What plugin/technique/etc do you embarassingly (over)use?

[Conduit]

Absynth pads/soundscapes as intros. Seriously, almost everything I make starts with some sort of ambient preset.

Also, massive for leads/hamonies.

CTRL+C CTRL+V

[Hangin' From A Cloud]

Oh boy do I overuse things. Here's a list:
-same piano patch everywhere (with occasional little tweaks)
-every song has a piano in it
-white noise filter sweep for transitions (my sister hates those XD)
-reverse cymbals for transitions
-oh and reverb

That's all I can think of now.

[EDIT]
-F and D major (they just never leave me)
-140/170 BPM (these don't either)

[Diss Order]

3xOsc. I use it for nearly everything nowadays. Creating leads by EQ, distortion, LFO's and other effects beats using built-in effects, in my opinion.

[phaux]

And I double notes in the piano roll to make things louder.

Sir, you are genius!

Now instead going through all the other 99 channels and lowering their volume, I just add additional notes on top of each other in piano roll.

My life is so much easier right now.

To stay on topic:
I add a little of maximus to every track (I like the saturation function). The problem with it is it makes midsection part full volume even when only one channel plays. The really bad part is: I automate pre gain of main maximus during breakdown to lower overall volume a little.
+ doubling piano roll notes.

[Diss Order]

It's generally a good idea to keep all mixer channels at relatively low volume so stuff doesn't start clipping. So even if you put Maximus on a channel, the channel volume overrides it.

I make sure to put at least a compressor on each and every sound as well. Mastering and mixing are quite a chore, and it's hard to get it just right when you're new to it. Especially when you've got an average of at least about ~10+ active channels at every moment in your track.

[VINXIS]

O yea, I should've noted I use so much automation on Eqing

[CaptainFluffatun]

I soundgoodize my electronic snares.

[SpyPie]

Putting Drums in Ambient music. I'm really going to have to find another 'Nique Technique'

[TheDnBGremlin]

Drums not loud enough? COMPRESS THEM.
Bass not loud enough? COMPRESS IT.
Synths not loud enough? COMPRESS THEM TOO.

I know the effects of compression on dynamics, but when there's a really bitchy mix I usually pull out a compressor. Brickwall with zero attack and around 150 release is magic punch to drums, but I usually end up turning down the gain.

[Deathsongx3]

Massive - Screamer Wavetable.

[ChromaticChaosPony]

I'm finally kicking my dBlue Glitch addiction. Sadly, I just got addicted to Massive. More specifically, the daft filter. I started replacing all of my lowpass filters with daft filters. It just sounds good on everything. Wobble bass, talking bass, pads, lead synths, house plucks, house chords, etc.

[phantomignition]

I just use drum samples to cover for my lack of ability to use VSTis well. Also, reverb, lots of reverb.

[StevenAD]

Imagine it, Charles: Reverb. Reverb as far as the ears can see.

Also, Blood Overdrive.

Also, 3xOsc.

Also, 3xOsc and Blood Overdrive with Reverb.

But the one thing I do the most is pitchbending leads. I love the sound.

[Nix_Spark]

Decimation, bitcrushing, or downsampling.

I can't help it.. it's just so tasty.

[Andanté]

You guys think you over-use reverb? Pah. I usually use a low, deep non-damp reverb on everything to give it sterio space. If I'm still not impressed, I add a short Ping-Pong delay to increase sterio space. Then I may use the Fruity Sterio Enhancer to give it more sterio. Then I realize the sound is too spread out so I use the Sterio shaper to bring the sound to the front. Mabye compress it a bit. Mabye then add some overdrive. And then another sharp reverb.

All that for a clap.

Another habit I have now is layering. In order to go to town on effects and modulation without screwing up the sound. I'll have mabye 3-5 different layers for leads, basses and percussion. Let's say I have a bassline. I'd have a punchy/plucky centered dry bass, a sterio seperated softer deeper bass, an even more sterio seperated bass pad (not to be confused with any other pad I may have in the mix), a distorted sine sub with reverb and overdrive, and a clean sine deep-sub at around 40-100 Hz. And all this would be under my mid lead layers (usually about 2-3), my high lead layer, my layered pads, my layered drums (I layer kicks, claps, snares and cymbala) and my layered sweeps and impacts.


All of this overcomplication because of some deep-rooted obsession with 'big sounds' (I started off making weedy horrible supersaw leads for Nightcore songs using 3x Osc and Toxic Biohazard).

[TheSunAndTheRainfall]

Noise sweeps, reverse chrashes, making completely new patches in Massive just for some background noise that appears for about 5 seconds, never to be heard again, low pass filters, arpy, twinkly sounds to fill up the space, maxing out my mixer channels.

[phaux]

Not really a embarassing thing, but... The BPM of all my music is divisible by 4...
It just doesn't seem right when my electro house isn't 128bpm or dnb isn't 172bpm.
I'm always uncertain about moombahton, whether it should be 108 or 112. Lots of producers just go with 110bpm which is just wrong and ugly. I'm kinda desperate about it.

[Pixel Bass]

Seeing as I really only have one song that I've worked on, I can only go with what I did there. (un)Fortunately for me, Every single one of my 20 something synths is made in massive.

I also EQ everything. I know that is a good mixing/mastering practice, but I don't just EQ everything, I EQ everything multiple times. My main drop bass has 7 EQs on it, my verse bass has 6 EQs on it. It is rare that I let a sound go without more than one Fruity Parametric EQ 2.

[VINXIS]

I don't know if I already said this before, but I use my sig. synth in almost every song recently (two solos on my TLK2 song)

[FLAOFEI]

Oh... The list of over used things is long!
Lets start with the obvious
> Blood overdrive
> Distortion
> Equalisers set in U-shapes (shitload of bass, like... no mids, and to much trebbel)
> Lp filters
> I ONLY use 3x osc (realy, its sad)

The slightly more originals
> Delay - set time almost as low as it can go, and whop, Transformers
> Bass not violent enough? Use chords that dont realy exist! Just add the same set of notes on some random key. Beats LFOs every day
> Horible quality phone mics recording drumms, you srsly cant get more violent drummsamples than that
> Then I rearange those beats and get quite unique drummloops

But most importantly
> I use way to much bass
> I have way to manny rythems going at the same time
> I have way to manny sounds going at the same time, and its still hard to not add "just another layer".

But hey, it works out fine, and I like how it sounds in the end, so id rather call it "favouring" than "overuseing" (even though I definately am over useing some of it)

[VINXIS]

Double post

[natsukashi]

I'm finally kicking my dBlue Glitch addiction. Sadly, I just got addicted to Massive. More specifically, the daft filter. I started replacing all of my lowpass filters with daft filters. It just sounds good on everything. Wobble bass, talking bass, pads, lead synths, house plucks, house chords, etc.

I use the scream filter for everything. =www=
It's just 2 cool

[Acsii]

There's so many presets ;n;

[K3WRO]

There's so many presets ;n;

Nexus? The whole plugin is a damn preset

[Acsii]

There's so many presets ;n;

Nexus? The whole plugin is a damn preset

true...