Stock vs. third-party plugins: Which do you use more?

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Thread inspired by a discussion I had with a friend yesterday. Just happened to be curious as to how people on KVR regard stock vs. third-party plugins in their mixes. Poll is included.

Myself, I'm of Camp #3 ("I use stock and third-party plugins with roughly equal inclination/preference"). As far as "basic" mixing (compression, gating, EQ) is concerned, I use stock plugins almost exclusively. But for more creative effects - stuff like distortion, chorus, saturation etc. - I tend to favor third-party ones.

How about YOU?

P.S. I for one believe there's nothing wrong with either extreme end presented in the poll.

[Kinh]

Why d'you wan-ta know dat for?

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Why d'you wan-ta know dat for?

Simple curiosity.

[DJ Warmonger]

Ableton has a plenty of utilities that allow to stack and control plugins in a modular fashion. But other than that, I don't expect too much from onboard instruments. Got a fine selection of top synths for every sound design task imagineable, as well as hand-picked effects for great sound or utility.

[cryophonik]

Maybe it’s just me, but I use several DAWs, so I find it’s for more convenient to use my fav third party plugins in all DAWs than it is to use different stock plugins for each DAW. When I do use stock plugins, it tends to primarily be effects like EQ, compression, reverbs, and delays.

Why d'you wan-ta know dat for?

Why d’you wan-ta know why he wan-ta know dat for?

[vurt]

similar to you, basic stuff, let stock plugins do their thing.
when i want character, that's a third party thing, with carefully chosen tools over the years, that have become part of my sound

[kritikon]

I used to use loads of 3rd party ones, now probably half and half.
Standard compression duties I'm happy with stock ones.

Even reverb I happily use the stock IR verb (though I mostly use 3rd party IRs).

Delays - I still use one or two 3rd party ones but for simple delays I find myself using Cubase Multitap more and more - quite a powerful delay under the hood. Valhalla delay is hard to beat for really lush delays though.

I might even start using the stock maximiser too - tested it out against Ozone recently and though Ozone is better at brickwall, it sounds quite unclean to me - at low levels my stock one is cleaner. Doesn't compare with the expensive ones but to me that extra expense is not worth it for limiting.

Panning etc - stock.

Filters - I actually like the Cubase various filtery FX, so stock too.

Chorus I pretty well only use onbaord synth chorus - don't use it on other stuff. Same with flangers - I rarely use them.

Synths - lots of hw but I do use some plugins and they're ALL 3rd party. I find the Cubase synths pretty awful TBH.

[FapFilter]

While stock plug ins can be very, or even extremely good too, chances are higher that you will find some third party plugins picked from one of the gazillions available that do and sound exactly as you'd like than the in comparison handful ones inside your DAW.

In my case as a Reaper user, i'm using and loving ReaPitch, it's - as the name suggests - pitch shifter
I'm also using it's gate plugin

It's new limiter is great aswell, but i already have a great third party one
compressor and convolution reverb are great too, but i still have slightly more advanced third party options

instruments wise, Reaper is probably the weakest DAW available by far, so third party stuff any day of the week for me

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

instruments wise, Reaper is probably the weakest DAW available by far

Yeah, that much is true.

Oddly enough, I'm feeling inspired to see what I could make in an electronic track using only ReaSynth and mangling it in different ways...

[Unaspected]

Stock for utility duties; 3rd party for most everything else.

[legendCNCD]

Between 3 and 4

[synthgeek]

I voted 3. A couple of the stock Reaper plugins I like enough (the gate comes to mind) that I use the VST versions elsewhere also.

[Versa_YT]

I voted for both with equal frequency. I took a class in Ableton, but I have Logic Pro from the ProApps bundle. The 3rd party plugins I use are more so because I have Ableton Lite and Intro and those editions are lacking a lot of the built in versions. The consistency of having the same tool across both DAWs is nice, but I find a lot of the stock ones to suit me just fine as well.

[cryophonik]

I should also mention that I went with option #4, although it's not entirely true for me. For me, it would be more like:

I use mainly third-party plugins and only use stock ones if necessary for a certain sound for tracks that just need some very minor/basic editing (e.g., EQ, compression)

[slugware]

in today's day and age its a false dilemma