Mad Musicologist

Thankx, Jackson White, for your reply. I will check soonest. Since I needed to finish the track in progress, I did a rather awful thing: I muted the Kick[BFD3 out]channel and inserted "Session Drummer", only for the kick. It worked well after some tweaks. But, since I do not wish to repeat that procedure, I shall check to have a more elegant and professional solution.

Coming in again for the same topic. Using BFD3 as VSTi in Cakewalk Sonar, I wish to process the drum tracks not as a full mix output for cakewalk, but I wish to process each BFD3 output "solo". So I have kick, snare, and hihat as mono channels in BFD3, Toms, cymbals and percussion as stereo channels. I get 6 outputs. In Sonar, I have correspondingly 6 instrument tracks "Perc.", Cymb.", "Toms", "Hihat", Snare", and "Kick". My trouble now is it seems I mixed something completely up: I can solo each channel and hear it clearly, but at a quite low level. However, when I solo "Kick", I have them all, and some sound heavily distorted, overdriven, and all the EQ settings which are ideal for the kick make things bad for the rest. And, I cannot use sidechain compression for kick ==> bass. In the complete mix, I actually do not hera very much of the drumset. I turned off "bleed" in each and every single piece of my BFD3-kit.

Hi there. Is there any player on VST instrument basis that can be used universally? For Garritan I need Aria. For NI I need at least Kontakt player. There are the built-in sounds of Dimension pro. Sometimes it's possible to open some instruments from the Dimension Pro Library in Aria. But Aria is not fully functional, not reliable to full extent. This brings me to the idea there could be a universal VST instrument that works like a browser which "translates" the files for ARIA and those for NI and, and, and, to "it's own language" so all the libraries were accessible through that one player. (I think more than the usual 16 channels aren't possible anyway before reforming and expanding MIDI standards.) Any suggestions? Or is my question a suggestion for the ingenious developpiong team @ Bandlab / Sonar? (There might be some people shouting about copyrights. But hey, all those players are available for free anyway.)

Wow, thanks a lot. I have the chance to check this...

That Vocoder thing might be interesting, User 905133, please, could you kindly furnish some details where to look and click? Sorry to read you are being harrassed by Tinnitus. That's really an annoyance.

Hello HIBI, first of all, I have changed to the original project and made all the adjustments there, deleting the old busses, creating new ones (without "send"), and all works fine. Thank you so much for your help and advice! As for that demo project, it always crashes, but I finally had saved the BFD preset with "no Fx" in the channel where the clippings occurred. So when I reopened my original project, BFD "had learned" what I was up to, and there are no more crashes. I shall delete the demo file, and send the crash logs to FXpansion support - although I know that's a tedious process. But they need to know on behalf of other users. Ok, I could have done that "repairing" of my preset in the standalone version, but I had believed it was more practical to do that in a Cakewalk project, because I could go on experimenting after correcting the preset. Anyway. It works well now, and I am happy again.

Hi again, HIBI. I deleted the old busses and created new ones, and saved the changes. So far so good. In search for the clipping youl told me of I found there were some fx inside BFD3 which I had to switch off . Trying to save the changes of that preset, BFD crashed and caused Sonar to crash as well. After 4rth relaunch I at least could save those internal Fx be switched off. But when I tried to set the snare track to "no fx", everything crashed again before I had a chance to save the new preset. Maybe I forst should try and save the kit, and then save the preset? I guess I will have to harrass BFD about that crash issue. It should be possible to set a track from "Fx" to "no Fx" without having a mess all around.

Ok, got it working now. It is a phantastic instrument. Very different colors available. But I also had to do the registry trick. Now there has been another very nice instrument in Sonar X3 studio, that was the "dreamstation". Alas, only in 32 bit. How I wish they'd give that a rebirth in 64 bit version. It was a very handy application with a lot of modulation and filtering options.

Thanks, tried this, but did not find rgc pentagon in the list. If I had to reinstall Sonar x3 to have that, I think there should be easier options to get it.

Hi HIBI, thanks for answering my p.m. As you suggested, here's a demo I excerpted from my troublesome project, concentrating on BFD3 and TTS-1. Interesting is, that with TTS-1 I do not have the channel loudness issue that I keep having with BFD3. In the demo file, I have soloed the snare which has the channeling I actually wish to use. If you unsolo it, you will hear that there is virtually no snare in the track audible, while other parts coming from BFD3 are well audible. And by this you will see my trouble. ("You" meaning anyone who uses BFD3, of course.) BFD3_TTS1 Demo.cwp

That looks fine, but where do I get the download from, please? I do not recall having such a file in my PC.

Hi dear all, in "good old times" Cakewalk (not yet by Bandlab) used to have a fine softsynth called "Pentagon", which could create a lot of nice timbres which I had to search for endlessly with more recent synths. What I am up to, there's a (historic) description of that thing: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/pentagon_i_by_cakewalk Does anyone know: Is that still somewhere available after the Cakewalk (by Gibson) store had been closed? Or any recommendation which could replace that thing? Thankx. Not that I would want to say the times of Cakewalk @ Bandlab were bad ones - ! 😉

Ok, another round of futile checks. Sorry. I get the single BFD3 outputs in Sonar: Kick, Snare, Hihat, Cymbals, Toms... But very faintly, when soloed. If all tracks are unsoloed, the only BFD3 instrument that's working is the kick. The others - I almost do not hear them. When I solo the snare, I hear it, and in the channel "BFD snare" the meters show it's totally overclipping at + 21 dB and more. But whatever I try BFD Snare to "Out BFD snare", or to BFD master, even out to the soundcard out: I almost hear nothing. But the meters say in peaks something around - 2 dB. For that level, the snare is way too soft. Trying out the setup I initilly want: BFD _Snare --> out BFD snare --> BFD Master --> Master preview --> Master, I get following levels (in dB): 22 --> -1,8 --> -13 --> -26,8 - 33,9. But the slide controls are at -3,0 --> 0 --> -1,3 --> -2,9 --> -2,9 Where do all the signals go? Yes, I've taken out all fx, really all. (Only the sidechain kick - > Bass I maintained: having everything unsoloed, that is the only drum track I hear.) But there are no compressors, no reverbs, delay... in the snare console. As if something would "eat away" 3/4 of the signal. At least the kick doesn't "bleed" in the snare track now. C'mon, folks, I am still stuck here. Noone in for another hint where to look for erroneous setup? Pleazzzz.

