How to add visuals to Cakewalk Sonar

Cakewalk Sonar is the Windows DAW that replaced Cakewalk by BandLab, so if you searched for Cakewalk, this is the program you want. It opens your old .cwp projects and hosts VST3 and VST2 plugins. Sonar has video tools of its own, built for scoring music to a film you import. For picture drawn from the mix, put a visualizer plugin on the Master bus and record a clip straight from its window. Both are covered below.

The built-in route: the Video Thumbnails track

File > Import > Video puts a video clip in the Video Thumbnails track at the top of the Track view (press V to show or hide it), and the Video view plays it large while you work. File > Export > Video renders your mix into a new video file with that picture. It is good at what it does: hits, cues, and edits locked to a trailer, a short film, or a game clip. The picture comes from a file you bring.

The plugin route: a VST3 visualizer on the Master bus

A visualizer plugin loads into an FX Rack slot like any other effect, with every look already built. You pick a scene and a palette, and it reacts to the track from the first beat.

This is the route Photism takes. It is a VST3 and Audio Unit effect that passes your audio through untouched, and the plugin window is the visualizer. Twenty-four scenes, from marbled ink to architectural geometry to a live reaction-diffusion figure, each react to kicks, bass weight, and energy in real time. Sonar loads the VST3.

Install and scan

1. Install the plugin. Right-click the zip, choose Extract All, and close Sonar. Copy the whole Photism.vst3 folder into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, with the Contents folder still inside it.
2. Open Sonar. That VST3 folder is on Sonar’s scan list from the start, and Sonar scans it when it opens, so Photism usually appears with no extra step.
3. Scan by hand if it is missing. Open Edit > Preferences (or press P) and go to File > VST Settings. Set Scan Options to Manual Scan, tick Rescan Failed Plug-ins, and click Scan.

Load it on the Master

1. Open the Console view (Alt+2) and find the Master bus.
2. Right-click in its FX Rack, choose Insert Audio FX, and pick Photism from the menu.
3. The plugin window opens, and it is the visualizer. Click its Pin Plug-in Window button, then press play. The picture starts moving with the song.

Pinning matters in Sonar. By default Sonar reuses one plugin window, so opening an EQ or a compressor closes Photism’s window. A pinned window stays open. To turn that behavior off for every plugin, clear Recycle Plug-in Windows in Edit > Preferences > File > VST Settings.

On the Master bus, Photism hears the whole mix. Put it on a single track or bus instead and it follows only that part, a drum bus for example.

Pick a look

Every control has a button in the row along the corner of the window, so you can drive the whole thing with the mouse:

• tab · scenes opens the scene grid. Click any scene to jump to it.
• p · opens the palette card. Every color set is on one card.
• x · shuffle picks a fresh scene and palette in one click.
• g · tune opens the tuning panel, with the macros, the lens, and your saved presets.

The keyboard shortcuts take shift in the plugin: shift+g for the panel, shift+r to record, shift+o for the output. If Sonar grabs a key first, the buttons do the same job. Drop an album cover onto the window and Photism builds a five-color palette from it, so the visuals match the release.

Record the video

1. Choose the frame with the a · button: 16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for Reels and TikTok, 1:1 for a square post.
2. Put the Now time at the start of the song.
3. Click r · rec in the window, or press shift+r, then press play in Sonar.
4. When the song ends, click the record button again. The button steps through finishing, adding sound, and saving, then names the folder.

The MP4 saves to your Downloads folder with the song already in it, taken from the bus Photism sits on. You skip the audio export and the step of lining the song up in an editor. Clips record at each platform’s upload size, and the recording settings in the tuning panel go up to 4K.

Keep the plugin window open until the button says saved. Covering it with other windows is fine, and closing it ends the take. A recycled window counts as closed, so pin Photism before you record.

Change scenes on the drop

Photism’s scene, palette, mode, preset slot, and main controls are ordinary plugin parameters, so Sonar can automate them:

1. In the Track view, press Shift+B to show the Bus pane, and click the Edit Filter on the Master bus.
2. Point to Automation > Photism and choose Scene. The Scene envelope appears in the lane.
3. Double-click the envelope at the drop to add a node and drag it to the scene you want. Right-click the segment before it and choose Jump, and every playback switches the scene on that beat.

The same works for Palette at the bridge, Spin or Mirror as a slow build, or Preset Slot to swap the entire look on a section.

Getting it on a second screen

Click o · output, or press shift+o, to open a separate output window. Drag it to your second display or projector and make it fullscreen. It shows the visuals alone, with no buttons. To stream it, turn on Spout (beta) in that window’s top bar and pick the Photism source in OBS, Resolume, or TouchDesigner. Spout needs Windows 10 version 1903 or later, or Windows 11. The Syphon and Spout guide covers the receiving side.

Which route to pick

Both run inside your project, so trying either costs nothing but an FX Rack slot. You can feel Photism’s engine before installing anything at photism.app/online, which runs three scenes free in your browser from a dropped track or your mic.