This is going to be a wide open question but:

Are the old Cakewalk FX (say from the Pro Audio days and before) still useful?
 
In today's world of plug in saturation it's no longer picking an effect and finding the right settings, but now which chorus you want, which reverb, which compressor.

I thought I'd see if any of you guys still use the old stuff.

Most of them seem kind of bland and transparent these days to my ear, and, as they age, they're increasingly less stable in a work flow, it seems.

My hope is that someone will bring up a novel idea from their experience that I haven't thought of using those old effects.

Thanks.

I stopped using anything pre-sonar when I moved to Sonar. Those old Cakewalk effects were simply replaced (in my workflow) with the Sonitus effects which were much better (IMO). Even now with a handful of decent waves plugins, Valhalla reverbs and some FabFilter I still find myself reaching for Sonitus on occasion. But I certainly don't miss those earlier Cakewalk effects.

There's a lot of old stuff still usable I'm sure, but for me if it isn't a 64 bit VST or Pro Channel I'm just not interested. I get to avoid a lot of issues that way.

I don't see any functions that the new ones don't do better. And the Sonitus effects remain underrated; they're still not only valid but can do some functions that are hard to find in any plug-ins, including third-party ones.

There is absolutely nothing about pre-Sonar (even pre-SonarXn) at this point that I miss or "long for". Everything is so much better and the workflow and stability is sooooo good if you just use the recent releases. I was relieved that Sonitus keeps coming along for the ride, but notice that it is still the same as 3-4 years ago. No problem, because they got it right. Some of the functions would be expensive to replace with a Waves or other equivalent. Reality is, on every release, I re-evaluate my template tracks and template sets for replacements and only fiddle a little bit. Once I have voices and processing chosen, it just sounds like 'my band' and anything I get requests for is just a one off. 

Anderton
...... And the Sonitus effects remain underrated; they're still not only valid but can do some functions that are hard to find in any plug-ins, including third-party ones.

I, for one agree... I wish that Cake would upgrade them, ...but that might take the life out of these very good plugs.....

Del

Anderton
...... And the Sonitus effects remain underrated; they're still not only valid but can do some functions that are hard to find in any plug-ins, including third-party ones.

I, for one agree... I wish that Cake would upgrade them, ...but that might take the life out of these very good plugs.....

What kind of upgrade do you suggest? [thinly veiled market research LOL]

I love the old Timeworks EQ and Compressor that where in the old sonar versions. Sonar 2, i think IIRC. The compressor was awesome and the EEQ had a very slight color to it.
 
CJ
 
 

I remember the FX Reverb being pretty good, lightweight, and required very little fiddling to get a decent sound. 
 
I still use the Sonitus plugs all the time. The Gate, Delay, Modulator, Compressor, and Verb.
 
Starting to use the Bluetubes stuff, which sounds great, but those stupid knobs instead of sliders bugs the heck out of me. I hate UIs that try and recreate hardware meant to be grabbed with fingers. I thought the Sonitus UIs were dirt simple and very mouse-friendly.
 

I have a lot of delay offerings but still reach for the Sonitus one a lot, because it's just so simple to set up. It always does exactly what I want it to. I also use the modulator sometimes, and the compressor/gate, but not very often anymore, My main reason to use the comp was that it was the only way to sidechain, but with VST3 that's not an issue anymore.