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After almost 10 years of not really recording or writing anything (having kids will do that to you!) I finally started to get back into it, and thought I would upgrade to the newest version of Sonar. So imagine my surprise when I found out that Cakewalk the company was no more and instead had been bought by Bandlab. And, best of all, the latest and greatest version can be had for FREE!!! I feel a little like Rip Van Winkle right now. Anyway, just wanted to say hi to everyone here. I look to playing with all the new features I didn't know existed and don't have to pay for ? Jeff

Yeah, that was probably me, the 1000th, now I've got you sorted with the 50% OFF. Thank me later .

Would anyone agree that Boz stuff will always be useful, easy to use and sound great? And usually quirky enough to do things other similar plugins don't do. One of the names you can trust, AFAIC.

Can you open a text file in MS Word (or other word processor)? Yes. Can you add a PICTURE of a text there? Yes Do you see the text in picture with original formatting? Yes. Can you save the result as TXT? A kind of... you normally loose the picture. Cakewalk automatically ORC "the text" in picture and put characters into the TEXT file. Extra feature! Can you restore original picture from the resulting TXT file? NO. There is no way to describe a picture in the text. An envelope consist of "control points" and "curve segment types". SMF files do not support them. SMF: Standard MIDI Files. Standard means there is a definition what is inside. There can be different "MIDI file" format, with automation, audio support, something else support. CWP can be perceived as such format. But you want use SMF with features not included into SMF. That is not possible, by definition of SMF. Nothing to "fix" or "improve". ----- You may ask for explicit conversion of envelopes into CC during editing, so without saving to MIDI. But CC lines editing in Cakewalk is good. Simply edit/draw CC if you want to use Cakewalk as a MIDI editor. Also do not use Audio, Envelopes, VSTi presets, separate tracks with the same MIDI channel, more then 16 tracks, etc. That does not fit into pure MIDI.

Late at night on a deserted beach far from the crowds of madness along with the noise they make Night Beach Thanks for the listen Synths used Synclavier V, CMI V, ARP Odyssey, Wurli V

Normally one would set up a reverb bus, with the desired reverb set to all wet. Then use sends from the tracks you want to add reverb to. You can then adjust how much reverb added to each track by adjusting the send levels. For example, I don't tend to add much, if any, reverb to bass tracks. You can then adjust the overall level of reverb using the buss. HTH

This is really nice Wookster. Love the synth brass arp that comes in - straight off A Broken Frame by Depeche Mode. Can I suggest a title for the follow up to this one - 'Son of a Beach' ?

Make him cry like a little girl, Mibby!

This seems to be a common theme with a lot of the CbB reviews that are out there, and one of the downsides of the skylight interface - there's a lot of hidden features in Cakewalk, that unless you know about them, are almost hidden away. This used to frustrate the hell out of me - especially when I went through the transition from Sonar 8.5 to X1. Here's the thing though... once I learned how to use a feature and started using it a lot, there's absolutely no way I'd want to do without it. The smart tool & clip editing is probably the best example. It's incredibly confusing to a newbie, but once you get to know it, it's so powerful and very quick to use. Sometimes I do sympathise with the frustration both newbies & reviewers have, but on the other hand... if someone is going to start using a program as complex as a DAW, do they really expect to be able to use it properly without reading the manual or watching some tutorials? If I took the same approach as most "box opening" reviewers took with something like PhotoShop, I'd give it a pretty scathing review.

I can understand ones curiosity, but does it really matter ? What are we planning for ? I hope this doesn't sound a slight or me being ignorant, I just don't see how it matters ? Bandlab has delivered on its promise (for over a year now) to make Cakewalk free. That's good enough for me.

I don't think you have made it clear yet whether you prefer emulations or samples of "real" instruments, or want to use completely synthesized sounds. It appears from your list that you already own a bit of both types of virtual instruments. It would also help to know what style of music you are into. I get that you don't want classical music oriented collections (which implies to me no orchestral sample libraries), but that does not exclude other real instruments like guitars, basses, pianos, organs, jazz brass and woodwinds, drums, etc. I would suggest that some of the previous comments about Kontakt are right on as far as "real" instrument coverage. It's like SampleTank, but with extensive 3rd party instrument libraries. For pure synthesizers, there are a range of popular options, but many of the most popular ones today are supplied with presets for trance and dance machines used by the EDM crowd. A synth really isn't genre specific, and can be programmed and used for any style of music. It is always recommended to first learn to program a virtual analog synth (and there are several great free ones available), before plunging into buying an expensive commercial mega-synth. I really like the SynthMasters and find them quite satisfying. There truly isn't "one synth to replace them all". Except maybe for Omnisphere, but I just can't bring myself to drop $500 on a synth.

