By Steve Cunningham
I know I’ve mentioned this several times in previous months, but I’m still in search of alternatives to Waves’ plug-ins and their annual upgrade program fee (cleverly referred to as WUP, or Waves Update Program). As much as I love the Waves plug-ins and how they sound, their habit of charging me every year for the right to continue to use the product that I’ve already paid for grates on me. To be fair, about a year ago they significantly reduced the annual fee, from unbelievable to only slightly usury. Nevertheless, I’m still on the lookout for plug-ins that sound as good as Waves products, but don’t grab my wallet every year.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve test driven a set of plug-ins from a French company known as Flux Sound and Picture Development, or Flux for short. I first ran into their products while scouring the web for free plug-ins. Turns out they make two of them, they work well, and of course the price is right. Flux also make a commercial series of dynamics and EQ plugs which, while a bit quirky, also work well. All of the company’s plug-ins are available for Pro Tools as RTAS and Audio Suite plugs on both Windows and Mac platforms, as well as VST for Windows and Audio Units for Macintosh. They can all handle up to eight channels of audio simultaneously, at sample rates up to 384 kHz.
