What Music Software/Plugins are Used by Naija's Best Producers?

The most important bit of information to share with you is this: THERE IS NO BEST PLUGIN OR SOFTWARE FOR MUSIC! Simple as this statement is, it is the most important one any producer will ever need to know in order to make good music. Do not ever forget this. While there are high quality plugins which are better in many respects than others, there is usually no ‘best’ since what works best can vary from producer to producer, and from song to song. Production of music in Nigeria is no different. Different producers use different software to achieve specific results. Below is a summary of some of the popular plugins/software used in Nigeria. We will avoid mentioning specific producers but we guarantee you that these products are used by the most established producers in the industry (yes…including that guy you just thought of!)

General statements

As mentioned earlier, there is no best plugin or software but products from certain companies are highly regarded. These companies include but are not limited to Waves, Universal Audio, Solid State Logic (SSL), Softube, Image-Line, Avid/M-Audio and Steinberg. We will discuss the most popular music software in Nigeria under the following headings: Beat-making, DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), VST synths, VST effects and mastering plugins. Note that this list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to add yours to the comments section. Let’s go!

Beat-Making software

We have discussed in a previous blog post about the popularity of Image-Line’s FL Studio (or Fruity Loops as it was known before) in Nigeria. Note that many producers sequence their beats on their DAW rather than make it in Reason or FL studio before exporting as a Wav file. Propellerhead’s Reason is also popular among producers in Nigeria and is particularly favoured for R&B and techno beats. Worldwide, Reason is recognized as the go-to software for Trance music, a style that is not so popular in Nigeria.

 

Digital Audio Workstation

The hands-down most popular DAW in Nigeria (especially for commercial purposes) is Steinberg’s Cubase. Go to any studio in Lagos, Abuja or Kaduna, and you are sure to see Cubase as the main DAW. Cubase has a good user interface, a simple and intuitive work flow, and seamless integration with VST 2 and 3 plugins. Some producers use FL Studio as their DAW and it also does a good job. Cakewalk’s Sonar is also popular in certain places like the North where it is used for Hausa music. Adobe Auditions, Pro Tools and Sony Acid Pro are also increasing in popularity of use.

VST synths

The world of VSTs is a populated and quite complicated one. It is not easy to sort through the mountains of plugins in the market today. Because hip hop music is so big in Nigeria, VST synths that are used often are those that are biased towards hip hop and electronic music. We cannot but mention Hypersonic whose sub bass has become legendary in Nigerian music. Nexus 2 is another winner, as is Luxonix Purity both of which have pristine and clean-sounding instruments. Others worthy of mention include Tone 2 series (Gladiator and Saurus), Rob Pappen series (RG, Predator, SubBoomBass) and Image-Line’s own Harmor. It is sometimes difficult to determine which plugin a producer used because they do a lot of tweaking of the original sound. That is the way to go!

VST effects

Music would be nothing without effects such as equalization, reverb, delay, compression, gates/expansion and stereo enhancement. Many producers in Nigeria just use the stock plugins that come with their DAWs but the smarter producers have realised that the stock plugins are often not good enough. They may have weaker processing algorithms or may not have enough flexibility. By a wide margin, the leading set of VST effect plugins in Nigeria is Waves Audio. The company makes plugins that cover virtually all the effects needed for producing music. They come in bundles such as Platinum bundle and Mercury Bundle. Waves are renowned to be one of the world’s best audio software companies. Several other plugin effects are used by Naija producers but space will not permit us to mention all of them.  

Mastering plugins

After a song is recorded and mixed, it must be mastered to improve its quality and overall loudness. This makes the song sound professional enough to compete with other commercial songs which have gained wide acceptance. There are several software/plugin suites that can do this. In Nigeria, Wavelab from Steinberg is considered as a good VST host for mastering as it can also help you master a whole album at once. Specific plugins used can vary but Ozone from Izotope is popular. T-Racks from IK Multimedia is also a favourite of Naija producers. The Waves group of plugins are fantastic mastering tools and can also be found in the studios of Naija’s top sound engineers.

Conclusion

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there is no one magic bullet that will solve all your production problems. The more you learn to use a plugin, the better you will get even if it is a weak plugin. On the other hand, you may have all the ‘best’ plugins and still not use them well.

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