely mammoth selection of guitar amp and cabinet sims, with a good selection of pedals too. From clean tones to heavy metal, overdriven guitar to flanger and phasers, you can achieve it all with this pack. I particularly enjoyed the bass amp too. You have an option to either use just the amp and cabinet, just the stomp boxes which is quite useful to create some weird vocal effects, or you can use the whole package, using the GTR Tool Rack, which gives you a choice of two amp / cabinet combinations and up to six pedals.
Everything is customisable too, you can have different styles of amps, clean, drive, high gain and a Neil Citron rack. These all have different sound options too, for instance the clean amp can be punchy or sweet sounding or the high gain can be a ‘monster’ or ‘supernatural’, it’s also worth mentioning the high gain amp has some really great sounding PRS models. The different sounds all relate to different amp models. The other thing that impressed me was the option of not just different cabinets, but, the option of six or seven different microphones too. It really is 100 percent customisable.
I found I tended to use the clean amps with then the added stomp boxes. The ‘pedal board’ gave you an option to use up to six stomps and you could position your amp wherever you wanted within the chain and depending what you had before or after the amp would depend what sound you got, much like in real life. For example having a reverb pedal before the amp creates a completely different sound than it does after the amp.
The Pedals all performed as you would expect their real counterparts to perform too, the overdrive sounds great, there is a ‘metal’ pedal, which even using it with a clean amp makes you want to shred up and down the guitar neck. There were two different types of delay pedal, a traditional delay and a pink ‘Lay’d’ pedal, from which you could get some outstanding effects. I also enjoyed the spring reverb pedal over the traditional reverb as it just gave that tiny bit extra.
There is an amp, cabinet and mic model for everyone, from marshalls, vox and Orange to Gibson, Paul Reed Smith and Fender and there is an equally impressive collection of microphones, both dynamic and condensors. Modelled versions of U87’s, SM57’s and RE20’s are all included and all these variables have very different sounds. There are literally hundreds of set up options.
The Gold Plugin Bundle, whilst having the GTR3 and 80’s Grand piano included, is really geared towards post production and mixing and mastering. It really does do it all. It has a huge range of EQ’s and Compressors. I found initially, I gravitated towards the V series. The V series is a vintage sounding compressor and Limiter and two different vintage modelled EQ’s. The V-EQ3 and V-EQ4 are based on the 1066/1073 and 1081 Neve preamps, respectively and the V-Comp is based on the Class A circuit design of the classic 2254 console compressor. You can achieve a really nice warm classic sound, there is even the option turn have extra analogue hiss, which I just love.
I like the simplicity of the V series, you can get something resembling a good sound almost instantly, with just a few tweaks of the dials. The V-EQ4 offers a few more options than the V-EQ3, with a little bit more precision, but they are both very similar. I would say, perfect for vocals and acoustic guitars. When I record my Stoakes Media Live show for Radio TFSC, I use the V-EQ3 on all my Line in channels, (my vocals, plus any phone guests that I might have). I then use the H Compressor on the Stereo Out Channel, which I find just gives the whole show a little bit of punch. The H compressor really works well on guitars too, it just gives that extra bit of punch.
As you can hear, the addition of the H Compressor just gives the show that extra bit of ‘radio esque sound’. The H series is another analogue modeller, comprising of the H Compressor hybrid that I mentioned above plus a H Delay, which you can get all sorts of amazing delay effects from. All of these plugins also have a very impressive selection of presets to get you started.
When working on a song, sometimes I like to actually see what is happening to manipulate the EQ more precisely. That is when I turn to the Renaissance EQ, which as well as being one of the easiest EQs to navigate, also features a real time frequency analyser. This is particularly useful as it allows you to see as well as hear what you are doing. The R-EQ combines really nicely with Renaissance Compressor to create a really nice, well rounded, smooth sound.
The Renaissance range overall is very user friendly. I would say of all the plugins, perhaps the R range is the most intuitive. Other EQ’s are of course available within the Gold Bundle. The Q10 EQ is another great plugin, offering a fantastic range of presets, but also allows you to control each frequency band independently. Sound wise, I think the R-EQ sounds a little smoother than the Q10, but using a combination of both, you’ll get a great all round sound. Given a choice, I would lean towards the R-EQ, the only thing with the R-EQ is you are limited to six EQ bands, if only Waves mad a 10 band version! Although, in all honesty, both the R-EQ and Q10 are very similar and their functionality is almost identical, the only major difference is the number of EQ bands available. Perhaps, if you had to fix something drastic in post production, you would lean more toward the Q10 as it allows you to work with more bands and more precision.
There are a number of choices of Reverb effects in the Gold Bundle as well. Whilst the IR-L Convolution reverb and Renaissance Reverb are great and they are both really easy to use, I found myself gravitating towards the TrueVerb. I really liked the huge number of presets that were available, everything from a New York studio room, to a theatre space, to simulated live rooms, even a stadium. Then using these hugely different presets, you can then tweak the parameters to get the sound you are after. TrueVerb isn’t just useful as a regular send effect, if you want to give your whole song the feeling of an outside concert, or an intimate theatre performance, you can use it on your stereo mix to achieve that. Mainly, I used it as a send effect though, on different effect channels.
The song above was recorded and edited using Plugins from the Gold Bundle. All the EQ’s were done using the Renaissance EQ 6 (Again, if only there was an REQ 10!!) On the vocals I used the Renaissance Compressor and the C1 Gate to eliminate unwanted room noise. On the acoustic guitar I used the Renaissance Axe, which I thought was a great little guitar compressor and the electric and slide guitars went through the H Compressor. The bass went through the GTR3 amp sim, I used the Compressor and EQ pedals into the Direct Tube amp mic’d with the Dyn 57 and Dyn 421.
Which leaves just one thing to discuss. The drums. The drums are midi drums, but I used quite possibly my favourite plugin of all on them. The Eddie Kramer drum channel. The plugin has six drum types, Bass Drum, Snare, Hi Hat, Toms, Over Head and Room. All you do is insert it on the corresponding drum track, select the preset and then tweak until you find the sound you are after. I was absolutely bowled over by this Plugin, it really made the drums pop out of the mix and then remember these are only midi drums, I can only imagine what it’ll do to real drums!
The other thing the Gold Plugin bundle can be used for is Mastering. Once you are happy with your mix, there are a number of Mastering plugins that you can use.
I exported a left and a right channel mix which acted as my ‘master stems’. Then the real fun begins! Mastering the track was much easier than I thought it’d be. Firstly, I used the V-Compressor that I mentioned earlier, followed by the H Compressor. Both of these acted really well together, and served to further enhance the sound quality. Add the V Compressor’s analogue option and we were cooking with gas. It was really starting to sound like some nice outboard gear was being used. Another quick EQ, this time using the Q10, just to boost a few frequencies then, the L1 Ultramaximiser. Basically a limiter, but it is incredible. I couldn’t believe the difference it made, it really changed the sound for the better. I was so very impressed.
The Waves Gold Plugin Bundle is fantastic. Using this Bundle you can record a song from start to finish, mix it and master it and as you have heard, the plugins can be used to do voiceover, record radio shows, podcasts. I would say, this collection of Plugins is a must have for anyone remotely interested in recording ANYTHING. You will find something useful. Don’t forget the GTR3 and Electric Grand piano that can not only be used in your DAW, but independently too. Ideal for live performance or rehearsal.
Check out the Waves Website as this bundle is currently on sale, as of February 2021. Waves has certainly changed the way I record, my mixes sound better and like I said, just a remarkable collection of plugins
