mdiemer

14 hours ago, aether.roots said:

 

Deleted - I realized my response was not appropriate for the Q & A forum. This is the "Just the facts, M'aam"  place. 

CbB runs well on my W7-Pro system. Of course, the 32 GB of ram on my system probably helps a lot, I noticed a definite improvement after I doubled it from 16. My plan is to use W7 as long as possible, probably well past the End Of Life next January. I'll just keep it offline. I may even use it for the rest of my life. Of course, that may mean sticking to an old version of CbB that continues to work on it. but that is what I do anyway. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I can get away with it because I'm just a hobbyist. If my workflow remains good and I like the results, I'm not going to jump through the upgrade/update hoops until I absolutely have to.

2 hours ago, Peter Mangold said:

Thanks everybody for your thoughts on this important topic!

I well understand all your points but since my W7-system is still running well there can only be one conclusion for me:

I stick to W7 as long as I have enough money to buy a new hardware that would then justify the installation effort and naturally updates me to the latest OS.

It is a simple old rule, that still seems to fit. The thing that has changed in the past 10 years is the lifetime of the hardware since we do no longer see the steep improvements in performance. So we can use a chipset for much more than 5 years without penalties in functionality...

Like I said, if this is what works for you, who is to tell you any different? The only revision I would make to my previous statement is that the situation may be different for hobbyists vs. professionals. If you have people depending on you (like wife and kids!), it probably makes sense to keep abreast of the wave, assuming you can afford to do so. Hobbysists can afford to be much more conservative, upgrading only when they really have to. I need to keep in mind that what makes sense for me, a hobbyist, may not make sense at all for a professional. But it still comes down to what works for you. One size does not fit all.

I think the upshot of all this is: Trust your instincts. You know best what works for you. Stay with what you have if it's working for you. Don't upgrade just because everyone else is. If your needs change, then obviously it's time to change your equipment.

Is the Vst activated? Does it have a stand-alone version? That should tell you if it's activated or not. I have a similar issue with NI Banstand. It won't activate anymore. NI has abandoned it. I had it running in demo mode for awhile, but that is useless of course, except to tell you it works, but is not activated. I ended up uninstalling it. 

I can't see myself sharing my music via Bandlab or even on this forum, as BL's primary mission is to facilitate collaborative musical interaction. They're coming from a culture which is inherently collectivist. Whereas Western culture in individualistic. No value judgment here; cultures do differ markedly in many ways. But I am thoroughly Western, and that's not going to change. I can see it perhaps for folks who are more comfortable with a collaborative model, for example people who have played in bands, where the members all contribute to some extent to the finished product. For someone like myself, a hobbyist working in a classical vein (not to be confused with "the classics" - oldies - as happens on the "classical" subforum of Bandlab), it makes no sense. I create the melodies, form, orchestration etc. I don't want any help with that! The engineering part, Oh man I need help there, but that's a different thing.

A huge Happy New Year, especially to all the folks at Bandlab, they are true planetary citizens. God bless them every one.

Was the Sound Canvas the best general midi package of all time? I really wish I has something that good. I do have one called Bandstand from NI, but I can't get it activated anymore. Had it working a year ago, then had to reinstall Windows and now it won't activate, even with help from NI (such as it is).  I used the Bandaneon on a piece back then, and I wish I could use its excellent soprano sax. 

This is the kind of situation that really confuses me, although not nearly as bad as some forums, where there are so many sections that you don't know where to post, and you finally give it your best shot, and then soemone comes back and says "You posted this in the wrong place." Arggh!

I use East West Spaces, along with some other in-house stuff, like the built-in reverbs on my various synths, and Breverb. I use Spaces to tie it all tohether. If you catch EW on one of their 50% sales, it's a steal. It has a great rep, I've never heard anything negative about it.

Oops, I confused the Sound Canvass with the Groove Synth. And the latest situation is that neither the GS or TTs-1 will work, they just don't make any sounds. No crashing, just no sound. I have everything routed correctly, and the indicators shows midi is being generated, both in the track view and on the synths themselves, but nothing is getting to the buses, so no sound. I even tried the preview feature on TTS-1, which shows that something is happening, but again no sound. Tried checking/unchecking midi outputs, no effect (though other inst's work in either case). Yes I'm running 44.1kHz, but I'll double check that (can't do now as I'm on Kubuntu, which I use for the internet - much safer than Windows, but makes for awkward troubleshooting).

Also, I have Sound Canvass on my first computer, with Cakewalk 2000. I don't suppose there's a way to port that over to me current rig?

