mdiemer

Can you put Direct X 12 on Windows 7?

Winter Storm Hooper  or whatever obliterated any hope for me. but it was fun to watch the Weather channel's dedicated team of twenty or so intrepid reporters, as they brought us up close and personal coverage of this historic event. I mean the storm. I think we got about 10 inches. Hardly even worth plowing. But I shall never forget that brave reporter who battled the fierce elements, so he could tell us that a dusting of snow had accumulated in Boston, but of course they were anticipating much more...

GPO is fine for just starting out. I would recommend East West Symphonic Orchestra Gold for a move up. Keep your eye out for one of their 1/2 off sales. It's a steal at that level. A great mid-range string library is Cinematic Strings (not to be confused with Cinemagic). They go for 400.00 I think (I paid 500 but that was before they lowered the price). Strings are the most difficult insts to sequence. I always feel the need for better, but make do with what I have. Not that GPO can't sound really good, but you really have to be a wizard to do it. There are guys on their forum that make incredible mixes with them. Way beyond anything I do. Me, I use some GPO, East West, Vienna Special Edition (a great budget orchestra under 300.00) and Cinematic Strings. Plus some Dimension Pro insts I have because I have Sonar 8.5 Producer. 

It just occurred to me that another option to upgrade your sounds would be to get Roland's VSC sound synth, a fabulous GM/GS midi soft synth. It has all the midi sounds plus all kinds of interesting ethnic oddities. And it goes for just 125.00. See the VSC thread under VST insts for more on that.

Very good arrangement, Willard.  Not sure if you're using any reverb, if so, not enough. Good control of dynamics. If you're new at this, EQ and compression probably are mysterious to you, but it would benefit from both. Why not try some presets with some of the tools that come with CbB? You can use Breverb for reverb. For orchestral, I like Warm Orchestra, but there are many options, some may work well with strings.  Adjust the wet setting to maybe -10 or lower. For Compression, if the sonitus suite is available, the Neve might tame things down a bit (one of the presets for Sonitus compression). As for EQ, Sonitus has a multiband that might help. Try different presets. EQ and compression are exremely complicated. I personally rely on presets, sometimes tweaking them a bit. The treble in particular sounds a bit harsh - fault of GPO more than anything.

As for the sounds, the strings are the weakest part of GPO. not sure what you're using. I always found the "short and sustained" the best. Also, check the velocities. you may get better sound by lowering them a bit, to say 80-100). Are you panning the instruments at all? I always assign my own pans. For strings, violins on left, violas center, cellos and basses on the right. GPO responds to controller event 10 for pan. For example, a value of 35 will give you a pan of 40% to the left for first violins.. Then try 44 for second violins. 64 will give you dead center for violas, 50 is good for cellos, and 70 for basses. I believe these are actually pans I figured out from the older GPO versions, and they work well. 

If you're new to all this, great begining! It takes a long time time to figure this stuff out (not that I am anywhere close to doing so), so stay with it. There's a learning curve, no doubt about it. Lots of trial and error will teach you better than anything, but feel free to ask for help. We all need it. And keep in mind there is usually more than one way to do something!

I try to, and hopefully actual composers are not rolling over in their graves. I try not to disturb their sleep too much.

Looks like it may be "eclipsed" by the sstorm of the century where I live. Or maybe storm of the week. Or just storm...this is New England, folks. No need to strip the stores of all the bread and milk. Sigh...

Great conversation, I love this stuff.  Musicians being musicians. and computer experts (if there is there such a thing anymore). I hope the mods aren't tempted to intervene. This kind of stuff pumps life into a forum like this. And it's quite tame compared to other places. Let the show go on!

I feel like I own Sonar 8.5. The company I had leased it from no longer exists, and I can activate it with serial number indefinitely. I would say this constitutes ownership.

Always dangerous to make generalities. Exceptions always seem to pop up. 

1 hour ago, Byron Dickens said:

 

 

But W7 is going away.  W7 is 10 years old.  Eventually your beloved antique  computer with it's beloved antique OS is going to die.  You, at some point WILL  upgrade.  Either because you choose to or because you are forced to.

Actually I may not have to, since I probably don't have that many years left of being able to use it,  as I'm closer to being a fall turkey than a spring chicken. 

1 hour ago, Byron Dickens said:

 

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

 

BTW, mdiemer, you've mentioned before that you've set CbB up just like 8.5. Have you ever posted the recipe for doing that? If you were so inclined, that might be a great kindness for the people who really love their 8.5 and are apprehensive about upgrading.

