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Hi everyone, We had an amazing NAMM 2019 show and it was so great to meet so many long time Cakewalk users as well as our business partners there. BandLab had a a beautifully designed space showcasing all the brands and Cakewalk had a very prominent presence at the show. Here are a few pictures. We had stage performances from several artists showcasing all the BandLab brands throughout the day including Heritage guitars, Harmony amps and guitars, and Tiesco pedals. We had a mobile recording rig set up and Cakewalk was used to record all the performances. Ashwin from BandLab and @Mike Balzarini did a fantastic job on the live sound and recording setup at short notice and everyone commented on how great the performances sounded. We recorded 8 channels for all the sets and I would upload the projects at the end of the day for @Jon Sasor and @Jesse Jost to mix and upload the finished tracks to BandLab using the new Export to BandLab feature that we just added in CbB. Jon did an amazing job mixing and mastering these at short notice. To listen to all the great music recorded live check out our NAMM 2018 feed. Jesse also posted some more information about the artists playing. Thanks again to you all for your support and for all our users who took the trouble to come to NAMM and meet us. It was great listening to your feedback and meeting you face to face. PS: I forgot to mention. This year all the demo songs played at NAMM came from Cakewalk users. It was great showing real world production projects at the show. Some of these were were full projects with all the plugin's intact. The Silverlight tune had tons of Slate plugins as well as an MP4 video clip synced to it. It played with no problems even at 256 samples on a Surface Book. Also some NAMM Videos that Meng shared in another thread:

I'm glad it was a good show for Cakewalk and Bandlab. I'm just hoping they do something with Rapture Pro and Z3ta2 and don't let them fade away.

Wow, someone didn't do their homework! 😆

They didn't send any emails. In fact I don't think they ever tell anyone about updates to purchased bundles. I've seen several bundles I've bought get additional files (happens mostly with book bundles). And a few game bundles where they added Steam keys to indie games that at purchase weren't on Steam yet. Not sure there is any easy way to track that with them. In this case I had opened a ticket with them over getting the files, so I got a notification through their support system. They also added zips for Virtual Music, Sound Unbound, and Music Cognition and Computerized Sound. The Audio Programming Book zip is kind of hard to fully extract on Windows/PC due to the overlong Mac filenames. But I think it only effects some of the open source software they include the source for (which newer versions of which are already on the net). The "meat" of the update extracts easily. I have to admit I spend way too much at Humble Bundle (have had a month sub for years now and buy lots of bundles). It's one of the best sites for digital content. Wish they would do a VST/VI bundle.

Was good meeting Noel. Nice guy. Impressed with his Surface Book 2 which had my project open along with 5 other projects at the same time.

Maybe a nice option for those that only have the SI one from Bandlab's Cakewalk. Yes, those of us long time users likely have AD, Session Drummer, EZ Drummer, "Superior", etc but those all cost us way more than $9.

Just FYI Humble Bundle has updated the downloads for the Computer Music book bundle to have all the support zips with the supplements. Download them from your account.

I also stopped by the Bandlab booth and chatted with Mike. I told him I was a loyal Cakewalk user and a Sonar Refugee who was glad the DAW came back to life. I also learned that "BREVERB" is pronounced, "BEE-RE-VERB" and not "BREE-VERB." 😮

😂😂😂😂😂- sad to say it's not...

I'd like to the ability to use the "drum notes" view in the Piano Roll without having to set up a drum map. Also the ability to edit the note names and save for future reference. See the way Reaper handles this as an example. I've always found the drum maps in Sonar clunky and way too complicated for my needs.

