When it comes to the abilities of WordPress, there is something to be said about too much of a good thing. Choosing good plugins may offer some of the most integral functions for your site so you should learn how to choose the most suited for you, but they could also be causing issues with its operation.

Always remember, people are visiting your site for content and not the gadgets you deliver. How can you tell when you have too many plugins installed at any given time?

1. Website is Slowing Down

No VST can magically fix a mix. There are a lot of very good EQs and dynamics that you can buy, but they will not turn a bad mix into a good mix with one knob. You still have to make judgement calls about which elements of the mix should take prio. Label the new folder as “Plug-ins”. Drag it into your Sidebar Favorites section to make it available as a shortcut there. Go to your VST plug-ins folder. Right click on each plugin you want and choose “Create shortcut” (multi-selection works too). Move these shortcuts to your new folder, and create sub-folders to organize.

There are two primary functions that plugins perform, HTTP requests and database calls. Plugins that don’t retrieve data don’t slow down the site all that much.

However, database calls can become excessive and could diminish your site’s performance in terms of speed. One or two plugins that do this probably won’t make a huge impact, but several of them together simultaneously could lead to problems.

This is especially true if the plugin is looking for information on a third-party server. This often happens in affiliate programs.

2. Site Experiences Frequent Crashing

One thing you have to be aware of is compatibility between other plugins and templates. Not all plugins will work with the additions you installed in WordPress. In some cases, it could cause the site to crash altogether.

Usually, you would then have to uninstall the plugins to get the pages to work again. For example, the “Nuovo” theme causes the “Word Stats” plugin to malfunction in the editor because of how both of them were coded.

3. High-Than-Normal Security Problems

Every time you install a plugin, you’re essentially putting trust in the developer to create a safe code. This could create a high level of security threats with each tool you thought of as safe.

While many developers can be trusted, the bottom line is that each plugin could increase security risks to your website.

Problems like these can happen should the developer simply abandon the project. The end result is a plugin that doesn’t have updates or security fixes.

4. If You Have More than One Plugin with the Same Job

A lot of people constantly look for tools and features that are similar that provide better capabilities. Often times, these individuals create a long list of plugins that are similar.

Depending on the function, these plugins could be contributing to slow site speeds. They could also be taking up server resources, which may be a problem if you pay for each megabyte of digital real estate you use.

This doesn’t take into consideration how two plugins doing the same job could also crash the site or cause it to malfunction. Many tools don’t play well together if they are too closely related.

5. Analytics Show People Are Spending Less Time on the Site

Analytical tools can be used to determine if people are getting confused on your website. Too many plugins may take away from user experience.

Time spent on the page and heatmaps are two of the best ways to discover this information.

If there has been a steady drop as you keep adding new features, these plugins may be to blame by creating a distraction.

6. You Can’t Remember What Each Plugin Does

Finally, the best way to tell if you have too many plugins installed is if you can’t remember the purpose of each one. A lot of times, it’s easier to install a plugin to test it out before committing to using the tool.

However, many people also forget to remove it when they’re done. It’s easy to forget what you were doing with each addition, and you may discover that you’re holding onto things you never use.

Maintaining your plugins allows you to focus more on the content and not the tools that are available. It’s a good idea to keep your add-ons from getting out of hand by cleaning up your list of plugins.

Uninstalling the Plugin

Removing plugins is quite simple in WordPress. It doesn’t take any knowledge of PHP or HTML and is usually automatically done within a few seconds. To do this, you:

• Go to “Plugins” from your WordPress dashboard.
• On the “Plugins” page, scroll down until you see the one you want to remove.
• Click the “Deactivate” link under the title if it’s visible. Otherwise, it should say, “Activate.”
• Once the plugin is deactivated, click the red “Delete” link that is now available. Some plugins will offer to keep any saved information or settings in the event you want to install the plugin at a later date. Keeping this information is optional.

Maintain Your Plugins

If you have a WordPress site up and running for any length of time, you’ll more than likely have to uninstall plugins that don’t fit your current design ideas. There is nothing wrong with looking for tools that are better than the ones you’re using right this minute.

Keep your site streamlined and only keep plugins that you absolutely need.

How many plugins do you use on a regular basis? Do you regularly go through your list of installed goodies to streamline your site?

So you got yourself a DAW, and you have some gear like a pair of studio headphones or speakers, and a laptop and you’re ready to either record your own music or produce your first beat. Great!

But then you open up your DAW and you notice that to get practically anything done, you need to utilize some plug-in software.

You come across the term “VST” and you’re not entirely sure what these things are, what they do, and why you need them.

So inn this post we’ll talk about what VST plugins are, which will help to give you some light as to how they work and why you actually need them.

Other helpful posts:

What Are VST Plugins?

VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology. It was created by the people at Steinberg to emulate what used to be hardware equipment used in a studio.

