Beyond Stock Sounds: 10 Essential Plugins You NEED to Add to Your DAW

DAWs have come a long way in recent years, and the included plugins that come with them rival after-market commercial options in many cases. However, your DAW’s standard EQs, compressors, and extra goodies may not always make the cut for intense audio work. Even now, there are some things that stock plugins often won’t do.

For that, there’s always third party plugins. And there are a lot of them out on the market. From Waves, Slate, and McDSP to lesser-known companies like Valhalla and Stillwell Audio, there is an overwhelming amount of options.

To help narrow down the choices, we’ve put together a list of essential third-party plugins that can help fill in the gaps you’re still likely to find in your DAW of choice.

Fabfilter Pro-Q 2

The Pro-Q 2, from Fab Filter offers some useful options that most stock EQs still don’t.

Even with a great abundance of stock plugins available, at least two Fabfilter plugins always seem to make it into every single mix I do. One of them is always Pro-Q 2.

This EQ is like your stock EQ on steroids. Fabfilter has essentially taken every part of an EQ and turned it up to 11, offering incredible flexibility to meet almost any setting.

Starting out, Pro-Q 2 offers up to 24 bands that can be placed anywhere across the spectrum. While you should probably never need 24 bands of EQ, the option is nice to have for bragging rights.

Pro-Q 2 is also a filtering powerhouse. Each of the 24 bands can be set to a Bell, Notch, High/Low Shelf, High/Low Cut, Band Pass, or Tilt Shelf with slopes up to 96 db/octave.

Additionally, Pro-Q 2 brings Zero Latency, Natural Phase, and Linear Phase modes, as well as options for applying separate EQ to Left and Right channels or Mid/Side channels.

Going over everything that Pro-Q 2 has to offer would require an entire article in itself. Ultimately, Pro-Q 2 becomes an essentialpluginin your arsenal because of all of these options. The versatility that this pluginoffers is unmatched by any stock plugin, and it seems that Fabfilter has thought of just about everything that you’ll ever need for EQing.

Pro-Q 2 is my go-to EQ (as well as for countless other engineers out there) so if you’ve ever found your DAW’s EQ lacking, make sure you download the demo to try it out for yourself.

Slate Trigger 2

The Slate Trigger is one great option for adding a capability that few DAWs have built in with any degree of success.

Think what you want about samples, but there’s little denying that the use of samples to augment or replace a drum performance is an essential technique in many modern styles of music production.

Unless you just love hitting Tab, CTRL+V over and over again, you’ll probably want a piece of software to do the heavy lifting for you.

While other options exist, DAWs are usually lacking in this department, and I have found nothing on the market that works quite as well as Slate Trigger. Using this plugincan be as simple as just throwing a sample on a drum and letting it do its thing, or as complex as allowing you to completely overhaul a drum performance (and your sample) to fit your track perfectly.

The eight available channels allow blending of multiple samples, whether they’re one-shots or multi-sampled dynamic .tci files. These eight channels also allow for dynamic control, filtering, and more.

Even when I want to completely replace a drum performance with samples from a Kontakt library, I still load up Trigger to take advantage of its MIDI capture feature. This allows you to play through the performance and drag a MIDI track from it, mapping hits and velocities perfectly.

Trigger is an indispensable tool for any modern engineer, and you’ll forget the cost of it in a couple of weeks with how much value it brings. Combine that with th3 library of included Slate samples, and Trigger is one pluginthat is essential to have in my book.

Synchro Arts VocAlign

Try finding a time-saver as effective as VocAlign under the hood of your DAW.

Keeping with the theme of plugins that will save you a lot of time, there are few out that will save you quite as much time as VocAlign will if you work in genres that require extensive vocal editing.

VocAlign does exactly what the name implies and rarely fails at it. The plugin just seems to work every time I use it, and it’s a backbone of building up modern vocal tracks that sound huge.