In honor of getting the Top Pick from Sample Library Review the intro offer of 35€ (excluding VAT) will be continue for 10 days until the 10th of March! After that the full price will be 49€ (excluding VAT). ---- I’m proud to announce my first official release with Man Makes Noise's The Lobby Piano. As this will be the first thing I release I kept pondering what should it be. And so I had a thought no sample library developer has ever had: let’s make a piano library. I know, I know. The world really frigging doesn’t need another deep sampled piano library with a hundred microphones to choose from. So I didn’t make one. Instead I made you something very different. The Lobby Piano is an exploration into what a piano can be. A collection of sound design piano tones ranging from experimental playing styles to completely recharged sound explorations. The Lobby Piano is at home in pretty much everything you do. It’s not really a piano anymore. Really it isn’t. I recorded sounds from a single piano (located in a lobby, duh) with an assortment of orthodox and unorthodox methods and tools (a hammer and a keychain were involved among other items). Still this is not an effects piano nor a prepared piano. It’s a designed piano. The Lobby Piano contains 200 patches with 296 original soundsources. The patches are divided into 13 categories that are easily identifiable within Omnisphere. Today I tease you with the first official demo for the product composed by Stephan Baer using only sounds from the library: The second demo to tease the library is some post rock goodness from Posthouse Tuomi. Dressed and Naked version to show The Lobby Piano in context and the sounds as they are: Also more details about the contents on the The Lobby Piano: ALARMS - 7 -Scream type of sounds. ARPS - 22 - Tonal and rhythmic movements. ATMOSPHERES - 16 - Tonal long ambient sounds. BASIC PIANO SOUNDS - 10 - Single soundsource instruments displaying the variety of recorded sounds. BASSES - 10 - Low end stuff. DESIGNED - 8 - Piano + another sound combined into designed instruments. FX - 10 - Non tonal sounds go here. Most of the riser sounds are controlled by modwheel to allow you to create the length of riser as it suits you! HITS - 8 - Big hits. KEYS - 43 - Layered keyboard sounds. PADS - 35 - Long tonal pads. PERCUSSIONS - 20 - Percussive loops and instruments. PULSES - 6 -Rhythmic pulsing elements. SYNTHS - 5 - Here are sounds that started as a piano, but were transformed into synth sounds outside of Omnisphere and then brought back for further mangling. The Lobby Piano requires Omnisphere 2.5. The library will be released on Wednesday the 30th of January 2019. I have a free set of 10 patches available at: https://www.manmakesnoise.com/freebies

Hey re-again 😁 The included Studio Instruments Suite is a great start but very basic. From my point of view, it doesn't make sense that the Bandlab online editor has more instruments than the flagship DAW of the company. Maybe a basic synth, and acoustic piano and a brass section would make feel a "more complete" start for new users. Thank you!!

Two forums are allotted to Cakewalk with the following intended posting guidelines. While it seems to me that there is an intent to make the Q&A forum a place to ask questions, if not to serve as a user to user help resource, it is not at all clear from reading posts in these forums that everyone has that understanding. Many of the posts in the General forum are questions, and in fact there are many technical questions, problem issues, or apparent bugs with requests for help etc. Unfortunately the posting guidelines for the General forum permitting "all things related" to Cakewalk would seem to subsume everything that is covered by the guidelines for Q&A. If there is a purpose to splitting these forums, I think it is not fully served in practice. Perhaps a more explicit guidance for the General forum would help alleviate this, but given that these are internet forums it is doubtful that everyone reads those in any case. If moderators start moving posts around, that might serve as an education for regular posters, but will undoubtedly result in rancor from those whose posts are moved or those following them. Cakewalk by BandLab: General Discussion focused on all things related to Cakewalk by BandLab software, the DAW formerly known as SONAR Platinum. *********** Cakewalk by BandLab: Q&A This is a Q&A forum, dedicated to asking questions and getting answers, rather than traditional topic-and-post discussions. Q&A Tips This is the place to ask questions about operating Cakewalk, requesting solutions to specific problems, etc. The clearer the question, the better able the community will be to provide a solution! Questions Please present your question as clearly as you can, providing relevant details that can help the community provide the best answer. It is also helpful to the community if you use tags to describe your question. Each question can have up to 5 tags, since a question might be related to several subjects. Answers Please make answers helpful, to the point and civil. If a question requires more detail, please request more detail from the OP. The best answer for a given question is indicated with a green checkbox. Questions can be voted up or down by users, in order to give them more visibility. We want this forum to be as constructive as possible, and your contributions are greatly appreciated!

