I Ditched My Plugin Subscriptions. Here's What I Use Instead.

Let me be clear about something upfront: Black Salt Audio, Waves, iZotope, Slate Digital — these are all great. I'm not here to trash them. If you've got the budget, some of those tools are genuinely best-in-class.

I just don't have the budget. Not right now.

When you're bootstrapping a business, subscriptions are the first thing you look at when it's time to cut costs. I spent three days figuring out how to use VDO.Ninja so I wouldn't have to pay for Riverside anymore. I rebuilt my entire plugin toolkit from scratch using one-time purchases and free tools. Every subscription I killed was a tough call — but here's the thing I didn't expect: the limitations made me better.

When you can't reach for the expensive tool, you figure out how to get the result another way. I started getting positive client feedback on mixes I made without a single subscription plugin. That does something for your confidence as a mixing engineer.

This is my current toolkit for YouTube and podcast audio. These are the plugins that go on almost every mix I do.

The Toolkit

Riot DQ

Riot DQ is my go-to for dialogue EQ. Most EQ plugins are designed with music production in mind, which means you're spending time hunting for the right frequency bands instead of actually fixing the problem. Riot DQ is built specifically for voice, with controls that make sense for dialogue work. It's the plugin I built because nothing else was doing exactly what I needed. One-time purchase at $14.99.

Supertone Clear

Supertone Clear handles noise and reverb reduction. It does the heavy lifting that iZotope RX used to do for me, at a fraction of the cost. It's not quite as powerful as RX in extreme situations, but for the vast majority of podcast and YouTube dialogue cleanup, it gets the job done cleanly without introducing artifacts.

Oeksound Spiff

Oeksound Spiff is a transient shaper with a Mouth Noises preset that does exactly what it sounds like — targets clicks, pops, and unwanted mouth sounds in a recording. It handles the transients that de-essers miss, which makes it a different tool for a different problem. Not a replacement for a de-esser, but a necessary companion to one.

Black Salt Audio DSR

DSR is the most straightforward de-esser I've ever used. Most de-essers require you to manually identify the problem frequency, set a threshold, and dial in the range — and if you get any of those wrong, you end up with a lispy, unnatural vocal. DSR does the detection work for you and applies the reduction transparently. It's $59 as a one-time purchase, and worth every cent for how much time it saves.

UAD 1176 and LA-2A

These are two of the most legendary compressors in recording history, available for free through the UAD Explore bundle. No hardware required — these are UADx plugins, completely free to download and use. The 1176 is fast and punchy, great for controlling dynamic peaks in dialogue. The LA-2A is slower and smoother, better for evening out overall level without squashing the life out of a voice. Having both gives you two completely different compression approaches without spending a cent.

TDR Nova

TDR Nova is a free dynamic EQ that genuinely competes with paid options. Dynamic EQ is one of those tools that sounds complicated but solves a specific problem really elegantly: it only applies EQ correction when the signal actually needs it, rather than cutting or boosting a frequency across the entire track. For dialogue work, that's incredibly useful. It's free, it's deep, and it's worth spending time with.

Magic 7 Reverb from Wave Alchemy

Magic 7 is a free and impressively-full-featured reverb I reach for when I need something with a little more character. I don't put it on every mix, but it earns its place when the session calls for it.

Pure Plate Reverb from UAD

Pure Plate is part of the UAD Explore bundle, so also free. It's a straightforward plate reverb that sits naturally in a mix without drawing attention to itself. If you just need a clean, professional reverb without a lot of fuss, this is it.

Don't Sleep on Your DAW's Native Plugins

Before you go hunting for third-party tools, spend some time with what you already have. You might be surprised. For example, you probably noticed there's no dedicated limiter in my toolkit. That's not an oversight — the native limiter in Davinci Resolve does everything I need it to do. It's transparent, it's accurate, and I reach for it every single time I master a video or podcast mix. Your DAW's native plugins exist for a reason. Learn them before you spend money replacing them.

The One I'd Bring Back

If I could add one subscription back to this toolkit, it would be iZotope. RX is still the industry standard for audio restoration, and while I can get by with Supertone Clear and Spiff for most situations, having the latest version of RX would make certain jobs significantly faster. It's not that the alternatives can't do it — it's that iZotope built their entire company around solving that specific problem, and the depth of their toolset reflects that. It's the one subscription I genuinely miss.

The rest? I don't miss them.

Your Toolkit Will Look Different. That's Fine.

These are the tools that work for my workflow, my ears, and Riot Anthem Studios' clients. There are a ridiculous number of plugins out there — free, one-time purchase, and subscription — and the right answer depends on what you're mixing and what your ears are telling you.

What I can tell you is that you don't need a subscription to sound professional. You need the right tools for the job and enough time behind them to know what you're doing. This toolkit is more than enough to get there.