Canadian songwriter and producer Claire Boucher - better known as Grimes - has shared a post on Twitter/X detailing how plugins have transformed her music-making process.
"Plugins have entirely restored my love of music and also music production," Boucher says. "Are there like plugin awards? Like they literally make magic real - it's insane."
"How can we even thank them? Who are they? Major wizardly behaviour to just mysteriously and anonymously put very niche magic joy tech into the world - some of this stuff is so well done and complex and seems made by individuals or small groups/tiny companies."
In the replies, Boucher is asked to name a few of the plugins that have inspired her by a commenter that praises Splice Bridge, a plugin from sample platform Splice that lets music-makers preview its samples in the key and tempo of their DAW project before purchasing.
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"It's insane," Boucher says of Splice Bridge, before pointing to effects plugin Output Portal as a particular favourite, a granular processor which we described as one of "the greatest effects plugins ever made" in our 2019 review. "I just got Portal and I'm like [salute emoji] but also generally was just using everything with Hans Zimmer's name on it," she says.
"Truly, they are mostly worth it, though the strings a bit pricey. But man, Zebra is such a good synth." Here, Boucher is referring to a classic synth plugin that brings together elements of subtractive, FM and additive synthesis with a modular workflow.
While Zebra 2 was released in 2007, the third iteration of the synth is currently still in development, though u-he unveiled a slimmed-down (and free) version of Zebra 3 during NAMM earlier this year.
After a fan in the comments asked if it was true that Boucher recorded some of her earlier albums with GarageBand, Boucher said: "Yes, but I can't particularly ride for it at this point. Logic is great though, but I'm emotionally trapped in Ableton."
In a separate post, Grimes asked her fans for soft synth recommendations, pointing to u-he's ACE and Hive 2 as two that she's currently into, along with DS Audio's Thorn. "Are there any good new soft synths that use FM synthesis? The sound quality is so strangely pleasant," Boucher asked.
In our 2015 interview surrounding the production behind Art Angels, Boucher told us about some of her favourite plugins: “I love the Nexus VST and Native Instruments’ Massive, and I really like using iZotope Ozone for sending people demos," she said.
"I ‘mastered’ the album with Ozone, although obviously I got it professionally mastered in the end. I love the Waves plugins too, especially the Manny Marroquin reverbs, which I really like for doing vocals. I used iZotope Nectar on a couple of vocal tracks too, but it crashes a lot.”
In a few days time, MusicRadar will be publishing Gear of the Year, an end-of-year round-up that highlights our favourite music technology products released in 2024. Until then, here's a list of the best new plugins we loved in 2023.
