TIME TO FLY (CAKEWALK EDIT)

Hey everyone, let me present to you “Time to Fly” - a melodic metal song by LORD, a project written and
created inside Cakewalk by Bandlab, and available as a project for you to dissect and learn about my
methodology to get to the final mix, using nothing but bundled Cakewalk plugins.

Please note that this song is © 2021 Dominus Records - please scroll to the end of this document to see
the full copyright information.

BACKGROUND
When The Bakers approached me and asked if I had any projects available to demonstrate the capabilities
of Cakewalk in mid-2021, I was at a bit of a loss. I’ve been a staunch supporter of Cakewalk products for
decades now and used them for all of my professional audio work, so I jumped at the chance to be
involved.

Unfortunately, I had no projects that were suitable for this kind of purpose (either due to copyright reasons,
or relying on third-party hardware or software to achieve the mix), and since we’re currently in COVID-19
lockdown again in the greater Sydney area of Australia, it wasn’t possible to bring a drummer into the studio
to lay down fresh tracks.

My solution was to look in the archives. LORD released an EP in 2015 and there was a lot of demo material
and outtakes laying around from these sessions. Some recorded quickly and poorly, some at very different
tempos. But I figured with AudioSnap to conform the timing, and with a bit of careful post-production work to
layer in extra samples, I could wrangle this unlikely collection of material into a coherent 4-minute long
structure, and write a song around it. The result was the very 80s metal inspired song, “Time to Fly.”

WHO I AM
My name is Tim, L.T. or, if you want to use my ridiculous
stage name, Lord Tim. I’m probably most known as the
frontman of LORD (previously known as Dungeon), where
vocals and guitar are my main instruments. I also work
professionally as a recording, mixing and mastering
engineer, and producer, plus I co-run a video production
company, and record label as well. Needless to say, I’m
long overdue for a holiday! You can check out LORD at
www.lord.net.au or links to my other projects and record
label at www.lordtim.info

WARNING: You may encounter certain words such as “colour” and “analogue” in this document. Don’t be
alarmed, this is just Australian English. I’ll do my best to also not mention Vegemite, or stopping by the
Bottle-o this-arvo on the way to pick up Davo for a Macca’s run. Cheers, mate!
THE PROJECT

METHODOLOGY
I’m simultaneously a firm believer of both “getting it right at the source” and “the end justifies the means.”
What I mean by this is, if you can record things to the highest possible quality first, with the best possible
performance achievable, it will usually not only sound better and much more vibrant, but will save you a
heap of time later. Well-recorded and performed material practically mixes itself. However, as we all know,
this isn’t a perfect world - especially in the age of home studio recording - and we’re all rarely in the position
to achieve perfect results at the source. This is where tools like Cakewalk can save a session if things don’t
quite make the cut.

This was the thinking behind using demo recordings and outtakes to create this song. How can we turn less
than optimal (to say the least) recordings into something that could appear on a commercial release? If
anything, not having perfect takes for a project like this is preferable because learning to work around
issues and come up with solutions are all useful tools to have in your arsenal.

Aside from creating the drums from outtakes, my goal with this was to make the project very modular. It’s
broken into a group of Track Folders that hide away sections that you don’t need to focus on for a particular
task, and to make it easy to export stems, or do alternate remixes.

PROJECT LAYOUT
There are two distinct sections in this project: Source and Mix.

In the Source section, you’ll find folders for Drums Source, Guitars Source, Vocals Source, etc. These
contain the individual parts or instruments. For example, in Drums Source, you’ll find each individual drum,
any samples for augmentation, and any MIDI for triggering softsynths for extra layering. Each of these
elements have their own Track Effects to sculpt the sound before sending it off to the Mix section.
In the Mix section, you’ll find folders that contain mostly Aux Tracks, where the tracks in the Source
sections are fed into, and in some cases, subsequently fed into further Aux Tracks for more summing. For
example, you’ll find all of the kick drum tracks in the Drums Source folder are summed into a Kicks track in
the Drums Mix. That in turn has a send that goes to a Drum Reverb Aux Track, and both of those things are
summed into a Drums Master Aux Track, before that’s sent off to the Main Out bus, which ultimately goes to
your sound card hardware outputs.

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is!

