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Raffle + Freebie (limited copies available) https://www.lootaudio.com/competition The first 1,500 entrants will receive their choice of free product: Cinemate, Fameboy, or Pipe Festival 2. There are 500 copies of each to give away. First Prize: Native Instruments S49 Keyboard Second prize: Roli Equator 2 Synth Third Prize: 3 x Soundiron products Runner up prizes include products from: Ben Osterhouse, Audiothing, Karanyi Sounds, Sound Yeti, DJ Swivel, D16 Group, Synth Magic, Concept Samples, Ergo Kukke, 3 x £50 Gift Vouchers and more!

Yep, I reckon this is a big part of it all. Mac has been so ingrained in the industry, the old myths about "you can't do music production work on a PC" is still being tossed around 25 years later. The amount of times that I've posted (for example) "my hard drive has finally given out" and I've been met with the "mate, get a Mac!" "Why? The hard drive would have died on a Mac too, why switch platforms?" ".... because.... .... uhhh ... Get a Mac!" conversation is staggering. I'm not anti-Mac by any stretch but my preferred platform is PC and I've found it every bit as stable if you choose the hardware well. As for professional, just from my own experience alone, the last 2 albums we've released have hit the top10 on the Aus ARIA charts, and the last one hit #1 on the indie label charts, all done entirely in Cakewalk, and I've worked exclusively on PC for the last couple of decades doing work for clients around the world. Not once has a client received a file from me and gone "what kind of computer did you record this on?" It's entirely a non-thing, except for the people believing the myth. Could CbB stand to have a couple of features from "pro" DAWs? Absolutely. Does CbB also have a crap-tonne of features they don't have? Definitely. And you can absolutely do professional, world-class work in CbB. That's all I care about.

I give. 70 processors for $50 bucks?? You got me... Now when will they add Comprexxor to Mixbox? It's obviously a glaring oversight.

Being the perfectionist that he is --- Lynn just sent me a revision to the mix based on comments by Mark and Tom. Yet again he made the first mix sound even better with this one. Thanks Lynn!!! This is deja vu all over again. I had another song that I have been fighting with for quite a while. I again turned to Lynn and he was kind enough to help. I sent him the lyrics, a draft mp3 of what I had done and a pile of wav files for each track (e.g., instrumentals, vocals, BGV's/harmonies, and even crowd noises). Lynn had the savvy and talent to take this mess clean it up and make something cogent out of it. He added a hot sax and dressed up the guitars so that they now sound good (especially that one panned R), and added to the BGV's/harmonies and banter of the intro. I know that the intro is long but I was trying to recreate a small venue atmosphere and a style that some of the old blues guys used to use. You know - introduce the band, introduce the featured guest, set up the song with a little banter, and make the call to order (e.g. are you ready)). Anyway I am glad that the song is finally done but I had fun doing it and I hope Lynn did also. Lynn - many thanks for lending your talent and immeasurable help for this song. I hope that this song gives you a bit of a giggle and maybe puts a smile on your face. As always comments, suggestions, crit.'s are very much appreciated. POOR BOY https://www.soundclick.com/artist/default.cfm?bandid=963481

Yes if you have full version of Kontakt ... lol

The music industry is full of people with biases. I doubt this was Korg’s policy but coming from someone in support who was a Mac user. The same thinking goes around in some educational institutions like Berklee unfortunately. I wonder what musicians would feel if a company told them that if they were a serious musician they would use a Gibson instead of a Fender lol.

I got Pipe Festival 2

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Why care? I'm not aware of anything that Roli makes that I consider "Professional". Cakewalk has been getting the job done for me since it came on floppy disks. I'm not going to be negative about other DAWs (I have owned and worked with several others) because they are all AWESOME. When I first started recording, cut and paste was done with a razor blade and Scotch Tape. All of the DAWs available today can do things that were impossible to do even in a million dollar facility back in the day. I like them all but am partial to Cakewalk; not because it's free but because it is most comfortable for me. I think the work that The Bakers have done with Cakewalk since it was acquired by Bandlab is remarkable. It gets better practically every day. So as long as the owner is happy and continues to distribute it I will keep using Cakewalk. And I will continue to not care how it is perceived by the "Professionals".

We have needed registration since the SONAR days. Nothing has changed. It allows us to know how many users we have and keep the software up to date. As of releases this year, activation is completely automatic and once you have signed in to your BandLab account (from within Cakewalk) there is no manual intervention required anymore. It should automatically refresh itself whenever needed without needing any user intervention or the need for BandLab assistant. Most other products require registration or worse, dongles. I think our system is as non intrusive as it gets for modern software. So I'm curious why you perceive this as being risky.

