Review: Blue Cat Audio Patchwork 1.4 – By Bassy Bob

Recently I was introduced to quite an amazing and innovative plugin tool for DAWs, called Patchwork by Blue Cat Audio.

When I saw it, it immediately reminded me of the Dangerous Liaison, which allows you to chain multiple pieces of analog gear together across your mixbuss and re-arrange their order without moving any cables. That is ostensibly what the Patchwork does, but in the digital domain.

Change the way you connect ITB with Patchwork, a universal plugins patchbay.

Roll Your Own FX Chains

I tested the original version of Patchwork when it came out, and then the very latest version, 1.4, which was released in July of 2014.

The structure of the Patchwork is setup so that you can create your own effect chains (up to 64 VST plugins) and save them as presets that you can put across any aux or master fader.

There is a pre fader chain, a post fader chain, and up to eight sidechains that can have up to eight plugins each. All the signal paths have a volume knob and mix so that you can add just a little or a lot of the effect. There is also a master MIX knob for adjusting balance of the entire chain.

There are two modes for the patchwork: Effect or Virtual instrument. The Effect plug lets you chain as many plugs horizontally and copy them with their settings to other paths — eight in total. The Virtual instrument plug lets you combine virtual keyboards together and has a mixer on each channel for blending.

The thing I found amazing about this plug is that I could setup eight complex chains of plugs and immediately recall them for a new mix, or export them from one DAW (Pro Tools for example) to Logic, Reason, or Ableton Live.

Since I’m frequently moving from, say, a production in Logic, to the mix in Pro Tools, there was never a way to transfer my chains of plugs from one DAW to the other… now there is. It’s simple and elegant. All eight chains have simple on/off buttons to audition eight different compression or saturation schemes, for example, either one by one or in combination.

It took me about an hour to get the hang of putting together my chains and experimenting with blends, and pre and post settings. You can also link the pre chain and post chain together, which is really handy.

Re-ordering the order of the plugs is also easy and fast. So you can try eq>de-esser>compressor or de-esser>compressor>eq. Or you can copy all of them to another channel and add a bit of saturation. I have always stored my own presets for all my processors, particularly when I find a setting I like. But now the possibilities are expanded to saving my whole processor chains.

A great feature of the new 1.4 update is the additions to the parallel processing. Parallel processing is an indispensable feature for compression and other processing, and now features here include a solo button for parallel chains, and a summing mode section.

In addition, MIDI Channel filtering for each plugin input is a facet of 1.4. A few bug fixes also come with the territory.

Just Note…

For me — and perhaps you — the only possible drawback is you may need a VST wrapper to convert some of your plugs (most plugins, but not all, are VST compatible these days). That will cost you. I have it and dig using VST plugs, so it wasn’t a problem for me.

Also some manufacturers like Universal Audio do not officially support VST wrapping. That is something I would love to see, but perhaps that’s asking a bit too much…

Lessen the Complexity

In conclusion, if you are doing a lot of complex chains of plugins (5 to 8 plugs) and are looking for a simple solution to organize them and store them across multiple DAWs, then the Patchwork is a really great solution.

Hats off to Blue Cat Audio for creating another great and really useful product. Like a lot of great independent plugin developers, at $79 USD/59 Euros the price is right.

Bassy Bob is a multiple Grammy winning mixer/producer, Tech entrepreneur, and trumpet and bass player. He often lectures and teaches on the subject of the art of mixing. Bassy loves crawfish, and fried oysters, and fat mixes. Follow him on instagram at http://instagram.com/bassybob. He lives in New York City.

Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.