Thankfully, VocAlign makes searching for the chaotic transients of vocal takes obsolete, allowing you throw a couple of takes in and line them up with your defined flexibility.

Despite its name, vocals aren’t the only thing that benefit from this treatment. Often, when tracking DI’d guitars, I’ll edit one take on the grid and then just Vocalign the double to that, cutting my guitar editing time in half.

While I don’t personally work in ADR, Vocalign is an indispensable tool for lining up tracking voiceovers to scratch audio. If you need even more options, Synchro Arts Revoice takes VocAlign to the next level.

While there isn’t much flexibility in deciding how Vocalign functions, it performs exactly how it should 95% of the time, making the $150 it costs seem like chump change.

Slate Virtual Tape Machines

Convincing analog tape saturation is a must-add for many mixers.

Jumping back into the mixing end of things, most DAWs on the market fail to bring subtle and accurate tape saturation to the table with their stock plugins. While a few of them have tried, it seems that tape modeling for stock plugins is still in its infancy.

That’s where Slate’s Virtual Tape Machines come in. While many other plugins try, there’s nothing that sounds quite as “right” to my ear as VTM does.

This plugin lives on my mix buss, and often I’ll use it across individual tracks to bring a little more character to them, breaking free from the mold of “stock” plugins.

One of the most useful ways I’ve found to use VTM is in a transient-shaping context. Take for instance, a snare drum which has had a lot of its top-end boosted, and then throw VTM after it to cut off the top of the transient, so it can stay bright without poking out too much in the mix.

While there are many engineers still don’t like the idea of “simulated tape”, Slate has undeniably created a fantastic plugin—one of the best of its class. It may not emulate tape perfectly, but frankly, I don’t care. I do know that it sounds incredible to me, and there’s not a single mix that I’d do without it.

Soundtoys Decapitator

Satisfyingly savage saturation often requires a third party option, like the Decapitator from Soundtoys.

If Slate’s VTM is distortion at 1, Decapitator is distortion at 11.

Much like with subtle tape saturation, you’re unlikely to find any stock plugin inside of a DAW that gets heavy distortion quite right. Fortunately, Decapitator hits that nail of the head.

This plugin can be shaped from subtle saturation to feedback-inducing distortion, with very few combinations of the controls sounding “bad”.

You can throw it on a mix buss for some subtle saturation, or use it full-out for distortion on a guitar track in combination with an impulse response. It’s that versatile, sacrificing very little at either end of the spectrum.

This is the only plugin I go-to for distortion. I believe that it’s not only an essential add to overcome the limitations of stock plugins, but easily one of the best software distortions that money can buy.

Waves SSL Bundle

If you want to get a console-like tone out of your DAW, it almost always makes sense to go beyond stock plugins.

Originally modeled on the classic SSL 4000-series consoles, the Waves SSL Bundle has created a legacy all its own. It’s a classic bundle that can be found on as many records as there are stars in the sky.

For quick EQ and compression, this channel strip makes its way to the top almost every time among my options. While not flashy on the modeling end, the EQ and compressor just sound good. They almost always live across the shells of my drums, the compressor adding a perfect snap wit the fast attack turned on and the release set real quick.

However, the real legacy of the bundle comes from its buss compressor. While many other companies have come up with their own recreations since, the Waves iteration is still a staple for many.

The glue it adds is perfect for almost any mix and gives a real sense of why this compressor is so famous among those who don’t have an SSL board out in their garage. (It’s nice to dream).

Yes, it’s just some EQ and compression, but its tone and ease of use is nothing like what a DAW’s stock pluginscan offer without fuss, and it remains a go-to for countless engineers.

Stillwell Audio Event Horizon

Event Horizon replicates converter clipping that stock plugins can’t and don’t as of yet.

This one is a little lesser known than many of the others on the list so far, yet it too provides something that no DAW can really replicate.

Event Horizon is both a limiter and clipper, but where the plugin really excels is on the clipping end of things. This function replicates the tendency of of good mastering engineers to sometimes clip their (usually very expensive) A/Ds or D/As to achieve a little extra volume and add some saturation to a track. Stillwell Audio has managed to emulate the process in a $50 plugin.