Cakewalk 2021.04 Update 1 Release Candidate [build 170] is now available! Please sanity check this. It contains several new fixes and improvements for recording. Thanks for your assistance so far in helping us make it a stable release. It will go live early next week.

Thanks for the next build I've changed it to default to 1 so it will be opt-in for now. I really don't see why this would make any difference unless some plugins are throwing thousands of exceptions. Its a bit of a shame since in general we want errors to be flagged otherwise they will never get fixed. I recommend running with level 7 for troubleshooting since that is the most strict. We are already finding many previously undetected plugin issues.

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Hi folks, I'm sorry if this has been asked before - couldn't locate a corresponding answer in the forum. Here is the issue: In the early days of Cakewalk, a *.mid file was an accurate representation of a *.wrk file. E. g. a program change at 1:03:180 in the *.wrk turned into a program change at 1:03:180 in the *.mid file. A cc7 volume at 1:03:190 translated into a cc7 volume at 1:03:190. Compare the *.wrk and the *.mid event list here - all events are identical in order and timing. Perfect. No headaches. At some point in time the algorithm was changed to "outsmart" the user during MIDI export ... 🙁 On my X2 a program change e.g. at 1:01:010 disappears to the track header as well as the first cc7. No longer in the event list, only visible in the inspector - so presumably shifted in time to 1:01:000 Compare Cake-003.png and Cake-004.png: the cc7 at 2:01:010 disappears from the event list, (presumably technically shifted to 1:01:000) That sucks. Why ? Because *.mid is the go-to format for live performances. That's where you clearly shouldn't mess with timings. For multitimbral hardware synths as well as for external hosts such as Cantabile or VSTHost and the like ... the timing of events matters. E. g. FIRST you load a performance, containing the overall setup, THEN you switch the synths contained in the performance to the desired sounds, THEN you set your volume, pan, reverb via cc, syx, THEN you start triggering notes ... Absolutely logical & works reliably when corresponding loading times are considered appropriately . This is achieved by setting all commands (program change, cc ..) in the correct order at the correct point in time of your file (e.g. extra setup measure). Unless ... your beloved DAW unnecessarily messes things up ... by overruling the user, shifting commands to time codes it thinks are "smart" ... That's unfortunately what the actual versions of Cakewalk do when you save to a *.mid file. The algorithm's outsmarting seems to become worse over time ... In the most recent Cakewalk version even a program change at the end of the song is deleted completely, if no other events are following. Compare Cake-005.png and Cake-006.png; not only the program change at the track start is removed from the event list, but the program change at the end, too. But there was a reason for that .. program change: at the end of the song you might want to switch your reverb unit to a "dry" program. It is a necessity in a live situation to turn off your reverb in between songs for normal communication. Another example: you might want to switch a synth to a program used in the next song ... So Cakewalk again and again overrules deliberate, thoughtful commands set by the user with what a lonesome programmer 😉 ... thinks is smart - but really isn't. Hence the question: how can I gain control over my work & decisions again and switch the unwanted, destructive outsmarting off ? As a workaround you can outsmart the sequencer's outsmarting by inserting additional cc and program changes - but this double-double-crossing is ... annoying extra work & testing. I'd rather have the best DAW ever not acting like a smartass and I'd rather not fight with it over artificial changes ... Any hidden knowledge out there ? Maybe TTSSEQ.INI ? Thanks a lot for any replies addressing a technical solution.

I chose Pipe Festival and really like it. Some of the patches sound very close to the pipe organ at my former church.

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When I worked with Gibson, I had access to MI Sales Trak, which showed what software was selling at retail. It didn't give total/cumulative numbers, but monthly sales figures. It would have been a major faux pas to reveal any of that data, but suffice it to say there was a period of time where Cakewalk was doing quite well. These days, the data is not as relevant since so much software is sold online. As to Sound on Sound, they stopped running my column because they had done a reader survey, which showed Cakewalk users were a small percentage of their readership. Magazine space is a finite resource, so Cakewalk was dropped. Another magazine said they were interested in my doing Cakewalk-related articles, and I proposed doing either text, videos, or some combination thereof - whatever worked for them. They said in early March they'd get back to me ASAP, but I never heard back. I also checked whether BandLab would be interested in selling my over 400-page eBook of Cakewalk tips, but there wasn't any interest there, either. So I've given up on trying to spread the word through other outlets. When I have something Cakewalk-related that's worth posting, I put it on craiganderton.org. There are currently four Cakewalk-specific articles, but also, several more general articles based on Cakewalk (e.g., about ripple editing, loops, etc.). Unfortunately, the Cakewalk-specific articles are close to the bottom of the most-read list, which doesn't give me a lot of incentive to write more, especially because I can't monetize the time put into them (the site is free). The irony, of course, is that Cakewalk is better than it's ever been. If it ever deserved attention, it would be now.

