Five of Jon’s favourite plugins

Paul’s Extreme Sound Stretch FREE “Everyone should try it just for fun. It has some clever algorithms that stretch any sound source to an impossible length. Once you hear the effect, you’ll notice it in a lot of films.” bit.ly/plstrch

iZotope Trash

187 > 9/10 > $99 “I’ve been using Trash forever. It answers a lot of problems for me a lot of the time, and I love the multiband capabilities. It has such a wide range of options.” izotope.com

FabFilter plugins “There’s such a high standard across the range, from the interface and sound, to the ability to get in-depth or use them superficially… I don’t think anyone’s matched that usability. There are plugins with more personality, but in terms of surgical tools, this is where it’s at.” fabfilter.com

Xfer Records Serum

213 > 10/10 > £189 “Most people are using it as a dubstep synth, but there’s a lot of capability in terms of much longer envelopes and that kind of thing, which is a little under-explored.” xferrecords.com

Native Instruments FM8

109 > 9/10 > £129 “It’s hard work, FM synthesis – I have no idea how they programmed the DX7 and things like that. Doing the whole thing through a screen the size of a calculator sounds horrible. FM8 lays it out for you in a sort of digestible format.” native-instruments.com