RICHARD HUTCHINS

I'm still confused , here's a screenshot. You can see the 4 measures of hi hat I've managed to create! I used the step sequencer as per Johns post a while back, but it seems to just do one bar, not sure where to go from there?

Thanks. Odd, I cant ever remember this being a problem in the past; anyway I looked and "loop construction" is greyed out?

Hi all, Okay I'm trying to add a hi hat track to my backing track as the karaoke version click track sounds awful. ( its a quiet ballad and i don't want it coming through the monitors and being heard by the audience) So I am trying to add a hi hat track using the CW SI drums. I can do 4 bars pressing alt 2 and hitting f sharp( hi hat) but i want to repeat this all the way through the song; but groove clip looping just doesn't work; I tried bounce to clip but still no joy. I know I'm doing something daft, clues please?

Okay I'll try those fixes thanks. Its a lot of hard work much harder than I thought, I prefer a band rehearsal to be honest! But until I find another Paul McCartney that's not looking likely!

Hi all, I hope this is the right place to add my comment, its an extension of the above so I guess so. Okay, so I'm progressing with using YouLean to adjust the LUFS on my backing tracks, with varying degrees of success. But my problem is , on some tracks, they are very quiet to start with, they downloaded like that I reckon, and need to be louder; so using the master gain I lift the volume, aiming for round -14 LUFS integrated. trouble is, this sometimes ends up on full gain, all the way to the right, and it starts distorting with clipping in the VUs. Is there a solution to this/ Am I doing something wrong?

Yes, thats the problem I'm wanting to avoid, the click needs to be on the right and it goes to the red lead and into a separate mixer channel, front of house output turned off, and monitor output turned up so we can hear the click but not the audience. so stereo when exporting seems to the answer. Thanks both for help!

Hi all Still a bit confused about this. I've got my backing tracks edited, LUFS sorted ( thanks all for that advice!) etc. Click track panned to the right, main track to left, splitter cable from my iPad can send click track to monitors, main track to front of house. But i still cant grasp the significance of exporting in stereo or mono? I exported in stereo ( CW default option) and it seems to work. Am I missing something or is this ok? Or is it ok either way?

Okay, I'll do that from now. Thanks.

Hi all, I'm using backing tracks downloaded from karaoke version, abd i am replacing the click track intro with hi hat as it sounds nicer. How do I match the bpm of the backing track and its click track to the SI hi hat? I can do this manually by moving the event but it takes a while. Does the bpm of the backing track need to be matched to the CW track or is there an easier way?

I'm getting there. Shortcut sorted. Now trying to get the LUFS readings roughly the same for each song. Checked a WAV against MP3 John and that's ok.

Thanks all will look at this later tonight

Thanks. I managed to install the plug in , using this path; c:\program files\steinberg\vstplugins\Youlean Loudness Meter 2.dll But how do I use a standalone version on my desktop? Cant seem to find an exe file for the shortcut, just a dll

Hi all, This was to an extent covered in my earlier post but I started a new thread because the earlier post covered lots of other things, and got a little side-tracked ( a good side-track though, loads of interesting and useful comments, many well over my technical knowledge but lots of stuff I learnt along the way). Anyhow I bought YouLoud to try and equalise the volume on my backing tracks for gigs. Its a great app but I've hit a few issues perhaps someone could enlighten me? Okay, this is how I use it; I mix the backing track stems in Cakewalk and then I open YouLoud in the Master, and adjust the gain to aim for around 14LUFS integrated. I export this as an MP3. But when I then drag the MP3 from desktop into the plugin ( still open in CW as a master plugin) the LUFS (integrated i.e. average for the track) are now in the 10s not 14s. Its got louder? Does the MP3 format change the way the loudness is set as opposed to the tracks in Cakewalk before they are exported? Am I doing it all wrong? I have till Friday!

Duly noted thanks I’ll look at this tomorrow!👍

Making the adjustments with the Master fader doesn't seem to alter the average LUFS on the meter at all?

"Adjust the levels" ok, do you mean the overall level on the master or ALL of the levels? The latter would be time consuming for 40 backing tracks.

Hi again, Finally got some time to look at this, and today I bought YouLean Loudness Meter. I have some VERY basic questions on using it, if anyone can help that would be great, as I have a gig next week and I am really short of time, so trawling for answers is a luxury I cant afford, it takes me forever to work things out as many of my posts will confirm ! Okay, I purchased the Pro Version on Johns advice. 1. How do I get a desktop shortcut? I loaded it into my Plugins and its there in CW but I cant seem to find and drag the exe file to my desktop. Reason for asking is I assume I can then drag the backing track MP3's onto it and check loudness levels. 2. If the tracks are all over the place in terms of relative loudness ( I know this to be likely) do I open the original tracks in CW and use the Master fader to adjust the overall loudness with the Youlean working as a plugin? And then re export them as MP3's? Rich

Happy Xmas everyone, I'd just like to thank every member who has over the year, taken their precious time out to answer my questions; most if not all of my queries were basic novice stuff, but the problems always stopped me moving on with my projects despite the solution being pretty simple. No one lost patience with my stupidity and many answers were comprehensive and educational. So thanks every one, and particularly John Vere for his comprehensive answers and greats videos,; I seem to spend much of my life on hold to vast call centres run by corporations who really don't give a Rat's A**se about me or my problems, as long as they get my money. But here on this forum, there's a different philosophy, and its very refreshing. And no, I haven't had a Christmas drink! ( Yet!) All the best and thanks again. Richie

Can I interject one of my reliably dumb questions John? Why not MP3's? Are you suggesting a WAV file instead due to the quality?

Sorted! As you suggested I opened the inspector and did a few right clicks until the tick box for looping was on. I'm really not sure what I did wrong, but that's nothing new, the main thing is I fixed it. Thanks again, saved me ages messing around.

I dont think so, I mean I right clicked and selected "groove clip looping" so yes its selected, but the edge of the clip doesn't change so I cant drag it outwards. . I've done this many times before with no trouble but tonight?.... this time it wont work. Obviously I am aware of the special hidden machine in Cakewalk that sits there with only one purpose, i.e. to drive me completely nuts every few weeks, but that aside I'm puzzled.

Okay, making headway but....Any idea why groove clip looping isn't working? With the helpful answers above, I managed to suss out how to record the drums ( hi hat replaces click track on backing tracks) but when I right click on groove clip looping, I cant drag the end of the clip along? The edge of the clip just doesn't want to change so I can drag it and repeat the hi hat thru the song.

In fact I just watched this John, most of it new to me and very useful. I've got things working now, I really just wanted to do a quick (!) hi hat intro to a backing track instead of a click, and eventually got what I needed. Thanks.

Thanks for responding all , John I will check this video out tonight.

also the VU is showing a signal when I hit a drum but nothing gets recorded..