Works fine for me but I won't waste your time with my unverified guesswork as to why!

We you running with 5 earlier or 7? If so your crashes were real, we’re just the messenger reporting them. If you don’t want messages and prefer to potentially crash silently and randomly set it to 1

MacOS is simple and intuitive and audio traditionally was given a focus so things “just worked” out of the box for end users without twiddling. Most musicians want to make music not spend time fiddling with their systems. Also Apple from the get go were “pro creators” even way back in the 80’s, a mantra that only picked up on much much later with the Surface line of products. This is the real reason for the stigma that Windows has dating back from the 80’s. It was not taken seriously by music professionals, because Microsoft didn’t market Windows to them at all or even try to make it better for musicians. Old habits and biases die hard in the music community even more than other industries, because a lot of it goes around by word of mouth leading to a herd mentality more prevalent than in other industries that are more merit driven.

Sure but only a tiny fraction of users are offline permanently. And we have a solution in place for them called offline activation. As for requiring bi annual activation here is the reason from the activation FAQ. Its not unusual at all to require the version to be updated occasionally. Otherwise we are inundated with support requests from people running outdated versions. We can only offer efficient support for the latest version since we are constantly fixing issues. Why is activation required? Activation ensures that you are running genuine Cakewalk software obtained from our servers and that you have a current version of CbB is actively supported by us. Running an updated version ensures a better user experience by getting the latest features and fixes to the software. Additionally back end changes to the BandLab cloud may periodically require the software to be updated to remain compatible.

This is only true if your system is always online, not for offline usage! On the other hand I do NOT have any objection doing offline activation with the Bandlab Assistent, so far it works witout any issues and is no big deal! 👍 It is even not necessary to update the Assistant on the online computer! I agree, but it is not necessary to do it repeatedly as long as you keep the same pc system. Dongles have the advantage that they are not bound to the system, but with CbB this is no problem as there is no limitation.

I agree with you that it is somehow strange! Also, I can approve that in most other industries Windows is taken seriously. The only thing to come to mind as a reason is that in most of those other industries there are professional IT guys that handle the Windows desktops and they prevent Microsoft to undermine the system stability with their permanent updates! On the other side most professional and hobbiest music studios can't afford having permanent ITs to handle Windows. As a result the permanent Microsoft updates create a lot of hassle. I've seen this myself! I have least trouble with my offline DAW that still has Windows 10 Pro 1909 ! I really don't understand and agree to forcing software updates, except for things like Windows Defender!

Just submit your Name and Email and subscribe to the newsletters https://www.spitfireaudio.com/everything

It's free over on Audiority's site too. 😎 https://www.audiority.com/shop/l12x-solid-state-amplifier/

Troublemaker.

Available here https://www.blender.org/download/lts/ BTW..it's free...it's 3D Rendering Software for those who are unaware LTS stands for "Long Term Support"

Freddy and Lynn , That was utterly Fantastic! That was quite an intro .. I always liked playing with someone who could work a crowd and this sounds like a Real "live" bar performance. My wife was a managing partner at a boat harbor restaurant/bar that had live music on the weekends. Closing my eyes and listening I almost felt like I was in the room. I think if you Really want to go with the "live" feel , the guitar panning should be a little more conservative. There's just not that much separation on a stage. I think some high mids on the vocals would also be helpful and a few timing tweeks on the left guitar. I hope you don't think I'm getting too picky , but I think you can get a Stellar song out of this . Very impressive ! I believe you guys Really got it together on this one.. mark

From Pete's Post above... For some context MixBox at $50 is based on the sale which is only on the Crossgrade plus a previous customer loyalty coupon (so basically a deal for existing/loyal customers stacked) based on this: "Customers that have purchased at least 5 T-RackS processors, T-RackS 5, T-RackS 5 SE, T-RackS 5 Deluxe, T-RackS 5 MAX, Total Studio 2 MAX, iLoud Micro Monitor, iLoud MTM, & Lurssen Mastering Console will get an additional $/€ 50 automatic coupon applied at checkout"

Cakewalk by Bandlab Early Release 2021.4 update 1 has been updated to build 170. Remember this is not the public release. This is a release candidate.

