VST,  VST3, AU, AAX plugins! What does it all mean? Why are plugins for my DAW useful. How do I decide if they are worth the investment?

ERA Standard Bundle ( https://accusonus.com/products/audio-repair/era-bundle-standard ) I use this suite. Thought the Assistant plugin crashes my DAW! Not a problem as I don't need that as my DAW has the functionality, to build and effects-chain built in. 

iZotope ( https://www.izotope.com/ ) Start by looking for the Elements versions of the apps as these are cheaper. I have the Elements plugins but hardly ever use them.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Recording Mic: Zoom LMF-2 Lavalier mic

Recording device: Zoom F2 32 bit float Field Recorder

Recording location: On my bed

Recording format: WAV (32-bit float mono)

Sound Treatment Mixing and EQ: Adobe Audition with ERA Voice EQ Plugin

Editorial Edit: Descript.com

Mastering Sound Treatment: Auphonic Productions at Auphonic.com

Auphonic.com settings [to output as a 16bit mono WAV file]: Adaptive Leveler (on), Loudness Normalization (Loudness Target -19 LUFS ), Filtering (on), Noise and Hum Reduction (Reduction Amount: Auto), Sample rate: 44.1kHz

I uploaded the resulting WAV file to Anchor.fm to host the file and added