Hey guys, in this video we’re going to cover the effects and plugins available in Cakewalk
by BandLab.
Before starting, make sure you check out all our previous videos in this series so you’re
caught up on everything related to this software so far.
The main focus of this video will be on the VST plugins and effects chains available.
A lot of the mixing process in Cakewalk can be done with the ProChannel through the console
view, and that was covered in the previous video.
This video will cover all the different effects that are available to work with instead of
the ProChannel.
The first thing we want to cover is how you can add your own VST plugins to the software.
Cakewalk is compatible with third party VST plugins, but you need to configure it properly
for them to show up.
Go to the Edit menu at the top and select Preferences.
This will open a window.
Scroll down to the section on VST settings.
Add a VST Scan Path that corresponds to the folder your third party plugins are in.
Add that folder, then rescan for new plugins.
Now these plugins should be available to use, as long as they are compatible.
All the audio effects are found in the Plugins section on the right side of the default layout.
To add a plugin to a track, just click and drag it onto the FX rack on a track.
There’s not really enough time to go through every possible included effect in a lot of
detail in this video, so I’ll cover some of the important ones.
Starting under delay, we have the Sonitus Delay effect.
This is a stereo delay effect with separate controls for left and right channels.
When the link button in the center is pressed, they are both controlled at once.
Otherwise they can be used separately.
If they are different and then you link them, they are changed by the same amount but the
differences remains the same.
The time is set based on musical time, and the delay time is automatically calculated
from the project tempo.
The feedback sends the signal back through the delay again, and the crossfeed sends one
side to the other side.
The Mix is used for the dry and wet balance.
Next we move onto Dynamics.
This is where we have boost and compression effects.
The first up is Boost11.
All this does is add gain to your track.
If it gets too high, the plugin acts as a limiter.
Next is the Sonitus Compressor.
As with other compressor effects, we have our threshold, ratio, attack and release controls.
There’s also a knee to change between hard and soft knee.
That basically just determines whether the compressor ratio changes immediately at the
threshold, or gradually over the threshold.
There’s also makeup gain, and an output level meter we can monitor.
The nice thing about this plugin is it allows us to see where our level is on this graph
while the sound is playing, and when the compressor is enabled.
The little circle moves up and down as the level changes along the graph and you can
see the gain reduction when it peaks.
The next tool is the noise gate.
We have a threshold, below which the noise gate is active and causes noise reduction.
The attack sets how long the transition is when it comes on, the release sets how long
the transition is when it turns off, and the hold sets hold long after it drops below the
threshold it will start to release.
The depth sets the amount of gain reduction, and the lookahead allows the noise gate to
open up just before the sound starts so it doesn’t cut off the beginning.
The last dynamics tool is the multiband compressor.
This allows you to apply compression at different levels to different frequencies.
On the bottom left, we can slide the frequency cutoffs around for each band of the multiband
compressor.
At the top left, we can set the threshold for each band.
The standard, ratio, knee, gain, attack, and release controls for each band of the compressor
are in the bottom corner.
Under EQ, we find the Sonitus Equalizer plugin.
This is a 6 band parametric equalizer.
On the left, the yellow buttons allow us to enable or disable each band.
The drop down selects the filter, between peak and dip, high or low shelf, and high
and low pass filters.
Frequency sets what frequency that band is centered at.
The Q sets the width of the band, and the gain sets the boost or gain reduction applied.
If we want to reset it quickly, we can press the flat button in the bottom left corner.
Another quick way to adjust the EQ is to click and drag the yellow circles on the graph at
the top.
The first plugin under modulation is the Sonitus Modulator.
This is used to create chorus and flanger sounds, and there’s a few presets available
at the top to choose from.
The rate controls how fast the modulation oscillates.
The phase, depth, and delay all work together to change the amount of modulation that is
produced.
At the end, we have a dry/wet mix control and an output volume, since modulation effects
can lower a track’s volume.
Next up is the Sonitus Reverb plugin.
Unlike some of the reverb plugins you may be familiar with, this one has no presets
to start with.
Luckily, it’s a pretty straightforward reverb to use and produces a smooth spacey feel that
sounds nice without too much effort.
At the top we have our input gain to adjust the level going into the effect.
Next is the Low cut and high cut to adjust the frequencies of our track.
Reverb can get reallu messy really quickly, especially if there is a lot of low end in
your track.
Below that we have the predelay, room size, and diffusion that are used to adjust the
reverb timing and size.
The bass multiplier adjusts the decay time of the bass frequencies, below the frequency
set by the crossover.
A value below 1 means the bass will decay faster than the rest of the reverb, and a
value above one means it will take longer to decay.
The decay time sets how long it takes the reverb to decay and has an impact on the perceived
room size.
With a short decay time, it sounds like a small room.
A long decay time makes it sound like a larger room.
High dampening causes the high frequencies to stop reverberating faster than the lower
frequencies since they are absorbed first.
The last controls are for the dry signal level, early reflections, and reverb sound.
Adjust these to get the right balance of reverb for your mix.
That covers the main effects plugins you’ll end up using with Cakewalk.
There are also quite a few additional effects under the FX chain dropdown.
These are mostly organized by instrument or use.
They can all be used if you want to make a certain track sound different, and they’re
all labeled by what track they should be applied to and how they change the sound.
Each of these has their own different controls, and you’ll just need to play around with
them if you use them on a track.
Thanks for checking out this video on effects and plugins for Cakewalk by BandLab.
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