Is Soundtoys 5 the ultimate plugin bundle for producers? Here's why it's been a staple in my sessions for years.
Soundtoys
Plugin bundle with 21 effects including Decapitator, EchoBoy, Crystallizer, and Little AlterBoy
Soundtoys is a boutique audio company that’s been around since the mid-2000s. They’ve gained massive popularity among producers with their plugin bundle: Soundtoys 5.
The full bundle runs upwards of $500. That’s a serious ask when there are free and cheap plugins everywhere. Here’s why I think it’s worth it.
I am a drummer and a music producer, so I’m always interested in plugins that can give a drum recording a unique character or quality. Soundtoys has made music production less technical, more creative, and more fun all around.
While recording our band’s second album in 2016, one of our producers mentioned Soundtoys to me.
He told me how much he enjoyed using the plugins and how great they sounded. I’m pretty positive he used them on the album (the Decapitator was absolutely on the snare drum in the final mix).
Back in 2017, Soundtoys offered a discounted sale (must have been for Black Friday), and I took it. I bought the entire plugin bundle rather than one at a time. It was worth every cent.
I can’t count the number of times we’ve said that during a session. It may have even come up daily during the production of our last album.
They are fun plugins that sound great, and they make the creative process of music production a blast. One turn of a knob opens up possibilities you may have never conceptualized during pre-production.
I don’t use every single Soundtoys plugin, but I almost guarantee that one or two of them make it into each session. The bundle is second in line only to the SSL Channel from Waves. My two favorites currently are Decapitator and Devil-Loc.
What I enjoy most about Soundtoys is that the plugins add an excellent color to the sound that’s both unique and doesn’t sound overly processed. When I use effect plugins from Waves, some are great, but some sound plastic and cheap. Soundtoys does a great job making effects with a hint of analog fuzz that sit naturally in a mix.
Soundtoys 5 comes bundled with 21 different effect plugins. Here’s the entire list.
You don’t have to buy the whole bundle. If only a few plugins stick out to you, you can buy them individually. They are significantly more expensive outside of the bundle, though.
Two plugins get the most use in my sessions: the Crystallizer and the Decapitator.
The Crystallizer is one of those plugins that I overused to death when I first bought it. It takes the simple concept of delay and pitch shift and smashes the two together. It’s a granular echo effect, and the name does it justice.
The first preset menu, Crystals, sounds exactly like you’d expect. The Crystallizer works incredibly well on clean guitars, giving them a spacey octave pedal vibe that sounds fresh and unique.
From left to right you have mix, pitch, splice, delay, and recycle knobs. The delay can be set to forward or reverse. Reverse gets some of the coolest sounds, so give that a shot. Like every other rhythmic Soundtoys plugin, the Crystallizer can be synced to your DAW’s tempo.
The Decapitator is a Soundtoys plugin I find myself using on snare drum all the time.
It’s an analog-emulation saturation plugin that sounds remarkably smooth when used lightly in a mix. It works great for bringing out a little more punch in a snare drum to help it sit better.
Operating the Decapitator is simple: place it as an audio insert on a track or bus and use the Drive knob on the left to taste. In my experience, you shouldn’t need to go above four to get a great sound, but for extreme cases, crank it up.
The volume will noticeably increase, so be sure to use the Output knob along with your DAW’s bypass button to adjust.
On the bottom of the Decapitator are five Style buttons that control the character of the saturation. Each style was modeled by Soundtoys from hardware in their lab.
Here’s a brief description of each:
Little AlterBoy is worth a mention. It’s a vocal manipulation plugin that works great on vocal buses, and it’s currently all over pop music. EchoBoy is Soundtoys’ flagship delay and one of the most versatile delay plugins I’ve used. Devil-Loc is a one-knob parallel compressor that’s fantastic for smashing room mics or adding aggression to a drum bus.
At full price, $500 is steep. But Soundtoys runs sales regularly (Black Friday is usually the big one), and buying the bundle is significantly cheaper than buying plugins individually. I’ve been using these plugins since 2017 and they still show up in every session. For producers who want effects that sound analog without the hassle of actual hardware, Soundtoys 5 is one of the best investments I’ve made in my studio.
If you’ve used Soundtoys in your sessions, I’d be curious to hear which plugins you keep coming back to.
Verdict
At full price, $500 is steep. But Soundtoys runs sales regularly (Black Friday is usually the big one), and buying the bundle is significantly cheaper than buying plugins individually.
I've been using these plugins since 2017 and they still show up in every session. For producers who want effects that sound analog without the hassle of actual hardware, Soundtoys 5 is one of the best investments I've made in my studio.