Do these performances take advantage of the ability of exhibitors to stay after hours? 'cause the cavernous reverb sounds like you used Hall C. 😂 I wonder if someone has an "Anaheim Convention Center Hall C" impulse I can download for REMatrix. I just looked on the NAMM Show 2019 map, and 😲! For those less familiar with the layout, to say that BandLab's booth was in a "prime spot" is an understatement. It's the first one you would encounter as you come in the main entrance toward the Marriott end, the Marriott being the hotel closest to the Convention Center, and also the location of Yamaha's displays and a major food court. Quite a coup to secure that spot.

Hi all - sharing some live recordings of a few of the inspiring artists who performed at the BandLab booth during NAMM! ❤️ All tracks recorded w/ Cakewalk and posted to our BL account. Check 'em out in our NAMM 2019 collection! Artist links: Angie Swan David Becker DMD the Band JayLeonardJay Mark Lettieri and Pals Michael Humphries Sarah Lipstate

Just thought I'd let everyone know that Plugin Alliance Transfers are now instant. You pick the plugin to transfer from a list of your plugins, and insert the new owners email and hit the transfer button and it's done!

I don't believe you Larry - let's test. Just go ahead and transfer your bx_console SSL to me just to make sure. 😀

It's so ironic that Cakewalk and Gibson were the big "comebacks" at Winter NAMM 2019. Congrats Noel and crew!! (P.S. Program Meng's calendar with visa renewal reminders ).

If you really want to remove any plugins completely from your computer, the best way is to use an uninstaller, if available. Else if you just want to hide certain versions of a plugin without uninstalling it, the Cakewalk Plugin Manager is probably the simplest way to exclude them from view. If you still see the plugin after excluding and re-scanning, you may have a duplicate DLL located in another folder in the scan path. I have had that happen. To uninstall a plugin, some plugins use a GUI install manager, or license manager. Use that if available. Native Instruments Native Access would be good example of this. Next choice would be to look in Windows Programs and Features for an uninstaller, if available. My Blue Cat plugins appear in there. If there is no uninstaller for the plugin, just remove the DLL file for the plugin from your VST folder. You can move it to a temp location that is not in your DAW's VST scan path, or delete it.

Typically, you would run the apps locally on the machine you're running. I don't think that I've used the web-based version other than for Android but I still had to load the app. Sorry that probably doesn't help. As an aside for non-profits, you should check out TechSoup if you haven't already. Great prices for non-profits on software and refurbished hardware. EDIT: I take back what I said about web-based. Actually, I forgot that you can open the files within OneDrive which is part of 365. I just tried that and it opens fine. This is how I share some editable files with other musicians.

Hello This is Arvind from microsoft customer support. I have not read your question properly and to prove this I will shortly be back to give you an answer that will not be at all helpful......

I do not agree. Modern DAWs (Ableton, Bitwig, Reason, Studio One)which are made for electronic music contain these tools to give simple tools to write beats, slice loops. Of course third party should concentrate more on their products and be kings of synthesizers, sample libraries, etc. But things like basic synth, drum sampler are default things for a modern musician.

This is one of those wonderful threads that sneaks up on you. I am so glad I read this thread. More importantly I am glad this thread was made. Thank you.

'Nuff said ...

I liked the experiment and call it a success. The part two thirds in felt like it could even crossover into hip hop. That said, 8:30 felt a tad lengthy for what was on offer, nice though it was. Blame my short attention span then! cheers, -Tom

Well down here we are just having a little fun with each other.🙄

I would really hate to see see this place turn into a KVR style free-for-all. But that said, even the KVR forum moderators occasionally lock threads and ban users to maintain a semblance of order. Somebody has to do it if the users cannot control themselves.

Reason I don’t watch Discovery is that it is not Trek. They have changed it so much I don’t consider it Trek any more. If they just named it star (and something else than trek/wars) it would be fine, but trek it isn’t.

