More or less sampling anything from anywhere without explicit permission from the content owner -- no matter how transformed or modified or short… is illegal.

That being said, if nobody knows or can identify the sample - nobody cares. Artists use uncleared samples all the time and there is definitely some risk involved especially if their track is going to be part of anything that is highly visible, like a commercial/TV/Film/Game etc. Usually there aren't lawsuits unless it becomes a really big track or it's used in some highly visible way.

If you're releasing a small record and you sample some snippet off of youtube, realistically probably nobody will care -- but that doesn't mean that it's legal or that the risk is zero… it's just low risk.

Do you think that Burial clears the Ray Jay or Beyonce samples that he transforms to make the vocal snippets in his masterful tunes? Absolutely not (it would be prohibitively expensive!) -- but his music is not mainstream enough or doesn't generate enough money where anybody is suing him (yet.) I think the current laws are pretty absurd, but that doesn't mean you can ignore them without taking on any risk.

I've been on both sides of it -- a lot of people sampled the vocals from my track Lies and then released/sold songs using the sample uncleared and without proper credit.. I had to spend a lot of time and effort to get the tracks taken down from Beatport/iTunes etc. So as a copyright owner it can be a pain too.  Bottom line the laws need to be reformed and less restrictive for artists and also easier to deal with as copyright owners!

EQ: DMG Equilibrium
Filters: Simplon, Cytomic The Drop, Tone 2 Bifilter, FilterFreq
Compressor: Fab Filter C2, TDR Compressor, FabFilter Pro MB,
Limiter: Waves L1, FabFilter Pro L,
Saturation: Soundtoys Decapitator, Camelphat, Sausage Fattener, UAD Vertigo VSM3
Soft Clipper: Stillwell Event Horizon (it's buggy in Logic though!), Voxengo Elephant (in clip mode)
Heavy Distortion: Trash 2, Camelphat
Delays: Echoboy, Primal Tap, Timeblender, UAD RE-201 Space Echo, Line 6 Pod Farm Pro Delays, Line 6 Echofarm, Eventide Band Delays
Reverbs: Eventide Blackhole, UAD EMT 140 + 250, Valhalla VintgeVerb, Eventide UltraReverb, UAD Lexicon 224
Modulation: Camelphat, Valhalla Ubermod, UAD CE-1 Chorus
Spectral: Soundhack spiralstretch, Soundtoys Speed, Paulstretch app, Metasynth 5
Granular: The Mangle, Ceclilia 5, Kyma 7, Metasynth 5, Reaktor
Guitar FX: Axe FX II,
Timestretch: Logic Version 5 stretch setting for grainy Akai old-school style timestretch, Speed for super-smooth stretch, Serato Pitch N Time for ultimate high quality time stretching
Spectral Morph: Kyma 7, Zynaptiq Morph 2

Not hanging onto ideas you think are mediocre, learn to enjoy making mediocre ideas and scrapping them, but to do that YOU need to be honest with yourself and don't let lovey-dubby soundcloud comments get to your head. Ideally by not sharing EVERY idea you ever make

Totally agree about not sharing every idea you make and posting really rough WIP. It could be that I'm relatively an old man compared to a lot of young electronic music producers, but generally I've always felt it is a bad idea to share your music until it is either fully baked or pretty damn close. You want to put your best foot forward to the world, so posting up a half-way done tune that you're excited about in the moment, but haven't had time to reflect on and scrutinize is not always the best idea. Furthermore peoples positive AND negative comments could fuck with your head and your direction while you're still working through the idea.

My favorites that I own are SCI Pro One, Roland SH-09 and Roland Juno Alpha.

My favorites that I've used and wish that I owned:
1. OSCar - it's fucking awesome! best bandpass filter I've ever heard
2. Crumar Spirit - surprisingly gnarly, lots of character
3. Oberheim Xpander
4. Hartmann Neuron

It really depends on your needs and goals, but generally I take a practical view to presets. There is nothing inherently wrong with using presets, the right sound in the right context is all that matters.

However, if your desire is to develop a unique voice as an artist, you will probably be well served to create a lot of your own custom presets and custom sound libraries (in addition to using built-in presets that you like.) If you are beginner don't fall into the trap of acquiring an endless amount of VSTi's - focus on learning a few synths at deep level so that you can at least competently modify presets that you like to suit your needs.

1. Running/jogging
2. Being in nature
3. Film
4. Art
5. Coffee
6. Chocolate

I think it's worth saving up and going for a really quality pair of open back headphones for mixing. Good headphones are an amazing tool, but you also need to consider a quality headphone amp to drive the headphones especially if they are planar magnetic... it makes a huge difference.

See if you can find and test out Sennheiser HD800's. They are my favorite headphones, the detail is unparalleled. They don't have a visceral bass like some others, but you can clearly hear the fundamental. Also check out the Audeze LCD-X. LCD-X is also really amazing; it's a little more narrow of a sound stage and the highs aren't as bright as the HD800, but the bass is much more visceral  and the detail is incredible as well. I ended up buying both of them over time  If the HD800 and LCD-X are way out of your budget, it's worth trying the Sennheiser HD650's as well.

In terms of headphone amps, Schiit makes really good affordable amps.