Stock Plugins vs Third Party Plugins - What YOU NEED to Produce a PRO MIX

In your DAW, you have everything you need to mix high quality songs without the need of third party plugins. You have EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Delay, and Saturation plugins, and in reality, that’s all you need to produce a great mix.

But I’ve often been asked, “If stock plugins are all I need, why have I never seen the pros mixing with a lot of them?” Pros use third party plugins to achieve a very specific tone and sound or to achieve a specific task that works better with a third party plugin.

It’s not always an issue of better or worse, but rather, very subtle differences that are specific to the track they’re working on. But here’s the thing: if you don’t know how to use the basic plugins, you won’t be able to tease the nuances out of the 3rd party plugins.

Until you learn the fundamentals of getting a great sound with the EQ, Compressor, Reverb, Delay, and Saturation plugins that your DAW provides and prioritize skills over tools, you’ll just be wasting your money on expensive premium plugins that won’t make your mixes sound better in the end.

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(video transcript)

A couple of months ago, I received the following comment,

“Let’s face it, anyone who takes music production, mixing or composing seriously are not using stock plug-ins in their DAW.”

Now I’m going to start by saying that I totally disagree with this claim, and I’m going to explain to you why. So we’re going to check at the difference between working with stock plug-ins versus third-party plug-ins, and I’m also going to share with you what it takes to be able to produce a pro mix with only stock plug-ins.

What is going on, my friends? Chris Selim here from Mixdown Online now, I am very excited to announce you, like I did on my last video, that my new course, the Ultimate Cubase Mixing Masterclass is going to be available one week from now. So to get more info or to jump on the waiting list, just click on the link down below. Now, if you are new to the channel, subscribe to the channel, click that notification bell, and also if you enjoyed this video share, and like.

Now, to today’s topic, I’m going to start this one by saying that on my side, I do mix with stock plug-ins and also third-party plug-ins. So let’s start by looking at stock plug-ins, so what are the advantages on working with stock plug-ins? First of all, they will give you everything you need to be able to produce a professional mix. So all the AWS, whether you’re working with Cubase, Studio One, Pro Tools, Ableton, all DAWs will have the main tools that you need to be able to produce a pro mix.

We’re talking about compression, EQ, saturation, delay, and reverb. So if you’re able to manage these tools within your DAW, you are going to be able to go far with your mixes. Also, working with stock plug-ins, let’s face it, you’re going to mix with a bit of limitation because you’re not going to have as much selection as when you work with a bunch of third-party plug-ins. Mixing with some limitation is not a bad thing, it’s actually going to help you to focus more on your skills, more than the tools that you work with.

This is something that I suggest everyone to start mixing with, so there’s no use for someone new into the mixing field to start investing in a bunch of plug-ins. I would say, mix with what you have in your own DAW and try to increase your skills, and to develop your skills as a mixer by using those tools. Same for someone a bit more advanced, that can actually be a very good challenge and actually did that myself, where I mixed a couple of songs by using only stock plug-ins.

One of these songs is actually part of my mixing course, again, available next week, where I mixed a full song, full band production by working with only stock plug-ins out of Cubase. This is actually a very good challenge for any experienced mixer as well, and if you’re used to working with third-party plug-ins, you’re going to see that to get to the same type of vibe that you get with some of your regular plug-ins, you’re going to need a bit more creativity.

So that is actually going to help your creativity mixing with only stock plug-ins to get the same kind of vibe and to the same kind of point that you would get with a third-party plug-in. This is something that I witnessed on my side by only working with stock plug-ins to mix my song. At some point, there was some situations where I needed to be a bit more creative to achieve the same kind of result, or close to the same result that I was getting with a specific third-party plug-in, and I actually had a lot of fun doing so.

Also, working with stock plug-ins can increase your workflow, there’s some part of the mixing process that it can actually speed up your workflow if you work with stock plug-ins. For example, you don’t have a lot of selection to work with, so you’re not going to be debating between 10 compressors to decide which one you’re going to use on the kick drum or on this guitar or this vocal.

You’re probably going to have access to maybe one, two, or three different compressors, and that’s it. So you’re going to waste way less time rather than just browsing throughout a list of different plug-ins, so that is one of the advantages of working with stock plug-ins. If you work with Cubase, in Cubase we have access to the channel strip, which is very cool because the channel strip is available on every single channel, where you have access to three compressors, a gate, an EQ, saturation, the de-esser, everything is there without having to insert a plug-in.

So it’s very fast access to those processing straight from the channel strip in Cubase, and also like I shared on my last video, working with stock plug-ins is going to be less hard on your computer’s CPU and that’s normal because stock plug-ins are part of your DAW, so they are super well integrated in your DAW. So that’s why they are going to require way less CPU out of your computer, so, very good if you are working with an older system.