The point of doing things this way is you can focus your workflow. Using the drums as an example again,
you can set up gates, compressors, EQ, etc. and control the blend of each element in the Drums Source,
and then you can fold that away and not think about it when you’re looking at the bigger picture of how
those groups of elements work together in Drums Mix. And since each Mix section has its own Master
track, adjusting the blend between each group of instruments is rudimentary too. I don’t want to think about
how much compression I have on a lead vocal track when I’m trying to balance the vocals as a whole
against the guitars. This method helps you organise and focus your workflow.

The other thing that was important to do in such a busy mix was to colour code everything. The Source
folders are grey in colour so they become unobtrusive when you get to the mixing stage. Each group of
similar instruments have the same colours, Master tracks are red, effects sends are dark red. This helps
you see at a glance what you’re looking at, whether you’re editing, sculpting or mixing.

Another useful visual cue is to use Arranger Sections to denote each part of
the song, so it’s easy to tell when you’re in the Chorus section or the Solo or
whatever, and can jump around at will. ALTERNATIVE IDEA: Why not try
changing the arrangement? You can drag the Arrangement Sections down
into the lower pane and change up the order to make your own 80s style
extended remix! Rad!

One additional note with this project layout is, as I mentioned earlier, that it’s
modular. Each Mix section is entirely self-contained with its own effects.
From a CPU efficiency point of view, this is not a great idea and probably
won’t play nice on low-spec’d computers, but the advantage of doing a
project this way is that since everything is entirely self-contained in its own
Mix section, muting or soloing each section will allow you to export only that
section to create stems, mute only that section to create alternate mixes, or
slightly vary the effects for that section without messing up anything else.
Typically, however, unless I know that my goal is to export stems, I normally
use common effects (reverb, delay, etc.) across multiple sections, just to
keep the CPU usage down, and to simplify the routing. Each method has its
pros and cons.

BONUS TIP: If you do have a low spec’d machine and this project won’t play, try recording the Master
Track in each Mix section (if you arm the track, and press record, it will record all of the tracks being fed into
it) and then archive the Source Tracks, and every other track in that Mix folder. Obviously this won’t allow
you to adjust anything at this point without un-archiving tracks and deleting the recording you just did, but
it’s a good solution for something that won’t play back in real time, and handy when you want to save
resources when you’re working on a different section.

Let’s look at each section more closely…

DRUMS SOURCE

The drum kit used was a Pearl Masters series, with a single kick drum (double pedals), snare, 4 toms, 2
mics on the overheads, and close mics on the hi-hats and ride cymbal. I typically prefer to also close-mic
each cymbal and put multiple mics on the snare and kick to give me options during the mix, but - as
mentioned earlier - these were quick recordings. I also typically layer samples to reinforce the drum sounds,
since metal is usually a lot more larger than life than most styles.

Kick is the raw mic’d kick sound, and is handling the low-end of the sound. The recording itself has a fair bit
of bleed from the other drums, so it’s aggressively gated and the high-end rolled off. This isn’t ideal for a
metal kick drum sound, so it needed sample layering. This was achieved using AudioSnap to detect each
kick hit, and each transient converted to a MIDI note, which then triggered a drum sample.

For more information about how to do this, see this online document:

www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&help=AudioSnap.15.html

Kick Trigger is one of my own sample sets that was triggered by the MIDI notes I detected using
AudioSnap. I rendered this out to its own audio track and it’s EQ’d to provide the focus and “throat” of the
kick drum sound, letting the mic’d sound take care of the low-end.

Kick MIDI is the MIDI notes that were detected using AudioSnap. It’s currently going to Kick Synth TTS
to play a bass drum patch on the Cakewalk TTS-1 softsynth, which is EQ’d to provide the extra click in the
high end. ALTERNATIVE IDEA: You could mute all of the kick drum tracks and use this MIDI track to drive
your own drum synth if you wished.
All of these tracks are blended together and sent to a Kicks Aux Track in the Drums Mix folder, for further
processing.

Snare is the raw mic’d snare sound, with the mic on the top skin. A good snare sound usually consists of a
number of different elements - aside from the top skin hit itself, you also get the snap of the snare wires, the
sound of the snare in the room and sometimes even the ring of the shell itself. A single mic on the top skin
misses out on a lot of these things, so it usually needs to be augmented by samples. The other advantage
of that is it reduces the cymbal bleed going into the snare mic. Once again, AudioSnap was used to detect
every snare hit, which was converted into a MIDI note to drive a snare sample.

