Quick start
- Put Cathode on an audio track with your guitar plugged straight in (a DI, no amp).
- Arm the track and turn on monitoring.
- Pick a preset from the box at the top. Ice Arpeggios, Post-Punk Crunch and Synthwave Lead are good places to start.
- Set Input in the MASTER panel so the input meter peaks around two-thirds of the way up.
- Turn pedals on and off with their ON switches until it sounds like the record in your head.
The window
- Header: the preset box with < and >, QUALITY (2x, 4x or 8x oversampling), TUNER and the power button (bypass).
- AMP: the amp list on the left, the amp's seven knobs over its animated waveform, and the VHS tape counter.
- Front pedals: GATE, OCTAVE, COMP and SWELL, then the CABINET.
- Effects: CHORUS, TREMOLO, DETUNE, DELAY, REVERB and VHS along the bottom.
- MASTER: Input, Output and the meters.
The signal runs Gate → Octave → Comp → Swell → Amp → Cabinet, all in mono, then Chorus → Tremolo → Detune → Delay → Reverb → VHS in stereo.
Amps
| Amp | Character |
|---|---|
| GLASS | Solid-state stereo clean. Glassy, fast, no sag. Made for chorus. |
| PRISM | British chime. Class A sparkle that breaks up when you push it. |
| CHROME | Compressed 80s rack tone, from squeaky clean to smooth drive. |
| STATIC | Raw post-punk crunch. Thin, bright and loud. |
| LASER | Hot 80s lead with singing mids, for synthwave solos. |
| CAPTURE | Plays a Neural Amp Modeler capture through Cathode's pedals. |
Each amp has Gain, Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Depth and Master, 0 to 10. On the clean amps, Gain sets how much grit there is rather than how loud it gets. The amps are level-matched.
Capture (NAM)
Pick CAPTURE, then click LOAD or drop a .nam file anywhere on Cathode. < and > step through the folder.
- Gain becomes the drive into the capture (±24 dB). The tone knobs become an EQ after it, flat at their defaults. Master is the capture's level (±12 dB).
- A full-rig capture (one that includes a speaker) switches the CABINET off when it loads; an amp-only capture switches it on.
- The capture is saved inside your project.
- CALIBRATE feeds captures at the level the real amp heard. Set the box beside it to your interface's maximum instrument input level in dBu (double-click for +12 dBu). The setting is shared by every Brightwork plugin with captures.
The three CAPTURE presets set up the pedals around a capture; they don't load one for you.
Front pedals and cabinet
| Pedal | Control | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| GATE | Threshold, Release | -90 to -20 dB, 5 to 500 ms | Silences the noise between notes. |
| OCTAVE | Octave, Dry | 0 to 100% each | Mix of the octave-down voice and your guitar. |
| Tone | 0 to 10 | Darkens or brightens the octave. | |
| COMP | Sustain | 0 to 10 | How much it squeezes. More sustain, more squash. |
| Attack | 0.5 to 50 ms | Slower lets the pick click through. | |
| Level | -12 to +12 dB | Output of the pedal. | |
| SWELL | Rise | 40 to 2500 ms | How long each note takes to fade in. |
| Sens | -70 to -20 dB | How hard you have to play to start a new swell. | |
| CABINET | Cabinet | Four built-in, or Custom IR | Pick a cabinet, or LOAD IR to use your own. |
| Mic, Low Cut, High Cut | 0 to 100%, 20 to 300 Hz, 2 to 20 kHz | Mic position and trimming after the cabinet. |
Effects
| Effect | Controls | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CHORUS | Chorus or Flanger; Rate 0.05 to 10 Hz, Depth, Mix | The classic cold clean is GLASS with chorus at Mix 50%. |
| TREMOLO | Rate 0.5 to 16 Hz or SYNC (1/4 to 1/32), Depth, Shape, STEREO | Shape goes from smooth to choppy. STEREO pans it side to side. |
| DETUNE | Detune 0 to 30 cents, Delay 0 to 50 ms, Mix | Adds a slightly detuned, slightly late copy for a wider, thicker sound. |
| DELAY | Time 20 to 1500 ms or SYNC; Feedback, Tone, Mod, Mix; PING-PONG; ANALOG | ANALOG gives darker, warmer repeats. Dotted Eighth Chime shows the 1/8 D trick. |
| REVERB | Plate, Hall or Gated; Size, Tone, Pre-delay 0 to 200 ms, Mix | Gated is the 80s snare trick on guitar. |
| VHS | Amount, Wobble, Noise, Mix | See below. |
The VHS deck
VHS is last in the chain, so it degrades everything before it, effects included. Amount is the main control:
- Up to 3: gentle wear, like a tape that's been played a lot.
- Above 3: tracking loss. The sound starts to drop and smear.
- Above 6: the tape is being chewed.
- 10: total destruction.
Wobble sets how much the pitch wanders, Noise the hiss and hum, and Mix blends the tape with the clean signal. Automate Amount for a song that falls apart on cue.
Presets
- 33 presets in eight groups: one group per amp, plus TAPE, CAPTURE and UTILITY.
- < and >, or the up and down arrow keys, step through them. Presets are level-matched to Default.
- Amp Only (no cab) is for running Cathode into your own cabinet plugin.
Tips
- For arpeggios, try GLASS with chorus, a 1/8 D synced delay and a plate, and let the delay play the in-between notes.
- SWELL plus a long hall turns chords into pads. Play them, don't strum.
- For post-punk, STATIC with a flanger, and keep Gain lower than you'd think.
If something's wrong
- No sound: check monitoring is on and the power button is lit.
- Notes don't come in with SWELL on: lower Sens, or play harder.
- Crackles: lower QUALITY, or raise your audio interface's buffer size.