Long overdue request and make-over.

[Will.]

How is everyone doing? 

 

This tread will be on a long forgotten item and request on the stock Sonitus plugins. Can we get a new modern look on it? It is still great plugins, although many might feel otherwise. I still use the Compressor, Phase and Delay on an everyday mix. I use the Sonitus compressor first in my fx chain, followed by other manufactory/brand plugins with a favorite compressor at the end of my chain -- to create a limiting effect on Vocals. I use the Sonitus delay 80% in all my mixes to create a chorus effect on guitars, vocals and snare drums, or to give the drums that slap room effect. Reason why I'm requesting an update to its UI - clients keep asking me why am I using old plugins in their projects. Now I have to explain to them, the why and the "what feel/sound" I get from using them. They still sound great. It is just really embarrassing to keep getting asked that question.  

 

So please, can we get that make-over to it and bring them to a modern look? ?

W. 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[reginaldStjohn]

Probably better asked in https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/8-feedback-loop/ forum.

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

customers keep asking me why am I using old plugins in their projects

Funny, isn't it? The same clients would probably think it's totally awesome if you had a 50-year-old hardware compressor racked up, or a similar vintage guitar or drum kit in the studio. But software processors with a 20-year-old UI are yucky.

The Sonitus fx suite code is part of the IP that BandLab purchased, and as you noted, it's still signal processing powerhouse, so there's no reason other than time and resources that these FX wouldn't get the facelift you (and I) would like.

I would use them more if I didn't have to squint to see them. Also, if there were some way that they could be made into PC modules, hey, why not?

And thanks, personally, for reminding me that they are there. I frankly haven't explored them much because of their tiny UI's. But when I tried the dbx compressor preset I was pretty pleased with it.

[Will.]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Funny, isn't it? The same clients would probably think it's totally awesome if you had a 50-year-old hardware compressor racked up, or a similar vintage guitar or drum kit in the studio. But software processors with a 20-year-old UI are yucky.

This is so true. I never understand the concept of it, because no one question the PT. stock plugins.  I use the Tube Leveler on lead vocals often, The Vocal strip VX 64 for it's Deesser and Doubler  effect. There's a come back in a few genre's making their way up the charts again the past couple years . . . and that's the "Mid 80's" Pop, Rock and Disco Vibe,  the others include the 90's RnB, HipHop and House/electro-house (The Daft punk Vibe) with a modern feel.  So these plugins come in handy to bring out that feel. 

[Will.]

4 hours ago, reginaldStjohn said:

Probably better asked in https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/8-feedback-loop/ forum.

How do I move this thread to there?

It is in the feedback loop forum. ?

Edited July 4, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Starship Krupa]

My fallback for whenever anyone questions anything I use is raising one eyebrow and flashing a mad scientist smile and saying "ah, that's my secret ingredient!" My hope is that they'll think that they're getting something that other mix engineers don't know about or whatever. ? Or that they'll at least just relax and let me handle it.

[marcL]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I would use them more if I didn't have to squint to see them.

Exactly!

[chuckebaby]

I use the Sonitus plug ins loyally, especially the delay. for guitars its not one of the best.. but it is one of the easiest to dial in a great repeats. Ive used it for Vocals but it really shines for guitars. The sonitus reverb, Delay, Compressor and even the Wha are valuable plug ins.

I would love to see an overhaul/facelift for these plug ins. However i'm also a firm believer in don't fix what isn't broken. I know what all these functions do now, why would i want to reinvent the wheel and possibly risk having a darker background and not being able to see entry's as clear. 

Kind of a yes id love to see it but im sure its worth the risk for me.

For what its worth.. i have never had a client once complain about plug ins i use. Myself and any clients i work with are always most concerned with the end results not flashy GUI coins. If they were.. they wouldn't be in my studio trusting my skills. They would be in their own studio trying to figure out their awesome looking plug ins.

