Starting the serious business of learning how to get the best sound, and I've quickly learned that randomly twisting the knobs here and adding effects there, especially when mixing down to a final product, quickly turns to a mushy mess, and that a step by step process is required.
 
For anyone who is way ahead of me on the learning curve, it would be helpful to have a guide through one track, say an acoustic or elecric guitar, that would start with the raw tracks, and using the tools in Guitar Pro and Cakewalk, explain or provide the settings for each step through the process whereby we arrive at the finished product.   I confess that operating each of the effects (be it reverb, delay, compression or eq) is a bit bewildering without instructions for each tool, and relying strictly on trial and error.   For example, using Guitar Tracks 4, and the available tools, how would one use the Hass Trick?

 
Hi there Kevin
 
First off, you've backed a winner by getting Mixing Audio - it's a fantastic resource.
 
I'd suggest you also do a bit of research on the type of VST plug-ins that you are going to be using. The internet is a great place to read up on delays, reverbs, compressors, equalisers, modulation effects, amp/cabinet models etc. Find out what they do, and how they do it.
 
With this basic knowledge, I'd then suggest that you experiment... a lot. And by all means start with some of the presets that the plug-ins usually include. Once you begin to understand the effects more, and get an 'ear' for what they are doing to your music, you'll be able to take a bit more control and start fine-tuning the presets and even creating your own.
 
The Haas effect is a great place to start, mainly because it will work the first time you use it, and the effect is easy to set up.
 
I've always recorded at least two different rhythm guitars to achieve that 'wall of sound' effect, but recently, after picking up some great tips from forum guru Danny Danzi, I've been experimenting more and more with the Haas effect.
 
Here's how he advises setting it up.
 
First, by way of an example, record a short rhythm guitar passage in mono - to set up for mono recording, you may have to click on the track's Input and make certain it's set to 'Left' + <<Name of your soundcard>>
 
Next you'll need to create an identical track. In the Edit View, right click in an empty spot in the Track Pane and select Clone Track - by default it will copy your track to the next track (I haven't got Guitar Tracks 4 so this is from Cakewalk's SONAR, but it will look quite similar):
 

 
 
It might help to keep track of what your doing if you rename the cloned track.
 
Now, pan each track to opposite sides and to the same amount - a good start would be e.g. to pan one 90% left and the other 90% right.
 
Next, right click in the effects bin of just one of the tracks and insert the Delay plug-in.
 
I'm unsure as to exactly what the delay looks like, but it will have a set of user controllable parameters.
 
You basically need to set the delay to 26msec and to 100% 'effect'.
 
Here's an older Cakewalk delay plug-in with the correct parameters set:
 

 
 
 
See how you get on with that Kevin, and shoot back if you need anything explained in more detail.
 
 
Steve
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Awesome  - Steve thanks so much. I will work on it today.

No Sonitus Delay in the bag of FX.  I have a variety of Cakewalk FXs, compression, gates, limiters, etc. but no Sonitus (or any other delay). Wonder where it is?

I think you need to buy the $99 upgrade to add this to Guitar Pro 4.  Cakewalk offers some freebies as FX Downloads (under "Audio Effects") but not "Delay." There is something called "Tempo Delay" but that does not have the "Delay Time ms" control that I think is essential.  Unless I hear otherwise, I assume it comes with the more expensive Sonar programs but is an add on for GTP 4.