Back in the day, if you needed to place an effect on a track, such as reverb, or compression, you would actually have to buy a physical unit, and like hardware reverb, install it on your studio rack, and plug it in your studio console, which is your mixing desk, or workstation.

As everything became more digitized, and from then, moving toward computer-based music production, the trend led away from clunky hardware that filled a studio, to emulating and simulating the same effects and instruments used to create music using software tools instead.

Nowadays, VST plug-ins are good enough to even replicate analog effects and instruments. Being software, they are cheaper and more versatile. What would once require tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment sitting in several square feet worth of space, you can carry around with you on your laptop wherever you go.

Read: Best Plugins for Music Production

Different Types of VST Plugins

There are many different types of VST plugins on the market. But we’ll just cover four of the most common types:

• VSTi
• Effects
• Metering
• MIDI

What Are VSTi Plugins?

A VSTi is exactly the same as a VST, except that instead of emulating effects plugins like reverbs and echoes, they emulate actual instruments. You don’t need to buy an instrument, then, if you plan on creating music on your DAW, you simply need to get yourself a VSTi of that instrument, install it on your computer, and record your music with it.

These are generally synthesizers, samplers, and drum machines. There are VSTis for literally any instrument you can think of. From your standard piano, to exotic percussion instruments, all you need to do is do a google search for your desired instrument + VSTi and you’ll find it.

There are some that exist that are free, and some premium ones that are as good as the real thing (examples are Keyscape by Spectrasonics).

Here are some standard VSTi plugins types that you should have if you plan on making music in your DAW (other than record it into your DAW from a mic or lead):

• At least one synthesizer – these instruments generate sounds electrically.
• A sampler – these take pre-recorded sound samples which you can play back by triggering them with the MIDI notes you write in (with your mouse) or play in (with you MIDI controller) in your DAW.
• A drum machine – as the name suggests, this creates beats and grooves for your music.

What are Effects Plugins?

These are just about as popular as the VSTi plugins that we discussed above. Maybe even more. Mixing engineers are familiar with these plugins, but so should anyone making music on a DAW.

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As the name suggests, these are responsible for creating effects by manipulating the sounds generated or inputted into your digital audio workstation. Some examples of these “effects” are reverb, echoes (or “delays”), EQing, limiting and compression.

There are virtually limitless varieties of effects that can be created, and therefore a limitless variety of plugins in existence. From your run of the mill compressors to harmonic exciters. But the ones you should be most concerned with having are the essentials.

Essential Effects Plugins

• Reverb – adds “space” to your sounds by emulating the sound of various types and sizes of rooms and recording environments
• Delay – literally creates delayed signals of your sound over time to give an echo effect
• EQ – used to control the frequencies on a track or mix, such as bass, treble, and midrange
• Limiter and Compressor – often used to change the perceived loudness of audio

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What are Metering Plugins?

Metering plugins are used mostly by mastering and mixing engineers. Their purpose is to, as the name suggests, monitor the audio signal either coming into your DAW or being produced by the audio within it.

There are several types of audio signals to monitor. The spectrum analyzer, perceived loudness meter, the phase correction, and VU meter are just a few to name. Once you begin working on your music, you’ll come across the need to see what sort of levels your music is producing. As you become more advanced, you will know what sort of levels to look out for, and therefor find the plugins that will show you that information.

What are MIDI Plugins?

Lastly, there are the MIDI plugins. These plugins can be very useful for composers and arrangers. They often provide shortcuts for writing, creating, and manipulating notes in your DAW, tasks which, depending upon how many notes you’re dealing with, can otherwise become tedious with time.

For example, a chorder” plugin will play chords for you when you play or write a single note into you DAW. Useful if you’re stuck trying to figure out or coming up with chord progressions.

The arpeggiator takes chords and plays each note sequentially or in a pattern for interesting musical effects at various speeds.

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The note repeater is similar in concept to the arpeggiator by creating patterns from notes. You even have MIDI plugins that assist you in making new melodies on the fly from entering a few notes.

You even have MIDI plugins that assist you in making new melodies on the fly from entering a few notes.

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Where Do I Get VST Plugins?

Chances are that the essentials that we’ve mentioned already exists within your DAW.

Modern digital audio workstations come with all the basics, plus more. So it’s suggested to stick with getting familiar with the ones in your DAW, learning your way around them, how they are used, when they are appropriate to be used, and so on.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of these, which will oftentimes be basic, you can find other professional plugins to buy or download some fun ones for free online.

There are countless amounts of plugins out there, as well as plugin resources, so it is easy to get lost when trying to find the one that’s right for what you want.

Final Thoughts

VST plugins are an essential part of music production. There would literally be no music produced if it weren’t for software plugins. As a digital audio workstation is simply a virtual desk where you can organize, arrange, and create your music, you can think of it as essentially your blank slate.

Whatever it is you want to do with it, whether it is editing a sound, or creating some effects, would require software to produce that for you.