Oh away from hey what's going on out
there I'm Sean Divine hope you all
are doing well today I have a new
tutorial where we're going to do a
direct comparison of the stock plugins
in Logic Pro X compared to some
third-party plugins
some of them fairly expensive plugins
but this is a really popular question on
the channel from those of you who are
curious you know do I really need
third-party plugins
what are the strong points of some of
the stock plugins and Logic Pro X and
what are some of the weak points so what
are the first third-party plugins that
you should invest in after you've gotten
used to the stock plugins but first
let's just take a listen I actually have
set up this verse in sections and the
first section is mixed entirely with
stock Logic Pro X plugins and then the
second is mixed with third-party plugins
from companies like waves fabfilter I
think it's just those two and then we've
got also some third-party reverb I have
the seventh heaven from Liquid Sonics
and the echoboy on the delay and then
obviously in logic i have corresponding
stock plugins and the settings are very
very close I tried to make sure things
like the compression ratios are very
very similar across the board in terms
of thresholds ratios all that stuff so
let's go ahead and play it back again
the first section of the verse are stock
logic pro plugins the second half are
third-party plugins
all right so let's do it one more time
and I'm gonna solo our vocals here so
that you can keep an eye on the analyzer
over here and the frequency you're gonna
see that they're very very similar but
this will give you just a better idea
specifically some differences in the
sound
alright so that gives you a
good idea of just the different sounds
they're they're not that dramatically
different there are some subtleties in
the different chains and I want to talk
now about you know each of the
individual corresponding plugins that I
use for the stock plugins and then
third-party plugins and kind of you know
which ones are a little more the weaker
links in terms of the stock plugins so
got a noise gate on both the stock as
well as the third-party and a noise gate
you really don't need a third-party
noise gate this noise gate in Logic Pro
X is a wonderful utility plug-in it
does exactly what it's supposed to do
which is just attenuate that noise floor
and you don't need a third party noise
gate in my personal opinion it's not
going to change a whole lot now getting
into our deductive EQ let me pull up the
deductive EQ over here on the third
party which is the Pro-Q and then
I'm using this stock Logic Pro X channel
EQ now you see I've cut them at the same
points and to be honest with you for
doing deductive EQ I think the channel
EQ and Logic Pro X is perfectly fine you
really get more into the differences of
EQ when you start adding so you're going
to have to
bring colors and the curves are really
gonna affect this sound a lot more and
we're gonna get into that in just a
second but as far as just cutting things
the logic stock EQ is is wonderful I
don't have any qualms with it now let's
go on to the compression which is
obviously a very very important part of
the vocal or any vocal especially with
your hip-hop vocals so let's talk about
the stock Logic Pro X compressor versus
some of the others like the proceed to
the waves r comp some of these those
other popular third-party compressors I
will say that in my opinion the stock
Logic Pro X compressor is one of the
biggest assets of the stock plugins that
are included in Logic Pro it has a lot
of these different flavors up here so
you can select different kinds of
compressors just by flicking the switch
and it will maintain your ratio your
threshold settings so you can go through
and get some different colors which is
really important with compression you
want to experiment with different styles
because these are all going to affect
the sound differently but in my
experience the the stock compressor in
Logic Pro X is really great this is not
what I would upgrade first this is going
to do you just fine for a while while
you're learning how to use compression
and mix and it's also really handy just
with the way that you can use
sidechaining routing within Logic Pro X
so now moving on to the additive EQ in
the chain which you're going to see up
here I'm boosting pretty high on the
channel EQ and what I've done is I've
just replicated what I had done on the
SSL and generally with this EQ I just
like to kind of boost the the air or the
extreme highs so I have this set at like
14 K and then I'm boosting pretty
heavily so I've done really the same
kind of thing over here with the channel
EQ and then I've just done some of the
the roll-off and the filtering once
again just to get rid of even more lows
and low mids so this is the first or one
of the first things that if you're gonna
move towards third-party plugins
the
the additive EQs are really
important and ones like this the SSL
they just have a certain color to them
and they have a certain curve to the
frequency boost that just sounds really
musical it fits well in the mix as
opposed to the channel EQ it's not that
it won't do the job but it's just a
little bit harsher and it's a bit
tougher to be really precise and make
musical types of boosts without having
to get in and be you know extremely
surgical with how you're you know
creating these boosts so just something
to be aware of but I would highly
recommend investing in an EQ as one of
your first third party plugins once
you get to that point ones like the SSL
EQ the the pro-q - for boosting your
frequencies especially high end is going
to be really helpful for you and very
musical alright next up we got the
de-esser and I'm gonna tell you right