Snare Trigger is one of my own sample sets that was triggered by the MIDI notes I detected using
AudioSnap. I rendered this out to its own audio track and it’s intended to provide the main voice of the
snare when blended in with the mic’d snare sound.

Snare MIDI is - as you’ve probably guessed - the MIDI notes that were detected by AudioSnap. Since I
didn’t record a bottom snare mic, the snare was missing a bit of the sizzle that lets it cut through a mix, so
this is achieved by playing a snare drum patch with the Cakewalk TTS-1 softsynth on the Snare Synth TTS
track, and EQ’d just to provide the high-end. ALTERNATIVE IDEA: Like Kick MIDI, you could use Snare
MIDI to drive your own softsynth instead of using any of my snare tracks.

All of these tracks are blended together and sent to a Snare Aux Track in the Drums Mix folder, for further
processing.

Tom 1 - 4 is, obviously, the tom tracks. Each track has been EQ’d, compressed and gated, and the noise
between the hits has been removed by using a Track Gain Envelope, in addition to the Sonitus Gate effect
on each track, just to get some extra control over the sympathetic vibrations and cymbal bleed. For more
“natural” styles of music, having all of the mics audible gives the kit a good sense of space, but for speedy
metal, the tighter the control over the sounds, the better.

All of these tracks are panned, then sent to a Toms Aux Track in the Drums Mix folder, for further
processing.

OH L and OH R are the overhead mics. Some people like to use these mics to get an overall picture of the
kit and then use the close mics to add focus to the sound of each drum. I prefer to use these, more or less,
as cymbal mics, so I’ll aggressively roll off the low end to keep them clean. All of the drummers listening will
notice that I mix from the audience perspective rather than the drummer’s perspective, which will no doubt
annoy some of you! Sorry! This is the video director in me talking - I want to hear what I see!

Ride is the ride cymbal close mic. I’ve always found that just relying on overhead mics alone doesn’t give
me the articulation and definition I prefer from a ride cymbal, so it’s a very rare session that I don’t throw a
close mic up. Really, I also prefer to throw close mics up on every cymbal for more control, as much as that
tends to polarise a lot of engineers. You do lose a bit of the natural sound of the kit, but you gain a lot in
mixing flexibility. I’d recommend against that if you’re a “use the overheads for the main kit sound” kind of
person, but if you’re a “overheads are for cymbals” person, this can be super useful.

Hats is the close Hi-Hat mic. Hats are the bane of most metal engineers’ existence - they’ll bleed into your
snare mic and take over your overheads unless your drummer is very disciplined with their dynamics and
have great recording hats. I’ve often gotten away with not close mic’ing the hats with acceptable results but
I do find I get better definition in the quieter sections, such as the verse in this song, where you really want
to hear each part of the groove.

All of these tracks are balanced against each other and sent to an Overheads Aux Track in the Drums Mix
folder for further processing.
GUITARS SOURCE

Rhythm L and R - these are the main guitars for the song. You never quite get the width and liveliness
from just one track or cloning a single track, and this also allows you to vary the parts slightly to make more
interesting chords, play harmonies, or purposely bounce off of the other track to give it a more “live” kind of
feel. These tracks are sent to a Rhythm Guitars Aux Track in the Guitars Mix folder.

Solo, Harmonies (Solo H1/H2), and Melody Guitars are the main melodic lines of the song aside from
the vocals. These are processed a little differently to make them stand out from the rhythm tracks. These
tracks are balanced against each other and sent off to a Lead Guitars Aux Track in the Guitars Mix folder.

Clean and Reverse Clean are the non-distorted guitars. They’re purposely recorded to be very thin
sounding with the intention of being layered with keyboards later. The reversed clean guitar is pretty fun - it
adds a cool kind of movement to the clean chords. Both of these tracks are sent to a Clean Guitars Aux
Track in the Guitars Mix folder.

Bass is, well, the bass guitar. I’ll often layer bass with other things like bass synth to fatten parts up, or
automate the amount of grit in the sound to suit the section it’s playing. This is sent to a Bass Guitar Aux
Track in the Guitars Mix folder.