While certainly not on the same level as true clipping of a great converter, it’s about as close as you can get right now.

Clipping digitally with plugins is a fairly new technique, so stock plugin sreally haven’t caught up yet, making a tool like this essential to add to your arsenal—especially for any tracks you aren’t sending off tracks to be mastered professionally.

iZotope Ozone 7

Ozone 7 has the power to transform your DAW into a far more useful processing tool than before.

While Event Horizon is incredible for getting some extra volume, Ozone 7 offers everything else you could want for mastering. If Event Horizon is like the icing on a cake, Ozone is not just the cake, but the damn whole party.

There’s not a lot in the way of professional-quality mastering plugins built in to most DAWs, so Ozone 7 offers a perfect solution with EQ, compression, harmonic excitement, stereo imaging and limiting.

While all of the modules don’t end up on all my projects, I almost always use the exciter across the entire mix. While VTM and decapitator add a lot, the exciter inside of Ozone does something a little different that stock plugins can’t emulate. (Are you seeing a trend here?).

If you need to master your own projects, or are just trying to learn more about the process, Ozone is essential to have in your DAW—even if you just need a quick mastering chain to listen through for reference.

Soundtoys EchoBoy

A delay upgrade is almost always still in order to get the most out of your ITB mixes.

One area where DAWs really lack is in the delay department.

Yes, stock plugins can repeat a signal for a set amount of time at set intervals, but delay can be so much more and that, and EchoBoy shows off its many possibilities perfectly.

EchoBoy is really a whole bunch of delays packed into one. With it, Soundtoys created 30 different styles of delay based off of gear like the EchoPlex, Space Echo, Memory Man, DM-2, and the TelRay oil can delay.

If you only ever bought one delay plugin, it should probably be EchoBoy. The amount of options and styles built into the plugin make this a delay powerhouse, making any stock delay look like child’s play.

Once you’ve ventured outside the limitations of stock DAW delays, you can discover how special delay can be, and how finding the perfect one can add a certain depth to tracks way outside of just a repeating signal.

Valhalla Vintage Verb

DAW reverbs often leave you wanting, but an attractive upgrade doesn’t have to set you back much.

Much like delay, most stock reverb plugins just simply don’t cut. While D-Verb is used quite a bit, most stock reverbs are just simple algorithms that don’t do much in the way of creating convincing space. Frankly, they often stick out of the mix like a sore thumb.

Fortunately, Valhalla DSP has managed to make an incredibly robust and versatile reverb for only $50. Vintage Verb offers 15 different algorithms including clean and dirty plates, rooms, sanctuaries, ambient spaces, and more.

However, what makes Vintage Verb really special is the different “colors” that can be added to each of the modes. Valhalla has emulated tones from reverbs from the 1970s (dirty and low-bandwidth), 1980s (bright with dark modulation), and present times (Full bandwidth with little to no artifacting).

All of these options combine to create an inexpensive reverb powerhouse that’s light not only on the wallet, but on the CPU as well.

Honorable mentions

There’s a lot more than 10 plugins that could have made it on this list, so we wanted to include some honorable mentions. (Maybe it’s just an excuse to talk more about plugins, but who doesn’t love doing that?)

Slate Repeater

Quantum Leap Spaces

Fabfilter Saturn

Waves CLA-76

McDSP 4040 Retro Limiter

Wrapping it Up

So, that’s my list! Of course, at the end of the day, what plugins you end up using comes down to what you think sounds good. There are demos available for just about every pluginon this list, so make sure to download and try them for yourself.

Regardless, these plugins should cover just about all the bases that your DAW doesn’t, making them potentially indispensable tools for any engineer.

Did we leave any of your favorites off? Please tell us all about it in the comments below.

Jacob Roach is a writer, producer, and engineer from St. Louis, Missouri.

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