When the message you quoted was posted, that was not included yet.

Cakewalk 2021.04 Update 1 Release Candidate [build 170] is now available! Please sanity check this. It contains several new fixes and improvements for recording. Thanks for your assistance so far in helping us make it a stable release. It will go live early next week.

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I’ve used Cakewalk since the mid nineties (Cakewalk 7 when it was just a MIDI sequencer without audio recording) and it’s been my experience that for whatever reason, its always had an image problem and recognition as a top line DAW. Gibson put the final nail in the reputation coffin by the way it managed the product and despite the excellent development by Bandlab and that it can easily hold its own against all comers today, (as it could in the past pre Gibson days too) now it needs to combat the additional stigma of being a free program with all the implications that that baggage adds to its reputation. Were it open source as well as free, I think it would take on a much broader appeal. At one time or another I’ve owned every DAW available on the Windows platform (except SaDie) and Cakewalk has been the equal of any of them. Sure on a feature by feature basis there’s always something another DAW has that seems to be the most desirable feature at the time but generally speaking Cakewalk has always been the business. Apple’s dominance (or at least the perception of it) in the Professional Multi media space has hurt Cakewalk’s standing due to its PC only position and despite the calls to add Apple compatibility, its just never been feasible either financially or technically (It would need to be rewritten from the ground up for Apple). The DAW market just isn’t big enough to generate the sort of income that could recover the investment. A few years back one of our prominent users who now prefers Studio One, wrote extensively on the subject of DAW sales and its not the vast pool of wealth we might imagine. He didn’t publish any confidential info as he was no doubt bound by non-disclosure agreements but nonetheless his message was clear. The DAW market is just this tiny corner in the vast ocean that is the music/entertainment industry. At this point in time Meng’s vision for Cakewalk and how it’s tied to Bandlab removes any likelihood of it becoming cross platform, nor do I think it needs to. It obviously fulfils his need and how he purposes it to be now and how it will be going into the future. For now be glad that such a remarkably capable DAW continues to be free yet developed extensively and continually by a dedicated team some of whom can claim decades of working with Cakewalk’s code.

From my correspondence with uJam, the reasoning for it was that Cakewalk is Windows only. Period.

Guitar instrumental The new version my original tune from 2007

Sadly you are right!

Same question I ask myself for every piano and drum library I buy! But I do love the sound of felt pianos and this one is different. I have really enjoyed the libraries that Jon Meyer has generously given away free.

Leaving it on doesn't automatically help us. Its up to you to follow up and report the issues or contact the vendors concerned.

melda make some good stuff. i like how stable it is. you can also get MTurboEQ for free from ADSR if you buy something. cheap.

now i see.there are a few voice samples here and there in that song to make it more party like.jack c.

Pro Studios will have both PC and Mac machines. They also have to keep the machines loaded with most of the popular Daw's including Cakewalk. Sure the mega studios are different but who really cares what they are doing, that's another world outside most peoples dreams. I'm taking about the 1,000's of working studios which are trying to survive in this DIY market. Lately I've run across more interviews with the people running these studios and they do mention using Cakewalk from time to time. Of course Studio 1 has become sort of the standard, and most people might use Pro Tools but it's rare you'll hear them say it's there favorite DAW. Musicians are starting albums at home and then they pay the studio for certain parts like drum tracking or vocals or mix down. Gone are the days of albums being recorded live in a proper studio. Very few will be done that way these days. These musicians are just like us and they eventually try all the daws and some might settle on Cakewalk. It's not much talked about in interviews with the bands because why would the fans care. And you still will see lists of the 10 most popular DAW's and Cakewalk isn't on that list but the internet has more way more false information than it has facts. And ya Cakewalk is free and therefor has no advertising budget and therefor you won't see it reviewed by the magazines.

Of course. And a hammer. Or a large rock.

Nice sound from the demos.

How is Cakewalk by BandLab free? What is the BandLab business model? What is the difference between Cakewalk and BandLab? Is Cakewalk by BandLab any good? These are questions I am asked quite frequently, and in this video I am going to answer them all!

Sound On Sound goes out of its way to NOT mention Cakewalk these days. There's no money in Free, I guess

ECHOCHAMBER - THE HELL I LIVE

One more good argument in favor of using standard English when communicating with people you don't know well.