KEYS SOURCE
These are all of the different keyboard tracks, and I’ve grouped them by colour. Most of these instruments
are made to layer with each other to add extra texture or thicken the sound up, and are sent accordingly to
Aux Tracks in the Keys + FX Mix folder.
VOCALS SOURCE
These are the main vocal lines for the song, including Lead Vocals, and various Harmony Vocal lines.
These are all sent to the Leads and Chorus Harmonies Aux Tracks in the Vocals Mix folder.

You might notice there’s an overlapped section in the Lead Vocals, which is on different Take Lanes.

One special note is the custom FX Chain Preset I created and used on these tracks:

FX Chain Presets contain groups of other effects (in this case, stock effects bundled with Cakewalk) that
can have controls assigned to control parameters in each plugin, to save you opening up a bunch of
different plugin GUIs to get to the thing you want to adjust.

There are 8 controls on this FX Chain Preset:

● Low Cut - this rolls off the low-end of the signal to clean up any stray rumble from cars passing by,
mic handling noise, or your hungry stomach during one of those long sessions. It’s on by default.

● High Cut - if you have a particularly bright mic, it might be useful to engage this switch, but it’s off by
default. Both the Low and High Cut switches are at the very beginning of the chain, so you’re not
making the compressor later in the chain work extra hard on frequencies you’re just going to throw
away anyway.

● Chorus - this adds a subtle chorus effect to the sound, which can sometimes sweeten up certain
voices, or add extra width to choir sections. It’s not to everyone’s taste so it’s off by default.
 ● Slapback - this adds a very short delay that can add a nice liveliness to a vocal line, as if you’re in a
smaller, bright room. It’s off by default.

● DeEsser - this is a sibilance control, to tame the SSS noises in a vocal. When you’re boosting high
end to add air to a sound, and compressing it to even out the dynamics, those SSS sounds can
really build up and be distracting. This has moderate DeEssing engaged by default, which you can
raise and lower to taste. If you find that it’s not affecting the frequency that the SSS occurs in your
vocal, you can open up the Sonitus Multiband in the chain and adjust the frequency of Band 4.

● Grit - this adds overdrive under the main vocal sound. It’s sometimes nice to really push your
preamp into distortion to add some guts to your voice, and have it also roll off some transient spikes.
If you record your vocals cleanly and miss that kind of sound, that’s where this control comes in. It
ranges from no distortion on the low side to utterly destroyed on the high side, which is a great
special effect. By default, there’s a small amount of grit dialed in, and it’s blended to be underneath
the main signal, so you get the benefit of the extra thickness it provides, but with the clean vocal
sound being the primary thing your ears will hear in a mix.

● Crush - this is the amount of compression on the vocal. At the low end, you retain all of the
dynamics of the original performance, and on the high end it’s very crushed to the point of sounding
very unnatural, which - again - can be a great effect. By default, it has a medium amount of
compression, which is good for a natural sound on a fairly dynamic vocal.

● EQ Low / EQ Mid / EQ High - these are, as you’d expect, tone controls to shape the vocal sound at
the end of the chain. These come after all of the other effects in the chain, so they won’t affect how
the signal hits the compressor or overdrive.

CHOIRS SOURCE
The only way to truly get those massive 80s style vocal harmonies is to do a LOT of them, and preferably
with different singers to vary the timbre of the layers (or at least mix up your own vocal style to emulate
that). In this song, I have 24 layers of choir vocals, plus some Whisper tracks that add a really cool air to
the choirs. Try listening with and without these tracks muted and you’ll see it’s subtle but it definitely does
the trick!

Aside from the Whispers, there’s 4 different harmony parts, each sung 6 times. I tend to think of each
group as having 3 pairs of vocals, where each pair is sung in a different way, and panned to taste. Then
each group is sent to its own Aux Track subgroup, and then those are sent to the Choirs Aux Track in the
Vocal Mix folder for further processing.

DRUMS MIX

I’ll start with the drum elements first.

