PH-64 Percussion Strip Revival ?

[noynekker]

Long time Cakewalk user, and of course I have a lot of Cakewalk nuggets from back in the day installed. Now, when I finally have to upgrade to a newer computer, I'm hoping I won't lose them. In particular, tonight I was playing around with the PH-64 Percussion Strip to fine tune a Kick Drum sound . . . it's actually quite brilliant, with the range of controls and options this thing has, but alas, it is VST2.

I'm guessing these came with Sonar Platinum ? (there was also a Tube leveler, and a Vocal Strip from around that same era) Can we even future proof this ? Will it still be available on a brand new Cakewalk install . . . or will it be lost in the old plugin time warp ?

Anyways, would love to see a VST3 revival of these, but wonder if they were a 3rd party add on, that cannot be licensed by Cakewalk / BandLab, or if they were developed by Cakewalk. Haven't heard anyone mention them in a very long time.

[Bass Guitar]

As far as I can tell those are exclusive to Sonar.
 

The 3rd party plug-in’s usually have the Brand name visible in the GUI. 

VST2 is a long way from being obsolete. I wouldn’t worry about that just yet. I’ll most certainly be dead. 

[noynekker]

12 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

As far as I can tell those are exclusive to Sonar.
 

The 3rd party plug-in’s usually have the Brand name visible in the GUI. 

VST2 is a long way from being obsolete. I wouldn’t worry about that just yet. I’ll most certainly be dead. 

LOL . . . long may you live, well past when VST2 expires !

I guess I just wonder where the installs for these will come from on a new computer system . . . would we install from the old Cakewalk Command Center, which must be floating somewhere past Pluto by now ?

[Bristol_Jonesey]

3 hours ago, noynekker said:

would we install from the old Cakewalk Command Center

Yes. 

Or log into your Cakewalk account and install from there. Note I said Cakewalk account, not Bandlab.

[Bass Guitar]

Bandlab has been kind enough since they bought all the Cakewalk intellectual property rights, to put all our legacy products we bought from Roland and Gibson on their own servers and make them available. They really have no reason for this other than customer service. 
 

If you have lost your legacy account password cakewalk support will help you recover it. 
 

The day might come when Bandlab decides to discontinue this service. 
They even went to the trouble of updating the Command Centre so make sure you get version 1.1.8.1 ( ? I think that’s right?)’
 

So all legacy products are  still available but you would be wise to download everything to a safe place as well as take screenshots of your activation and registration information. I did all that in 2016. 
 

I found many of these Sonar X series and Platinum plug ins and instruments all work in other Daw’s. After all, you actually bought and own them. 
Even the Studio Instrument collection can be used on any Daw. 
But software from the Platinum era is tied to the Command Centre so the day someone pulls the plug we will be hooped. 

Isn’t the vocal and drum strip still included with new Sonar? It was on the Excluded list so you had to access it in the plugin manager. 

Edited October 2 by Bass Guitar

[Bristol_Jonesey]

50 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

Isn’t the vocal and drum strip still included with new Sonar? It was on the Excluded list so you had to access it in the plugin manager. 

They were removed from general consumption due to several instability issues, but this might have been resolved now.

[David Baay]

29 minutes ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

They were removed from general consumption due to several instability issues

FWIW, I used to use Percussion Strip regularly to gate noisy hardware synths, and sometimes for its other functions, and don't recall ever encountering any issues. It still loads (Installed with Platinum) and works fine.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

11 minutes ago, David Baay said:

FWIW, I used to use Percussion Strip regularly to gate noisy hardware synths, and sometimes for its other functions, and don't recall ever encountering any issues. It still loads (Installed with Platinum) and works fine.

Yes, I use them all the time as well without issue, but I remember this from a few years ago.

[noynekker]

11 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

They even went to the trouble of updating the Command Centre so make sure you get version 1.1.8.1 ( ? I think that’s right?)’
 

@Bass Guitar . . . thanks for the great tip !

(Strangely enough, when I launched my Cakewalk Command Center . . . it kept saying I have no internet connection . . . yet here I am online talking to the forum)

I just updated to version 1.1.8.1 as you suggested, now it works. I can see PH-64 Percussion Strip was a part of the Boutique FX Suite under Sonar Platinum

[Bass Guitar]

So it would be one of those that absolutely requires the Command centre to authorize. 
 

The Command Centre has a Download folder and all the executables will be there after you install them. but back in 2017 during the time Gibson shut us down and we didn’t know what was going to happen a few of us tried to use them independently. Seems to me it doesn’t work. 
This why we are at the mercy of the kindness of Bandlab now. My current computer is hopefully going to last me well past the days when all that will matter. 
I find I always move on to different plug ins anyway. I open old projects and replace the olds ones with new ones. 

