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The best DAW is/are the one(s) you're using at the moment. Unless someone voting has tried ALL the DAWs in the list and done a major compare and contrast, any results are ill-informed at best. What's more, it all depends on what you want the DAW to do. Some DAWs are better for mixing. Some for songwriting. Some for loops. Etc. etc. etc. I think most popularity contests are about clicks to improve SEO for the site sponsoring the "poll." Sorry to sound like I'm in a "kids get off my lawn" mode, but polls like this are meaningless. That said - go ahead and vote for Cakewalk!!! It deserves credit for making it through some very trying times. Personally, I'm not happy about being kicked to the curb, but that's in the past...and for me, doesn't detract from the program, Noel's dedication, Meng's foresight, or the wonderful community that has coalesced around it.

Some good buys here...especially with voucher! https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products.html

No, but now I have one......thanks!! Just kidding

JRR Shop $9.99 US. Use discount code "GROUP" at checkout for additional discount. https://www.jrrshop.com/air-music-tech-xpand-2

In a fred titled "Playing with this now", it's best to keep your helmet out of it.

Just received an email from T&S with a voucher so check your email for yours. Don't know if voucher codes are different per email but suspect they may be. Looking to get a TH-U expansion for around 6 GBP combining voucher with my loyalty points if it's allowed.

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=290&t=529757&start=410

All offers end October 24, 23:59 California Time/PT.

Thanks to you, I was able to upgrade from MPS 2.0 at an unbeatable price! Smooth transaction and quick transfer from Izotope. They even sent a Melodyne serial.

Feel free to vote for Cakewalk here!

Could be a good opportunity to turn people onto trying cakewalk and letting them know it's alive and well, if they didn't know already. I was on the fence about upgrading from a very old cubase until i found out about cakewalk being free now... so i figured "why not" and tried it out. Needless to say i didn't need to buy cubase haha.

Hey folks! As some of you may be aware, I have been making some Cakewalk tutorial videos for YouTube recently. As an aside I have working on a video chronicling the history of Cakewalk, from its inception in 1987, until its latest incarnation as CbB. I am gradually piecing together a time line of releases, but am lacking in some eye candy for the video! It would be greatly appreciated if any of you could help at all. I am particularly looking for: * Any disk images of early DOS versions (the earliest I have is V4 running in my virtual machine) * Any scans or photos of disk covers and associated paperwork. * Any scans of posters or adverts/magazine articles about the product. * Any fond memories! I know this is a huge ask, but if anyone could help, it would be great for the community to learn the full history of this awesome DAW. You can email me at creative.sauce.tube@gmail.com Thank you!

there's 20% off at the moment in the steinberg shop

If children will be the primary users, then closed-back headphones will be a must. Same goes for kids' musical instruments and handheld devices. They want to explore and that should be encouraged. But no point in subjecting your own ears to their experiments. You can get those cheap $29 cans that studios buy in bulk for handing out to drummers and bass players.

A 2.1 multimedia speaker system with a subwoofer will work well with the on-board audio just for playback. I use one for my laptop when I have it running at home, with a copy of my DAW software. I do use headphones when traveling, of course. I have an older version of the 2.1 multimedia system from Creative. It's definitely not studio quality, but as a consumer audio system, it gets the job done. This appears to be the latest offering... https://www.amazon.com/Creative-A250-Multimedia-Speaker-System/dp/B00CDJJZV6 https://us.creative.com/p/speakers/sbs-a250 https://www.pcgamer.com/best-computer-speakers/

Additionally MTurboDelayMB, a multiband version of the mighty MTurboDelay, has been released and is free for MTurboDelay users. A multiband version MTurboDelayMB is now included! How about using multiple of these super-powerful delays and process each part of the spectrum with a different one? Or perhaps one delay processing the transients and another processing the sustain? And well, nearly anything you can imagine!