You really have to wonder about their QA process. If they break as many things as they fix when releasing a patch, it's clear that they are not testing thoroughly. I understand that 4.0.0 was rushed out the door to meet marketing deadlines, but at this point I would expect them to take the time to get updates right.

First you should decide if you want a synth or a rompler/sampler or some combination of the two. The "space inferno" issue is related to the presets or samples that the "synth" ships with. You can generally create a wide range of sounds from a true synthesizer even just using basic oscillators or waveforms and filters, and if you are getting sounds you do not like from the synths you own, then I expect it is because you have not learned to program them to your taste. Of course if you are using a rompler, you will usually just get what someone else thought would make an impressive demo for the people the designer believes will buy the most copies, or easily recognizable (clichéd) patches sampled from "vintage" synths. If you are trying to make music using sampled wood and wire instruments, that sound passably genuine, then Kontakt has the advantage that it ships with a fairly large library, and that the full version (as opposed to the player) will often play libraries offered for free by others. The new version includes the ability to use wavetable instruments as well, but rather than buy that (especially if you have to pay list) I would recommend an investment of time and study in how to program the stuff you already own. Something like Syntorial might be a better investment.

The review made some good points (e.g., lack of console undo is not great, there are some half-baked features) but overall I think the review was WAYYYY too harsh. He's also constantly saying "tons of other DAWs do (feature X) better" without mentioning any examples. He also doesn't seem to really know how to use CW all that well. For example, he bases his statement that crossfading two clips is a really hard thing to do on... the number of steps they use to describe it in the manual. If he were to have actually used the feature he would have realized that crossfading two clips is one of the easiest things you can do in CW: just drag the edge of one clip over the top of another. At least two other DAWs I've used require you to do that and then do some sort of keyboard shortcut to do the actual crossfade. CW, and, I think, Cubase are the only two DAWs I've seen that do it as easily as CW does. Anyway, the bakers should definitely take some useful feedback from the review, but let's not pretend it was balanced or objective.

So here’s my first and quite possibly last Light Theme for Cakewalk, as I much prefer dark themes I find it more difficult to make a light theme, so all I can do is hope the light theme likers like it cause I don’t, lol. Many greys and whites have been inspired by those of the metal ‘Titanium’, many colors have been used from my previous M-Lux Blue Theme except those I’ve had to change due to incompatibility with a light theme. Most other backgrounds, buttons, knobs etc are also from my previous theme but most with modification to match a light theme. Enjoy! (Hopefully) :~} Free Download Here.... M-Titanium Cakewalk Theme A combined total of around 150 hours, sometimes much more, goes in to creating each Theme I make, then there's more time spent to update them whenever BandLab makes changes or additions to the Cakewalk GUI to ensure any changed or new items display correctly and match the Theme, I also don't make all these Themes for myself, it's more of a hobby and to share the end results with the Cakewalk Community for their use and enjoyment at no charge, Any Tips/Donations via the following link for my time and efforts in creating and updating these are greatly appreciated, however small. Thank You! ❤️ https://www.paypal.me/MatthewJohnWhite

This is a quick mix (any suggestions?) on a song that defines the axiom "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" . . . Critiques sincerely appreciated: Youtube vid with a weird "audio visualizer" . . . or Soundcloud . . . many thanks for the listen! -Tom

That Simple Steel freebee is rather nice!

Thought we might of lost you at 999, that fear of round numbers thing. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting. ?

Thanks for the kind words and thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.?

Bjorn - your vocal on this one made me think of Elliott Smith - maybe it was the mood of the song as well. Anyway, I enjoyed the listen - so keep them coming. Cheers, Doug

Hey, glad you liked it. If you’re interested in this genre Andy Timmons is a real treat. Check out “Resolution.”

Great work again. Unorthodox in a good way

I bought 2 plugins for 25$ on a previous sale. Registered during the current sale and got a link for a free plugin!

From what I can gather, the clips are all stored in one file for performance reasons. Nowadays with faster HDD's and SSD's this isn't as much of an issue. I guess if you've got lots and lots of small clips, there could be a slight drop in performance as it'll have to have many more files open, but personally I've not noticed any difference.

I could imagine sitting on that beach gazing at a sky full of stars ... peace. Your song creates that image nicely. Thanks for sharing.?

Thanks for bringing it up, abacab. Gee, since I always tell installers not to install AAX plug-ins, I naively thought that I didn't have any installed! Turns out that's not any more reasonable than expecting not to find any newly-installed 32-bit plug-ins on my system. I clean those out about monthly. My haul of freed-up SSD space was 1.5G

Me too. Brauer Motion.

