FX Chain (in Audio FX)

[brandon]

I have noticed that an FX Chain exists in the plugin menu and when I click on it there are individual folders in it including Drums, Guitar/Bass, Mastering, Audio etc. and in each of these are individual folders probably totalling 100 or more. Does anyone know the rationale behind this and also do they include remnants of the old 'Style Strips'? And does anyone use these?

 

Many thanks

[brandon]

I forgot to mention there is also an 'external insert' in the FX Chain but I am not sure what this is for and when i clock on it nothing happens - can anyone advise?

 

Thank you.

[chuckebaby]

Most of them if not all should work. im not sure how many are linked to the previous Sonar plug ins but i do know i use them a lot creating my own FX chains. the cool thing is that they remember preset values. So you can save your stacked plug ins and their presets.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=Browser.09.html

[brandon]

Thank you - is there a way to delete files from the FX Chain do you know?

[Kurre]

It seems there's very little interest in fx-chains.

A lot of the existing chains have one or more of the fx plugins missing.

[Lord Tim]

Like Chuck said, some of them might be tied to old installs or not updated since some plugins were included in previous versions (don't forget, CbB doesn't have a lot of the paid content that was bundled with SONAR back in the day, which may have made its way into some FX Chains).

They're super useful and very powerful though. Even aside from loading one chain and getting every plugin already loaded in the right order, already dialled in, and able to be switched on and off with a single button, one of the biggest things is making your own UI for it.

Say you have a bunch of plugins for a vocal chain, like compressor, EQ, overdrive, delay, chorus, etc. Sure, you could load those in each time and set them up, but even then you might find that you're always going for the same few parameters on each plugin, say turning the first band of your EQ on and off or choosing the delay mix level, etc.

What you can do is assign a handful of controls on the FX Chain UI linked to only the things you care about, and better yet, each control can modify a few different things at once, so your first "grunt" control on your vocal chain could be turning up the saturation level on the overdrive, turning down the threshold on the compressor and the output level on the EQ all at once. Powerful! And better yet, that custom control can by automated too, so you have just one envelope controlling all of those things at once, making complex mixes look less like spaghetti.

If you ever want to get rid of anything in a chain, double click it, and you'll see each plugin along the bottom of the window. Just select it and delete it, then if you want to keep the changes, right click in the window somewhere and choose Save.

[rsinger]

4 hours ago, brandon said:

I forgot to mention there is also an 'external insert' in the FX Chain but I am not sure what this is for and when i clock on it nothing happens - can anyone advise?

What it says ? If you want to use an external fx unit. You should should be able to add it to the bin.

[Gswitz]

So, FX Chains are awesome and easy to use.

You can make your own for anything you do normally. You can bind multiple parameters to the controls and then adjust them with midi foot pedals turning things on or off.

One of the great things about all these chains is many were created by the inimitable Craig Anderton.

In lots of cases you can either EDIT them or Extract the Plugins to learn how they work.

These things are really cool.

As you get the hang of them, you can see how to make your own to make life easier... faster.

One that I often have a use for is 

FX Chains > Anderton collection > VoxTools > VoxTools (Platinum)

It has a cool feature the handling plosives. I often split a clip around a plosive and add this to it. that way, only the plosive gets treated.

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Gswitz

[brandon]

3 hours ago, Kurre said:

It seems there's very little interest in fx-chains.

A lot of the existing chains have one or more of the fx plugins missing.

Yes I noticed there were some missing - the main reason   I wondered if they could be deleted. 

[brandon]

2 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

Like Chuck said, some of them might be tied to old installs or not updated since some plugins were included in previous versions (don't forget, CbB doesn't have a lot of the paid content that was bundled with SONAR back in the day, which may have made its way into some FX Chains).

They're super useful and very powerful though. Even aside from loading one chain and getting every plugin already loaded in the right order, already dialled in, and able to be switched on and off with a single button, one of the biggest things is making your own UI for it.

Say you have a bunch of plugins for a vocal chain, like compressor, EQ, overdrive, delay, chorus, etc. Sure, you could load those in each time and set them up, but even then you might find that you're always going for the same few parameters on each plugin, say turning the first band of your EQ on and off or choosing the delay mix level, etc.

What you can do is assign a handful of controls on the FX Chain UI linked to only the things you care about, and better yet, each control can modify a few different things at once, so your first "grunt" control on your vocal chain could be turning up the saturation level on the overdrive, turning down the threshold on the compressor and the output level on the EQ all at once. Powerful! And better yet, that custom control can by automated too, so you have just one envelope controlling all of those things at once, making complex mixes look less like spaghetti.