Kicks is a blend of all of the Kick drum tracks in Drums Source. It has the Tape Emulator and Console
Emulator active in the Pro Channel because I like how it adds extra thickness to the sound. In the FX Bin of
the track, there’s a Sonitus Multiband which is clamping down on the lows/subs, just to tame them a little
more before they go further down the chain. Finally, there’s a Sonitus Equalizer that’s further rolling off any
subsonics, and boosting the highs a little, just to give the kicks sound a bit more cut in such a busy mix.
There’s a send that’s going to a Drum Reverb Aux Track, and the output goes into Drums Master.

Snare is a blend of all of the Snare drum tracks in Drums Source. It has the PC2A Leveler and Console
Emulator active in the Pro Channel, for much the same reason as the Kicks track - I like that it adds a nice
“analogue” kind of feel to the sound. In the FX Bin, there’s a single Sonitus Equalizer which gently rolls off
the low-end of the snare sound, removing parts of the frequency that you won’t miss in a busy mix, which
opens up that space more for other instruments, and there’s a very gentle presence boost to help the snare
cut through more. There’s a send that goes to Drum Reverb (much more than the Kicks track), and the
output goes to Drums Master.

Toms are the stereo mix of all of the Toms tracks in Drums Source. It has a slight high boost in the
Quadcurve Equalizer in the Pro Channel, as well as the Tape Emulator and Console Emulator adding
“analogue” colour to the sound. In the FX Bin is a Sonitus Equalizer that is shaping the overall Tom sound
by rolling off the subs, boosting the lows to add weight to the sound, cutting the mids to remove some
“boxiness” and boosting the highs to help them cut through the mix. That runs into a Sonitus Compressor
which is gently clamping down on the hardest hits to tame any poky transients. There’s a send that goes to
Drum Reverb (quite a lot - I like big bombastic toms!) and this finally goes into Drums Master.
 BUT WHY THO?! OK, let’s pause here for a second. You may be wondering why I’m adding
some effects in the FX Bin and some in the Pro Channel. There’s no right or wrong way to
approach this. I personally prefer the workflow of using FX Bins (I came from a time before the
Pro Channel existed… yes, I’m old) but I also love the sound of some of the Pro Channel modules
too, so I tend to take a more hybrid approach to adding track effects. Could you do everything in
the Pro Channel? Absolutely! In fact, you could also add a FX Chain module in the Pro Channel
and put your audio effects in there instead of the FX Bin, but there’s really no rules here. Find
what works best for you!

Overheads is a blend of all of the cymbals from Drums Source. There’s a slight high end boost in the
Quadcurve Equalizer in the Pro Channel, as well as Console Emulation. In the FX Bin is a Sonitus
Compressor which is taming some of the harder hits of the cymbals and snare that’s being picked up by the
overhead mics. This has a send going to Drum Reverb (which you generally wouldn’t need if you were
running room mics, but it does add a little bit more space in this instance), and in turn this goes into Drums
Master.

Drum Reverb is, well, the drum reverb. What’s interesting about this is it uses two stacked Sonitus
Reverbs to achieve the sound. The first Sonitus Reverb is very short and gives a very “lively room” sound,
as if you’ve put up some mics somewhere in the back of your drum room. This in turn goes into a Sonitus
Compressor which clamps down and boosts the signal, which thickens up this pseudo room mic sound.
That’s then fed into a second Sonitus Reverb that adds the space and size to the room. Usually, I run a
Convolution based reverb with room Impulse Responses to simulate real spaces, or have it replicate those
classic 80s style Non-Linear gated reverbs, but this is a good option that will work straight out of the box.
This reverb is fed into Drums Master.

Drums Master is the sum of all of these tracks. In the Pro Channel is a Tape Emulator and a Console
Emulator to give this an overall more “analogue” sound. This track goes to the Main Out bus.

GUITARS MIX

Like the Drums Mix, I’ll start with the guitar elements first and then get to the effects sends, and master.

Rhythm Guitars is the main base of the song and has the combined Rhythm L and R tracks. It’s not
uncommon for projects to have many more layers of rhythm tracks, either as textures or just to make mixing
easier by varying the source sounds, and then feeding them into a common Aux Track like this for easy
mixing. On the Pro Channel, I have a Tape Emulator set to 7.5ips which naturally rolls off the high end, as
well as adding subtle tape saturation to the sound. I like to record with a certain tone that feels nice to
perform with, but that sound may not necessarily be the best choice for the mix. In this case, it’s nice to
have that guitar sizzle when the parts are being played, but it can tend to sound a bit “fizzy” in a mix, so this
is a nice way to roll off the high-end rather than just using an EQ. This goes into the Console Emulator. In
FX Bin are two effects: Sonitus Multiband and Channel Tools.

