I don't want to buy every plug in...

I recently upgraded to Sonar Platinum, and there's a long list of plug ins that come with it.  Some are current, some are a bit long in the tooth. 
 
Since I am coming back to SONAR after some years away, I am wondering about a good plug in set.  I have some old VST's that I haven't loaded yet because perhaps newer plugs are superior.
 
So here's the question/challenge. 
 
What are your "go to" Cakewalk plug ins?  Do they compare well with 3rd party options?
What 3rd party plug ins compliment the Cake offerings?  Please suggest only those that work without added hardware (no UA, etc.)   
 
It seems that Cake has compressors and EQ's handled well, but what about other FX?

I'm also just returning to Sonar 7 after many years and found that my plugins are missing.  In particular I'm looking for a good reverb plugin.  I thought those came with Cakewalk.  So where can I find those?
 

The supplied synths and samplers are good and will serve well once they have been studied and understood. DimPro as a sample player and Session Drummer 3 both are based on the sfz format and you can put together any sounds you like with them. 
 
I have the NI FM8 for DX7 sounds.
 
The Concrete Limiter is very good, I got it when it was offered in a deal.
 
For mastering I have sprung for Ozone 7. Still have to learn how to use it properly.
 
Only in the reverb department have I never found any plug I like. I still use my outboard gear for that.

Wait, what? You don't want to buy every plugin? What's wrong with you! That's the fun of pro audio: Spending all your money buying new toys that do the same thing as the toys you already have.
 
:D
 
In all seriousness, what plugins do I use that are non-Cakewalk? Bearing in mind that I am just a hobbyist, not a pro and never have been or will be:
 
--IK Stealth Limiter. Best loudness maximizer EVAR. It really does seem to just make things louder, not change the tonal quality at all. I've tried a lot of limiters, and it is by far my favourite.
 
--Waves IR-1/IR-L. I'm a fan of real space reverbs and I'm not that happy with what comes with Sonar. Waves has a large collection of good impulses and their stuff is fairly easy to use. Over all I likes. If you want to get it note that they see to put it on sale about 10 times a year (seriously) so maybe wait for that.
 
--Eventide Ultrachannel. I got this for free, they were offering it for nothing, you just had to ask, for a time so I said why not. Turns out to be quite useful. It is a bunch of plugins in one, nothing stellar, but has good presets and I'm not skilled so being able to pick a preset for a given thing is useful. That said there's no way I'd buy it for the asking price of $250. I figured since they were giving it away it would be something cheap but it is really pricey. It's an EQ, two kinds of compressor, delays, and transformer emulator.
 
--Melda Spectral Dynamics. A "sound goodizer". It is actually a stupidly powerful massively multi-band dynamic compressor, but I am not nearly smart enough to actually do much with it. However, putting it on a final mix and messing with a couple of parameters I find it can improve sound detail with very little effort. Bitflipper on this forum wrote a good article about using it that I can't find right now.
 
--Dirac Live. Not sure if this really counts, since it isn't a plugin and I'm not actually running it on my computer, but on outboard hardware (you can get it for your computer though) but it is what I use to correct my speakers/room. It is far and away the best room correction I've ever encountered and just sounds amazing. Much better than Audyssey (which is the technology in IK's ARC). You can get it as a host based program from Dirac themselves, or as outboard hardware from MiniDSP, Emotiva or Datasat. It's expensive as all getout though.

Pro channel modules are good - I use the EQ most of the time. If you have Platinum Breverb Cakewalk is included. With a little tweaking it is a nice, usable reverb. Third party wise I am a big fan of the fabfilter bundle, Waves SSL compressors and the Lexicon pcm native reverbs, though all three are pricey. Valhalla dsp reverbs are great value for a more budget alternative.

The only non-Cakewalk plugins I use are BFD and my T-Racks singles.

