John Vere

What does 5 Hz sound like at 140 db? I guess nothing can reproduce it!

And don’t except to much from free plugins. In my tests the best free piano was Addictive Keys. It’s just missing the lowest and highest octaves no big deal for rock and roll. You have to sign up at XLN and install the product manager. You also get a set of Addictive Drums missing the Tom’s. The TTS-1 piano sounds better that a lot of the free ones. Even though I have it already I hope they bring back True Pianos.

Lots of things to consider. First You need to learn your monitoring system or purchase ones you trust. If you use monitoring that results in your mix sounding incorrect on all other systems then it needs replacement or adjustments using software you can purchase. Example I’ve used my Yamaha NSM 10’s since 1995. I’ve used them in dozens of different spaces from terrible to properly treated rooms. My mixes will always be within the ballpark of accurate. Same goes for my very old set of headphones. The foam is falling off but I’m reluctant to replace them. I have about 10 others. But then I will proof my mixes on as many systems as I can. My favourite is a cheap mono Bluetooth speaker that is easy to play exported mixes through Media Player even with Sonar still running. There’s also SonoBus to send to my cell phone which I can use it’s built in speakers and a set of terrible Bluetooth headphones. All that at my desk. USB sticks are handy and work in the car and truck as well as my getting blaster in the kitchen. But my other question is why are you requiring a lot of EQ for your voice ? That makes me think you are using the wrong mike and signal path. My guess is you went and bought a Large diaphragm condenser mike and as you said you don’t have a treated room. Try a Beta 58. Best vocal mike for untreated rooms. My songs are all over the internet so listen to them . My vocals are done on a Beta 58 into various different interfaces and only EQ is hi pass at 100 hz. Only processing is a touch of compression and reverb, We all hate the sound of our own vocals so keep that in mind too.

It won’t be an issue as someday soon nobody will be using Cakewalk anymore. The questions about actually using it have pretty much dried up on this forum now. A good gauge of interest in it is reflected on my YouTube channel where only videos with Sonar in title are being watched and very few views for the Cakewalk videos now. Why do you think Mike had to start a new channel. What will be confusing is people Googling for information about Sonar on the internet. And it doesn’t help that there’s still web pages offering to sell it that are for Sonar Platinum line up. Other than the topic of activation and purchase there’s no real difference in the actual use of the two versions.

Those settings for sure as well as it helps to use 48 as your sample rate. Videos all use 48.

The problem as I see it is probably very few people will bother reporting because its way to time consuming the way it is. I most certainly don’t. After I spent hours trying to troubleshoot the TTS-1 issues and submitted dozen or more dumpfiles. All I got back was open in safe mode??? Why. The projects were just fine. You just couldn’t insert TTS-1. I felt like whoever it was answering me didn’t get it! Shortly after they removed the TTS-1 anyway. This is the second crash I’ve had with Sonar. I submitted this one and last one with out the dump file asking what they excepted me to do? Never heard nothing so therefore my question. Is it all a waste of my time? Is the submission in the help menu going no where? Should I use the old method? I will look at the details of the dump file. I say Session Drummer because it’s the only thing in a brand new project. I hadn’t even saved it yet. I’ve been working Sonar hard for over a month and it’s been solid.

So I go to make a tutorial about Session drummer and it crashes Sonar. Fine, As a person who likes to help improve the product I use the help menu and " report a problem" and it opens up a form you fill in. Fine. Note this is very different from the contact support form on the web page. One of the questions is is this issue repeatable in CbB? Yes, No? How do I answer that? I don't have CbB installed. Why is it assuming I do? If you submit using the Contact support method, on the website you can directly attach the crash dump files to the form. The Help menu one asks for a "link" ?? So your software crashes, I go to the bother of trying to report it and now I not only have to dig around for the Crash dump I'm also expected to put it on Google drive and so on? This is almost as bad as trying to report issues with Cakewalk Next. I reported a bug which another member here verified was repeatable. I still see the bug 4 months later and my report on Discord has never been acknowledged. Bandlab- SUPPORT IS IMPORTANT! Put a little time into making it seamless and user friendly. So possibly the addition of the reporting method that is built into the Help menu needs a lot of work yet.

Johns lazy guy method. Activate Write Automation. Start playback and move the desired controller. This can even be an effect. Anything red is game. Stop play back and open the lane and manually draw the nodes. I prefer the automation is in a lane for clarity as well as then you can still edit the track.

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.

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

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.