It's been said many times by many modern producers, but there are tons of great VSTs out there that can offer a lot to your production workflow. A lot of fantastic VSTs are free (check out Baby Audio or Cymatics), and the paid standards (iZotope suites or other quality-of-life programs like Soothe2) go on sale rather regularly. I personally subscribe to email lists from these companies to receive special offers directly, but most of the larger companies have several sales each year. Of course, standard DAWs usually provide you with the necessities for production; however, as you come to understand the areas that can be optimized in your workflow, plugins can do wonders for your efficiency. Not all plugins are equal, but you are doing yourself a disservice if you are an aspiring independent producer and don't seek out free/discounted resources. Also, if using product portals such as Native Access or iZotope's, be sure to check for new offers as well. They tend to add multiple free offers and trials to your existing accounts, so the value of previous investments can definitely increase.
With that out of the way, here's a short list of some of my favorites:
Serato Sample 2.0
Baby Comeback (free from Baby Audio Freebies pack)
Cymatics Origin (free from Cymatics after signup)
iZotope Ozone 10
Xvox by Nuro Audio
Soothe2 by oeksound
Kontakt 7 (although the Kontakt Player is very viable as a free alternative)
That's all for today! I hope you get some use out of this :)
-djblackstripes
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