Real dumb question maybe. If Cubase gives you a suite of plug in effects, why bother spending a fortune on other 3rd party plugins? Are Cubase’s not up to the mark in which case surely they should be an optional add-on? I know that this sounds a bit silly and even rude, but I would like to know: Can you really get pro results just with Cubase, (obviously using talented musicians, vocalists and microphones?)
Yes and no.
Generally speaking, all Cubase plugins are decent, some of them are spot on and on a level that I would consider buying them if they were 3rd party plugins. You can always achieve pro level results if you know what you are doing. You need to tweak plugins in order to get in the ballpark of the sound you are looking for. So why not starting with stock plugins? However, there are quite a few 3rd party plugins I would not like to miss because they sound unique and it takes a lot to get almost the same results with Cubase stock plugins. Plus it´s a question of workflow.
To cut a long story short: if I were new to the game I would try to get to know the stock plugins as good as possible. Doesn´t make sense to buy all sorts of fancy stuff if you can´t hear the difference and how to work with them in the first place. Yeah, you´re good to go with Cubase stock plugins. Enjoy!
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There is a range of quality within “professional level”. You could just use Cubase VSTs for lots of projects to a professional level, but maybe some projects require something a bit more, and that’s where other plugins will take things further. Are you trying to win awards and get big hits? The context matters.
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Absolutely, there are so many levels to that question that it is impossible to give a straightforward answer. As you said: the context matters. Nevertheless: I think the most important thing is to get the ball rolling. It is very tempting to fall for that WannaHave-Trap. That does not exclusively apply to rookies;) Speaking out of personal experience 
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Fashion plays a much larger role in this than it really should.
EDIT
Also there are 2 major categories of Audio Processors. One is the bread & butter mostly corrective tools like EQ, compressors, limiters, meters etc. The stock Cubase plug-ins pretty much have this covered. But the other category is more open ended & is often used creatively - things like delays, modulators, reverbs, pitch shifters, distortion etc. While Cubase comes with a broad selection of these kinds of tools, folks are constantly inventing new crazy things to mess up sound.
I too have a pile of once shiny plug-ins now collecting virtual dust.
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There are plenty of people out there for whom the price of Cubase alone is a significant expense. These folks probably can’t then just start blowing money on additional 3rd party plugins, synths and so on.
For them it’s good to know that there’s a decent, fairly comprehensive, set of plugins and instruments built right in so they can get started making music.
I’m OK with this.
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Can´t agree more
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A while back I noticed a thread on another forum talking about reducing plugin counts. Some of the folks there had 1800, 2000 and even 3000 plugins. I just can’t imagine what that would be like to manage.
On top of that, even if every plugin was a Waves or PA special at $29.99, 3000 plugins would work out to $90K.
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There is another, pratical point: If you work on different DAWs 3rd party lets you use the same plugins. That doesn’t work with stock plugins of most DAWs.
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Not at all.
Absolutely.
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Unless the 3rd party is called UAD and your goto fxs have not yet gone native. To pay or not to pay for an additional card - that is the question. I was weak, I did…
That sounds more like a hoarder problem.
I think it’s better to deeply know a few compressors rather than having a more surface knowledge of a lot of them.
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Tell me. I started weaning myself off of UAD before the native plugs started to appear. Mostly because I wasn’t willing to bet that my seriously aging UAD cards would keep working. Spoiler - they still do, but it’s more about the risk. So it was great when the native versions popped up. But the ones I most want seldom make the jump.
But this reminds me, especially for UAD titles, that I bought a fair amount that I probably shouldn’t mostly because they were on sale. Gee, that’s a great price for a boutique compressor that it turns out I’ll never really use. But I have it for when I might need it…
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What you hear is what you have. Despite the best equipment at your disposal (Musicians, Microphones, etc.). Stock Plugins or 3rd Party ones, it will have no impact if you do not hear. I remember one of my music theory teachers often said: They have EARS, but THEY DON’T HEAR…
Saying that you can’t achieve a professional result with Cubase plugins is wrong. Preferring certain plugins from third-party companies can be justified for many reasons. For my part, for example, I particularly like working with fixed frequency EQs. It is non-existent in Cubase.
That said, you can invest thousands of dollars in plugins if you want, but you will always have results that correspond to your ability to hear, analyze problems, find solutions and understanding and knowledge of the tools at your disposal.
Some will call it talent, others will call it experience, effort and hard work, but regardless, the result will always be within the limits of your ability to hear and understand what you are doing.
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Everything included is great and like with any tools it’s all about how you use them but plugin greed/hoarding is inexhaustable.
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There are graphical equalizers in Cubase, GEQ-10 and -30. But maybe you require another kind.
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I’m absolutely trying to work at a professional level.
I’m not a beginner per se and have a Masters degree in Composition for film and tv.
Sometimes I just read a magazine and they’re waxing lyrical about a virtual Drawmer compressor or Lexicon Prime Time delay and I’m left thinking “surely a delay is a delay as long as it’s programmed to the millisecond and can fade out when you want!
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You are absolutely right, I forgot about these (excellent ones), but indeed, I had more in mind EQs like API-550, Helios Type 69 or Neve 1073.
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Or Mäag Eq4. I like it.
Now about topic, I like to work with Cubase stock plug-ins but in each mix I use some 3rd party ones that I like. One important thing —to me at least, as I work with an old i7 third generation— is that with stock plug-ins the processor load is relative low. There are some 3rd party plugins that are very consuming, specially Waves ones on my side. A couple of years ago Chris Selim made a mixing course where he used only stock plug-ins for a busy song with tens of tracks. I loaded the project into my computer and verified that the processor load was 25% with the whole project. Sometimes I have this load with just one or two 3rd party plugins.
What are the characteristics that draw you towards them? This gets to the role of personal taste in the tools we choose.