If you ever want to get rid of anything in a chain, double click it, and you'll see each plugin along the bottom of the window. Just select it and delete it, then if you want to keep the changes, right click in the window somewhere and choose Save.

Great stuff thank you. 

[brandon]

2 hours ago, Gswitz said:

So, FX Chains are awesome and easy to use.

You can make your own for anything you do normally. You can bind multiple parameters to the controls and then adjust them with midi foot pedals turning things on or off.

One of the great things about all these chains is many were created by the inimitable Craig Anderton.

In lots of cases you can either EDIT them or Extract the Plugins to learn how they work.

These things are really cool.

As you get the hang of them, you can see how to make your own to make life easier... faster.

One that I often have a use for is 

FX Chains > Anderton collection > VoxTools > VoxTools (Platinum)

It has a cool feature the handling plosives. I often split a clip around a plosive and add this to it. that way, only the plosive gets treated.

 

Thanks  I didnt notice the Anderton collection in my list of FX chains. Is it something that can be found online?

[Gswitz]

I would just ask @Craig Anderton.

Calling the mighty Craig Anderton! There are humble people asking after your wizard FX Chains.

Is there any guidance for how they can obtain them?

[Gswitz]

BTW, the purpose of external insert is to auto manage the delay related to sending audio out of your computer and then back in. You might do this in order to use a hardware compressor. The purpose of using the External Insert plugin is to detect the latency and sync everything together so that all the tracks play together. Depending on your interface settings, there can be some buffer delay sending to your hardware compressor and receiving the result back. This plug in helps you remove impacts related to using external hardware.

 

[Craig Anderton]

 

Just now, Gswitz said:

I would just ask @Craig Anderton.

Calling the mighty Craig Anderton! There are humble people asking after your wizard FX Chains.

Is there any guidance for how they can obtain them?

I've done a LOT of FX Chains, but many of them are tied to plug-ins no longer included in Cakewalk. So I don't know how useful they'd be to most people. I could go through them and find the ones that use only Sonitus plug-ins, though, and I also have some preset collections for Sonitus plug-ins and the QuadCurve EQ. 

However, I DO plan to make a package of the custom background, knob, and switch graphics, which will probably end up on my craiganderton.com digital storefront at reverb.com. But now that you mention it...maybe I should just create a "Cakewalk Care Package" with FX Chains and presets that work in Cakewalk, along with the custom FX Chain graphics. I've been expanding the storefront lately (for example I've just added the Surreal Reverb Impulse Responses package and a couple more books), so a "Cakewalk Care Package of Fun Stuff" might make a lot of sense.

[Kurre]

10 hours ago, brandon said:

Yes I noticed there were some missing - the main reason   I wondered if they could be deleted. 

Of course they can be deleted.

My point is that it will take time to do so.

Save a copy of the resulting folder and check that CbB don't have reset it after an update.

[Noel Borthwick]

In the next release we will be issuing some of the missing plugins from effects chains we ship with CbB. That was an oversight.

[chuckebaby]

21 hours ago, brandon said:

Thank you - is there a way to delete files from the FX Chain do you know?

Yes.

1- Right click on the FX chain and select "Extract FX chain". This will open all the plug ins in the FX bin.

2- Delete the ones you don't want anymore.

3- Repackage it up by right clicking and selecting "Create FX Chain".

 

The whole thing is very simple once you get the jest of it.

[brandon]

18 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

 

I've done a LOT of FX Chains, but many of them are tied to plug-ins no longer included in Cakewalk. So I don't know how useful they'd be to most people. I could go through them and find the ones that use only Sonitus plug-ins, though, and I also have some preset collections for Sonitus plug-ins and the QuadCurve EQ. 

However, I DO plan to make a package of the custom background, knob, and switch graphics, which will probably end up on my craiganderton.com digital storefront at reverb.com. But now that you mention it...maybe I should just create a "Cakewalk Care Package" with FX Chains and presets that work in Cakewalk, along with the custom FX Chain graphics. I've been expanding the storefront lately (for example I've just added the Surreal Reverb Impulse Responses package and a couple more books), so a "Cakewalk Care Package of Fun Stuff" might make a lot of sense.

Sounds good ?

[grannis]

Despite being a CW user for over 15 years, I have only just discovered FX Chain presets! Just setting up a couple now to simplify my normal spaghetti.

For my standard vocal chain, I normally use 2 delays and a reverb. I wanted to create a simple wet/dry knob. Trouble is, with separate Left/Right mix faders on the delays, plus one wet fader on the reverb, that makes 5 parameters I want to control with a single knob..and it seems you can only control 4.

Am I missing something, is there a hidden workaround, or is this a feature request?

[Xoo]

Each knob can control more than one parameter - that may work for you (eg. One to do both left and right delay mix).