GarageBand’s stock plugins aren’t *completely* useless.

On the whole they do a pretty good job, considering they are just watered down versions of Logic Pro plugins.

There are however some really good FREE alternatives for most of them out there that will definitely give you better results…

In the video below I share what I think are three of GarageBand’s worst stock plugins and the free excellent alternative plugins that you should replace them with.

 

 

Compressor

GarageBand’s stock compressor is ok.

It definitely gets the job done in most situations. The biggest drawbacks for me are the anemic control options it gives you and how lacking in character it is.

There are a couple of free compressor plugins i’d recommend here as suitable replacements. The first, more general use free compressor i’d reccomend is Analog Obsession’s Britpressor. 

A new take on the classic British style compressor, Britpressor gives you much more in depth control over how your audio is compressed when compared to GarageBand’s stock compressor.

You have full control over threshold, ratio, gain and mix parameters amongst others as well as the ability to individually adjust how much compression is added to low mid and high frequencies. 

If you are looking to fatten up your drums specifically, i’d recommend Audio Damage’s Rough Rider 3.

I still can’t believe they give this one away for free! It is the final word when it comes to adding some gnarly, gritty character to a drum track. 

 

Amp & Pedal Designer

I have a feeling that i’m going to get some heat for this one in the comment section…

GarageBand’s Amp & Pedal designer is really really good… well the clean sounds are at least.

The vast majority of the distorted tones though are not great with a lot of then having that cheap fizzy top end sound that can really ruin a track. 

So instead i highly recommend grabbing Nembrini Audio’s Crunck Version 2.

Nembrini Audio really know what they’re doing when it comes to top drawer guitar plugins and despite being free, Crunk V2 is no different.

You don’t get as many controls to fiddle with here as you do in GarageBand’s Amp designer, but if you’re looking for far more usable punchy and crunchy distorted tones that’s not really going to be a problem. 

 

Space Designer

In Logic Pro, the Space Designer is a massively deep and powerful monster of a reverb plugin.

In GarageBand, we only get three sliders and a bunch of presets…

Don’t get me wrong, the presets here are good, but with no ability to fine tune them to your specific use case, they’re not particularly useful.

Instead I recommend grabbing ValhallahSupermassive, an incredible free Delay/Modulation/Reverb plugin for Mac from ValhallaDSP.

Valhallasupermassive nails the balance between ease of use and depth.

You have a whole host of controls that will be familiar to anyone who has worked with Delay type plugins and effects before.

One of ValhallaSupermassive’s most exciting features is the Modes menu. ValhallaDSP felt that the The reverb and delay algorithms present in the plugin didn’t fit into the standard categories found in conventional reverbs, so they have given the ones available here the names of celestial objects instead. 

Those were the WORST stock GarageBand Plugins and my suggestions for what to replace them with. Let me know which stock GarageBand plugins YOU think require alternatives in the comments!