{"id":5410,"date":"2020-02-06T03:40:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/audioordeal.co.uk\/?p=5410"},"modified":"2020-02-06T03:41:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:41:52","slug":"how-to-make-the-most-of-stock-instruments-and-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/audioordeal.co.uk\/how-to-make-the-most-of-stock-instruments-and-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make the most out of stock instruments and effects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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YOU don’t need to buy lots of expensive hardware to get a wide range of sounds. Many DAWs come bundled with a wide range of instruments and effects. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ableton, for example, offers several tiers of Live 10 depending on how much bundled instruments and sounds you want. Logic too has a great selection of instruments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here’s the thing, they are often limited within that DAW and don’t work cross-platform. This is one of the reasons people buy plugins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, plugins offer a much broader range of sounds as there is a whole global market to choose from. You only need to buy the ones you need, as opposed to having a large selection of bundled sounds designed to suit everyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, with all my raving about how great third-party plugins can be, why am I writing about making the most of stock sounds? It’s simple \u2013 they are essentially free (or at least covered in the price of the DAW). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here are my suggestions for getting the best out of what you already have:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Read the manual<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This one is really simple and for good reason. Stock instruments and effects are well documented, normally all in the same chapter, of your DAW’s manual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes them very easy to learn, and you often get a good understanding of how they were designed too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they may not always be the prettiest synths or effects, they will be optimised for the software and work very well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Favourite and classify the stock presets you like<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Ableton, you can tag sounds, samples, instruments, and effects with coloured tags. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a great way to make life easier in the long run. As an Ableton user myself, I am not a huge fan of 70% of all the instruments presets built-in. To get around this, I tag the sounds that I like and add them into a favourites category. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ableton’s Wavetable has a number of great presets to sort through<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This makes it a lot easier to filter through the good options that relate to your sound, and as time progresses, you may find certain presets are your go-to options and start becoming part of your style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other stock plugins that load more like the normal VSTs, just save the presets you like into a folder set aside for you. Make sure you know which ones are made by someone else so you don’t sell them as artist presets when you get big and famous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Track templates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Do you find that you have the stock EQ plugin followed by a compressor<\/a> on every track? Try setting it up as a track template so it is immediately available and you don’t have to sort through lots of different options each time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My track templates are simple, just a Utility and Glue Compressor<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In DAWs like Reaper, which I use for podcast creation, I use Reaper’s stock plugins for editing the voices. Reaper allows you to save an FX chain, which means you can have a default setting for each person’s voice saved to their name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ableton also allows this feature, with the convenient placement of macro-mapping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Watch YouTube Tutorials<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t rank this as high up as other suggestions for the reasons that many YouTubers won’t spend as much time on stock instruments, but nevertheless, it is a good way to learn them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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