now this is the first plug-in if you're
using Logic Pro X that I would invest in
third-party because the de-esser in
Logic Pro X it's not very user-friendly
you can get a decent kind of tone out of
it but it takes a lot of work and as you
heard I personally don't think that it
sounds nearly as smooth and it's not
doing the the same job as the waves
de-esser so you can generally get this
waves deesser for a really affordable
price and it's totally worth it
especially if you're using these digital
maybe a USB mic or you don't have a
preamp you're just running through you
know a really kind of harsh sort of
signal chain then this de-esser is going
to take care of that sibilance that you
really want to tame with your vocals
especially in hip-hop so that it's just
you know that is one of the most
annoying things in a vocal is having too
much sibilance so definitely check out
third party deessers like that or also the
fabfilter Pro DS is a good one I'm also
using this Manny Marroquin Triple D
which again is just great for those of
you who are recording with a very
digital
kind of clean signal chain this is gonna
warm things up a little bit de-harsh it
let's get to the last thing in our chain
which is just a limiter and all I'm
doing with this is just preventing us
from going above zero if you're using a
limiter just in this way on your actual
bus I think the stock limiter does just
fine now if we start talking about
master limiters then I think the the
Logic Pro X stock plugins are really
limited no pun intended in that way
because I believe it is the adaptive
limiter yeah or even the multipressor
just the limiter if you're using this
for mastering it's just not going to be
as transparent as something like ozone
or even the fabfilter Pro L
the waves l2 is even going to give you a
cleaner sound so I would recommend one
of those before running your mix through
one of those processors in Logic Pro X
because it is going to affect your
transients in a not-so-pleasant way so
last let's get to just our send effects
or some of the auxes that I have set up
here I've got the space designer for the
the reverb in Logic Pro X which honestly
it's a great reverb I really don't think
that you need to venture too far out
from that for a while I do like this 7th
heaven and some of the other third party
reverbs the lexicon is a really nice
reverb but again I wouldn't get ahead of
yourself I would start off with the
space designer and even some of the other
logic reverb plugins like platinum verb
are you know they're generally pretty
nice tones to them so that's not really
a troublesome area at least when you're
starting out and then go into our delay
I have the third-party plug-in as
echoboy which is a really strong echo
and delay processor processor in my
opinion it's probably the best out there
it's tough to beat but if you're just
doing like basic you know delay throws
and maybe subtle delays like in the
verse like in this one we just have a
16th note delay that's just giving us a
little bit of a stereo effect
so for stuff like that you know again
this is going to do you just fine the
tape delay in Logic Pro X let's just
talk about metering really quickly we
you know were able to look at these
meters as we were checking out these
verse vocal chains and I have the waves
I have some other metering you know I
used the logic excuse me I use the ozone
metering sometimes I have one from
plugin alliance called BX meter that I
used sometimes and to be honest they all
really tell you the same thing like this
one's measuring RMS right now and peak
this one's doing peak and RMS and they
generally are gonna give you really
close readings to each other this is the
same thing peak or rms it's more about
what you're kind of used to looking at
and what's going to be the easiest for
you to reference during your mix so if
you just glance at one of these you can
really get a quick idea of what is going
on so more than anything else in terms
of features they really do the same
thing it's just what is your
personal preference so just keep that in
mind but for at least when you're
starting out again the stock metering
and logic is going to be just fine for
you alright y'all so we talked about the
stock Logic Pro X plugins specifically
for mixing and compared them with the
third-party plug-ins a couple from
waves fabfilter we've got some stuff in
there from soundtoys some really nice
third-party plugins they're gonna be
more expensive and my advice to you
would be get really comfortable with the
stock Logic Pro X plugins and then some
of the first ones that you're gonna want
to check out once you do get comfortable
with those would be a additive EQ
something that's going to give you some
nice clean boosts give you a
professional top-end and then I would
look into the de-esser because that
again is a gaping hole in some of Logic
Pro X's plug-in chains and finally you
want to invest in a good master limiter
or brick wall limiter so that when
you're doing your mixes and you want to
bring things out at commercial levels
and you just want to keep things in
check
not peaking on your master bus you're
going to want something like this it's
not going to drastically affect your transients and it's going to keep
your dynamics in check so definitely
check out something like ozone or even
the L2 to the L1 in some cases is OK
from waves as well so a lot of good
options out there that are gonna serve
you better than the Logic Pro X master
limiters hope the video is helpful for
you if you have any questions about the
stock Logic Pro X plugins or third-party
plugins that we compared here feel free
to leave a comment below if you learned
anything in the video please like and
subscribe and we'll talk to you soon
