Main DAW has been ProTools since latter of 1990’s. In those days if I remember correctly, I started to use ProTools TDM2.x in Namco limited and later on I bought ProTools III (nu-bus). And then I have been upgrading it continuously and now use ProTools HDX1 + HD I/O 8x8x8 with ProTools Ultimate. EuControl is used for ProTools navigation with iPad Pro 10.5 and ProTools|Control. This can switch Input monitor On/Off via iPad and this is the reason why I use it. In the future I’d like to use it for Cubase as well. Xpand II is frequently used when I composing and decide the melody and bass line. In AIR Instruments Bundle only mini Grand is still used for initial composition. Addutional Value Content us Avid’s audio processors suite and includes Reverb One and ReVibe I used frequently in the past but now in almost cases I don’t use these now.

• ProTools Ultimate
• EuControl
• Xpand II
• AIR Effects Bundle
• AIR Instruments Bundle
• Additional Value Content

Vienna Symphonic Library’s orchestral instruments samples are the one most frequently used for my orchestra songs. Recently on Vienna Ensemble Pro I necessarily use MIR Pro and simulate orchestra hall acoustic. MIR Pro’s acoustic simulation is used for Sample Modeling’s brass section as well. And Vienna Ensemble Pro is used for virtual instruments only available as VST/AU.

• Vienna Ensemble Pro 6
• Vienna Instruments Pro2
• Vienna MIR Pro (Room Pack 1-5)
• Vienna Symphonic Library

Since 1990’s to early 2000 years, I have been using Apple (Emagic) Logic for MIDI recording/editing and using ProTools for audio recording/editing but for these 15 years I’ve been using only ProTools both for MIDI and Audio. But recently again many NON-AAX, only supporting AU/VST virtual instruments appearing and now I feel again I need to use AU/VST host DAW and intentionally to avoid Logic Pro X and now trying Steinberg Cubase. Getting familiar with this DAW, but if I will use Cubase more or not, it depends on how much ProTools MIDI features will be improved. WaveLab Elements is now my main audio editing software. I don’t create surround sound effects now and if necessary I will use ProTools so this stereo limited version is enough.

• Cubase Pro 9.5
• WaveLab Elements 9.5

I’ve been using Sound Forge since Sonic Foundry era. This audio editing software was acquired by Sony Software and now Magix! But still survive. I guess the reason is for Windows PC users, Sound Forge is only one choice for audio editing. In the past I used this so frequently for sound effects and dialogs editing as batch processor but recently I use this for other purpose, not music production. I have Mac version as well but recently I use WaveLab Elements more frequently.

• Sound Forge Pro 11
• Sound Forge Pro Mac 2

I’m one of the old users since 1993 when Q10 was released as Sound Designer II plug-in in Japan. Still I use her processors most frequently on my music production. I love both of modeling and cutting edge digital processors. Mercury, Abbey Road Collection, SSL 4000 Collection, all line up I have.

• Mercury
• Abbey Road Collection
• SSL 4000 Collection

SoundToys’ company name was WaveMechanics in early 90s and I’m one of the early adopters of her first release of ‘Pure Pitch’ in those days. The most frequently used product was Pitch Blender for me and it was used so frequently for guitar recording and mixing. Recent products are still very good for the purpose of ‘guitar effects which are added on the console’ so frequently used for guitar, bass, synthesizer and keyboards as ‘effector’. I have all products only by Waves and Soundtoys. Waves and Sonnox is for me like ‘tool for mixing engineers’ and SoundToys is ‘effector for instruments’ and no conflicts between them. Micro Shift, Primal Tap, Tremolator is very good for guitar. Devil-Loc Deluxe, Decapitator, Radiator is good for drumloop process. FilterFreak is good for EDM filtering syncing with BPM. So I use these very frequently next to Waves. Little Plate was released recently and this is awesome as plate-reverb. If SoundToys will be available on SoundGrid, I’d be very happy to use them during recording in realtime.

• Soundtoys 5

Since Oxford era, I have been using to get ‘solid, console sound’ with Sonnox. When recording, recently sometimes I use Oxford EQ and Dynamics assigned on HDX DSP and monitor the performance in realtime with Sonnox. This unique manufacturer can reproduce ‘digital console sound’ which is different sound from Waves and McDSP.

• Oxford EQ (HDX)
• Oxford Dynamics (HDX)
• Oxford Inflator (HDX)
• Oxford Reverb (HDX)

When I tell about Eventide, always I remember H3000 which I used for famous ‘Tekken’ punch and kick sound and since then I love Eventide sound but I don’t have budget to pay for hardware processors and now I use software bundle. In the past I loved H3000 Factory, Instant Phase and Ultra Reverb but recently I found out processors based on ‘H9’ and ‘H9000’ such as BlackHole, MangledVerb and UltraTap are very good for ‘cutting edge’ synth songs and now I love this bundle more than ever.