The Sonitus Multiband is mostly used to tame the “chugs” - when you layer a lot of heavy guitars together,
you’ll often find you get a big build up of mud in the low-end, especially on palm-muted sections. If you just
EQ them, it can sound thin, so I tend to use a multiband to only clamp down on the problem frequencies in
the places where they become an issue. I did add further clamps on other frequencies for the guitars in this
particular case, just to even the guitar tone out a little more.

Channel Tools is used as a pseudo widening effect. The rhythm guitars are already panned 100% hard left
and right but this plugin drops the centre part of the stereo image by 2.5dB, effectively pushing the guitars
even wider. It’s not quite as effective as a proper stereo imaging plugin, but it gets the job done. This is
generally safer than just adding a widener to the master mix because you have more control over what
happens to the stereo image when it’s collapsed down to mono, eg: when you’re listening on a phone or a
smart speaker.

This has sends that go to Guitar Reverb and Guitar Slapback, and ultimately is routed to Guitar Master.

Lead Guitars is all of the melodic lines played in the song - Melody / Harmonies / Solos, etc. For these
parts, I chose to add a Sonitus Equalizer to the FX Bin with a gentle roll-off in the high end, rather than the
more dramatic Tape Emulator high cut like I used on the rhythm guitars, just to give the leads a little more
sizzle, and the low end was cut dramatically to remove any mud that might cloud the solo. In the Pro
Channel, there’s simply the Console Emulator.

There are 3 sends on this track: Guitar Reverb, Guitar Slapback and Guitar Delay. The Guitar Delay send is
automated to accentuate certain parts, as is the volume to let certain melodies either take the spotlight or
blend into the background. This track outputs to Guitar Master.

Clean Guitars are all of the non-distorted guitar parts. In this case, it’s a blend of the Clean Guitar and
Reverse Clean parts. In the Pro Channel we have a Console Emulator active, and there are sends to
Guitar Reverb, Guitar Slapback (far more than what is on the other guitar tracks), and Guitar Delay. This
track feeds into Guitar Master.

Bass Guitars, in this case, only has a single bass guitar track running into it. Sometimes I’ll layer bass
parts, either with other bass guitars or synths, just to add texture and thickness to the low end. In the Pro
Channel, I’m boosting the low end and upper midrange with the Quadcurve EQ, which goes into the Tape
Emulator, and then into the Console Emulator. There are 2 sends: Guitar Reverb (but very little of it
because that can make a bass guitar sound “washy”) and Guitar Slapback, and this track is output to the
Guitar Master track.

Guitar Reverb is there to add a little bit of ambience to the guitar sound in general. It’s just over a second
long and has a fairly steep cut to the low end so you don’t get a build up of those muddy frequencies.
Guitar Delay is a quarter-note timed delay with both the low and high rolled off so the repeats don’t crowd
the mix. This track also has a send that goes to the Guitar Reverb track, so each delay repeat sounds like it
exists in the same space as the rest of the tracks.

Guitar Slapback is a very short delay (in this case 50ms on the left channel and 65ms on the right
channel) that feeds into a Sonitus Modulator that’s set to be a rich chorus effect. The idea of this send is to
add some subtle reflections and width at lower levels, bordering on being a Haas Effect, and at higher
levels, being used as a chorus.

All of these tracks and sends are routed to the Guitar Master track, which has the Tape Emulator and
Console Emulator modules running in the Pro Channel, and ultimately feeds into the Main Out bus.

KEYS + FX MIX

There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the keys section here. The send tracks are almost identical to
how the Guitar Mix send effects are set up, and the Keys Master track simply has a Console Emulator
running in the Pro Channel, and this ultimately runs to the Main Out bus.

If you look through the tracks, they have various amounts of sends to Keys Reverb, Keys Delay and Keys
Slapback, and the Lead Synth has volume automation to balance it against the Melody guitar line.

At the end of the song, the Keys Delay output is automated to turn down its volume output, so the delay
repeats don’t continue past the last beat of the song.

