John Vere

I originally posted a few videos back in November but was asked the please remove them until it was officially released. All discussions were to be on Discord. So now it’s available I can post here just in case a few Cakewalk users were thinking about giving it a test drive .

The SI Drums are very limited and don’t have the option to re map sounds like most drum VST instruments do. For a good freebie that does try Steven Slate Drums.

Hey @Larry Jones. Good to see you here. I made the mistake of publishing my (real) music to DistroKid and when I go in there to see what is going on all I see is an overwhelming amount of non music dribble. Today’s music distribution system could care less about what is being “created “. As long as people are willing to hand over money to get it “out there”. Playing live gigs is still my only saviour from all that BS. I hope you are out there once again too. Last summer was one of my busiest gig seasons ever. I might even burn a few CD’s to sell for $5 each. That will be better than the $6 I got for 10,000 plays on all these so called streaming service.

I don’t understand why you unchecked that box. That basically will disable playback? So if it has a blend control then you simply put it near the middle to equally hear input and DAW playback mixed together. To get the exact mix you want you either move it a little to the left or the right. . I have at least 4 interfaces that work that way going all the way back to my 2007 M audio Fast Track pro.

When you use an audio interface direct monitoring that is exactly what the name implies. You will hear the inputs directly. Then the DAW playback come back and depending on the interfaces system and controls you mix the DAW playback in with the input signal. Every interface handles this differently and you will need to read the owner’s manual for proper instructions. Cakewalk’s level and pan controls have zero to do with input signals. Even if you have input echo on while tracking. I advise against using input echo and prefer to use direct monitoring if the interface has proper controls to use. Some don’t. The most common system is a blend control on the front panel. Some interfaces use a software mixer which I have grown to dislike. I prefer the hardware controls.

Don’t think that’s how things work. I think the process is a knowledgeable staff member would write the script. Then you hire a professional voice over narrator and then a professional video studio to do the screen capture and editing. My creations get the job done but they are far from professional. And even though I think I put a lot more work than most into making sure my script is as accurate as possible I seem to always make small mistakes. Even the most popular You Tuber has a lot of mistakes and outdated ways of doing things in his videos. That last one had some miss information that if they had taken the time to visit this forum then they would have been properly informed. This I why I’m hoping that Bandlab will spend the money to do it properly. But first they need to update the user guide.

If you get the one month membership like I did you will see in you activation status it is counting down. Mine says 21 days. It’s not clear to me about placing songs there. It calls them projects? And they show in your start screen of Next. I guess a lot of stuff created these days it would be a stretch to call it a song😬

Please don’t recommend interfaces with out doing a little research. There’s a good ASIO https://m-audio.com/products/browse/category/usb-audio-and-midi-interfaces. interface for only $50. It’s only down side is it’s only 16 bit and uses RCA outputs. Otherwise it is miles above the Behringer. Yes it’s all in the video. Focusrite interfaces are good but for the same money there are interfaces with a lot more features and often better pre amps. My top pick for 2x2 was the SSL-2 it’s usually even cheaper than the 2i2. But at the bottom of the price range that MAudio Solo is definitely what I’d choose. You cannot record audio in sync with out ASIO. End of story. Everything else is a waste of money and time.

I made detailed instructions on how to obtain it here

I wouldn’t personally by the whole year unless you want to take advantage of the other perks you get with the Bandlab membership. It’s now a music delivery service among other things . I’m going by the month for now until I make up my mind. There’s no need for a new forum or sub forum. Eventually there’ will be no more Cakewalk anyway. So we just carry on. This forum has always answered questions about any version people chose to use. Sonar is just the continuation. They had to start this forum because it was a new company taking over. Not sure if they will add a Next sub forum. Doubt anyone who used Cakewalk would lower their standards that much. It will probably stay on Discord out of harms way.

I must have done 30 cover tunes this way and I’d say it’s at least 80% successful for me. The few it screwed up on is only if the song has a breakdown in the middle or something weird. And yes Imagine has just that in a few spots but it takes less than a minute to find out if it works! So always worth a try. I kinda have a feeling that pause when he sings real hi definitely slows down. I know how to fix those spots but we will not burden our good friend Richard with those sort of details 😬 What has increased my success rate is first split the song into stems with Next. Then I drag just the drum track to the timeline.

No need for audio snap anymore. Just drag the song to the timeline and that instantly creates a tempo map. I do this daily just about. If it’s a multi track project use the drum or bass track. Choose the percussive setting.

Don’t think this is possible. You are asking for a huge change to how it presently works. Mix recall call can be applied to other projects by simply drag and dropping the mix scenes but the projects have to have identical layout for it to work. My understanding is it looks at each track and resets parameters and will even add or change( instruments ?) and effects to match the state the original track was in from the other project. So all tracks need to remain in the same order and contain similar data. Where I’ve used it most is live band recording we’re I have 15- 30 songs to mix. Get song 1 right and then apply that mix to the rest Brilliant. Change your mind on song #7. No problem save that mix and re apply to songs 1-6. Huge time saver. To use it on regular projects you need to create a project template and create your songs based on that. You would then be able to share mix recall with all projects that used that template. You can obviously have as many templates as you like, but it won’t work to share mix scenes between different templates.