The recipe is just that I keep it in track view, with the clips pane extended all the way.  No other views to complicate things and create clutter. Then I have the views I use (staff, event and mixer) undocked, and I opened them and position them over the clips pane where I want them. I pull them up with keyboard shortcuts as needed, then x out of them. Very simple. It just looks like 8.5, but with nicer colors and less clutter. The skylight interface is what kept me from upgrading all these years. I never knew you could just ignore it and set it up to look and work like 8.5. 

Since VSC is owned by Roland, and Cakewalk by Bandlab, I don't see this as likely. Especially considering that Roland is selling it for 125.00. They know what they have. Since Bandstand was abandoned by NI, VSC is probably the best GM/GS midi synth in the world.

I still have 8.5 Studio and Producer on my system. In case I need to go back. I have CbB set up to work exactly like 8.5, basically like the old traditional DAWs, before Cakewalk came up with that Skylab interface. But it works better. Once I got some keyboard shortcuts set up, it is very fluid. Also much easier to configure. As well as a less cluttered interface. The learning curve for me was minimal, as I had demoed the later versions so many times. If you have Producer, you will be able to use all the plugins that came with it. The colors are really beautiful too. Very aesthetic. You owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Question: How does the updated vsc sound in comparison with the version bundled with Calewalk way back when? I fired up my old Gateway Windows 98 rig last night, hooked up my midi keyboard (amazed that I still knew how to do that on that computer),  and played around with it awhile. I discovered it had a Shanai. (Not Shania Twain, a shanai, related to the shawm, ancestor to the oboe). In fact, it had two. It has lots of cool ethnic instruments which makes it an invaluable resource. But is the sound the same, or better? (Of course that may be hard to judge unless you can hear them both). My old version is listed as an Edirol, but it looks the same and I suspect is.

4 hours ago, Steev said:

@mdiemer I think I'm on my 5th year using PC Matic and absolutely LOVE IT! I run it once a week on Saturday morning on all 4 Windows computers all at once. I start it up, go have a cup of coffee, then go back and reboot the computers then run it again if I'm not satisfied with a noticeable boost in fresh boot up speed.

It cleans the Registry, defrags mechanical drives, optimizes SSD's, checks drivers, graphics and HD health diagnostics, performs a full virus scan, checks internet speed, and makes all changes and tweaks when and where needed.

 It would take me at least ALL DAY Saturday to perform all these PITA maintenance tasks, it takes less then a minute to start it up on all my PC's and PC Matic has been doing it all for me during breakfast.

 Since using PC Matic I have NEVER had a crash nor have I ever had to do a fresh clean install of Windows.

 Not only have I had all good upgrade experiences from Win 7 to 10, I had 100 % success rate CLONING all my mechanical hardrives to Western Digital SSDs with the free Acronis software. And the last time I cloned, I didn't even have to reregister any plugins, not even with the XLN Audio AD 1 or 2 or Addictive Keys plugins.. 😍

Very impressive. What would it do with an optimized system, though? Would it change all the tweaks I did? My system is pretty optimized at this point for Windows7 and Cakewalk. Wouldn't want anything changed, unless it was for the better.

 

14 hours ago, haydn12 said:

GPO was originally programmed to set the levels in the mixer and then control dynamics with CC1.    Attacks are controlled with velocity.   There was no CC11 expression control.  It was added later so you could use either CC1 or CC11.  They both do the same thing. 

Jim

Interesting. I admit to some confusion with the GPO CC controls. I do find that CC11 doesn't do much except affect volume somewhat. For percussion, I only use CC1 and CC7. I find that velocity changes in GPO don't seem to do much of anything. I use to use only CC7. Then I started to use CC 11 also. Even more confusing, other libraries may do things differently. Velocity in East West for example changes the timbre, same with Vienna Sp. Edition. The documentation on Make Music (now the owner of GPO not Garritan) does not clarify the issue much IMO.

I guess, just keep fooling with the damn thing until you get something that works! That's my approach. Trial and error, can't beat it. and workarounds. I'm big on those.

Steev, I've always wondered about PC Matic. Maybe I'll try it at some point.

As for Windows 7 EOL, my strategy will be to continue using it as long as I can. as a hobbyist who only does midi, where hardware is rarely a concern, I may get away with it. There are various ways to get around this issue. For example, I plan to keep it offline. Actually, I hardly ever have it online anyway. It's off by default; I have to connect it to say check this forum. Right now, I'm on Linux where I do 90% of my web surfing. One strategy for downloading new software or updates is to have a virtual W7 installed inside Linux. It will then be  "sandboxed" and quite safe. you download something, save it to an external drive, then install it from there on your Cakewalk rig. Checking with AV of course somewhere along the way. So it can be doable, at least for a while. I may even some day go for an Apple and use Logic, if I get fed up enough with Windows. If only Linux were capable of doing what we do. Actually, it'd not Linux's fault, but the software makers who don't bother to write drivers for it. In fact, it's possible now to use it, if you can only use software that works on it. That leaves me out as I am dependent on VSTs, orchestra libraries etc that won't run on Linux. someday perhaps, Linux will be workable. That will be the liberation of our computers from the microsoft monopoly and the uber-expensive Apples.

