Originally Posted By: eddie1261

Note how many here tout "Bob's plugins" because they are free rather than spending money on Steven Slate's products.


I'm kind of taking offense to the "Bob's plugins" comment <grin>

As far as a DAW, at work I use anything from Audition to Reaper (it's installed on my machine). Sometimes I even take one of my external PGMusic drives in to use if I have to record something in, say, the conference room where no recording software is installed. That room has a nice sound card, and 30k+ monitoring system .. but no recording software.

Run what you brung (or what you have at your disposal).

Here at home I use whatever I feel like using, ie, what I think best suits the bill for the job.

I do hesitate to 'recommend' plugins that cost money, unless someone is looking to improve a plugin they already use.
In that case I'll be happy to share my experience with various paid plugins.
In other words, I often recommend the free options as a first alternative to make sure the effect is really what the user wants or is looking for. Hate to influence someone spending money only to realize it was not what they were after at all.
The exception is Ozone, but even then my recommendation usually includes a caution that before trying the free trial, expect to want to buy it.

Also, some free plugins are very good and not resource hogs .. others not so much.
An example (to me anyway) is Ambience reverb. The interface look is getting dated (not terrible though) but the options for control are well beyond many 'paid' plugins. I often turn to it before others I have bought.
It took a while to learn, but so do any of the the more complex paid plugins.

I guess it depends on what the need/request is.

I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!