I gave up on thinking I’d ever get any money out of my videos 2 years ago. I looked into what it takes and that’s a huge time suck. I could care less I’m retired. My only reason to make the videos was so I wouldn’t have keep re typing the same answers over and over here on this forum! I looked at what other tutorials were about and saw a lot of inaccuracies and old information. And talking heads that take 4 minutes just self promotion before you get to an actual lesson. If you remove the bs you can say the same things in half the time. But I guess talking heads are what works because if you search for Cakewalk Tutorials I’m on page 2 at the bottom. Last year when I saw this I deleted all my videos! 90 of them! It was thanks to the encouragement from my tiny group of followers I slowly brought them back. 500 subscribers ain’t much but on a local scale that’s actually a lot for someone like me. Making the videos is definitely a nice little hobby that keeps me alert. I like to support this forum and they are something I can easily make to help contribute. A small disappointment has been a lack of interest in them here on the forum. That’s ok. I’m a grumpy old guy and don’t expect anything from the punters. For me the ultimate reward has been that the process has had the side benefit of teaching me a lot more than I ordinarily would have learned about the software. Im really hoping Bandlab will hire a professional person to make proper Tutorials for Sonar now they will have the resources.

Which point to each individual will have a unique style. With out realizing it I ended up developing a way to play guitar on my own. I had figured out using power chords when I was 9 years old. I could play any song I listened to using those on the bottom 4 strings. As I progressed band mates showed my cowboy chords. Because I sing I never look at my neck or fingers. No need to sit in the dark. Just use a mike.😬 And other than power chords I never use full bar chords. I normally always have a bass player. I’ve tried the finger picking solo guitar thing and I suck at that style. Being a person who most of my life I played 50/50 acoustic and electric. But I never liked Dreadnought type acoustic guitars. I seek out shorter scale and smaller body’s. I had a Yamaha APX 7 for like 20 years. Sounds boring unless you plug it in which is what I always do anyways. My latest is a Epiphone L00-studio. It has a pretty decent acoustic sound so big step up from the Yamaha. It has a smaller body and shorter scale Length. Short scale solves the tension issues with out compromising anything else. I also use minimum of 52-11 gauge because lighter than that definitely looses tone. Other than bending notes a whole step I can play it like my electric.

I actually started a new Playlist For both Sonar and Next a while ago but had to take down the videos as requested because they didn’t want anything happening outside the beta testing. I put this first one out a few day ago just to show people how to get it. There’s actually nothing much else to say because nothing really changed.

The funny thing is I originally made the videos so I wouldn’t have to say the same old thing over and over for these kind of posts. Now I’m even getting tired of posting the videos over and over ! Just a grumpy old guy I guess. Hopefully Bandlab will now have the resources to provide proper professional tutorials for Sonar. Some software I’ve use has a set up tutorial built right in.

Note this is the last time I will post this video

It has to be pilot error or something about your projects is very different than normal. I can open any of mine even in Sonar 8.5. You get a warning about some things being different and there’s no pro channel but if it crashes you use safe mode. Opening a CbB project in Splat or even Home Studio works with out safe mode being needed. I was messing with all this a few weeks ago out of curiosity. Not sure why you wasting you time doing this anyway. As said CbB is expected to work for a while yet, might even be a long while. A few of us are campaigning to have a paid for license for the latest version just as an option. That would solve a lot of issues and stop the complaining. And Sonar will soon be marketed with different price points that will make it affordable for everyone.

He was dissing Cakewalk last spring after the announcement and started luring people to Studio One. I thought of him as a trader after that. But after all, being a you tuber is a business for guys like Mike.

I’m not sure where this thinking comes from but my personal view is we were screwed by Gibson who took our money and abandoned us. End of story? It could have been, but an absolutely amazing, unexpected thing happened. Bandlab bought the code from Gibson. Then 2 more things that didn’t have to happen but did were also announced. They kept the original staff and they rebranded the code with a recycled name and made it free. In a way both the Name and the staff made former Sonar people happy but it also creates this problem that somehow a few people think the staff were the same people who took their money and left the building. They were not. And keeping the name adds more confusion for some people. In my opinion they are repeating this mistake by recycling the Sonar name. This will be massively confusing on the internet search engine. Anyhow I see no reason why they should be obligated to cut a deal. As just because you gave your money to a company that screwed you and oddly is still in business doing fine they had zero to do with that. You got 7 years of your moneys worth for free! If Gibson had kept going you might have had lifetime updates but I bet by now they would have wormed their way out of that deal . And who knows how much Sonar would have advanced. We are all in good shape and once they sort out the graphics all will be better than it ever was.

I just thought of a perfect solution. Produce a FREE version of Cakewalk with adds that pop up every 5 minutes just like 90% of the free Apps and delivery services do. "Don't like these adds?, click here to purchase a licence to remove them" They might even make MORE money selling the adds than selling the basic version of Sonar which I predict a price of around $50 ( note: ONLY A PREDICTION not a fact)

I have CbB on 5 computers. 3 of them were updated the day the last version was put out, The other 2 are off line. I don’t see any warning on any of mine. But that doesn’t mean much. Im expecting a nag on the off line ones that still have September versions soon. All I know is we are told we must keep updated to the most recent version and to activate it you normally just click on the toast message which should open your Bandlab log in window. I’ve had times that the Log in screen didn’t appear for a while and I had to wait a few minutes then it worked. There’s also this new Cakewalk Product Manager but I haven’t figured out what it does just yet. I think it’s still a work in progress like just about everything else seems to be.

The step sequencer creates a groove clip. Only one, that’s the whole idea. You’ll see it has that angle upper right corner that signifies a groove clip. Grab left mouse and drag. Best to zoom way out so it goes faster. Then another option is I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of midi loops that came free that shows up in the browser. All those are always groove clips. Same with you can drag midi patterns fro SI drums. Of course I have a video about all that

Because I often have the same issue for these things it’s super quick to just use the step sequencer. That will easily create any drum machine type beat and then it is automatically a groove clip. I drag it out and then I bounce it to clip so it then can be edited. And don’t forget you can also use the metronome and change it to any sound. If you need it as part of the export you insert an Aux track and record the metronome that way. But a midi track is easy to use.