Try putting these controller events in either event list or piano roll view. I prefer event list but either should work:

CC1=80.

CC7=100

CC11=whatever you need as you progress through the piece. It's a finer adjustment than CC7.

I think of CC7 as the starting volume. For GPO, you should adjust this as needed. For example, the flute and clarinet in GPO are very loud, so a setting of 80 or even lower may be needed.

CC1 is the modwheel in GPO. If you don't set this, the modwheel will reset and you will hear little or nothing.  CC1 and CC7 only need to be set once, at the begining. Fot completeness, I put in CC10 also at the start. This controls pan. GPO will respond to this setting. Finally, as stated CC11 is something you keep putting in as needed.

This will work. However, most people don't do it this way. If you can't figure any other way to do it, try this, and if it's not a good workflow you can try another way. There usually are multiple ways to do things in DAWS.

Great discussion, Steev. Your in-depth knowledge of DAWS, Windows and computers in general is very illuminating. I would agree, it may be best to roll back at this time. you can always try W10 again later, when there will be more accumulated wisdom re: making it work right.

I compose classical-style music, but as a hobbyist, not a professional. I find Cakewalk perfect for my needs. I did try some others, using Reaper for a year, but it was quite a struggle to make it work. When the news hit about Sonar going under, I demoed cubase and samplitude.

Cubase is no doubt best for midi, which is what I do, but I work in staff view and event list, not prv, and incredibly, cubase's staff view limits horizontally the number of bars you can select. So you can't select (in staff view) say, 12 bars. It only lets you select to the end of the view. you have to leave staff view and use another view to select further. So that destroyed my workflow. I brought this to their attention, hopefully it will be addressed. But then, probably not many people use staff view the way I do.

Incidentally, that's one thing good about Reaper, their staff view is as powerful as Cakewalk's.

Samplitude I found hopelessly overwhelming. I also tried Mixcraft, but their staff view only lets you work with one inst. at a time. And of course, Studio One does not have a staff view. They do have some degree of integration with Notion, Presonus' notation program (which I use and like), but I haven't tried it so I can't say how well it works.

I went back to using Sonar 8.5 Studio indefinitely until CbB was born. Fortunately, I also had purchased 8.5 Professional, so I had the plugins available for studio, and now for CbB. (I preferred using  Studio as it worked better for some reason than Pro).

Try using the select "from now to now" under editing. That will give you your desired time frame. Then click the tab for each track, way over on the left. That will select just the tracks you want.

Edit: you may need to do it in reverse - first select the tracks with the tab on the left, then set your time frame. 

Or turn down theit volumes to zero?

I used to frequent Northern Sounds, but can't post there anynore for some reason. It's turned into a small club for Garritan users anyway and is probably not long for this world.

Also used to hang out on the Ning Composers Forum, which has become so sanitized it is totally boring. Mostly notation-oriented folks. It was exciting when they tolerated some naughtiness, but the new owner has squelched that. 

I feel the need for a place that lets you let your hair down a bit. Been thinking about gearslutz, may do that.

I've had this problem going back to Sonar 8.5 Producer. Studio was OK. And CbB is slow for me as well. One of the few issues I've encountered. I'd say this feature needs some work.

I use the UR22 but only for midi, and it's great. In addition to the email to SB, I would do some googling. someone out there has probably figured this out, you just need to find their post.

Sweetwater had a list of things to do to optimize your computer. I only used the one for W7. The consensus seems to be not to take the list too seriously, but as ien said, do some fiddling yourself. First, disable from startup anything like printers, CCleaner etc. You don't need those to run at startup, only on demand.

Here is a list of services I disabled on my W7 desktop (if you have a laptop, some of these you may need):

Tablet PC Input Services

Secondary logon

Fax

offline files

routing and remote access service

bluetooth

encrypting file system

certificate propagation

microsoft iSCSI initiator

netlogon

parental control

remote desktop config

remote desktop services

rds usermode port redirector

smart card windows defender

I have no idea how these relate to W10, but disabling them on W7 was fine. There is a bunch of other stuff on Sweetwater about various tweaks to your computer, which are too complicated to explain. Suffice it to say that I found a way to get my rig running very smoothly, which is the general idea.

If all this is irrelevant to W10, I apologize, just ignore it. I'm just trying to help.