Of course, you’re not going to have to spend an extra dime with stock plug-ins because they are included in your DAW, opposed to third-party plug-ins. Yes, we have access to some free plug-ins out there that are actually pretty good, but for the most part, all third-party plug-ins are paid plug-ins, so you’re going to need to invest a lot of money.

Some are very affordable and that are very good also, but a lot of them are going to be quite expensive and some are actually very expensive. So at some point you really need to decide, “Is it worth it? Do I actually hear the difference between a stock plug-in and a third-party plug-in, and despite of all the advertisement I get on that specific plug-in?” okay, now let’s look at third-party plug-ins because I’m pretty sure a lot of you are going to ask me, “Okay, Chris, that’s cool, stock plug-ins, I have everything that I need, but why do we have access to so many premium plug-ins?”

What I’m going to have to say about that because I do work also with third-party plug-ins and the reason why is first, coloration, some of the plug-ins I have access to will give me a different tone, a different kind of color and that is mainly because a lot of them are going to emulate analog gear, like compressors, like the 1176 or the LA-2A compressor.

Those are all very nice, classic compressors that were emulated by a lot of different companies and that will give you access to that specific tone. This is actually pretty cool, and I kind of like working with those tools and that is the same for channel strips. You can have access to a Neve channel strip or an SSL channel strip, like a full console emulation channel by channel even, which is quite crazy.

But it is actually very cool, and for other plug-ins, it’s going to be the look of the plug-in, the visuals, the gooey, the way to work within the plug-in itself that will make your life easier. I’m just thinking of the FabFilter Pro-Q 3, this is one of my favorite EQ to work with and, to be honest with you, as far as the song quality goes, if I compare it to the Frequency EQ that I have in Cubase, it doesn’t sound better, it’s like both are transparent EQ.

So one is not better as far as sound quality than the other, in my opinion, but the workflow within the plug-in itself is superior in my own experience, so that’s why I love to work with this plug-in. Some other plug-ins are going to give you access to a combination of different tools blended together.

For example, R-bass from Waves or again, the Waves’ MV2 or R-Vox, which are going to be a combination of, for example, the R-Vox of the gate blended with a compression that is mainly focused for vocals, you just pop on this plug-in, you have a minimum of parameters to deal with, and you can get to a very decent and good sound in a short amount of time. Those plug-ins can be a bit harder to reproduce in a stock plug-in situation, but not impossible and this is where creativity comes in hand.

Again, if I go back to one of the reasons why I think it’s good to work with stock plug-ins, at some point, it’s to be able to develop your creativity. So doing that as an exercise also for advanced mixers is not a bad thing, it’s going to help you focus more on your skills to be more creative.

This is how mixing engineers used to work before all of those plug-ins came on the market. They used to be very creative with the tools that they already had because they were mixing with limitation, especially when they were only mixing with gear, with analog gear and not plug-ins. So now third-party plug-in companies, they build and they design plug-ins to make your life easier in some extent, and this is one of the other reasons why I am going to work with third-party plug-ins if that plug-in’s going to make my life easier compared to a stock plug-in.

The big question is, is a third-party plug-in sound better than a stock plug-in? Well, that depends, some will sound way better than stock plug-ins and some won’t, so that depends on what plug-in you work with. It’s not like a general thing because stock plug-ins, they are high-quality plug-ins, especially today in 2020. It’s not like it used to be 15 years ago, with today’s technology, and with today’s at DAWs we have access to, they give us access to a bunch of high-quality plug-ins.

This is exactly what I’m going to share with you on my next video, where I’m going to talk about my top favorite mixing Cubase plug-ins. So when we’re talking about sound quality, again, it depends, and if there is some plug-ins that on paper sound better than stock plug-ins, a lot of people won’t even notice the difference. The main difference, like I was saying earlier is mainly for tone, especially with plug-ins that are emulating analog gear.

So let me just take a few seconds and have you listen to a mix that I worked on with only stock plug-ins in Cubase, and this song is part of my mixing course, where I show you how I mixed this song using only stock plug-ins, so you can see everything that I did as I go into the mixing process, so let’s have a listen.

(Singing).

So yeah, that is the single I released last spring, some of you probably heard it already, and like I was saying, I only mixed this song with stock plug-ins out of Cubase, nothing else. All that to say that it is possible to produce a professional mix by only working with stock plug-ins, and the secret is very simple, it’s to focus on your skills more than the tools because the plug-ins are not going to mix for you, you are.

So I believe that by improving your skills, you’re going to be a better mixer, and again, you’re going to be able to enjoy even more third-party plug-ins, and your stock plug-ins that you already have within your DAW. So I’m going to finish with this, with skills, you’re going to be able to produce any professional mix by working with only stock plug-ins. But without skills, you’re not going to be able to produce a professional mix even with third-party plug-ins.

So there you go, my friends, this is my take on it, if you have any comments or questions, leave everything down below. Don’t forget to share, to like if you enjoyed this video, and to subscribe to the channel if you are new here. Until next time, take care, and see you.