I actually use the Blue Tubes stuff as my go to's except for the Pro Channel EQ.  I figure that if I can learn to use all of the plug ins supplied by Cake in Platinum, I will actually be prepared to take advantage of the "better" third party modules that I might have to buy.

MY laptop being repaired at the moment, so I can't check, but I believe there is a manual for the Nomad stuff. II can't recall where the link is, it may be hidden in the GUI. I seem to recall it being mentioned once and few people being surprised it was there all along.
EDIT
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3009988

Klaus
The manual is included in the Windows - VST Installer.zip file,
download from here:
http://www.nomadfactory.com/downloads/index.html
 
 
Best,
Klaus

CWBRN-24837

dcumpian
I'd recommend using only what comes with Sonar until such time as you find yourself limited by them. Unless you are a superb mix engineer, it'll take several years before you have learned enough to try a technique that the supplied plugins cannot do.
 

I completely agree with this.  The Sonitus bundle is long in the tooth but still a solid workhorse and, if you are new, a great way to learn since the controls are pretty straightforward compared to some "vintage" style plug-ins.  The Nomad Factory plug-ins add some nice variety and character.  The remainder of the included VSTs, the ProChannel and also the included virtual instruments are all nice as well.  There is more than enough to keep you busy for a long long time.
 
The plug-in world can quickly become an endless pit of time and money.  Finding, reading about, downloading, installing, evaluating, buying, shopping for deals, dealing with licensing, learning, mastering, reinstalling/re-licensing/re-scanning because stuff broke, blah blah blah.  It can be fun and there are lots of great plug-ins out there but I'd advise avoiding it for as long as you can.  
 
If you do get bored with the built-in ones and feel like exploring, there are freebies from Melda, GVST, Voxengo, Blue Cats, etc. that are excellent and fill in some gaps and are mainstays for a lot of us even if we do have a ton of paid plug-ins as well.  
 

Dave76
The Sonitus bundle is long in the tooth

I prefer to think of them as "vintage." Actually I use the Sonitus effects a lot.

schwa
Maybe Sonitus is old, and looks a little rough, I'll try to appreciate their utility.

If you really want to appreciate their utility, use them for several months, then go cold turkey and try to reproduce what they do with other plug-ins. The Sonitus plugs got it right the first time. There are better reverbs now, but some of them are hard to beat with any modern plug-in. Check out the March eZine for yet another example of why Sonitus plug-ins rule.

Schwa... your approach is very sound... Get all the pro channel mods... all are high quality and extremely useful...If I had to start over, after that and could only spend  500$ beyond that (I've spent well over 15k...arrrrg) I'd just buy Omnisphere2... and spend time on the pluginguru's site watching his free instructional vids.
 
You can pretty much shake the world for a decade with a fully loaded platinum and Omnisphere...
 
Enjoy!  and avoid what we laughingly call "gas" around here...Stay away from the "Deals" forum... Gas attacks are hard to control. I'm in therapy trying to kick the addiction and use what I have, which is mindblowing enough!
 
 

Cool article. Although to be honest if you listen to the average Will.I.Am track it does sound super plastic. I guess that has more to do with the choice of synths and fx though - I wonder what would happen if they both got the same stems. I don't think winning a Grammy is the be all and end all of "good quality production". Although I'd sure love to get one :)

In Sonar Platinum I'm always using the Pro Channel EQ.  It does the gig and having the spectrum analyzer is great for finding trouble.  The Buss compressor (PK, something...) is great too!  I also REALLY like the CA2A and use it more than any other compressor I have- including the WAVES V Comp (Neve emulation) that I have.  Next would be the Lexicon Reverb that came bundled with Sonar a few years back.  I own the Oxford Reverb (which I spent a couple hundred US bucks on) but find myself going the the Lexicon a bit more.  (No love for the BreVerb plugin that came with Sonar a couple years back.  I find it much too bright almost always).  As for peak limiting on the master bus the best I've tried is the WAVES L2.  Of course all of this is YMMV.