As far as sounds goes, the most interesting track here is FX. This contains a very reverberated
Tambourine that adds a nice space to the drum track in the verse, and two Reverse Reverb effects: one
vocal part leading into the verse, and one full mix part in the breakdown. This was achieved by bouncing
part of the source track to a new track, going to Process > Apply Effect > Reverse on the clip that was
created, then extending out the end of that clip. Add a Sonitus Reverb to that clip as a Clip Effect and adjust
to taste, then Right-Click that clip and choose Bounce to Clip(s). Then, finally, selecting the clip and
repeating Process > Apply Effect > Reverse. That way the reverb comes in before the sound itself. Move it
into position and cut up the clip to fit. Cool! BONUS TIP: If you do this Reverse trick fairly often, go into
Preferences and add a keyboard shortcut to it in the Keyboard Shortcuts section (eg: CTRL+SHIFT+R)
VOCALS MIX

The Vocals Mix section is set up in a similar way to the Guitars Mix section. I’ll start with the elements first.

Choirs is a mix of that massive group of vocal layers from the Choirs Source folder. In the FX Bin, it begins
with a Sonitus Equalizer that rolls off the low-end to remove any rumbles or unnecessary frequencies and
to give it a presence boost to help with the air and clarity of the sound. From there it goes into a Sonitus
Compressor to even out the dynamics, and then into a Sonitus Multiband which is set up as a De-Esser to
tame the sibilance, which invariably builds up when you have a large group of vocal layers. Finally, I’m
using the same Channel Tools trick that I used on the Rhythm Guitars track in Guitars Mix to add extra
width to the sound by dropping the centre part of the stereo image.

For the sends on this track, there is a bit of Vocal Reverb to add space, Vocal Slapback which is adding a
little bit of width and chorus effect to the sound, Vocal Delay which is adding repeats to the track (I typically
use delay rather than reverb to add size and space to a track because it tends to sound cleaner in a busy
mix), and I’ve automated a Vocal Delay FX send to repeat certain words. This all runs into Vocals Master.

Chorus Harmonies is a mix of the main vocal harmonies for the “Time to Fly” lines in the chorus. This is
also handled by the Choirs but I’ve found that adding in single voice lines like this can add a good focus to
a big crowd of voices. Because the choirs are handling a lot of the size of these vocals, the sends on this
track are a lot more subtle. This also feeds into Vocals Master.

Leads is all of the lead vocals, and backing vocals (harmonies and doubles) that reinforce the lead vocal
line. The vocal line is dipped in volume slightly for the quieter verse section and certain words are accented
by automating the send to Vocal Delay and Vocal Delay FX. This track is routed to Vocals Master.

Vocal Reverb is similar to the settings on Guitar Reverb but with a slightly longer decay time, and a little
more low end rolled off to keep the vocals clearer.

Vocal Slapback is the same as Guitar Slapack, adding width and a chorus effect.

Vocal Delay is the same as Guitar Delay, adding space to the vocal lines, with the high and lows rolled off
so they don’t crowd the vocals.

Vocal Delay FX is a double-length delay (as compared to Vocal Delay) that’s mostly used as a special
effect to accent certain words or phrases. This runs into a Sonitus Modulator that is set up as a flanger to
add width and movement to the sound. This also has a send to Vocal Reverb to put the delay repeats in
the same space as the rest of the vocals.
All of these tracks feed into Vocals Master, which has the Console Emulator running in the Pro Channel.
This track finally is routed to the Main Out, along with all of the other Master tracks.

MAIN OUT

This is the final bus where all of the tracks are summed before the audio is sent to your audio interface
hardware outputs.

In the case of this mix, I’ve added a few effects to give it a more “radio ready” pseudo master, but if you
were planning to send this off to be mastered by a professional mastering engineer, or intend to master in
some other software specifically made for this purpose, you would disable these effects entirely. (Don’t
send your mastering engineer super squashed audio - you will not get a thank you note from them at the
end, trust me!)