I enjoyed this. Very aptly named too: evocative, with the dancing synth parts sounding like twinkling stars, and the synth pad with the long-ish attack time sounding like waves breathing as they wash in and flow out. Good mix too. Thanks for sharing.

I believe the numbers are based on REC Takes. Each time you hit the record button to record an audio track, Cakewalk adds a number to the name. This helps identify the Audio clips location within the sequence of a track. For example you may have one track with 10 audio clips in it. Thus- Kick drum.1 / Kick drum.2 / Kick drum.3

Behringer produce different audio interface solutions (electronically). Some are more advanced (and so more expensive) then other. No mistake here. And common... the whole discussion remind me about "20Hz-20HZ headphones for $1". $40 interface is not the same as $60 (especially when produced by the same company), and it is not the same as $120, $200, $500, $700...

I loved the background music for Myst. It was almost as important and beautiful as the graphics.

Well the licensing's changed since you hung around, but the devs have remained and they've turned around. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

I hear a story behind this, a voice over ... sorta like 'War Of The Worlds'. I especially like the attention to detail in the mix everything works in harmony .. not an easy thing .so good on you ... Steve

Of course I wasn't, I knew you weren't.❤️? Please excuse the ranting of a NAIVE Californian. ? We get so easily triggered, y'know, oh my GAWD, my therapist says I need to set like, boundaries, y'know? And I'm like, that's so not easy for me, because y'know, my family of origin, nobody ever had any at all. So I've had to like, learn to make amends when I encroach on someone else's, y'know, and that so doesn't come naturally, my parents were too busy trying to catch the perfect wave or riding their mountain bikes to like, teach us anything about boundaries or making amends. ?

4.0.5 is pretty broken. Even by IK standards. The repeating MIDI note problem reproduces in Cubase easily. Just draw a bunch of 1/8 notes on the same key. It won't play them all when you play it back. Doesn't seem to matter what patch you use either, it's the engine not the samples.

I got a reply from IKM support and they asked me for screenshots or a video (obviously my detailed explanation was not enough). I just created a detailed video showing the issue. I showed the workflow using Sampletank 4.04 were the edited patch loaded successfully. I repeated the same workflow with Sampletank 4.05 (same patch and everything) and the error appeared. I am hoping this will be enough to get them to reproduce the issue and come up with a fix in the form of an update. Until this is resolved, I am staying with Sampletank 4.04

I don't think so. I hope I'm wrong, but I've asked this before. I wanted my tracks named the way *I* named them, but Cakewalk/sonar always adds those numbers at the end and as far as I know there's no way to stop it, so you'll likely be doing some cleaning one way or another even if just to get rid of those numbers at the end of the file name.

I liked this a lot. Was struggling to hear your vocals. Bring them to the front more.. dont be shy ?

Welcome back jw!!!! Yep things are mysteriously different yet the same. I Am feverishly trying to start recording again also. good luck and have fun!

Well, although I am a native Californian, I don't care for such sentiments. I don't support xenophobic philosophies and I'm not saying that you're accusing me of such. Just thought the bumper sticker was humorous. So hey, will the last person boarding this submarine please close the screen door behind them?

Police were silently working to MESH the luters with a mesmerizing drum beat

Reaktor might be a good buy, lots of interesting stuff in the user library. Or have a look at the U-he stuff, Diva is very nice.

I like the simplicity and your vocal stylings are uber authentic. In fact in a three part mix (rhythm guitar, lead guitar noodle, and vocal) I'd want this vocal mixed a bit more out in front. You might add a measure of silence to your song file, it starts immediately with a strum and old guys like me get all dyspeptic when that happens nice tune Bjorn! -Tom

Hi Bjorn, Love the ironic hook and breathy vocal. Thanks for sharing. Good Job! regards paul

This is a beautiful song Bjorn. It just radiates honesty and emotion. The lyrics are great and the performance does indeed complement and convey the honesty and emotion of the lyrics. Your vocals are perfectly suited for this song. Your love one must really appreciate this song. All-in-all, I would say that you did one terrific job on this number.

Great Song, awesome sound.

Sounds a lot like my modus operandi. ?JB

Are there more virtual drummers plugins than EQs now?

Nah.

I find the best way to do this is to change the clip envelope - I know it sounds like using an envelope, but it doesn't actually involve drawing one. If you change the filter on the clip to Clip Gain, then hold the CTRL key down, you can move the volume up and down for the clip. As this just affects the clip, you're still free to use volume automation for the track independently: You can of course do this with the track volume as well, but this will be overridden by any fader changes or track volume automation.