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

[anton_jeremy]

I like to use some 3rd party plugins. I don't know if they are much more "better", but it's fun, it's a feeling, it's a nice haptic/optic.
But I often use stock plugins, because they are not cpu-heavy .

[GuyLacome]

Up until the demo point I'd say 90% stock. In Ableton and PT they're absolutely great! When in mixing mostly 3rd party.

[BONES]

I voted #2, because that's the best way to get to know the DAW and 90% of the time sufficient enough (unless it's Reaper or S1, which have pretty poor native devices).

Compared to what? I have been mostly impressed with Studio One's stock plugins, both instruments and effects. This is especially true when I've been importing MIDI files of 80s songs. S1 loads up stock instrument plugins and often they sound good enough to use straight off the bat. I also use their effects for most things, unless I have a 3rd party alternative with which I am more familiar. I find Ampire to be as good as any 3rd party amp/cab sim, Analog Delay sounds like a delay and their fancy distortion is OK, too. Impact XT is probably my favourite drum machine of any built-in one I've used and Presence is a hugely capable ROMpler with a massive library of sounds. MaiTai is nothing special but, overall, I think S1 is very well equipped with stock plugins.

Ultimately, though ,the answer is very much dependent on which host you use. When we used Orion, more than half our instrument tracks used stock instruments and probably 90% of our plugins were stock, too. When we moved to Cubase, and then to Studio One, that reduced considerably and today we don't use any stock instruments, although what few effects we use tend to be mostly stock, just because it's easier. That said, I tend to have go-to 3rd party effects for vocals and vocals definitely end up getting a lot more effects than anything else, so by the time a song is 100% finished, it probably comes out about 50/50 between stock effects and 3rd party.

[Lift-off]

I think that sometimes voluntarily constraining yourself to only use a specific set of tools, like for example stock plug-ins, can trigger ideas and creative decisions that you otherwise wouldn't have thought of. Reaching this feeling of "oh, I made that, and I did it using only this" is not only satisfying, but is also a great learning process. Anyways, considering how most DAWs nowadays offer incredibly powerful factory plug-ins, you can make the case that the negative conotation behind the word "stock" is wearing off rapidly. Well, I guess third party plug-ins do have more appealing GUIs most of the times, which can have its perks... but I wouldn't state that they automatically sound better just 'cause they're not stock.

[sin night]

I use mainly third party plugins, but I don't disregard using built-in tools whenever they fit the job... I'm almost agnostic on this subject, as long as the tool does the job and sounds good.

Anyway, third party plugins have the advantage that I can use them in any daw... and, while I'm not really depending on any specific third party tool for my music (of course some are more important than others, but nothing is completely unreplaceable), I don't want to depend on any built in tool for "my sound".

[mixyguy2]

I'm surprised that the 50/50 split got the most votes. I thought "mostly 3d party" would win in a landslide. Nice to see though; some smart cookies here...a lot of people just ignore stock stuff, I think because there's this "it came as a throw-in with my DAW, how good could it be" attitude. I found out early that mine (Mixcraft) has some really good stuff.

[Pingi]

I use mainly 3rd party honestly because they look better, most stock plugins design make me feel like im using something rusted and broken. but i still use some just because i feel they are more focused (gui design wise) and i can access some features faster on them then 3rd party plugins.

[SirkusPi]

I use Logic’s compressors quite a bit, and reverbs occasionally. I also use Logic’s drum instruments (both electronic and acoustic) with considerable frequency. Other than that, I pretty much use third-party effects and instruments. I definitely should have investigated the stock plugins much more before making my third-party puchases. But for better or worse, with puchases made and now that I’m used to the third party tools I use, I don’t feel much motivation to go back and use the stock ones.

[CrystalWizard]

i mostly use third party but if i was just starting now i would probably use more stock effects but still the same 3rd party instruments.. i use Ableton Live and Reaper. They both have adequate effects. i only have A Live standard 9 so no instruments but i had the AAS modeling collection before they were integrated and i had Reaktor before A live.

[melomood]

Now that I'm up a few versions of my preferred daw, it's about 50/50 stock/third

[FAS122]

I've got staples of course, like ProQ3 and Trash2, but generally, I'll run with stock effects unless I need something really specific. It's the opposite for vst instruments, where 99% of the time I'm gonna open a 3rd party synth. Stock ones in logic ain't bad, I just really prefer the 3rd party synths I have.

I guess that works out to somewhere between mostly stock and 50/50.

[HOTF]

I use mostly ableton stock stuff even if I own a billion plugins cause I like the way they interact with each other and you dont have to open a seperate window. Also I know them very well and can work much faster this way. that being said I love 3rd party vsts they are fun and some of them are really quality just not part of my workflow.

[YoddYarmonics]

51/49 stock/3rd

[KBSoundSmith]

Depends. Since I switch between DAWs, I do like to use 3rd party plugins so that a consistent GUI/workflow can be maintained among them. Otherwise I'll use the DAW-specific features/plugins (why else run more than one DAW?).

[superscan]

90/10 Third-Party to Logic native plug-in’s.