Back in the old days, before all these fancy plug in FX gizmos with tons of presets.... they had a very limited number of options and yet... some of the best classic rock and roll mastering came out of those studios. Stuff that people today still aspire to replicate.

It's not about the toys and tools, it's about what you can do with the tools that you do have. At least that's my POV. Learn to work well and produce good results with the couple of things you have vs throwing a couple dozen things at it hoping that one of them will be the magic touch. (Throwing things against the wall to see what sticks)

I have a limited number of FX. I had a bunch in my former DAW and when I built this one, I decided to only migrate the stuff that I actually liked and more importantly, used. Literally I have the defaults in my Daw, Ozone, and Melodyne. Those are my go to FX.

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way but that's OK too.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.