Yes, that worked, but the result of my efforts I had described yesterday. I shall try all your suggestions from your previous post tonight, if possible. But thank you anyway for encouraging me to keep going.

Well what wil happen if I disable bleed? I have been looking up for threads that also deal with BFD3 and Sonar and found this one: http://forum.cakewalk.com/Export-BFD3-to-separate-tracks-sounds-fuzzy-m3550010.aspx and in the same source, another one entitled BFD3 - separate track outputs. I still have to work through them... For me it's clear that the mistake in the setup is mine, but I have to find it. I'll keep you informed here, for further users encountering the same issue. _ _ _ _ Some hours later: I'm not sure anymore that the issue is inside BFD. But I think it must be in Cakewalks routing. Whatever I try inside BFD about changing channels, it does not change the BFD output. Even disabeling bleed: I solo the snare track, and hear the snares at very low level, together with some cymbals and the kick. Useless trying tonight, I am dead tired, and all the fruitless efforts discourage me. I feel like dumping the entire project and never use that setup again. Sorry....

Now it's getting signal, but I still hear all very faintly, also the kicks and cymbals, although I have only the snare soloed. Disabeling plugins on "out BFD Snare" bus C does not change anything really. I checked every plugin in the rows. Next evening I will check if there is something inside BFD going wrong, although I am re-checking that with every effort I start. Maybe I should even reload the affected kit parts. Thankx, though...

Thanks, Hibi, but that doesn't change much. The only way I get to hear the snare is when I route channel 17 to "Master". But doing so, I always also hear faintly the kicks, and the cymbals. Here's my newest setup-screenshot:

Thankx again, Mag Bass, I shall try now what you suggest: All the other stuff made problems worse. The drums are almost completely faded away, and if I solo for example the snare, I still hear the hihat, the kick... Something is really screwed up here. So I'll check now the thing with the stereo out in BFD. _ _ _ _ No, that doesn't change anything. Only when I rout all the drum channels stright to "Master", I get them right. But then I can't Fx them anymore.

Sorry for asking back. You mean I should have the Fx only in the busses, and not in the tracks? What exactly do you mean when saying, "I would disable these..." I intend to have some Fx exclusively for one track, and others in the busses, affecting the sounds of more instruments (tracks).

Thanks, Noel, When I have unsoloed everything in this project, I do hear the snare very faintly, I can see levels, but when changing the volume of the track that doesn't change the loudness. But I shall see the other comments first now and check them out. At least I know that I do not have to change the bus name.

Thankx, MagBass, for following up. In my previous post you see the channel routing inside BFD. Here comes the narrowed Cakewalk channeling screenshot: Is it possible that Cakewalk dislikes me giving the bus name too similar to the source channel (BFD_snare vs. BFD Snare)?

Thankx for following up. Here my BFD screenshot re. internal routing. The other screenshot comes in the following reply.

Hi all, I'm puzzled again, trying to find what I am doing wrong for hours now. Using BFD Drums, I have routed inside BFD one mono out channel for the snare. I have the channel, called BFD_Snare in CbD, and when the snare is playing, I see there is activity. Now for mixing with some Fx, I routed the BFD_Snare channel to a stereo bus which I called BFD Snare. this bus is being routed to a new bus I alled BFD_Master (I intend to get a smooth drum mix which I then route to the bus "Master Preview" where I can set some mastering fx before this bus goes to the last channel "Master" in which I only control that there is no clipping . Thought that was a nice plan, but I keep having trouble getting any signal into the bus BFD Snare. I do not see anything coming in there, and (of course) I do not hear anything. I checked all the routings again and again, and when I changed the BFD_Snare out routing to BFD_Master, I could hear my snare playing, when I changed back to the setting BFD_Snare out to BFD Snare there is silence again. And I can't find why the setting doesn't work. Help, please... Thankx.

Hi friends, somehow I'm stuck with using BFD3 drums with multiple outputs in Sonar for processing each part of the instrument with balanced loudness. However, all instruments of the set are sounding very low, at the same time the level shown in the meters is extremely too loud to process. So I don't know what am I overlooking in the instrument setup. Please give me some information how to get out of this. Thankx.

Thanks to all for answering. Meanwhile, the solution came when I had that notification "audio engine unexpectedly stopped" for the first time. There was a link to the help site, where I had found what you both recommend: increase buffer. And I located the plugin responsible. Is was the LB-EQ. Indeed, it has a "lookout", but I hadn't activated that. It wasn't a great loss to the mix quality, since LB-EQ is fantastic for "even" mixes, like classics or jazz. For the dub sound with heavy bass, it is too nivellating, the bass loses punch dramatically - it might be I did not find out how to avoid this when using LB-EQ. Only one question @ CJ Jacobson: "You could also have the dropoutsec in your .ini file set to low" - you mean; too low, or should I change it to "low"? Anyway, I did not yet dare to change anything in the .ini file. So everything is ok so far, issue solved. Thankx again.