One of the most expensive mistakes beginner producers make is buying third-party plugins before learning what their DAW already includes. Cubase's stock plugins are genuinely excellent — here's how to use them to their full potential.
Why Stock Plugins Deserve Your Attention
There's a persistent myth in production that stock plugins are inferior — that you need FabFilter, Waves, or iZotope to make professional music. It's simply not true. Cubase's built-in effects and instruments have been developed by Steinberg over decades, and they're designed to work seamlessly within the DAW. They're CPU-efficient, zero-latency where it matters, and sonically very capable.
More importantly, learning your stock plugins deeply teaches you the fundamentals of each tool category. Once you understand how Cubase's compressor works, you understand compression — period. That knowledge transfers to any third-party plugin you might use later. But if you jump straight to a complex third-party tool without understanding the basics, you're building on sand.
Every single one of our Cubase tutorials deliberately uses stock plugins so that every student can follow along regardless of their Cubase edition. The results speak for themselves — you don't need anything else to produce release-quality music.
EQ: StudioEQ and Frequency
StudioEQ is Cubase's workhorse parametric EQ, available in all editions. It gives you four bands plus high and low shelf/cut filters. For most mixing tasks — high-pass filtering, cutting problem frequencies, gentle tonal shaping — it's all you need. The interface is clean and the sound is transparent.
Frequency (Pro and Artist) is the more advanced option — an eight-band parametric EQ with a dynamic EQ mode on every band. This means each band can react to the incoming signal, only applying EQ when a certain threshold is crossed. This is the same functionality you'd pay for in FabFilter Pro-Q or similar premium EQs. It's incredibly powerful for surgical mixing work, de-essing, and frequency-dependent compression.
Use StudioEQ for broad tonal shaping and Frequency when you need precision or dynamic behaviour.
Compression: Compressor and VintageCompressor
Compressor is a clean, versatile dynamics processor that works well on virtually any source. It has all the controls you need — threshold, ratio, attack, release, makeup gain — plus a clear visual display. For transparent dynamic control on vocals, drums, bass, or buses, it's excellent.
VintageCompressor adds colour and character — it's modelled on classic hardware compressor behaviour and adds a subtle warmth and saturation to the signal. It's particularly good on drums (for that punchy, glued sound) and on your mix bus for gentle overall compression.
A professional approach: use Compressor for transparent control where you want the dynamics tamed without changing the character, and VintageCompressor when you want to add warmth and vibe.
Reverb: REVerence and RoomWorks
REVerence (Pro and Artist) is a convolution reverb that uses real impulse responses captured from actual physical spaces — concert halls, studios, plates, chambers. The quality is exceptional, and the included library of impulse responses covers virtually any reverb type you'd need. For realistic, natural-sounding reverbs, it rivals expensive third-party options.
RoomWorks is an algorithmic reverb available in all editions. It's lighter on CPU and more tweakable than REVerence — you can shape the reverb character extensively. It's particularly good for creative effects, long ambient tails, and situations where you want more control over the reverb behaviour.
The new Shimmer reverb (introduced in Cubase 14) adds a beautiful, ethereal quality — perfect for atmospheric pads and ambient production.
Delay: StudioDelay and MonoDelay
StudioDelay (introduced in Cubase 14) is a seriously capable delay with built-in modulation, distortion, reverb, and pitch effects. It can go from clean, precise echoes to wild, modulated feedback textures. For most producers, this one plugin covers every delay need.
MonoDelay and StereoDelay are simpler options that are great when you just need a straightforward, no-fuss delay.
Instruments: What's in the Box
HALion Sonic is Cubase's flagship multi-timbral instrument — a massive sound library covering acoustic instruments, synths, pads, keys, and more. The quality of the samples is excellent, and for many productions, it's all you need for realistic instrument sounds.
Retrologue is a virtual analogue synth with a warm, characterful sound. It's great for classic synth leads, basses, and pads. Padshop is a granular synth perfect for atmospheric textures and evolving soundscapes. Groove Agent SE handles drums with a powerful pattern sequencer and a huge kit library — expanded in Cubase 15 with 40 new kits.
And of course, the free synth Vital (which we cover in our free Vital tutorials) complements Cubase's stock instruments perfectly, giving you a world-class wavetable synth at no additional cost.
Cubase 15 Additions Worth Knowing
Cubase 15 added UltraShaper — a combined transient shaper, clip limiter, and EQ in one plugin. It's incredibly useful for drums and mix bus work. PitchShifter offers pitch shifting with formant preservation and saturation. And the new Writing Room Synths collection provides vintage synth recreations that are immediately usable in any production.
These additions reinforce the point: Cubase keeps expanding what's possible without any third-party purchases.
The Rule: Master what you have before buying what you don't. You can always add third-party plugins later when you genuinely hit a limitation — but most producers never reach that point with Cubase's stock tools.
🎹 Learn Every Stock Plugin in Context
Our Cubase tutorials use stock plugins exclusively — so you learn each one in the context of an actual production. From our Beginner Course to our deep-dive Mixing Tutorial, every plugin technique is demonstrated with Cubase's built-in tools.
All the best — the Born To Produce Team ✌️
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