Map to the 4 hidden treasures

[Starship Krupa]

This may be little known to new users, but along with all the other wonderful free plug-ins we get with Cakewalk, there are 4 that come with it that by default are disabled.

They are great plug-ins, too, and well worthy of the small effort it takes to enable them.

They are:

VX-64 Vocal Strip, which is a "swiss army knife" multi-processor oriented toward vocals that includes a de-esser, a doubler, a compressor/expander, a tube eq with saturation, a delay (with filter), and tube saturation on the input and output stages. The 5 modules can be routed in any order. Obviously these tools may be used on many sounds other than vocals. This is a very useful plug-in.

PX-64 Percussion Strip, a similar format multi-processor aimed at processing percussion tracks that includes a transient shaper, a compressor/expander, eq with "vintage" and "classic" modes, delay (with filter), and tube saturation on the input and output stages. The modules may be routed in any order. Noting the similar complement of modules to the VX-64, I assume that each is more tuned to the specific application, percussion or vocals. Again, there is tube saturation emulation on the inputs and outputs.

TL-64 Tube Leveler, a tube saturation and compression emulator. For when digital seems too clinical. Season to taste.

Boost 11, a peak limiter/volume maximizer with a nice display of the waveforms before and after processing.

To be able to use them in Cakewalk, from the main menu, select Utilities/Cakewalk Plug-In Manager. Once Plug-In Manager is running, select VST Audio Effects (VST) under Plug-In Categories on the left side.

This will give you a list, in the middle pane, of enabled VST2 plug-ins. That's fine, but we are not interested in that for now. Down below, under Manage Exclusion List, click the button next to Show Excluded. This will change the list to show excluded VST2 plug-ins.

Look for the names of the 4 plug-ins. Once you have found them, click on each one and click on the button labeled Enable Plug-In. The names will disappear from the Excluded list.

Exit from Plug-In Manager and you should now be able to use all 4 VST effects in your projects.

Note: for whatever reason, I have sometimes found these plug-ins back on the Excluded list after an update to Cakewalk. If this happens, just repeat the process and you will be fine.

[rebel007]

Yes, good advice. I have always been an advocate of the VX64 for vocals. A really good multipurpose VST for quickly getting a vocal track sounding like it belongs in the mix.

[Lord Tim]

The VX-64 is almost always in my vocal chain. It's pretty quirky though, and I don't think the de-esser is overly great, but the tube stage, dynamics and slapback are great. I'll often pair that with Cakewalk's excellent CA-2A compressor and a 3rd party de-esser, and finish up with a Sonitus EQ just to get the final sound. Save all of that as a FX Chain Preset and you have an instant vocal channel strip.

[Peter C]

Cool. Thanks for the tip.

[PopStarWannabe]

Actually, only Boost 11 is included with Cakewalk by Bandlab.

The others you must have had from a previous Sonar installation.

[Larry Jones]

10 hours ago, PopStarWannabe said:

Actually, only Boost 11 is included with Cakewalk by Bandlab.

The others you must have had from a previous Sonar installation.

Probably. The company used to be quite generous with freebie addons over the years.

[Kurre]

10 hours ago, PopStarWannabe said:

Actually, only Boost 11 is included with Cakewalk by Bandlab.

The others you must have had from a previous Sonar installation.

I don't think so. I have not used sonar.

I started with this Bandlab free version. In the first version there were Boost 11 that you could see among the other installed vst's.

But if you looked for hidden vst's you would find VX-64, PX-64 and TL-64.

There were 21 or 22 plugins in the first version.

[PopStarWannabe]

The list of the included plug-ins:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Plug-ins.1.html

[Kurre]

4 hours ago, PopStarWannabe said:

The list of the included plug-ins:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Plug-ins.1.html

So that's it?

Instead of having your nose in a book, try experience the real life.

Are you aware of the insult to me?

You're implying that i am a lier and have not seen what i wrote about?

[PopStarWannabe]

That is the real life: you must have had an old install of Sonar.

Are you 100% sure that BEFORE you installed Cakewalk by Bandlab there had never been an install of Sonar on your system?

[Kurre]

6 minutes ago, PopStarWannabe said:

That is the real life: you must have had an old install of Sonar.

Are you 100% sure that BEFORE you installed Cakewalk by Bandlab there had never been an install of Sonar on your system?

Ok. You're either a troll or megastupid so i'll stop here.

[scook]

Please refrain from name calling.

 

There is  history behind the "excluded" plug-ins. This was discussed some time ago when the subject originally came up. The "4 hidden treasures" are dlls that provide the functionality for the Style Dials. There is no guarantee the full versions of the old Boutique Suite plug-ins will be used in the future. Given there status, if one uses them outside of their intended design, it might be a good idea to bounce the tracks that use them so there is no project dependency that may fail some time in the future.

[koshrecords]

Nice to know! Particularly interested in the VX-64 Vocal Strip. 

I've never installed Sonar, and they're there for me, so PopStarWannabe isn't right.

[sjoens]

According to some older posts I've read, Some or all of these came with Sonar 8.5 but most of the issues started around x2 or x3. Maybe during install it sees an issue and disables them. Or, as scook says, they're in the background fueling Style Dials, or something.

I enabled them and the VX-64 seems to work just fine. Not sure if I'd ever use these so I'm not too worried if they work or not.

[Jack Stoner]

Kurre,  I installed Cakewalk by Bandlab on a new laptop that I'm doing field testing with.  It never had Sonar or any other recording program installed.

All four of the plugins were listed and I enabled them.     I haven't tested them but they were listed and enabled.

[PopStarWannabe]

Ok, ok, I get it: they are there.  But officially they are NOT there! So this means I was 50% right! ?

Skook explained it all: they are there but have a different function: as engines for the Style Dials.

However, his explanations prompts a new question:

From what I gather from you guys, they are in a perfect state and working well, so why doesn't BandLab officialize them? Why didn't they officially include and announce them in a release?

Do they want to give them a new look in the future and sell them?

 

[John Sandlin]

6 minutes ago, PopStarWannabe said:

Ok, ok, I get it: they are there.  But officially they are NOT there! So this means I was 50% right! ?

Skook explained it all: they are there but have a different function: as engines for the Style Dials.

However, his explanations prompts a new question:

From what I gather from you guys, they are in a perfect state and working well, so why doesn't BandLab officialize them? Why didn't they officially include and announce them in a release?

Do they want to give them a new look in the future and sell them?

 

Or they might be planning to deprecate the dll's and add more streamlined support for the Style Dials. 

[Starship Krupa]

On 12/25/2018 at 4:16 AM, PopStarWannabe said:

Actually, only Boost 11 is included with Cakewalk by Bandlab.

The others you must have had from a previous Sonar installation.

Never installed SONAR before CbB, so not possible. The way I noticed these was by opening up Plug-in Manager and looking to see which VST's were excluded. I enabled them and went "WHOA," Keanu style.

I have the .DLL's and accompanying Resource directories backed up in case they, uh, get damaged or something.

Right you are, they aren't officially there, if they were, I wouldn't have had to post this recipe for enabling them. It's a hidden, disabled feature. Use at your own risk.

[marcL]

On 12/27/2018 at 11:45 PM, John Sandlin said:

Or they might be planning to deprecate the dll's and add more streamlined support for the Style Dials.

I hope they don't do that, because I like those plugins (especially the strips) whereas I almost never use the Style Dials. I generally don't like those one knob plugins!

[PopStarWannabe]

They should just put them back officially.

I mean... they do work. If they provide functionality for the style dials, it means they also work as themselves.