so that's where he's got to 😂

Hey @Ron Harrell . When you select Lyrics view as Chuck described above, it will by default open in the multidock. Be aware that lyric view is track selection dependent. You need to make sure you have the track selected that contains the notes that will trigger the lyrics as the song plays - a single midi note for each word. Heres the process I use: 1. Write your song lyrics in a text file 2. Create an empty midi track. This will be used to trigger your lyrics. It does not matter what instrument it is assigned to (if any) as it will be muted. It does not matter what notes you play. Just the timing is used to scroll through the lyrics. 3. Record enable the track and start recording, and as the song plays, play a midi note for each word (exactly as they are written in your text file). Once done, this track can be muted. 4. With the midi track you just recorded selected, choose Views> Lyric View. A window filled with dashes (one for each note you played) will appear in the multi dock. Drag its tab out of the multidock so that the window is free floating. 5. Select all of the lyrics in your text document and copy them (Ctl>C) 6. Now select all of the dashes in your lyric view window and paste the lyrics in (Ctl>V). The dashes will be replaced with your lyrics. 7. Play back the song back and make sure that the highlighted lyrics are in time with your backing. You can now set the font and resize the window to suit your screen layout. You can have a larger font and smaller window, as the lyrics will be highlighted and scroll with the song on playback. I generally like to have 4 lines visible the full width of the screen, but this is entirely up to you. Arrange all of the project windows as you would like them to appear upon opening. MAKE SURE THAT YOUR LYRIC TRACK IS SELECTED. Lock the current screenset, then save the song. Hope that helps:)

Vocal Enhancer, G8 or Zip for $5 on top of the “everyman” voucher, not bad indeed.

I checked it out and it's a good alternative. It's worthwhile to see the walk-through video. I have 50 points and that translates to about $5, you must have like 600 points?!

@Noel Borthwick If last activated date is displayed in About Cakewalk window, we may be relieved. Like this... "Free- Activated by BandLab Assistant (2019/10/11)"

Nevermind... Seems formatting is a more apt discussion here, so I'll let someone else create a thread about that, and contribute to it 😛

Still don't know if i jump or not , i loked since a while budget for a controller ... waited this one to make decision , now the wya i see it it's not makie control or some , it's the same as C1 aka you need to insert their plugin : not fan Not fan also to have to deal with screen versus built in screens like the Avid artist , if S1 has Eucon i would have jumped , and if cubase would let ypu structure song with a way to overlapp audio clip and read overlapss easy i would have switched to cuabse and go eucon !!! small deteails , big impacts !!

Here's the updates. https://new.steinberg.net/wavelab/new-in-10/ I only have Elements, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of difference in the update here. I notice that the Help>Steinberg.help link still brings up the 9.5 help. Elements was £21 for the update (with the 20% discount). jdf

Nevermind...

Whether it's popular/relevant or not, I'm very thankful to Meng & Co. for not only rescuing Cakewalk from it's downfall, but regularly improving CbB. I do have a couple of other DAWS, but CbB is what I know best and can quickly get my musical noises recorded without hassle. Having regularly invested in Sonar since V3, it's extremely nice to have it for free.

The FM is kind of hard to read because it's just a PDF render of a CHM file that is great when it comes to navigation. OP probably would have been able to press F1 and get his answer if they hadn't unnecessarily removed the Context-Sensitive Help file from the installer.

My favorite Hammond emu has long been the original VB3 - not the more recent VB3-II, which is one of those products I alluded to that I elected not to write about. Sadly, the old VB3 is no longer available through legal channels. Its author needed to completely rewrite VB3 so it could be embedded into hardware units such as the Crumar Mojo (which I have). Along the way he left out something. Perhaps a call to the MakeHammondMagic() function. Arturia's B3-V is OK, adds some interesting modulation features and fx, but isn't particularly authentic with its baked-in distortion. Its Leslie emulation sounds good on slow rotation but its fast mode doesn't sound quite right. I got decent results by using other peoples' Leslie sims such as L'otary and MVintageRotary from Melda. GG Audio's Blue3 is a good value for, IIRC, a hundred bucks. The Leslie is just OK, but has the advantage of being a separate plugin, so you can throw it on a guitar or vocal if you like. The new UI is a big improvement over their previous synth-style interface. They seem determined to keep enhancing it until it's best-in-class. Even if not quite there yet, it's definitely in the same league with IKM's. IKM's B3-X is the first one I've used that gets both the organ and the Leslie right in the same package, sounds good clean or dirty, and gets the Leslie fast tremolo effect right.

I saved my default template for Cakewalk with the Master bus set initially to -6bB just for this reason, as I audition a lot of VSTi presets. I hate those loud surprises from many instruments. I suppose setting a limiter on the bus would work about the same.

His drums "Adam Monroes beats" is good sounding. I can recommend them. I went for the Tremelo and stumbled upon this. There was this style that i think was called 80's classic rock. It made me nostalgic. It was the perfect imitation of the sound from my youth.🤩

I bought the Behringer UM2 for my son's laptop. It works very nicely.

Have you checked the WayBackMachine at archive.org?

They sent that code to everyone for an extra $25 voucher, I think. None of the things on sale add to a custom bundle discount nor are discounted by a custom bundle discount. So you can't add 8 $9.99 plugins and a full priced plugin and get 60%. They closed the bundle discount loophole.

