Free Sonitus plugins for Cubase when you install Cakewalk

Cakewalk Sonar is now being given away for free. Even if you have no intention of trying Sonar, it will give you some nice Sonitus plugins that work in Cubase (except for the compressor that has a weird chopped effect on my own pc, maybe a buffer issue). These plugins are old, but the reverb, delay and eq are still nice to have as a freebie. Ed p.s. apologies if posting breaks any rules. Just wanted to let Cubase users know of some free plugins. Moderators remove if needed.

Are they vst3?

No. In fact, although they worked on my Cubase 8.5 at home on laptop, I’m having trouble getting them to work on studio pc. Looks like they might be ancient 32 bit only! Cubase 9.5 blacklisting them. Still free though, so might be worth the effort if you are on Cubase 7/8. Going to see if I can get my jbridge working on them… Also, because I already bought and had Sonar 7 installed, that might be a factor.

Let me know how that works out for you. I have the old version of when Ultra funk still had them. It’s the latest version, I think it’s version 3, but I wasn’t sure if they made vst3 versions. The plugins are awesome. I’ve used them for years. I have Cubase version 8.5, I think that’s what it is, but I stayed at version 6 because some of my most used plugins are not vst3. Ultra Funk being the prime ones. Since then, a lot of the other manufacturers that I use have released vst3 versions so I guess I could move up to 9, but V6 works so smooth. I get projects done lickety-split.

Let me know if you’re able to Bridge them. It may cause me to update to the the latest version of Cubase.

I haven’t been able to get the Sonitus suite running on either of my studio PCs in Cubase, even with jbridge… interesting. Must compare with home setup to see what the difference is because they work on 8.5 there. But: by copying the dll files inside the Cakewalk Shared Plugins folder to Cubase vst plugins folder, I did get Boost 11 (a nice and simple effect to make stuff louder) and 4 virtual instruments for drums, bass, electric piano and orchestral strings. Very basic, but they sound fine and are free.

I don’t see much value in these. The Sonitus/Ultrafunk plugins are almost prehistoric (1998…). I’m sure that you’ll find much better free plugins without having to download a whole DAW.

Reverb, delay and EQ plugins are also some of the strongest points of Cubase’s stock plugin library.

VST2 plugins obviously still work flawlessly in Cubase 9. Cubase will never force you to use only VST3 plugins.

Cubase 9 removed support for 32 bit plugins because they caused stability issues, though you can still use them with jBridge.

Since then, a lot of the other manufacturers that I use have released vst3 versions so I guess I could move up to 9, but V6 works so smooth. I get projects done lickety-split.

I can guarantee you that you’ll work even faster with the current versions if you spend some time with them. It’s all a matter of getting used to the changes.

The Sonitus plugins are ancient. But they are still good… Of course it’s a lot of effort to download a whole DAW just to get them though. I installed Sonar to see if it had improved since I last bought the producer version a few years ago, so it didn’t bother me. And I found the free plugins a nice bonus… Ed

Obviously it depends on which VST2 plugin.

And … never say never.

Sadly, it looks like they are directx. I had installed a directx-vst convertor a while back which explains why they work on one Cubase setup but not the others (where I don’t have the convertor). So on that basis, probably not worth anyone’s trouble unless they actually want to try Sonar of course. Ed

Thanks for reporting back. I had a feeling about that. I’ll have to look and see what mine are but I believe they are 32-bit versions of the plugins.

Even though the plugins are all old it doesn’t mean they’re obsolete. Well, unless you’re one of those guys who are chasing the flavor of the day.