The problem with separate midi and audio tracks of virtual instruments is that, it can be quickly confusing if you have a lot of channels to manage, like in an orchestral music for example. That's why I prefer to let them combine, but in this way Cakewalk considers it to be only an audio track.

You can also check out performances from the BandLab booth here: https://www.bandlab.com/cakewalk_team

Totally agree. My main go to has been Valhalla VV, however I'm turning more to TB Reverb 4. All of TB's stuff is excellent and Jeroen is a top developer with a lot of industry experience.

Meng, anything to add to my reports above?

I suggest you try the ToneBoosters Reverb 4. It sounds awesome! Recently I've been going through all reverbs plugins installed on my system (20+), and was blown away by the quality of this plugin.

Dragonfly Reverb - very nice sounding Free Reverb comparable to some commercial products. Page link: https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragonfly-reverb Direct download link: 64 bit VST other versions (32 bit, Mac, Linux) available on web site. A thread on VI Control regarding this... https://vi-control.net/community/threads/dragonfly-reverb-very-nice-free-reverb.77946/

That's good! They couldn't do that at NAMM due to the more open broad nature of the booth. I still give it a 5 thumbs up!

No updates yet on Rapture Pro, etc. With the new wing at the convention center completed last year it's much better. Quieter space for pro audio booths who choose to be away from the guitar/drum high-volume main area. BandLab chose the main floor, def the right move for them. Bigger presence. Some incredible performances, got to briefly meet Santana, Nancy Wilson, Rick Nielsen. And, 134,999 other people swarming around. Stark contrast: spending the day at NAMM and leaving in the evening to discover police in riot gear arresting protesters. The dichotomy of musical artists and industry folks walking down closed major streets going back to our hotels while hotel workers were protesting for a pay increase, more affordable healthcare, the implementation of panic buttons, increases to pensions and stronger protections for immigrants. Heartbreaking to see, and for all of us to be a part of, such imbalance in the world. 21 people arrested including an Anaheim city councilman. Wild. Check out these guitars (zoom in on 'em).

