Recording Questions - Mixing Plugins

I've been researching how to improve my own mixes and there are a number of techniques to utilize, but I'm also trying to figure out what plugins might also help, perhaps a mixing suite. I use a version of Cakewalk's Sonar Professional from 2017. Can anyone recommend some mixing plugins that might be compatible?

Across several forums, I've yet to find anyone else that uses Sonar, or at least no one that responded uses it. Hoping someone here might have some suggestions. Thanks!

Sonar's a bit of an "orphan" these days, really...after Gibson (aka "The place on Elm Hill Pike where good brands go to die") snarfed Cakewalk, the support for it went out the window (like I said...Gibson...) and it fell out of favor. Now that it's escaped the clutches of the Guitar Deathstar, it might see some comeback action; have a look at https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk

Frankly, I recommend NO plugin here. At least, not for mixing. Rather, you might find it way more helpful to get an actual hardware mixer and use that if you've not used one before for multitrack production. Fact is, until you've done this and gotten used to what TINY changes in levels, EQ, etc can do, particularly with electronic sources, mixing "in the box" isn't going to work as well as you'd think.

Second, examine your monitoring setup. If you're tracking projects with a lot of heavy bass, you won't get too much that's useful there out of a pair of little desktop nearfields. Also, if your monitors aren't properly physically aligned so that you're in their "sweet spot", things will tend to be rather deceptive, soundwise. Plus, what does your workspace look like? Is it a "boxy" room, four corners, hard walls and floors, etc? If so, acoustic treatment might be very useful in the long run. And lastly, if you're using headphones to mix...don't use headphones to mix. Unless you have some expensive AF headphone amp such as an SPL Phonitor (that has spatial correction to fix having the drivers right in your ear), you can't get an accurate idea of how your mix works due to a whole pile of physics and such that I'm not about to uncork.

Now, as for plugins that'll help...these aren't the mixing suite variety. Instead, I would strongly suggest examining your mixbus instead. With some proper EQ, program compression, and maybe a touch of spatial trickery, you can use this to "glue" your mixes much more effectively than any mixing suite might do. First up, this: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/pteq-x-by-ignite-amps which is a really spot-on emulation of a stereo Pultec set. Another useful EQ for mixbus use: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/rs-w2395c-free-neo-classic-baxandall-eq-by-fuse-audio-labs which is more of a "tone control" sort of EQ for touch-up work.

Compression: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/mjuc-jr-by-klanghelm Yep, this is a "lite" version, but tbh, it's not very "lite" as far as performance goes. Set, forget, that's it. Also, this might be useful: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/signal-noise-sn05-g-brickwall-limiter-by-sender-spike which is a brickwall limiter, goes on the very end of the mixbus to deal with stray peaks.

Enhancement: try these... https://www.kvraudio.com/product/signal-noise-sn03-g-tape-recorder-by-sender-spike and https://www.kvraudio.com/product/rescue-mk2-by-variety-of-sound And then, for a bit of stereo enhancement, try https://www.kvraudio.com/product/a1stereocontrol-by-alex-hilton-a1audio

In all cases, these go on the stereo mixbus to do final tweaks to the mix itself, rather than tampering with the mixer itself. The latter idea is sort of a "can of worms" and can result in loads more confusion than simply coming up with a good stereo mixbus for the existing mixer. There's others out there along these lines that're worth exploring, and I'd suggest that before having a butcher's at the core of the DAW itself.

Thanks!

Disclosures - my room is wholly untreated, by necessity I do my mixing in headphones (dad, full-time job, 'studio' is in the home, not in a separate space) - in short, I am making do with a far from ideal set-up. I've done enough research to know I'm starting out from a disadvantageous point so I'm trying to find some ways to mitigate that.

I do a lot of playing around with panning and gain leveling, then EQ, then reverb, but looking for something like an EQ or filter for eliminating specific frequencies, tape saturation emulators, that sort of thing. The compressors and EQ in Sonar aren't horrid. Thank you for the the plug-in suggestions thus far!

Yeah...the only way to mitigate the monitoring problem is with a monitoring setup, actually. Headphones are very bad for critical listening and mixing because the proximity effects caused by having the drivers so close to the ear give false impressions of timbral content, overall bandwidth weighting, and the like. Basically, they cause "lumps" in what should be a relatively flat listening curve, and this makes using EQ very deceptive. Worse still, once you've created the "lumps" for yourself, then listeners who ALSO use headphones, buds, etc will ALSO have to deal with the "lumps" their own systems cause, which is the other problem with mixing in headphones. What sounds right in the closed environment of the cans tends to sound awful on speakers in free space without some major (and often expensive) correction measures, and can sound even more wacky in headphones that are "hyped" differently from your own.

My suggestion here isn't more plug-ins, in the end. You need to spend some money and get a decent monitoring setup. All the VSTs in the world won't help you if you don't have an accurate sense of what they're doing. Even the prime picks I made above will be just as pointless without any way to know what they're exactly doing. Fortunately, you don't have to spend Genelec-type money to get a decent result...something like these will be more than sufficient: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ErisE8XT--presonus-eris-e8-xt-8-inch-powered-studio-monitor Easy-peasy stuff...just connect your left and right line audio outs to the inputs on the monitors, and there you are!

...kinda. You also need to place these properly, which means you'll want some stands (like these: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SMS6600P--on-stage-stands-sms6600-p-hex-base-studio-monitor-stands) to get the monitors off the desk, and up and behind it somewhat. Again, you don't want the speakers right in your face, but they need to be back from you and angled so that they "aim" toward a wide "sweet spot" that needs to be where you are when you mix. About 6 feet between them should work, but the rule of thumb is that you and the pair of speakers should form the points of an equilateral triangle, at least in a small desk rig. Lastly, add these: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MoPAD--auralex-mopad-monitor-speaker-isolation-pads as they are definitely NOT snake oil, but help to decouple the monitors from the surface they're sitting on so that they're not damped by the inertia of sitting on a solid surface. This really opens up the bass and low-mid, and I've used them for decades now because they work.

All of this should be more effective than simply chasing VSTs. Sure, it's more expensive...but the results bear out the costs.

Thanks again. For various reasons, I'm simply not able to have a 'proper' monitor set-up (space, cost, and most importantly time - I cannot mix 'out loud'). So, I simply have to work around the limitations the best I can.

Thanks again. For various reasons, I'm simply not able to have a 'proper' monitor set-up (space, cost, and most importantly time - I cannot mix 'out loud'). So, I simply have to work around the limitations the best I can.

-- baltergeist

As far as plug-ins, FabFilter makes some of the best plug-ins in VST format. So if you can afford to get the bigger bundles, you should be good as far as EQ, saturation, compression, limiting, reverb, etc. I'm assuming that you also have a decent audio interface?

If you have to mix on headphones... then reference other professional work that is similar to your own for balance. Also playing things back in the car will also help if you spend a lot of time listening there. You'll spend a lot of time going back and fixing your mixes at first until you develop an ear for what a good mix sounds like in your headphones.

Mixing in headphones is far from ideal. But it can be done if you have to. Just keep making music and doing what you do.

Right on, thank you!