My DAW desktop has Win 10 Pro 1903 (with all current updates). The laptop, a Dell Inspiron 15, 5577 has Win 10 Home 1903 (with all current updates). The DAW desktop is an ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero Z170 motherboard with an i7 6700K (no overclocking) and 16GB of Corsair RAM. A Samsung EVO SSD. Resplendence Latency Mon shows no problems. I can run recording interfaces, reliably, at 64 samples. I use Windows Defender and Malwarebytes (paid version). There is no "garbage" in startup, only what is needed. Very "vanilla" system.

I loved serial/key registration but unfortunately, its a thing of the past. Software authorization has (and still is) moving in another direction than it was in the mid 2000's compared to now. More and more software is moving to online authorizing. Could be worse. Registered any Adobe products lately ?

Sure - minidump is attached. _10162019_124406.dmp

Nevermind...

160 was enough, no idea how did I collect them over time .

I agree this is a good pop tune. I listened in the car and found myself whistling the melody going back in the house. I do feel you need a little space transitioning from chorus one into verse two. But not the breakdowns you use later. Just a bar or two. Like you (and probably most CbB users) I rely heavily on midi to carry the tune; “humanizing” midi tracks is a huge challenge, and is what keeps many of our efforts at the “demo” level. I thought Hidden suggesting that this tune was “ready for the next level” was a big compliment. Tom

Turn the tracks down. I mean, yeah, turning the master down would do the job too, of course, and nothing is going to clip inside CbB's engine at all, but how you set up your gain affects how each plugin will react to things as well. If you hit a certain plugin too hard or soft, THAT may clip or might not have enough guts to hit the right threshold for it to make a difference, etc. If you're hitting your master too hot, start with your tracks. A pro-tip: CTRL+A will select all tracks, then while holding down the CTRL key, drag one of the volume sliders on any track - every track's volume will move with it. A nice quick and easy way to drop everything.

I generally resist the urge to comment on posts here, but sometimes the rest of the forum is so quiet, it's hard to resist. ;^) Ultimately these suggestions are intended primarily for the Bakers' eyes, but that doesn't mean other users aren't welcome to weigh in with their opinions about the value, necessity or implementation details of a suggested feature/change. It can happen (and has happened) that a suggestion gets accepted and implemented in a way that really screws up the workflow of long-time users, so they have right to register their concerns in advance. And, as you say, there appear to be many cases where a user isn't aware of an existing feature that offers most or all of what they want.

"Ugh, it's smelly, slimy, leathery skin is quite revolting" ... said the alligator😁

Cool! A poll where you don't have to register for spam, ah, I mean, register.

Oops, almost forgot. Yarrr...

Updating in not required but the software does need to connect to the BandLab server periodically to renew its activation. Keeping the software current is a good idea though and updating renews the activation too. That said, I like to keep at least the version I am currently running available after updating. I wrote a tool called Cakewalk Launchpad and one of its functions is the ability to switch between versions CbB. Before updating CbB, I make a copy of the existing install (keyboard shortcut K). After the update, I can switch between versions on demand. Currently a version of CbB is ~155MB so, keeping a couple of version online does not take much space.

@George Cowan Hey George, I cant really read the photo you posted because its a little grainy and too far away to make out anything legible. I suggest using IMGUR for showing pics that need a good focus. The upload function here is good for something's but not for detailed looking at larger photos. I wouldn't uninstall/reinstall. I would first try to rescan my plug ins. See what comes up with that and let me know. FYI- Also Tag me in your post, this way I will get a notification. I didn't even know you responded, I had to check this thread manually. To tag someone just use the @ symbol followed by the user name and then click on the user name from the drop down list. (like I did with your name in the heading of this comment). Best of luck Chuck

This is the kind of stuff I love and the way we all used to record our gems. Have to say it has overtones of early John Lennon and the guitar playing reminds me of 'Dear Prudence' .. I was a Tascam man myself from a two track reel to reel to a 4 track but still remember the day I purchased my ultimate recorder Tascam Midi studio 8track running at twice the speed of a normal cassette recorder ... I've rebuilt and repaired twice over the years 'cause it's so dam' good and I still have and use it ! This song cries out to be remixed ... thanks for the post really enjoyed the trip down mems street Steve

Well in studio one a chord track can a) be detected from audio (where the chords are unknown) b) be used to change the MIDI and Audio c) be used by collaborators to track to "project you give them)" In the case of b) you can enable all tracks (non-percussive of course) to all react to changes in the chord track. Is that slick or what?