Tezza

Not anymore, it was popular in the 90's and 2000's but today it struggles badly against the most popular DAW's, Alberton Live, FL studio, Logic, Pro tools, Studio One, etc there are many DAW's more popular than Cubase today and their forums are not choc a bloc full with the number and sort of problems being reported on the Steinberg forums for Cubase 10. Even the pro's using it in film and orchestral composition are not upgrading. Cubase 10 was quickly patched together to try to compete with the other DAW's marching forward, lots of bugs to get through there. Most people using Cubase today are throwbacks from a bygone era using version 7 or 8 because they bought it years ago when it was popular and never upgraded (I wonder why) or pirated it. They keep it on their computers as some sort of hilarious side show while they use an alternative more modern and easier to use DAW as their main DAW. That's great for you but the question arises if you are not using Cakewalk, why are you even on this forum, this is the Cakewalk forum. Well, since you don't even use the program, it's hardly surprising you don't know what support is like. I can tell you my experience. I sent a message to support and was surprised that a tech person called Mike quickly answered my concerns and we had a long conversation of quick emails that solved my problem and went a lot deeper into discussing the program and he was genuinely interested in my experience of using Cakewalk. In addition to the best support ever, I have encountered using a DAW, there is this fantastic forum that is an invaluable resource. And while I, as a non sonar Cakewalk user am getting a bit tired of a small minority of old Sonar users using this forum to gripe about some injustice years ago, in general this forum is great and extremely quick to respond. Perhaps you should post your disparaging comments about Cakewalk 2 years ago on the old Sonar forum where they belong. This forum and this Cakewalk program is not run by that company.

Welcome to the "extreme minority"......... https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=286 You guys are all on version 10 right?

If a Chinese hacker stole my Steinberg account, I would be dancing around the room, that is a pig of a DAW. Couldn't get it to work properly with my UR44, despite it coming with the UR44. No problems with the other DAW's at all. After 4 and a half hours and a number of non-answered questions still sitting on their forum 6 weeks later, I learned all I needed to know about the usability of their DAW and their customer support. Good riddance Cubase!

I agree with cactus, bass is lacking, there is no centrally placed bass, it seems to me the bass and kick drum more centrally placed will give more dynamics to the song. Both the bass and the kick drum are sinking into the instruments, fine if that's the sound you want but I think it might sound better separating the kick and bass drum from the instruments a bit more frequency wise. A more cutting kick and up the frequencies of the bass, so it can be heard. The stereo sound of the instruments is fine. I can't hear what your saying, I'd like to hear more passion and effort in the vocals to impart more feeling, more emphasis on the meaningful words. You probably need to put a bit more compression on the vocals to pull them up in the mix, use a longer attack time so the front of your vocal stands out. Not too much reverb, that will sink them back down. I don't think it's that bad at all, some nice sounds, a bit of work on the bass and vocals should polish it up nicely. Listening again, I think it is your enunciation or accent when you sing, the words are not separated enough I really cannot understand at all what you are saying. It gets better when you lift your voice, yes I can understand you easily in the higher range. Lastly, it needs a middle eight or something to lift it a bit more, I feel it is going somewhere but it doesn't quite break, you lift your voice later, perhaps too late.

I'm using the Nektar GX61 Impact with Cakewalk, used the download files for Sonar, no problem here it works as it should. You do have to make sure that the right midi outs are linked to the right transport/control functions and this is not easy to understand. I got it wrong way round at first which led to weird behavior, then just switched them around and all was ok.

Flatulus? wtf?

I just looked at the stats and sennheiser are saying that the isolation is the same for both (32db). This cant be right, there is a massive difference for me, I will have to check this out more. EDIT: I just checked the pads, on the 280 the pads are pretty new as the headphones are fairly new, about 2cm thick and very firm, my 380's that I've had for a while, and they have been a bit thrashed, the pads are 1-1.5cm, well worn and have the consistency of jelly, this could be an influencing factor in the difference of isolation. wont know until i get new pads.