First let me say that this is absolutely correct, your mastering efforts, nay, ALL your efforts are doomed. As a matter of fact, his efforts, my efforts, and the efforts of everyone reading this are doomed. These words mock us much like the twin trunkless legs of Ozymandias, standing 30' tall in the desert, the lone and level sands stretching far and wide with nothing else around but these words on a pedestal beneath, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" But Ozymandias of Egypt did not have a copy of RoomEQWizard 5.0. Nor a copy of Ozone 8 Advanced, which you apparently do, if you're discussing CODEC Preview, you lucky dog. Merry Xmas indeed. I only have Ozone Elements 8, and I kind of hate it in a way, because I had just gotten to the point where I was really liking the way my masters sounded, with all my plug-ins tuned just right, and then Pluginboutique put it on sale for something in the neighborhood of $30 and I couldn't resist. And I tried it on a song that I had just gone back and applied my newly-acquired mastering wisdom to, slapped it right on the Master bus and started going through the preset collection and was like....oh no. This thing. Oh no. And I decided to try their wizard, whatever it's called, that analyzes a bit of your song and twiddles the knobs a pops out a suggestion, and I think I did a literal🤦‍♀️. Because a lot of them sounded really good, like as good or better than what had taken me months of struggling and sounding like refried poo and being discouraged and thinking that I was never going to "get" this whole mixing thing (especially figuring out how to set up a compressor). And just as I had crested the hill and was feeling confident, along comes this Lite version of a mastering suite that's somewhat derided for having autopilot features anyway, and lo and behold, it does, and they work. Of course, I've made my peace, the settings it suggests are that, suggestions, and I always have to adjust them, and it's never the only thing in my mastering chain, and I can master just fine without it, thanks. I treat it as a collection of very nice-sounding plug-ins with some very nice presets and good-looking UI's. It's also great for "quickie mixes" for when I've just recorded a jam with friends and everyone wants to hear a playback and I have the length of one joint on the porch to make a rough mix. To get to your issue: I think what you're asking is how to properly use Ozone Advanced as a mastering suite in conjunction with Cakewalk? Specifically where to apply the dithering. Ozone's has some cool dithering algorithms and you want to try theirs when doing your MP3 and AAC and FLAC renders. Dithering is just this fancy noise that is added to your audio so that the conversion from 24 to 16 doesn't leave weird sounds in it. It only matters during that conversion process. If we were recording at 44.1/24 and rendering to the same, no dithering need to apply. But since MP3's and CD's are 16-bit, we must dither about. Since Advanced comes in both standalone and plug-in forms, you don't have to do it the way you did, doing all your mixing in Cakewalk, then exporting a WAV file, importing it back into Cakewalk with Ozone on the Master bus and exporting it again. You have a couple of choices. 1. You may export your original mix as a WAV from Cakewalk, then load it into the standalone Ozone 8 and do all your mastering work in there, either using only the modules that come with Ozone or including 3rd-party ones, as Ozone 8 Advanced supports that, too. Then you can render to the file formats you want directly from Ozone, using the dithering and CODECS that they supply. So Export from Cakewalk at whatever you Rate/Depth you record, let's say 44,100/24bit. Apply no dithering. Then load that file into the standalone Ozone 8 Advanced and have at it. When seasoned to taste, export away. It is at that point ye shall apply thine dithre. 2. You may do as you said you did earlier and proceed as in 1, except after you export the WAV file, start a new project in Cakewalk, install Ozone as a plug-in on the Master bus of Cakewalk and import the WAV file back in. Once you have something you want to pop out, set Ozone's dithering options, then Export/Audio from Cakewalk's menu, choosing "None" in the dialog for Dithering, because your audio is already going to have the dithering sprinkled on it before it gets to that stage. Then you can extrude the usual file formats you wish right from Cakewalk. About that last: my workflow may be different from others', but when I am finished with mixing and mastering (which I do by myself, of my own material, ITB, which breaks a bunch of rules right there and could earn me a coolerful of Haterade dumped on my head) I export one single file from the mastering program in a lossless format, either WAV or FLAC. That lossless file gets a treatment from MP3Tag, which I use to embed tagging information such as artist, song title, copyright, year, genre, album, etc. I also embed whether the file is a rough mix, because those have a way of "getting into the wild" by being sent to significant others, friends, etc. and the tagging can make that easier to see if it shows up on the player's screen as "Song for Babs-Rough Mix 1." Then for creation of various compressed format distribution files, I use an external program called MediaHuman where I have profiles set up for the various formats I want to distribute. These days I keep it to FLAC and higher-rate AAC. Everybody's phones and players seem to support M4A files and the quality seems best to me of the lossy formats. Usually if someone gives me their stuff in M4A format it's a sign that they are paying a little closer attention. As far as people on forums hatin' on Ozone, they're probably envious. It's a box of really top-notch tools that work well together, and a wizard that you can use if you choose or not, and a bunch of presets like every other processor has, and you are fortunate to have the opportunity to be working with such a suite. I think with Advanced you can even use the FX as individual plug-ins, and I would surely do so if I were able with the Elements Suites I have, which are Ozone and Neutron. The only down side of using them is the latency they introduce during tracking, and they do represent a suite's worth of processor resources. I'm waiting like a cat at a mousehole for Pluginboutique to let loose with a deal on RX Elements. I've learned much from having Ozone Elements around and running the wizard and seeing what it comes up with, seeing if I like it or not, checking the results. Heck, if you apply a preset or run the Assistant and find that the Maximizer squashes your mix too much, nobody forces you to keep the results. Go in and click on it and pull back on the slider and un-squash it, just as you would if you had a buddy who was an Oasis fan who kept trying to get you to brickwall everything. Pitfall avoided.

Quad Curve with Flyout is one of the true Gems in the Cakewalk package. It was a premium feature when the software had $100, $200, $500 tiers. The fly out was only available in the $500 tier and was one of the primary reasons I went "all in." The fact it is free in the package should not muddy your eye sight into thinking it isn't one of the best on the market for non-liner phase needs.

