dubdisciple
Has this ever happend to you?
A good friend of mine goes through a pattern every 4-6 months where he raves about a new DAW he has acquired. Each time that product is better than sex, chocolate, free beer and Jesus combined. He insists " You HAVE to get this!" and goes on about how much better it is than the last "greatest thing ever". This is followed by a couple of weeks of updating me on tutorials he is watching and links to his new songs which he insists sound so much better now. Honestly his stuff sounds exactly the same. In fact, every person who has ever told me their stuff sounds better after getting a new DAW or plugin has pretty much given me material that sounded about the same. Maybe louder but still the same. The only time someone approaches me and claims improvement and it turns out to be true is usually because of one of the following:
1) mixed in a better environment
2) got someone else to do their mastering
3) they really dived right into getting better at understanding the eq and compression plugs they already had
He's running out of DAWs to claim are supreme unless he goes Mac or Linux. I'm not saying all new plugins are useless. Obviously there are great third party plugins that, in the right hands will produce more desirable results. I just don't see it often.
It used to be me, pretty much. :)
The one thing I've eventually noticed is that when I really was inspired, I was not as inclined to switch DAWs - I focused on the music I was trying to make. But at times, when inspiration wasn't really there, then I'd start looking for new synths and new DAWs and new effects. And if I couldn't get things to sound as good as they should, I'd try different plug-ins, and sometimes fool myself into believing that the next one would magically fix things.
I do honestly believe that my mixes improved when I switched to Logic but for different reasons - got rid of old habits which were part of my workflow and started being more attentive to certain details. I learned Logic with a plan in mind, so to speak, a map of what I wanted to accomplish, what I wanted to improve. The fact that it's an entirely new GUI which presents you options in a different way forces you to evaluate things which you may have come to overlook otherwise. You can't be sloppy.
In an ideal world, I wouldn't be using any 3rd party audio plug-ins. None. As a matter of fact, I'm constantly trying to learn how I can replace the few 3rd party ones I still use w/ Logic's own. And I'm 95% there. When time comes to finally upgrade my computer, I'm kind of hoping that I won't have to install any of that stuff.
There's the matter of soft synths though - there are a few of those which I can't really do without, even if I only use them occasionally. But I try to stick to what I have.
And to be perfectly honest, when it comes to recording, I kind of realized at some point that, say, a bit of EQ on the way in did a whole lot more for me than I could get out of dozens of EQ plug-ins which supposedly emulate high end hardware. There are plenty of things on which money is better spent imho - new pick-ups for a guitar, mics, preamps, percussions - they all do more for me than yet another virtual vintage compressor.