I am talking about the 280's and 380's as tracking phones only, not for mixing, I wouldn't use either for mixing. Have you compared the isolation between the two? The 380's are shocking. If my TV is on, I put on the 380's and can still hear it very well but with less treble frequencies, the 280's cut out half the volume from the TV easily. Same as playing acoustic or electric guitar and recording. If I record playing the electric, I can still hear the raw string sound quite clearly on the 380's but the 280's cut it out quite a bit. You can't know what your recording if you can't separate the natural instrument sound from the recording sound you hear in your phones. The sound of my recordings has improved just by moving to the 280's. I can play some clean strat rhythm guitar and think it sounds full of flavor but what I am really hearing is the combination of the raw string sound leaking into the phones together with the recording sound in the phones. When I play it back it sounds dry. This is nowhere near as bad with the 280's because I hear much less of the strings leaking in and straight away I can hear the recording sound more predominantly. There's no way I could recommend the 380's for monitoring recordings and tracking for home musicians who are close to their instrument when recording, the isolation just isn't there. I would agree that perhaps the 380's might be better for mixing if you are into mixing on closed back phones but the bass is misleading for me, it doesn't duplicate to other systems at least I haven't been able to do that. Music sounds more 'alive' and sonically powerful on the 380's they are certainly better for listening to music and are really quite good for just listening. But for monitoring live recordings.....yuck!

I also have switched to the HD280 pro, from the HD380 pro so going "backwards", I found them to be good at isolation, they are in fact one of the best passive outside noise reducers you can get (32db), and this is noticeable. This is why they are so popular as tracking phones. If you want to hear poor isolation, listen to the HD380 pro's they are terrible, really, really bad. I also have glasses and have had no problems there at all and again, they are noted for being good for glasses wearers'. I also would not describe them as mid range heavy. Are we talking about the same headphones? I guess it depends what you compare them to or personal preferences. These are tracking headphones, they have great isolation compared to others, and the bass, mid and treble frequencies are about where they should be. There is a slight exaggeration of the extreme high frequencies, just slight, they are not anything like the ATH-M50's which are way too bass heavy to be good general purpose tracking phones. That is unless your not a vocalist and primarily a bass player or produce EDM or just like bass heavy phones. Music sounds better through the M50's though. I would recommend the HD280 for general purpose tracking phones, especially for vocalists, instrument players, the Sony 7506's are a bit jumbled in the mid frequencies. The HD280 might not be the best if you are prone to tinitus though. The only thing I don't like about them is the coiled cable. I convert them to straight cable. There are enough of them on the secondhand market going cheap now that it is a no brainer for the budget conscious to grab a pair. I don't like the AKG phones with the bird cage on top, creaks every time you move. I've not tried the Beyer 770's which are also supposed to be good, something put me off those, don't know what. I'd like to try the new ATH-M50X, see if it's anything like the old M50. I like the idea that the M50X has a choice of coiled or straight detachable cable and they may isolate better than the HD280 but I am not sure about that. The old M50 didn't suit my voice at all, when recording and using them for tracking, there were horrid bass resonant frequencies building up that were very off putting, also they don't go over your ears well. When miking up the acoustic and also listening to the electric, I got bass heavy interpretations of what I was recording that then sounded thin when I played them back on other sources. I had the same problem with the HD380's as well. For mixing, I have the Sennheiser 598's which are not that good really, I just want to get closer to the 650's, I don't know what to recommend for mixing phones since I don't really use them for mixing.

I don't buy from this company because they use stub installers, you have to both download and activate the product on the computer you are going to use it on. Since mine is not on the internet.....

I used Linux when I was building web pages, it's good for that. If I were building web pages again I would use it but that's all it's good for, internet surfing, mail and building web pages, as long as you have a printer with the option of Linux drivers. I wouldn't use it for photography, video editing or audio editing, too much stuffing about with limited options that always seem worse than windows software offerings.

