Tweakbench
My most favoritest of all VSTs are the ones from Tweakbench. All of my Nur Ein songs (the last four) use at least one Tweakbench plugin. Tapeworm, a mellotron emulator, is my first choice synth sound these days. I also use Maelcum for delay and Cairo for the “How Soon Is Now” sound. There’s also Triforce, which emulates the sounds of an NES – I want to work that into my stuff some more.
All of these plugins sound great, and what’s more, the interface is really nice. Nice-looking and easy to use. It seems like most VST designers get caught up in the idea of emulating the look of hardware as well as the functionality, and they end up making these godawful interfaces that I just kind of have to suffer through. Tweakbench plugins make me feel kind of happy while I use them with their very simple look and bright colors.
Here’s an interview with Aaron Rutledge, who makes the Tweakbench plugins, and he seems to agree with me on the VST GUI front.