[Starship Krupa]

Thing is, Chuck, they're actually giving you money. ? With me, it's more mostly just me volunteering to be the one who mixes the project or whatever. It's more of an investment of curiosity than money.

iZotope notwithstanding, the beauty of the algorithms is not always proportional to the beauty of the UI's. If it were, SoundSpot's processors would mostly sound amazing and Exponential Audio's would mostly sound unexciting. Unfortunately not the case with SoundSpot, fortunately not the case with Exponential Audio.

The planet-killer reverb in my collection is Exponential Phoenix Stereo, which also has the dowdiest beige-on-greyscale UI. I think even Sonitus fx Reverb, a 22-year-old design, has a slicker look. The shecksiest throbbing neon-on-black UI is on Oracle by SoundSpot, which is known for having the nastiest algorithm in all of Reverbdom, the redeeming thing about it is that it's really an "effect" reverb, if you try to use it to get a natural sound, abandon all hope.

On the other hand, SoundSpot make my favorite bus compressor, Cyclone, which sounds/works better than it looks (and it looks really good).

A few of my go-to (also cutting-edge tech) plug-ins are Meldaproduction, who are known for their....utilitarian UI's. They probably wouldn't win any beauty contests. I happen to love Meldaproduction UI's myself, mostly.

Then there's Voxengo's plug-ins, great-sounding, so useful, I've been trying for years to come up with a custom color scheme that doesn't make my eyes want to shut tightly at the sight of them. I think they picked Meldaproduction's ugly stick out of the dumpster after it broke.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Seem like a waste of time and resources to me. Those that want to use them can ....I think I tried them like once or twice 20 yrs and they are long consigned to the FX bin of forgetfulness. 

There are way better plugins out there nowadays for those who need them so giving them a makeover seems a bit redundant   

[Bapu]

 

On 7/3/2020 at 11:36 PM, Starship Krupa said:

My fallback for whenever anyone questions anything I use is raising one eyebrow and flashing a mad scientist smile and saying "ah, that's my secret ingredient!" My hope is that they'll think that they're getting something that other mix engineers don't know about or whatever. 

Brilliant!

If I had customers, I'd use that when it became necessary.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Bapu

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/5/2020 at 8:21 AM, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

There are way better plugins out there nowadays for those who need them so giving them a makeover seems a bit redundant

Maybe so, although there are plenty who disagree. Thing is, context: BandLab own the code for these plug-ins and BandLab are marketing a Windows DAW that ships with a rather small and increasingly dated-looking collection of plug-ins (which is why I started the freeware FX thread, to help new users on tight budgets augment that).

To paraphrase "Desiderata," there will always be greater and lesser plug-ins. In my experience, they're at least the equal of their counterparts in most other DAW's. ReaComp, ReaDelay, etc. They don't try to put phony "analog warmth" into your signal, who cares, like the ReaPlugs, they allow access to a multitude of parameters that other processors distill down to one or two knobs.

If they got a UI update and were included in VST64 form (which we know already exists, because they used to sell the package separately for $19.99), then that's another incentive to download and try CbB. It would come with a dozen or so FX and instruments that could be used in any DAW (and would have Cakewalk branding).

[scook]

1 minute ago, Starship Krupa said:

If they got a UI update and were included in VST64 form (which we know already exists, because they used to sell the package separately for $19.99

The Sonitus plug-ins were never available as 64bit VST plug-ins. There was a time when Cakewalk sold the Sonitus Suite separately. That package included 32bit plug-ins in VST2 format.

[Trensharo]

 

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If they got a UI update and were included in VST64 form (which we know already exists, because they used to sell the package separately for $19.99), then that's another incentive to download and try CbB. It would come with a dozen or so FX and instruments that could be used in any DAW (and would have Cakewalk branding).

I never used Sonitus:FX in Cakewalk - particularly the Creative FX (like Modulation, Reverb), which are quite second rate, even compared to lots of Free/Cheap effects on the market.