Make sure Mouse Wheel Zoom in the Track View Options menu is set to zoom At Cursor rather than At Now time. Personally, I prefer to set the Now time where I want to zoom, and then zoom on the Now time.

It's called a 'spoiler' to make one you need to put text in between tags [.SPOILER]spoiler text[./SPOILER] Remove the periods before SPOILER and /SPOILER - had to use them otherwise you would not have seen code. Here's an example:

Melda Productions has a nice freebie and a pay pitch tuner that is very affordable.

I've found this happens when I've chosen the "wrong" detection algorithm for the job. Try changing the detection algorithm, and see if this helps. Note however, although you can switch algorithm whilst the editor is active in the MultiDock, you'll lose your previous edits. So try the various detection algorithms first, then stick to that. If you need to switch and keep your edits, bounce to clips, then create the region fx again.

Also worth checking out: iZotope Nectar (both full version and elements). It includes pitch correction alongside all the other vocal type effects. Waves Tune Realtime Waves Tune

Don't ignore free plug-ins. FabFilter products are excellent but price is not necessarily a good indicator of quality or utility. There are hundreds of useful free plug-ins. One could spend quite a bit of time at the kvr products pages. Here are two examples: The Melda Production MFreeFXBundle. Completely usable as is and the license which unlocks extra features is a bargain when on sale. Melda routinely puts plug-ins on sale at 50% off. Their product bundles go on sale a couple times a year Blue Cat Audio has a collection of free plug-ins worth a look

Hey azslow- I don't think there's an argument on Noel's part. Some users have asked why bother authing a free product. If we didn't have that auth, CbB would likely be posted on other sites that are much more susceptible to any of the bad things. To reduce the chance of CbB being illegally distributed, the program auths via BandLab Assistant, there are checks after a period of time, etc. If you saw a demo mode note and updated, you'd likely be set for another six months. That said, that number is not set in stone. As mentioned earlier, we're not even a year into Cakewalk by BandLab, and the way we deliver the product is not the same as Command Center because now Cakewalk is a program within the BandLab ecosystem. BandLab Assistant definitely works a bit differently than c3, but that is ever-changing as well. I personally can't tell you exactly how auth may work in 6 months or a year from now. What I do know, is that we're offering Cakewalk by BandLab for free, and it requires a very small amount of things to keep it running. Still sounds better to hop online every few months rather than paying hundreds of dollars each year!

The program has a lease that we set to about 6 months. It needs to be periodically updated to keep running. As mike mentioned, we release updates frequently so if you get updates you will normally never see this prompt. Also if you do run into it, simply logging out and back into BandLab assistant will give you a new lease. One important reason for a handshake with our servers is to prevent people from putting the app on mirrors where someone can get a virus injected easily. Its a small inconvenience to put up with considering that the app is completely free now.

Hey all, just wanted to get some additional details. You guys who were recently experiencing a demo mode issue, have you performed any updates since your original install? Back when we kicked off, there was an auth check built in with a "membership end date" just like what you used to see in SONAR's Help > About SONAR menu (this version being in Help > About Cakewalk). That initial check was modified in later updates, where you'll now see "Free- Activated by BandLab Assistant". The program is free, but it's definitely safe to say that you should want to check for updates at least every few months, if not more often. There's been a ton of enhancements to help make Cakewalk by BandLab even better, and though I know some users still want to keep their machine offline, it really is beneficial to keep up to date when you can. It's been less than a year since the release of CbB, and while the core program has been around for awhile, BandLab Assistant was pretty much built from the ground up, and has been updated and refined quite a bit! No, that auth check is not something that will be necessary every time we release an update, but there may be another needed at some point. From a personal perspective, it's a much less intrusive way to keep track of some very basic metrics, while in the process making sure we're providing the best product we can. I'd say that's worth the price you're paying for CbB!

Is it possible to use a you tube video as a reference and if picked I can upload a project