[PopStarWannabe]

The VX-64 Vocal Strip HAS been revived, is included in the new Cakewalk Sonar and even presented under "New Features" category:

http://legacy.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=CakewalkSonar&language=3&help=NewFeatures.34.html

[noynekker]

4 hours ago, PopStarWannabe said:

The VX-64 Vocal Strip HAS been revived, is included in the new Cakewalk Sonar and even presented under "New Features" category:

http://legacy.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=CakewalkSonar&language=3&help=NewFeatures.34.html

Not too sure about that . . . your link goes to the Legacy Cakewalk site. I think VX-64 Vocal Strip can only be downloaded from the older Cakewalk Command center

I would be surprised if any new users who just install the new Cakewalk Sonar would be able to get this from the new Cakewalk Product center ?

Those "new features" aren't really new now . . . it's only been revived because you have revived the old link. 

[Bass Guitar]

It’s still hilarious how people do Google searches for anything about Sonar and then they end up with the legacy version.

I had to laugh when a year ago someone announced that Sonar was available for purchase and posted a link to Platinum. 

[sjoens]

The legacy home page posts this disclaimer:

You are visiting the legacy Cakewalk website
This website contains references to discontinued and unsupported products. If you are a customer of legacy Cakewalk products, you can still access your account here.  For the latest product information, please visit us at www.cakewalk.com.

So why would I be confused when, for whatever reason , they post "current" Sonar info on the "legacy" site?!  The linked page is for build 31.02.0 from 2024.  What's the current Sonar build?  31.0.9.

Edited Wednesday at 06:43 AM by sjoens

[azslow3]

I guess the confusion comes from existence of:

• "revived" plug-ins: 
• info about VX-64 in Sonar 2024/2025

Revived plug-ins are Sonar/subscription locked VST3 (original are unlocked). VX-64 is not in the list (at least not yet).

Original VX-64 plug-ins are from pre-platinum time. They can be (I have not checked recently, but there is no reason that no longer work) installed offline, in case the user has corresponding license and installation files (8.5 - X3).

[Bristol_Jonesey]

2 hours ago, azslow3 said:

Original VX-64 plug-ins are from pre-platinum time. They can be (I have not checked recently, but there is no reason that no longer work) installed offline, in case the user has corresponding license and installation files (8.5 - X3).

Pretty sure they both shipped with Platinum as well.  So 8.5 > Splat

[sjoens]

[Starship Krupa]

It and other processors have always been available in CbB and also in the nuSonar. Even SonarFT. They just need to be enabled. They were never removed.

I discovered them early on while browsing about in Plug-In Manager.

Caveat: CbB updates would sometimes hide them again, so you may have to repeat the process after updates.

Here's how you enable them:

All within a week of each other, Mike Enjo did a Creative Sauce video about it, Craig Anderton wrote a Sound on Sound article about it, and I made the above forum post about it.

I've seen a post or two on the forum that contended that they had stability issues or something, but I've yet to encounter any issues. They are quite good and include all sorts of goodies like a clone of Eventides micropitch vocal processing and a transient shaper. Also transformer modeling.

Why they are in versions of Sonar that have them hidden is they are the "back end" for the ProChannel Style Dial one knob FX.

[sjoens]

They are Stboost, StPX64, StTL64 & StVX64 in Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Internal folder where other ProChannel files are found.  "St..." for Style Dial.  They even include the full Resources folder - which they don't use.  The Style Dial UIs may be hidden in the dlls or some obscure folder.

The real  PX, TL, VX plugins are in Cakewalk\Vstplugins and have different file names:  PX64_PercussionStrip_64,   TL64_TubeLeveler_64,   VX64_VocalStrip_64.  But I may have installed them from an earlier version of SONAR.

On a side note the original Resource folders include .cpt files  (CorelPhoto Paint version of Photoshop .psd file)  possibly used to create the bitmaps.

Edited Wednesday at 06:56 AM by sjoens

[azslow3]

7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Why they are in versions of Sonar that have them hidden is they are the "back end" for the ProChannel Style Dial one knob FX.

6 hours ago, sjoens said:

They are Stboost, StPX64, StTL64 & StVX64 in Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Internal folder where other ProChannel files are found.  "St..." for Style Dial.  They even include the full Resources folder - which they don't use.  The Style Dial UIs may be hidden in the dlls or some obscure folder.

Style Dial knobs are normal FX Chains which use these plug-ins. For whatever reason Cakewalk has decided not expose these plug-ins directly in all bundles with Style Dial knobs. In other words, they have to have them but don't want they are exposed as "normal" plug-ins (till installed separately).  It seems like "Internal" copy is the way the concept is implemented...  

6 hours ago, sjoens said:

The real  PX, TL, VX plugins are in Cakewalk\Vstplugins and have different file names:  PX64_PercussionStrip_64,   TL64_TubeLeveler_64,   VX64_VocalStrip_64.  But I may have installed them from an earlier version of SONAR.

These are "normal" plug-ins, installed separately. They can be installed from any bundle, including pre-platinum, but the user obviously has to have related license (has payed for 8.x - X3 - SPlat bundle with these plug-ins included). 

VX-64 Vocal Strip (only) is mentioned in the "new" Sonar changelog, so it is probably installed/installable without prior versions. 

I guess using "internal" versions is not a good idea, even in case that is somehow possible at the moment, the "backdoor" can be closed in any future update.