I use the UR-44 with Cakewalk, don't have any problems, I have other DAW's as well, it works perfectly with all of them. The only DAW I couldn't get it to work with was Cubase, the DAW it came with! Good luck with Cubase, I spent about 4 hours trying to get it all to work properly but failed unfortunately so I ditched Cubase. I can't imagine what is going on in your situation, there really isn't much that can go wrong with a normal DAW (not Cubase). I cannot see anything in that small picture. If the DSP mixer is showing that audio from the inputs is present and you can hear that audio directly from the headphones or speakers then all is ok with the DSP mixer and direct monitoring. Double check that you have the audio going into input 1 and being received in Cakewalk on the left side of the first stereo pair which will be input number 1. There should be audio there ready to record. If you are using front inputs 3 and 4 (line) that will be the second stereo pair. so you will have to assign the left side of the stereo pair for 3 and the right for 4. Other than that I do not know what could be wrong. It must have something to do with the second ASIO driver you have on the system in some way or a faulty USB cable. What about if you use software monitoring, clicking the monitor icon for the track in Cakewalk and turning the DSP UR44 relevant channel all the way down, can you hear anything then?

Nice, Just started them, what I like is the clearly labelled video's, a bit like a video help file.

Thanks, you keep your samples on the recording drive? I was looking to keep samples OS and Applications on 1 drive and then recording/projects on the other. Thanks, I was looking at using 2 SSD's only.

Mattress(s) and a curtain with lots of pleats in front of them. Pin the mattress(s) to the wall, then hang a curtain rail from the ceiling and put the curtain up to hide the mattress's, that's what I would be doing. I don't think shelving will make any difference sound wise, it's still a hard reflective surface. Small square room with all hard reflective walls, one of them has to go just to get you started with improving the sound.

I am not surprised you are getting too much reverb, you will need to cover one of those walls as I outlined previously and then use the acoustic treatment as well to get rid of that. You said before, the vocals sounded boomy, now you say they sounded harsh? I would expect in that room with that equipment, the vocals would not be boomy, would pick up a fair few room reflections and consequently be thinner and harsher than normal. Your mic has 3 settings to control bass roll off, generally the way you are using the mic, you would select the 80hz bass rolloff, not run it flat, make sure the pad switch is also not engaged. The mic picks up what is behind you which is why I say you desperately need to cover that wall at the back, you can then stand with your mic facing that covered wall while you sing into it, this will make a big difference in your mic capturing room reverb. I have always found in every different place I record vocals, it is what is behind you when you sing into the microphone that makes the biggest difference in taming the sound from reverb and harsh treble frequencies from walls. The reflexion filter or mudguard as you call it, I am having a rethink over the use of those. I am also trying to get good vocals in a poor room at the moment. You have to test different possibilities. My tests have concluded that the "mic thing" reflexion filter I was using was 100% responsible for the horrid boomy sound I was getting from my microphone, all of these filters around the mic impart some sonic signature on the microphone when you sing, they are good for talking, not so much for singing. Your situation may be similar. You have 2 options, cover the wall behind you or move closer to the mic. Given you have a dedicated recording space, I would cover the wall, if you cannot find a way to do that then you will need to move closer to the mic and lose the mudguard, see what it's like without that. You could go to 4 inches, put a sock over the mic and also use the popshield. If the mic has a foam cover use that. The closer you get to the mic, the less room reverb will be captured, but the more sensitive the mic becomes to the changing dynamics of your voice (the more spiky the waveform will be). If you move closer to the mic, you can use the bass rolloff to defeat the proximity effect where your voice becomes boomy moving closer to the mic. Get that back wall covered!!!! Then a lot of your problems are going to go away for anything you record in that space.

In that room, the vocal track should sound harsh and thin, if it sounds boomy, that's probably more to do with vocal technique, being too close to the microphone when singing. You need to indicate what mic you used and how far from the mic you sing as well. If you upload the vocal track, say what mic you used, what audio interface and/or any preamps used.

