If you are familiar with free effect, or mixing, plugins then you have no doubt

heard about these VST software. In this tutorial, I ll show you what they can do a
nd how to use them properly for mixing and a bit of sound design.
Presently, they re only 32-bit compatible so, in 64-bit DAW programs, you'll need
to use a VST wrapper such as jBridge for Windows.
You can download the plugins from the VST effects website.
For the purposes of this tutorial, I shall be using:
NastyVCS, a channel strip with prefiltering, saturation, EQ, compression and lim
iter
TesslaSE, a plain simple fine saturator
epicVerb, a reverb effect which has got both normal reverberator and a more diff
erent ambience processor
ThrillseekerXTC blue, a nice three band mastering EQ with saturation
BaxterEQ, a mastering EQ with low shelf and high shelf bands
Variety of Sound plugins rack
These are the plugins we are going to use in the tutorial / Picture by author
Project Basics
I shall use Ableton Suite for the project with a tempo of 128 BPM and a rhythm s
ignature of 4/4.
Ableton project settings
Project with 128 BPM and 4/4 rhythm signature
About the Music
The piece is a short electronic dance music track idea featuring big pianos, sev
eral synth effects and white noise.
Instrument channels
Pianos and synth tracks
Workflow
Before starting mixing, I froze and made flat all the tracks then copied all to
the time line, in the arrangement view.
Kick
This is the basis of the dance track. It has impact, because of the volume, the
saturation using NastyVCS and finally an EQ to make it more knocky.
Effects chain:
epicVerb, reverb type at 355 msec with plate mode, 0 predelay
NastyVCS, prefilter HP at 250 Hz
BaxterEQ, high shelving cut -5 dB at 3.4 kHz on both sides
BaxterEQ on the noise track
I cut the top end with BaxterEQ at 3.4 kHz
Master
I removed some of the subs with EQ Eight to make more headroom and added a Limit
er to kill peaks causing distortion.
Effects chain:
EQ Eight, 4x times lo cut at 45 Hz with 0.71 Q
Limiter, default setting, 0 dB gain

Master chain
EQ and Limiter on the master channel
Export Settings
To make proper end result I used the following settings:
file type: WAV
sample rate: 44100 Hz
bit depth: 24 bits
dither: no dither
Export settings
I used 44.1 kHz sample rate and 24 bits depth
Conclusion
In this tutorial, I demonstrated how to mix with Variety of Sound plugins on dru
ms, bass, piano, synths, and noise. I used Ableton stock plugins like Limiter, E
Q Eight, Chorus and Utility. In some cases I decided to use NastyVCS to filter o
ut low frequency content.
Let me know in the comments below if you have questions on how to use them for m
ore purposes or for other instruments.