The UI is not a problem.  The Algorithms are.  As time passes, the problem gets solved in better ways - particularly in the creative realm - so, using plugins this old and out of date/development is a red flag to paying clients who are expecting you to do what you can to deliver the best possible product.  Using Sonitus Delay in a project, when [for example] an AIR Delay is superior for little cost to the producer (routinely on super sale), rubs them the wrong way.

On 7/3/2020 at 9:02 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Funny, isn't it? The same clients would probably think it's totally awesome if you had a 50-year-old hardware compressor racked up, or a similar vintage guitar or drum kit in the studio. But software processors with a 20-year-old UI are yucky.

The UI is a signal, and yes, this is abused by companies who develop low end plugins.  This is why all of SoundSpot's stuff looks decent from a UI perspective.  Lots of people associate look and feel with quality.

On the other hand, Exponential Audio's plugins have amazing algorithms behind those knobs and sliders, yet their UIs still look a decade old.  No one will question you for using those, once you name drop them.  Sonitus:FX doesn't create the same feeling of confidence, because they have consistently been reviewed as mediocre - particularly in more recent times.

Again, things like the Compressor and EQ in Sonitus are largely fine, but I would never touch the Creative Stuff in those plugins.  I would not use Sonitus Delay, when you can get free Delays that are far superior for literally nothing.  I consider that decreasing the quality of my work for no good reason.

Is BandLab just going to let those other plugins whither on a vine and never see the light of day, again?  They hide some of the good ones that already come with the DAW, Lol.

[Trensharo]

On 7/5/2020 at 11:21 AM, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Seem like a waste of time and resources to me. Those that want to use them can ....I think I tried them like once or twice 20 yrs and they are long consigned to the FX bin of forgetfulness. 

There are way better plugins out there nowadays for those who need them so giving them a makeover seems a bit redundant   

This.  I don't understand why these were allowed to remain the default set of plugins in the DAW.  It's not a great endorsement for the product.

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, scook said:

The Sonitus plug-ins were never available as 64bit VST plug-ins. There was a time when Cakewalk sold the Sonitus Suite separately. That package included 32bit plug-ins in VST2 format.

I stand corrected! Thank you.

32 minutes ago, Trensharo said:

I don't understand why these were allowed to remain the default set of plugins in the DAW

For some of the reasons both you and I have stated: in many categories there are plenty of free and cheap alternatives, so why not when they get the job done? Someone downloads Cakewalk and wants to start right in working with it, they have some very good tools to work with that may look a little dowdy. If they or their clients are discerning enough to care about the UI, they are discerning enough to download other plug-ins to use in their place. Nobody forces anyone to use the stock plug-ins with the UI's open while paying clients watch.

Also, some of the functions they perform are still not so common, such as the surround compressor and surround panner/encoder. Feature-wise, W.A. recently put out something called the Sphere Compressor that has a very similar feature set to the Sonitus Compressor.

Since you are so adamant that many better free and cheap alternatives exist, and I love free and cheap plug-ins, please turn me on to some of your favorite freeware 5-band multiband compressors, surround compressors, surround panner/encoders, and 6-band versatile EQ's. Even a "far superior" delay would be welcome.

Although I think AIR's keyboards and synths are good bargains when I can get them for under $20, I am much less impressed with their FX. Last week I tried a trial of their Vocalizer Pro, which attempts to emulate a classic vocoder but is lacking in a couple of crucial features. First, it can't do the basic vocoder task of accepting an external carrier (you can only use its internal synth), second, despite appearing quite feature-packed and complex, it has no manual. Whatsoever. I am now patiently waiting for the trial to expire so that I can hide its existence from my iLok control panel. The UI was pretty, though, it looked better than a Las Vegas casino at night.

I'm also quite interested to read or watch some of those consistently mediocre "particularly in more recent times" reviews of the Sonitus fx suite because I'm relatively new to the Cakewalk scene and apparently didn't get those memos.