• Anthology XI

My understanding about iZotope is a competitor of Waves’ cutting edge plug-ins and their advantage is more deeply we can edit audio. In other words, more maniac. But for me their instruments line is fine. In audioworkshop, Stutter Edit is the most frequently used processor in iZotope. Guitar and drum track processed with Stutter Edit and I can get very complex delay or repeat effects. In early days I used ‘free’ Vinyl plug-ins as well.

• Stutter Edit
• Break Tweaker（全ライブラリ含む）
• Vinyl
• DDLY Dynamic Delay
• Nector Elements
• Master and Repair Suite
• Trash 2
• pHATmatik Pro

Synthogy’s Ivory has a reputation that ‘all background music composer uses it’. Of course in audioworkshop this is the main acoustic piano module and most frequently used one. I have many expansion library as well. In the near future I’d like to buy Upright piano version. The reason why it sounds so excellent is, Joe Ierardi and George Taylor, who was in charge of Kurzweil K250 (!) development in Kurzweil as engineers. It has already says, yes, great. But in addition, after leaving Kurzweil, Joe has been a mastering engineer for classic piano. Then he established Synthogy based on these background and experience. It is invincible, isn’t it? Overall impression of this piano library for me is ‘Cool Piano Sound’ so when I need warmer piano sound I use other ones, but it’s rare case. In almost cases I use Ivory for my piano sound. In Ivory my favorite is Ivory II Italian Grand. It reproduces Fazioli’s dark and deep sound very well.

• Ivory II Grand Pianos
• Ivory II Italian Grand
• Ivory II American Concert D

I’m one of the early adopter who purchased the initial version of Reaktor when they are established but I use Kontakt 90% and more in Native Instruments’ product for playback of Kontakt sound library such as 8dio. In the past I have been using Battery as well but recently not so much.

• Komplete 11

Sample Modeling/SWAM is the best vendor whose products are practical as physical modeling sound module, so I have brass and saxphones mainly. Recently I found the best way to perform this physical modeling software is to use both TEC Control USB breath control and Roli Seaboard Rise 49 at the same time so I use both to perform these software sound module. Seems like SWAM Engine separated from SampleModeling. I’d like to try the rest of woodwinds such as Flutes, Oboes and Clarinets in the future.

• The Trumpet 3
• The Trombone 3
• French Horn & Tuba 3
• The Sax Brothers
• SWAN Saxphones

Spectrasonics was one of my favorite sample library vendors in the past. I’ve been using their sound library for long years. Atmosphere/Omnisphere is my favorite as well and most frequently used synthesizer software for me. These are very useful for ‘the contemporary Hollywood cinema’ style, fusing classic orchestra with synthesizers and guitars style songs and for the trance style dance music songs. Mostly I cannot find out this texture in any other physical modeling software synthesizers. This is sample-based synthesizer, but still the quality is dramatically better. I use Trillian’s acoustic bass for my jazz songs so frequently.

• Omnisphere2
• Trillian
• Stylus RMX

In the past I used Fxpansion BFD1 more frequently than this but after v2.0 I use Superior Drummer 2.0 much more frequently than others. For perfect ‘acoustic’ drum simulation, only Superior 2.0 can do. The reason is when bouncing multi drum tracks to audio, ‘bleed’ sound is added to ALL tracks and I can get multi drum track with bleed as same as actual drum recording. I have all SDX Expansions library by v2 and choose according to the song direction. V1 library is still available. I also have many of Toontrack’s MIDI groove data as well and when necessary I don’t input by myself and use these MIDI grooves. In the near future I will upgrade this to Superior Drummer 3.0.

• Superior Drummer 2.0
• SDX Expansions（除くRock Foundry）
• MIDI Packs（一部）
• EZDrummer 1.0
• Latin & Percussion

I’m also an early adopters of Fxpansion products. The first product was DR008. Actually I used BFD1 as drum sound module and one complaint was BFD involves bleed sound only on kick and snare tracks and first BFD1 library was the best for me and other expansion library doesn’t sound better than BFD1 library recorded in Eldrado Studio. Now usually I choose Toontrack. But recently Strobe 2’s dedicated presets with Roli Seaboard Rise 49 is very good. Geist2 is now one of the best for me as sample-based software drum machine, so I’d like to try these more than ever. Even I don’t use BFD so much now, still Fxpansion is one of the very good audio software vendors.

• BFD 3
• BFD Expansions（一部）
• Geist 2
• Geist Expanders（一部）
• Strobe 2
• Synth Expanders（一部）
• DCAM Synth Squad

When I was young, ‘synthesizer’ meant hardware synthesizer and I was a user of Roland/Yamaha, but recently I buy Korg products more than ever. Software products are also very excellent and Korg’s modeling synth sounds not adding any color and sounding similar with original hardware so I love them. I also have Gadget as DAW but still on going to try. In addition I would like to try Korg iOS products which I have.

