Alex’s top five plugins

Xfer Records Serum cm 248 » 10/10 » $189

“Probably the softsynth I use the most. I love how much you can edit a sound. You can modulate pretty much every setting with LFOs or Envelopes, and you can be creative. Visually it’s easy to understand, which helps a lot.” www.xferrecords.com

Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2

cm220 » 10/10 » $499

“I haven’t been using it for long, but I really like it. I use a lot of the Ethnic World sounds; and you can get some really good atmospheric sounds from it, which I use as ‘background noise’ to add texture to my tracks.” www.spectrasonics.com

D16 Group Devastor 2

cm126 » 9/10 » €49

“This is one of those plugins where I just mess around with the settings and see what weird, distorted sounds I can get. And the presets are really good as well. I use it a lot on plucks, and things that sound a little too soft or ‘plain’.” www.d16.pl

iZotope VocalSynth 2

cm234 » 8/10 » $199

“Just incredible – I actually use it too much! It sounds ‘expensive’ in comparison to other vocoder plugins out there. You can edit a lot within it. I’ve started to use it for lead synth sounds as well now.” www.izotope.com

MeldaProduction MRhythmizerMB

cm211 » 8/10 » €99

“I originally used this plugin to do the Metro Boomin ‘half-speed’ effect. You can create cool choppy patterns, speed up, slow down, reverse, repeat – all kinds of things.” www.meldaproduction.com