Mixing with the DAW's plugins

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Hi everyone,
I'm a musician and i make my music in Studio One 2, and when i see on youtube tutorial about mixing bass guitar i foud only tutorials using generally Waves plugins.
So my question is : How did people used to do before there was these plugins? is it possible to make a correct and professional mix with the DAW's built in plugins?
Sorry if my english is bad i hope you understood me.
Thanks.

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Well, technically the Waves plugins were the first real plugins in the world.

But depending on the host you can mix with the DAW plugins as easily. Just often third party plugins are more comfortable to use or have more features that you might need.
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I think, before plugins, there was more focus on getting the performance nailed in the first place...

It's totally possible to create a great mix with Studio One's stock plugins. The only thing lacking is saturation/tape emulation type plugins. Try and focus on the principles of what's happening in the videos rather than the actual plugins used.
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Yes, you most definitely can create an excellent mix using only the tools that came bundled with your DAW.

Don't fall into the trap of assuming that if your mixes aren't as good as you'd like the answer is buying some more plugins. The entire industry that KVR is devoted to exists because new and casual users don't understand how to use the plugins they already have.

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do_androids_dream wrote:I think, before plugins, there was more focus on getting the performance nailed in the first place...

It's totally possible to create a great mix with Studio One's stock plugins. The only thing lacking is saturation/tape emulation type plugins. Try and focus on the principles of what's happening in the videos rather than the actual plugins used.
I have Studio One but haven't had a chance to use it yet. As far as I remember it comes with a Softube saturation plugin (at least the Professional edition does). This means it's probably better equiped for saturation than most other DAWs.

I also use Ableton and find it's native saturator my favourite saturation plugin for nearly all mixing tasks.

Cheers

Scorb
I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored...

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djscorb wrote:
do_androids_dream wrote:I think, before plugins, there was more focus on getting the performance nailed in the first place...

It's totally possible to create a great mix with Studio One's stock plugins. The only thing lacking is saturation/tape emulation type plugins. Try and focus on the principles of what's happening in the videos rather than the actual plugins used.
I have Studio One but haven't had a chance to use it yet. As far as I remember it comes with a Softube saturation plugin (at least the Professional edition does). This means it's probably better equiped for saturation than most other DAWs.

I also use Ableton and find it's native saturator my favourite saturation plugin for nearly all mixing tasks.

Cheers

Scorb
I only have the artist version. Tricomp can add some nice colour.
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Studio One Pro comes with a great set of tools, many of which are just as good if not better than most third-party plugins. Many users have created great mixes using only the stock plugins. Check YouTube for videos showing how it's done.

For saturation, S1's RedlightDist plugin is very useful.

Cheers,
Eddie
The future exists in all directions.

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bbaggins wrote:Yes, you most definitely can create an excellent mix using only the tools that came bundled with your DAW.

Don't fall into the trap of assuming that if your mixes aren't as good as you'd like the answer is buying some more plugins. The entire industry that KVR is devoted to exists because new and casual users don't understand how to use the plugins they already have.
boom, goes the dynamite. This is the correct answer.

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'I will solve my mixing problems by buying per se' vs 'you must learn to mix tip-top with any [deficient] tools'? Maybe there is a middle ground.

I learned how to mix by having better quality plugins than Cubase offered in SX2 or Cubase 5. I still never use them. EG: the convolution reverb in it sounds crap to me.
In SX2, the multiband compressor had a horrible, weird, tiny GUI that was impossible for me. I was never going to learn in that.

Do not subvert teh KVR Way! Buy the things. :D

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You can get there with the stock plugins. Extra plugins I get would be a good limiter (barricade cm), compressor and buss comp (DC1A2 and DCAM FreeComp), EQ (Slick EQ) & reverb (Valhalla room and reverberate le if 32bit is ok). Most of these plugins are free and one comes with computer music magazine. Valhalla room is 50 dollars plus the magazine will give you extra plugins to try out. :tu:

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jancivil wrote:'I will solve my mixing problems by buying per se' vs 'you must learn to mix tip-top with any [deficient] tools'? Maybe there is a middle ground.
Of course this is right, there is always a middle ground, but, the tools in cubase 5 are certainly sufficient to obtain a good recording. The essence of my agreement, however, is that buying stuff to fix a problem is so rarely a meaningful solution that it's reasonable to discard it generally as a way to solve problems, especially for beginners.

What did we do before convolution reverbs? We just recorded in a space that had the sound that we wanted, or, we put a mic and a speaker in a space that had the sound that we wanted. Is this the origin of the words "send" and "return" as opposed to simply FX in/out on consoles?

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This video should give you a very good idea as far as mixing with stock (Studio One 2) plugins goes. There are tons more videos on this channel that are very very helpful for beginners and in this instance cover the very subject you're wondering about in great detail: same song gets mixed using only stock plugins vs 3rd party plugins. You can listen and compare final versions yourself and decide if extra cost involved is worth it for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO6BfSz1sKE

If you enjoy working in Studio One 2 then it certainly makes sense to upgrade to Pro version.

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Eddie TX wrote:Studio One Pro comes with a great set of tools
It also comes with a great set of track presets that only uses those tools. I personally wouldn't want to do final mixes with Studio One plugins only but I've thrown together quick rough mixes using their track presets and those came out surprisingly great sounding.

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Truth is, if you cant get a good mix with stock plugins(aside from just not having an effect), then you just cant mix well, period.

The plugins DO NOT, WILL NOT, AND CANNOT transform your mixes. It is the engineer, not the tools. Many famous and successful mixers use stock plugins. The guy who runs http://www.homestudiocorner.com/blog, who makes his living off of mixing clients, and running many training programs uses almost all stock Studio One plugins, I think he had a post or newsletter about it recently.

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itneveris wrote:Truth is, if you cant get a good mix with stock plugins(aside from just not having an effect), then you just cant mix well, period.

The plugins DO NOT, WILL NOT, AND CANNOT transform your mixes. It is the engineer, not the tools. Many famous and successful mixers use stock plugins.
FWIW, it's a relatively recent phenomenon and stock plugins were truly awful for many years. Studio One's stock plugins are better than those of some other DAW's. Even now, Maschine's stock plugins are pretty bad (though V2 is a big improvement in this regard) and Cubase's stock plugins are either really excellent or really terrible, with nothing in between, IMO.

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