John Vere

Using a DAW as a live effects processor requires that the audio and computer systems be top quality. Example  you would need something like an RME audio interface and the computer would need to be top shelf as well. $3,000-$ 4,000? 
This is the only known way to reduce system latency.

If you want live harmonies you can’t beat a TC voice live floor pedal. Way cheaper than an RME interface.  I have use mine for about 7 years now. It not only has all the different harmonies it also has all the vocal effects. You can save a patch for each song. 
I have the voice live Acoustic which is also my DI box and effects for my Acoustic Guitar. 
And it’s my sub mixer for my in ear monitors. 
 

As far as True Peak reading yes use the You Lean meter if you want a more accurate reading. 
If you read the info on the web site it explains why it is more accurate. I believe the term is sample accurate. 

I actually have ran tests and funny enough I’m just reviewing and testing Sonars Concrete Limiter. 

To test take a Brick wall limiter and set it at -1.0 db. Feed the track or bus a signal that goes over -1.0 db . Now put a bunch of analyzer plug ins after the limiter including the You Lean meter.
Observe that all the other analyzers are reading exactly -1.0 db as well as the Cakewalk meter. 
But the You Lean might show-0.9 db or even as low as -0.6 db if the limiter is garbage. 
Cakewalk/Sonar meters are actually as accurate as all those other Analyzers. Just not sensitive as the You Lean. 

It is actually one of the features we overlook.You’d be surprised that the majority of DAWS don’t have very good meters. 

@Annabelle  in a way starting now with Cakewalk by band lab might be a huge waste of your time. It would be like a car with an almost empty tank of gas.  I’m not sure if you are aware that it is soon to be discontinued and will stop working possibly by the end of this year if not sooner.
 They now have re named it back to Sonar and it is also no longer free. At this point in time we are just waiting to get the news of exactly what that will be .

But ya, pretty sure W7 is out of the question for the new Sonar. 

Have you ever looked into other DAWS that might support accessibility? 
 

With SSD drives it’s not the fact that it is full that matters. It’s how many times it’s been written to. They work very differently than spinning disks. 
I had a SSD drive slow way down on me and it was only 1/4 full. 
I tested it with the Samsung Magician and that revealed what was wrong. 
So plug ins them selves won’t cause an issue, most are very small files. but sample libraries don’t belong on a C drive. 
The drive that was acting up wa my Working Data drive for Cakewalk projects as well as Video editing and storage. That’s what killed it. As you are working the data is constantly being re written and updated. 
So my plan is to replace these drives once a year. The old drives become back up storage safe copies. 

I don’t think hiding

tracks would change anything. You have to remove the instrument or effects plug ins from the project completely.  
This is what safe mode allows you to do. 
It normally presents you with a list of the plug ins and you can choose what gets loaded and what doesn’t.

I might be wrong but I wonder what would happen if you totally remove the plug ins from your system.
Open Cakewalk , no project, open preferences and run the plug in scanner. 

Then open the plug in manager and make sure those plug ins are gone. 
Then try and open the project. 

I just built a new computer so lots of plug ins never got installed, I have better ones I’d rather use. But all those projects open just fine with a warning and list of missing plug ins. They show in brackets. 
The only ones that were crashing Cakewalk were 2 instruments from Air music. 
I had to open in safe mode to figure that out. 
I had to contact Air to remove the license from the old computer. But anyway, that’s the only time I ever had used safe mode. 

Are you opening directly from Windows explorer? To use Safe Mode you open the CWP file in Windows. You will defiantly see dialog boxes as it proceeds. 

On 4/9/2024 at 7:58 AM, John Vere said:

I’ll have to test the Sonar concrete limiter and see if it is as good as the Loud Max. 

I just did and it is actually even better. So now Sonar  includes 2 first class brick wall  limiters. 

I agree I’m surprised they never moved those 10 + page threads to the basement. I wonder how many people get that in joke? 
 

Hey Jack a heads up. Posting questions here is like the same as the song sub forum. This sub forum is strictly for people to post links to tutorials.

Your  question will be seen by way more people if you post in the appropriate forum which is the main forum or Q&A 

36 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Well That is encouraging Tom but their is NO mention of the timing for ending CWBL. If that was posted , that would be good!

Thanks for the link.

It was in another thread where he clearly said it would be happening shortly and to please be patient. 
You even posted there. 
It been the problem that the little tiny snippets of info are spread among 40 pages of painfully repetitive posts from everyone. 
 

The web site is sort of sketchy. I got an email telling me I needed to update my payment method? 
For the life of me it was impossible to figure out where on earth the place I should do this is? 
There was not really anything on my Bandlab page. The link to the membership stuff didn’t seem correct? It says something about donating to other musicians? What  musicians? I thought Bandlad was for Creators not real musicians. 