• Korg Collection
• Korg Gadget
• iOS音源

In the past I had no chance to use UVI but recently UVI releases to restore vintage hardware as virtual instruments and I have had interests and first I purchased Darklight IIx. Later on Retro Organs because this sounded good as organ sound module. But another, newer Retro Organ Suite sounds muich better and Acoustic Samples, third party library vendor’s B-5 Organs sounding better than both. So now my plan is as long as it sounds the best, I will use this sample with reamp. B-5 involving not only B-3 but also C-3 and not only Leslie 122 but also other rotary speakers are available, that’s fine.

• Darklight IIx
• Digital Synsations
• Retro Organ Suite
• Retro Organs
• B-5 Organ V2 (by Acoustic Samples)

Recently Waves has been releasing so many virtual instruments. What’s up? Anyway Electric Piano 88 and Electric Piano 200 may use physical modeling on their body part, really sounding like ‘seasoned’, dry Rhodes and Wurlitzer. Before these my best was Vintage Keys bundled with Komplete and made by Scarbee (I was also an early adopter of Scarbee products) but the texture of these Waves’ virtual instruments sounding completely different from sample-based electric piano library so I’d like to use these for future projects. Waves’ piano library called Grand Rhapsody Piano also uses Fazioli and recorded by Grammy Award engineer, Yoad Nevo and for popular music purpose, this sounds warmer than Synthogy Ivory so sometimes I use this.

• Mercury

I’ve been a very old user since GMedia Technology era and before U-he and Korg releasing more accurate analog synthesizer modeling products, her Oddity and impOSC was the one which sounding the most similar with analog hardware synthesizer and I used these so often. Recently just M-Tron Pro is frequently used. M-Tron Pro sounds quite different from the mellotron samples attached with sampler instruments and sounds very similar with mellotron sounds which I listened to on vinyl records so when I need mellotron sounds, I use M-Tron Pro.

• M-Tron Pro
• Oddyty 2
• impOSCar 2
• minimonsta
• Virtual String Machine

EastWest has been a very famous brand since a kind of ‘sampleCD’ was sold in Japan and in those days I bought her first sample CD called Bob Clearmountain Drums1 and used it. Later on I utilized her Kontakt libraries such as Stormdrum for cinematic sound but recently I don’t use so much. But her ethnic instruments libraries such as Ra and Silk involves very rare middle-eastern and Chinese instruments so when songs need such kind of the instruments, I use these.

• EastWest Ra
• EastWest Silk
• EastWest Stormdrum 2
• EastWest Symphonic Choirs
• その他Kontakt/Giga Sampler/CD音源多数所有

As for Arturia, I’m also one of early adopters since she released Moog Modular in those days. Recently I’ve been trying SparkLE. My impression about her virtual instruments is ‘Not bad but all sounds as ‘Arturia sound’’. This is correct as a manufacturer but criterion is ‘how similar’ then it’s different. (So, their original Brute series sounds good for me.) But in the past I used Moog Modular so much. Now I have real Minimoog Model-D so I don’t use like before. As for SparkLE, still on the way. As rhythm machine with various patterns, I think it’s good.

• Vcollection 5
• SparkLE

I used German Best Service’s sample CD in very early era of Namco Limited. They aquired Yellow Tools and I purchased two ethnic sound library from them. Not so frequent but for some songs, these sounds fit very much so still I keep on it. The sampler instruments called Engine itself is now a bit old-fashioned.

• Desert Winds
• Gu Zheng

Roli Seaboard attaches controls software called Roli Dashboard. In addition, it attaches a sample-based + physical modeling virtual instruments called as Equator and it’s very interesting. We can get very mysterious expression with Seboard’s 5D controls. Fxpansion’s Strobe 2 supports Seaboard 5D controls as well and is also interesting but analog synthesizer modeling only. Equator is more interesting in making full use of samples and getting hybrid, mysterious sound.

• Equator

As brass/woodwind physical simulator I was surprised when I heard the sound of Sample Modeling/SWAM. As physical simulator of analog synthesizer, U-he surprised me. Awesome Repro-1 and Diva impressed me and I purchased Repro bundle and Diva. Still on the way but I’m impressed with these virtual instruments that prove physical simulator can reproduce analog synthesizer like this.

• Diva
• Repro

I got DAW application called Waveform from Tracktion with free but I cannot try it at all. On the other hand her BioTek interested me very much. Using X-Y pad of Roli Seaboard Rise 49 and Korg Nano Key Studio and I can control BioTek’s X-Y controls in realtime. Then I can get the effect of ‘cutting edge, body sound changing with time’. It depends on the songs but I’d like to try this in the future.

• BioTek
• Tracktion