That's not a great room to start with, square with a window, probably brick/plaster/stone on all the walls. Can't see what you've got on the floor. Without treatment, if I played my acoustic guitar in there, I would expect it to be quite harsh on the high end and restrictive on the low end with an unpleasant harsh natural reverb to boot. I don't know what it sounds like with that treatment but I would be inclined to knock one of those harsh walls out completely and desquare the room before even beginning to treat the room. The one behind you with no doors, that has to go, I would get a couple of photographers backdrop stands with a 3metre backdrop bar, place it along that wall and throw over some absorbent material with a curtain so it looks cool. Or you could put a couple of mattresses or even just 1 to cover the wall and then run the curtain across the backdrop bar in front of it, so the whole thing takes up about about 2ft. Next I would put a rug on the floor if you don't have one, can leave some wood showing about 2 ft or so all around if you want. Then I would bring in a big wooden wardrobe and put it against another wall, doesn't matter if it's only on one wall. Then you can use your treatment to correct whatever you feel needs to be corrected after that. That's probably the best you can do with that room, should sound fine though. I've done these sorts of things in places I've stayed at and in mates rooms. I had a 12 X 12 X 12 Stone room in an old house that was just terrible but in the end was ok, In addition to other things, had 2 rolled up carpets in the corners to kill a horrid bass resonance frequency I couldn't get rid of. There is no perfect room for a home musician because you want to record and mix in the same room so compromises have to be made. In professional studios, they have the control room (fastidiously set up to manage frequencies) for mixing and then a whole bunch of other rooms for dedicated recording, or they might have 1 large room for recording but they have all sorts of material like mattresses, wooden dividers, made up acoustic absorption panels etc and they move those around depending on what the instrument sounds best with or what reflections/frequencies need to be killed. Home musicians who are going to record and mix in one space just really need to kill square rooms, kill plaster, brick and stone and put in wood/rug/carpet to taste, depending on what you are going to record. If you want to go further with treating your room, that's up to you but you can spend an enormous amount of time, energy and money on this for little reward, especially if other aspects of your sound chain are pretty ordinary, mics, instruments, monitors etc.

The gen 1's are square, the gen 2's have screws on the front, the gen 3's have no screws on the front and both high and low frequency adjustment on the back. You should get a good sound out of them in your situation although if I had that set up, I would probably lookout for some HS8's or even HS7's, I see Adam's around as well, would like to try those. I tend to buy a lot of secondhand gear because there is a lot of it about, if I don't like it, I just on sell it, mostly at a profit or no loss. These models are popularly found going around the second hand places. I would stay away from the HS5's (too bass thin) and the HS series in general can have popping issues when you turn them on/off so look out for that, it can be annoying, I had HS5's, one popped the other didn't. They were terrible for my situation. The Rokits have that circuitry, I just leave them turned on at the back and they get turned on or off from the wall, no popping or funny noises. After trying numerous monitors over the years, I came to the conclusion that for my uses, a 6 inch is the minimum size I can go, normally, I wouldn't look at a monitor under 6 inches but my current situation means the 5's will have to do, although there is a 6 inch version at a very good price in my region available, I may end up getting it. Definately in your situation, I wouldn't go below a 6 inch monitor.

