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36 minutes ago, Glenn Stanton said:

you can route directly to the hardware outputs (which is what is seems like you're original project settings were). however, if adding a master bus changed things - you might need to check that all tracks AND all SENDS etc and all BUSSES are also going to the master buss. otherwise you may be missing tracks, effects, etc etc which are currently routed to the hardware and the results are now a skewed output.

Thanks Glenn. Yeah I'm routed directly to the hardware outputs. I'll take your advice and re check everything is going to the master bus. 

20 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

Two points:

1. Having a master bus is not a  technical requirement. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have one.

2. A bus alone will not change the sound of your mix. A bus with no gain and no fx will be completely transparent. You can route that bus into another bus into another bus and the sound will not change.

Normally, a master bus is where the mix is brought up to desired levels. That implies that levels going into the bus are lower than the ultimate target. Take a look at your bus meters; they should be well below 0 dB, preferably around -12 but no higher than -6. If not, lower every track until it is.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah there is at least -6 of headroom left for the mastering process. 

25 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Of course one could output directly to your audio interface but you will not have proper control over your level.  The master bus is where you always will need a limiter to catch peaks. Or the opposite would be your tracks are too quiet compared to the rest of the world. My method demonstrated here is very basic mastering just to get newbies started. Mastering is a process one cannot ignore it’s importance and fake it. 
 

Always mute your master bus to make sure all buses and tracks are correctly assigned 

Thanks for the reply John but I'm not mastering in in cakewalk just exporting the final mix with enough headroom to be mastered. I will still check out the videos Bob 

Thanks for the reply. I just checked and there are no effects on in Pro - channel or the FX rack.  I created a new master bus with the same result mix seems squashed and not as open sounding. 

If deleting the master bus sounds better and is not absolutely essential then it seems like the way to go.  Bob 

edit: I'm not mastering in cakewalk so it doesn't seem like a big problem but I'm just curious if other users do it this way 

Hi I'm looking for some advice.. 

I'm working on a collaboration doing vocals. We have 20 - 30 songs nearly completed. My collaborator has been using cakewalk for 15 years but he has not created an master bus for any of the songs but the mixes sound amazing. 

I created a master bus and suddenly the mix sounds horrible and very different. (There are no plugins on the master bus I created) 

Question: Is this normal for cakewalk users? Is it absolutely necessary to create a master bus? Do you know what's going on here? 

Peace Bob 

Thanks ✌️ I know for next time. I spent a long time doing it one by one. 

1. It would be really cool to have a brush tool or more advanced draw tool to paint automation fee form a bit more fluently than it is already.  We could plug in a drawing tablet and paint with sounds have a sound pallet of different colours. We could choose a sound or FX for each colour and paint with it. 

2. I like to use cakewalk to cut beats and organise them randomly. (I Make heaps of beats that will fit the bpm and cut them together for 100 bpm track I will cut together in an 800 bpm project)

 It would be nice to be able to cut (spilt) more than one sound at a time. And to have a randomise button to randomly organise the sounds. 

3. Piano roll view. Don't get me wrong piano roll is near perfect but there is something about zooming and moving notes I cant flow fast enough my brain is always a few notes ahead. Piano roll in cakewalk needs to be better than FL studio. Do something bold with it.. could be so much better ✌️

Is it possible to delete all selected clip gain automation?  If I select all the clip automation it will only delete from one clip at a time...  Hope that makes sense.

Cheers Bob

(clip gain) Is it possible to change the overall volume of all clips to the same db without doing it one by one? (Hope that makes sense) 

Is there a quick way to routing all tracks to master bus without selecting them one at a time? 

cheers Bob 

Thanks for the suggestions I really appreciate it.  Unsure why the file is 3 GB. There doesn't seem like a way around this problem. At least I still have the audio so I can rebuild the song.  Cheers Bob 

Thanks for the reply John

 I do have previous versions of this project backed up.  Unfortunately for this recording session the original and back up are corrupt..

Here is the .cwp file  

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JmPRhsBTTFzRjPADkbKMh7vvHSIYxS_Y/view?usp=sharing

If anyone can open it and explain how they did it... I will be eternally grateful  

Cheers Bob 

I get an error message the file has been truncated / then another saying its damaged or not compatible with this version of cakewalk. I have tried safe mode it opens as a  blank project.  Any suggestions?  cheers bob                                                                          

Hardware Configuration

Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz ram 32.0 GB 64-bit operating system, Windows 10 Pro, RME fireface UC , Kurzweil Artis usb midi

it was created with Cakewalk By BandLab 27.01.0.098

the project was working perfectly until the Wednesday 22nd. I didn't do any updates at all for Windows or Cakewalk by Bandlab and the computer wasn't connected to the internet.

All the audio is saved in the audio folder correctly.