I'll direct you to a couple of articles written about them just a year ago in Sound on Sound by Craig Anderton:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-effects

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-plug-suite

And a video by Scott of Chernobyl Studios, who is well-known for pulling no punches when he has something critical to say about Cakewalk:

 

[Will.]

23 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If they got a UI update and were included in VST64 form (which we know already exists, because they used to sell the package separately for $19.99), then that's another incentive to download and try CbB. It would come with a dozen or so FX and instruments that could be used in any DAW (and would have Cakewalk branding).

This is another reason to why I think this need to be considered, other then "clients asking unnecessary questions all the time."  Generating capital and gaining users, it's every brands number 1 rule. So, I'm sticking with my request -- a facelift will be a benefit. I think you've phrased it very well. @Starship Krupa

 

[Will.]

On 7/8/2020 at 8:24 AM, Trensharo said:

 

On 7/8/2020 at 8:24 AM, Trensharo said:

I would not use Sonitus Delay, when you can get free Delays that are far superior for literally nothing.  I consider that decreasing the quality of my work for no good reason.

 

The thing with this statement is . . . If it gives you a better feel of a 80's chorus effect and depth on drums, vocals or guitars with a second reverb, chorus and delay within your chain - why wouldn't you want to use them? I mean, mixing goes both ways. What sounds "ugly and degraded" can sound pleasing to the listeners ears, and what sounds "clean and beautiful not so pleasing." There's no right or wrong way in sound creation - only taste. We all have different taste in food, clothing, and cars. 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Will.]

15 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I stand corrected! Thank you.

For some of the reasons both you and I have stated: in many categories there are plenty of free and cheap alternatives, so why not when they get the job done? Someone downloads Cakewalk and wants to start right in working with it, they have some very good tools to work with that may look a little dowdy. If they or their clients are discerning enough to care about the UI, they are discerning enough to download other plug-ins to use in their place. Nobody forces anyone to use the stock plug-ins with the UI's open while paying clients watch.

Also, some of the functions they perform are still not so common, such as the surround compressor and surround panner/encoder. Feature-wise, W.A. recently put out something called the Sphere Compressor that has a very similar feature set to the Sonitus Compressor.

Since you are so adamant that many better free and cheap alternatives exist, and I love free and cheap plug-ins, please turn me on to some of your favorite freeware 5-band multiband compressors, surround compressors, surround panner/encoders, and 6-band versatile EQ's. Even a "far superior" delay would be welcome.

Although I think AIR's keyboards and synths are good bargains when I can get them for under $20, I am much less impressed with their FX. Last week I tried a trial of their Vocalizer Pro, which attempts to emulate a classic vocoder but is lacking in a couple of crucial features. First, it can't do the basic vocoder task of accepting an external carrier (you can only use its internal synth), second, despite appearing quite feature-packed and complex, it has no manual. Whatsoever. I am now patiently waiting for the trial to expire so that I can hide its existence from my iLok control panel. The UI was pretty, though, it looked better than a Las Vegas casino at night.

I'm also quite interested to read or watch some of those consistently mediocre "particularly in more recent times" reviews of the Sonitus fx suite because I'm relatively new to the Cakewalk scene and apparently didn't get those memos.

I'll direct you to a couple of articles written about them just a year ago in Sound on Sound by Craig Anderton:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-effects

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-plug-suite

And a video by Scott of Chernobyl Studios, who is well-known for pulling no punches when he has something critical to say about Cakewalk:

 

@Starship Krupa Try out the TL - 64 -Tube leveler on vocals and tell us what you think about it. Try all 3 hidden plugins. 

Lazy to type now so I will drop a link on how to get them, if you haven't got them open yet. I think it's the first 3mins of the video.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Starship Krupa]

Here's an old forum post outlining the steps to take to enable not only those three, but the Boost 11 limiter. For the record, I think they're power-packed:

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Starship Krupa