For the pseudo mastering effects, I started off in the Pro Channel with the Compressor module to tame
some of the transient peaks. That fed into the Quadcurve Equalizer that gives the low end a bit more thump
and a bit of a high end boost to add sparkle to the mix. Next was the Tape Emulator that adds warmth and
saturation to give it more of an “analogue” feel. Next, it goes into a PC2A Leveller module to add more
compression to even the dynamics out even more (it’s often a good idea to chain subtle compression
modules together rather than using just one really heavy-handed compressor because the results are more
transparent sounding). This goes into a Console Emulator, and finally into a FX Chain module which hosts
the Sonitus Multiband which is mostly used as a final brickwall limiter.

This is all fairly crushed and may be too much for some people, or not loud enough for others. To get any
extra level out of this without destroying the audio quality too much, I’d certainly recommend using limiting
plugins specifically designed for mastering, rather than wrangling things through the Sonitus Multiband… or,
of course, employing the services of a professional mastering engineer, which also gives you the advantage
of having fresh ears listen to your mix, to pick up anything you might have missed due to being too close to
the material, or deficiencies in your monitoring or room.

ALTERNATE MIXES
One of the great things about Cakewalk is the ability to instantly recall different mix versions of a song,
either as a comparison, or to tailor the mix for different scenarios.

I’ve included 4 different mixes in this project: Metal Mix (the default mix), Karaoke Version, Live Band and
I Hate Guitars. You can switch between each mix using the Mix Recall module on the Control Bar:

Metal Mix is the default mix. It’s got the layered guitars, huge choirs, bombastic reverb - all of the good
things!

Karaoke Version is the Metal Mix minus the lead vocals (the choir parts are still there) and the guitar
solos, so you can not only pretend to be me as a vocalist, but also as a guitarist! Don’t say I never give you
anything cool.

Live Band is a version where it assumes this can be played live (albeit with a backing track doing all of the
keyboard parts). No huge choirs, and arranged for a 2-guitar band.

I Hate Guitars is the mix, minus any guitar parts. You monster. What would Eddie Van Halen say? Pfft.
CONCLUSION
Yes, there’s a lot to take in here! What I wanted to try and do with this project and document is to not only
show my specific workflow for this kind of song, but to shed a bit of light on some of the features that you
may overlook (such as Mix Recall, FX Chain Presets, Aux Tracks, Arranger Tracks, etc.) that are super
powerful when you know how to take advantage of them.

There’s really no right way to do this stuff, honestly. In the case of this project I chose to go in a very
modular direction, but I ordinarily wouldn’t structure a project like this if I knew I was planning to mix it all in
one process.

There are some third-party effects and pieces of hardware that I prefer to use as well, as I’m sure we all
have. But I wanted to demonstrate that you can absolutely create a professional sounding track using
nothing but Cakewalk plugins, and that you should never feel limited by not having the latest shiny new bit
of gear - you have all you need right now, for free.

Dissect the project, do remixes, switch out effects for your own… just have fun! If you get any kind of value
out of this, I’m glad! You can find me on the Cakewalk Forums fairly regularly if you have any questions or
comments and, if you feel so inclined, head over to the LORD Store and check out our back catalogue if
you want to say thanks.

Alright, over to you - now it’s your time to fly!

CREDITS AND LYRICS

Music and Lyrics by T. Grose, registered with
the Australasian Performing Right Society (APRA)

Drums by Tim Yatras

Everything else by Lord Tim

In the cool of the twilight

In the calm of the night
There's a whisper like winter breeze

You know we've all heard the slander

All those voices of doubt
But it's our choice for what we see

The road is long, but we'll stay strong

We'll cross the mountains and every sea
Keep the faith, the light we bathe in
We find it comes from deep within

Time to fly
If you believe you will see then, the world on your plate
Time to fly
No time to be late; if you wait, time slips away
Time to fly
We all know that seeing's believing
When it's time to see, it's your time to be
When it's time to fly
COPYRIGHT
This song is © 2021 Dominus Records, provided to Bandlab under exclusive agreement. No part of this
song may be reproduced, resold, rented, or copied in any way, including any lyrics, audio samples or
recordings contained within. It is provided for your own personal listening use only, and as a means to learn
about how a project like this is put together. In short, don’t be a jerk, yeah? Do the right thing.

Having said that, you are absolutely free to use any technique, combination of effects or FX Chain Preset
from this project in your own projects. If you find anything useful, I'd appreciate a shout-out or a credit
somewhere in your project if you use anything from this in your own projects.