I finally returned to the hidden links on the Cakewalk by Bandlab / Sonar page and when I clicked the sign up for membership it says I’m already signed up?? 

This is why the last thing on earth I want is some sort of subscription like this!! Nothing worse than your credit card info sitting in a server on the wrong side of the planet!! Or is it in London?  

I’m just paying the monthly membership fee for now as Noel just said that it’s looking like only a few more  months .

And we were told a million times over that CbB will be kept going long enough to allow a smooth transition to Sonar. So it will be very doubtful they would disable it for a while yet.
My guess is Sonar release in June and CbB fading away by the Fall. If it all happens sooner all the better. 
I was even thinking I should just uninstall CbB but it’s doing no harm. 

then just install the latest free version of Cakewalk by Bandlab while it’s still available.
I don’t think they have been removed yet,  but DX is on shaky ground being unsupported. That’s why I’m trying to find a perfect replacement. 

Seems simple to me. Just install any version of Sonar or Cakewalk from the last 20? Years. 
I’ll agree about the Delay. It’s sort unique in that it has the tempo sync  and then very customized settings to basically get any type of delay possible. 
The closest I get to my favourite settings is Sanford delay a freebie. 

All that was needed was to bounce to clips. 
Bug? Limitation? Don’t know don’t care. I am just in the habit of cleaning up my projects by getting rid of unwanted tracks and bouncing messy ones to clip. Make things tidy and future proof. 

I guess it’s this

“ I don’t want to learn about the craft of audio engineering, I just want to push a button and get the same results a well trained engineer would get”! 

Achieving a balanced , dynamic mix as well as achieving a target LUFS involves listening and skill. 
All an AI based plug in can do is squash your mix to oblivion. 
It’s like those Izotope plug ins always make my mix sound way worse than I can by using my ears and knowing what to do to get what I want.
I’ve been mixing and mastering music for over 40 years and I’m still learning. 
Best new tool for me is the You Lean loudness meter. 
I’ll have to test the Sonar concrete limiter and see if it is as good as the Loud Max. 

7 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

TTS-1 is your best option for this-it has all the GM instruments. You definitely should have it. UNLESS you are talking about the NEW SONAR, it was removed!

Look at the screen shot. 

Generally if a plug in causes a issue then you move on to plug ins that don’t. 
I think this is a freebie right? 
There’s lots of free compressors that work. Check out the thread down below for 100,s of free compressors or watch this 

99% of the time this is caused by the Master bus being set to output “None”. Change it to you audio device. 
 

T30 GP. Isn’t there known issue lately with NI plug ins? Just a long shot. 
 

Troubleshooting 101

Swap out parts unit things work. 
 

Most VST instruments have a built in preview like a piano keyboard you can use to check the instruments are routed properly. 
If that doesn’t generate sound then check the routing. 
Do other tracks/ instruments  play? 
 

Sonobus. Exactly the tool for the job. Free! 
 

https://www.sonobus.net

What is cool is it’s both an App that can be installed on any computer or mobile device. It is also a VST plug in you put on the master bus. This uses you internet network to send the audio to any device anywhere in the house or the world.  Audio quality depends on bandwidth and settings.

I use it to send my mix to my cell phone the ultimate proofing device for a mix. 
 

Also unless you audio interfaces have Loopback I don’t think Cakewalk audio will be available to other apps 

There’s 100’s of free VST’s. 
https://youtu.be/LI040J9apwU?si=ZhOGpCsPCKhaZzh5

And you are yet another victim of thishttps://youtu.be/Zw-UqrMmF0A?si=ljby3CJGkm4T7D7l

Which can be fixed by this

https://youtu.be/kF3tEttGdIQ?si=Dvw93kfK3wD-645U

Nobody seems to think that removing the GM players both GS wavetable and TTS-1 within a few months of each other was a big deal but it is. Cakewalk was considered the king / queen of midi and this was one of the big reasons. 
I believe there was uncountable users who created music using those 2 players who were totally unaware of alternatives. 
You want to make a good first impression with your DAW? Include a great sounding default player. Example Mixcraft, Cubase. Bad example S1. 

They really need to remove those old web pages. It’s always caused confusion and it will just become worse. 

21 minutes ago, Len van den berg said:

It looks like none of these videos are available anymore. Such a pity. Cakewalk just freezes when I arm the track to start recording using my new Mtrack Solo. I can hear the music during playback only but at soon as I arm a track for recording and hit that record button nothing happens - it just sits...

That’s because this is an old thread and I deleted all my videos a year ago for various technical reasons. I have since updated some of them and I updated the links just now this is the playlist 

Instead of destructive editing by applying the process/ gain it is better practice to use the track gain or clip gain first. I will only use process gain on material that is out of the range of those tools. 
 

But that said I’ve never had an issue with processing/ gain or normalization.