Nothing wrong with the KRK's, are they gen 3's or before. Most people who like to criticize the Rokits don't know what they were made for, or how to use them. Most people think Rokits are for EDM with excessive bass and to be played loudly. While you can do this, this is not the main advantage of them. If they are gen 3's then it's impossible for them to sound harsh, you have both high and low adjustments on the back of the monitor, you have to set them up according to your room. None of the Rokit series sound harsh in my opinion though. Rokits were designed to give the average person the best possible chance of creating a frequency balanced mix in ANY environment (even right up against a wall). They do this very well and front ports are better for this. In a bad room you can use them at VERY LOW volumes in the traditional 3-4 foot triangle for mixing all day long, they are not fatiguing at all and the end results will be in the ballpark. You can turn them up a bit to check things but if you are in a bad environment, the minute you turn them up you will be at the mercy of the reflections in your room, you cannot compensate for a bad environment completely. Most people do not have acoustically treated, dedicated spaces for their music production, so monitors like the Rokits are a very good option as they provide good size options for different spaces as well. If you have a dedicated space that is acoustically treated and you can move the speakers away from the rear and side walls and your neighbours don't mind turning the volume up, then that opens the door to rear ported speakers and a whole bunch of different options. In fact, I wouldn't recommend Rokits for this environment. But if you are in an acoustically untreated bedroom with limited space and noise level concerns, putting together a music workstation with many different components competing for your wallet, or you are mobile, then I would highly recommend the Rokits. It might be that you have become used to hearing audio through your headphones, this may be the primary way you listen to audio, I don't know. Depending on what headphones you use, you might have become used to the bass heavy, closed back headphone sound and find monitors lacking. You want to use open backed headphones for mixing if at all possible. I am traveling and am in caravans, cabins and kitchens etc I have a couple of gen 3 5inch Rokits and they are great at compensating for a lot of situations. I have had no noise complaints from neighbours, I might turn them up a bit on Friday or Saturday nights, but that is mainly to compensate for the loud shouting, swearing and fighting that goes on around me sometimes, if any of those arseholes would DARE to complain about my noise.....

Do you set up your BIOS? I do with mine, just kill all unused things on the motherboard disable on board audio etc other stuff that I can't remember. If you do set up your BIOS, maybe all the settings changed to default when you updated. I suppose you would have checked that but mentioned it anyway. You might find you get problems with the other programs too when you start to use them more.

I've always thought that was in fact very bad advice. The idea is to get a good working system and then keep it that way. Constantly updating is a recipe for instability regardless of what so called "experts" say. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" as the saying goes.

I'm thinking of getting one of these (1tb SSD) and reducing my normally 3 hardrive system to 2, one with OS, applications and samples and the other for recording/projects. This would mean I can load everything onto my "C" drive, applications and their associated samples (Komplete Ultimate 10) and some others. For the recording drive I could use the 7200rpm drive as I have been doing, no problems there, I guess an SSD would be ok for that as well. Does anyone run their system like this? Just trying to determine if there would be any performance hits by doing it this way.

The song has to be rendered in stems which are usually raw tracks, so you will end up with one .wav file per track. I do this in Studio One have not yet done it in Cakewalk so someone else might be able to tell you how this is done in Cakewalk. There are differences in what people believe stems should be, my view is that stems should be "raw" waves with no FX on them and not run through FX buses, only the editing manipulations you have done to the track. If you are giving the stems to a recording engineer then that engineer will not want your compression, equalization, reverb or delay etc burnt to the stem, just the raw recording of the instrument as it was captured to the DAW with any track specific manipulations from non-fx editing you might have done. The exception might be when people are using track specific plugins that are part of the instruments sound that they want to keep, as with synths and VST's, it's up to you to make these decisions.A professional mix engineer is going to have much better plugins than you have and will know how to use them but will charge for that. What you have described sounds about right as long as you end up with a single broadcast .wav file per track without fx on them. I would encourage you to learn the Cakewalk Prochannel though, you only need to learn about equalization, compression, reverb and delay, that's it really, if you want to go further then that's up to you. You really need to learn these 4 though, the sound of your productions will be much better. There are plenty of free/paid courses out there that can get you started.

If you are not using compression then that might be a major reason why the sound lacks professionalism, why the sounds seem dimensionless. You will need to learn how to use compression maybe youtube? Yes there is one on the Prochannel, just learn how to use it well, you can google things like "compression on vocals" to find many articles, you just need to know what the different parts of it do. Stick to a standard compressor with ratio, threshold (or input), attack, release etc (like the one in Cakewalk) and learn what those do. Best to learn the Cakewalk one. Use it on the vocals by themselves (dry) so you can really hear what the changes in various knobs are actually doing, the theory part will tell you why it is happening. When you understand this you can apply it to the other instruments accordingly. Search each instrument on google to see what the best compression settings might be for a starting place ie "compression on piano" This can really change your sound.