Hello there, it won't work for me. It will cause very nasty noises and crash everything. Same thing happens with TTS-1. both are DXI so I'm suspecting it has something to do with Direct X. Also, and I have Windows 7, which may also be a factor.

Maybe think about importing the project instead of opening it? I only do midi, and I usually import my old projects, especially if there's any problem with them like you are having. That way, you can set things up in CbB fresh, and hopefully whatever was causing the crash will not be an issue. I don't know how this would work with audio.

One way to troubleshoot this would be to start a totally new project and see how that goes. If no crashes, then maybe the import method might be worth trying.

I agree with Craig.

22 hours ago, Starise said:

@Todskins, @Starship Krupa

 

"I have Mixcraft 8. Didn't realize it also supports some form of notation. I plan to check that out."

Mixcraft only lets you see and work on one instrument in their staff view. I would assume printing would be the same.

For notation, I recommend Notion. It has decent sounds and is very easy to learn. Also priced far below the big guys like finale and Sibelius.

 

 

After thinking about this for awhile, I realize that Starship Krupa has a valid point. Furthermore, I think it highlights the fact that people are in transition here. Not only from Sonar to Cakewalk, but from one forum to another. On the old forum, we were discussing both softwares. That is continuing to some extent on the new one. At some point, it's logical to assume the admins will step in and say, "Please, no more questions about Sonar, it's dead software. This is a CbB forum." Perfectly understandable, but it will leave Sonar users with no good place to turn to for help. Gearslutz? They have a Sonar forum, maybe folks will get some help there. Or maybe they can be directed back to the old forum to search it for answers. But most Sonar users will probably realize at some point that they need to move on. Same with Windows 7. If the only way forward is Windows 10, people like me who still use W7 (and there are quite a few no doubt) will be forced to move on, or be trapped with limited functionality on old software. Like I said, this whole thing is a transition process. Hopefully we will all get there eventually, and the journey will be pleasant.

3 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

For heaven's sake, it's a choice of which version of DAW software to use, not a choice of which religion to follow.

I know that this is not what the OP was doing, but if someone shows up in the Cakewalk by BandLab forum saying that Sonar is constantly crashing on them and please Cakewalk users help me get it to work, sorry, no, I do not "need to respect their choice" to refuse to run an upgraded version of the software that has had a solid year of bug fixing and testing and vetting by other users. At this point they're just being needlessly stubborn. Such people are inviting frustration and irritation anyway. It's not my job to shield them from it.

"Such People?" This kind of language is an ad hominum attack. It typecasts people as being somehow inferior and not worthy of being heard.

All I meant (and you did not quote my whole post) was that people desreve to be treated with repect, to be heard, to be helped if possible, and if it turns out their plan is not going to work then yes, by all means it is time for them to face the music and make the changes they need to make to get things working. That is basically what I said. 

We never know all the reasons people have for the choices they make. I for one am willing to listen to people where they are and try to offer assistance, not just dismiss them as hopeless Luddites. Our willingness to help "such people" on this forum is what will in the long run convince them to update. As opposed to just constantly hitting them with "get with the program" type responses.

No hard feelings, though.☺️

5 hours ago, Detwoen said:

Sorry ... bit of a misunderstanding here. I am using the latest version of Sonar by Bandlab, and have been since Bandlab released it. I think I also may have sorted the problem, though time will tell. My PCR-500 keyboard has been firing all sorts of strange controller messages into the sequences I record with CbB, which was causing all sorts of small problems with some of my VSTs,  and I suspect that it may also have been triggering the crashes. I reset the keyboard and zeroed all the sliders and knobs and so far (fingers crossed) I have been able to open all projects as normal. The Roland PCR-500, strictly speaking, is not supported by Win 10, and I had to modify the driver to get it to work. Whether that's the reason for the problem I'm not sure, but I'll keep you posted.
Cheers Dave

Ah, yeah we thought you were using Sonar. CbB is the (Rather weird) name, or at least shorthand, for Cakewalk By Bandlab.

If someone wants to continue using Sonar and is willing to do what is necessary to make it work, that is their right. Same with using Windows 7. It may be frutrating and even irritating for them to be constantly told that they need to upgrade. We all have our reasons, and we need to respect each other's choices. If it's just not going to work, of course they will upgrade. there will always be the few stragglers who may not find their way along with the main crowd.  Let them go at their own pace. Perhaps they hear a different drummer.

I have had crashes like this, and like you was able to open in safe mode. I then saved the project before closing again, and that usually stopped it. I don't know if you have tried this, but if not it's worth a shot.

Anything that installed by disc will authorize as long as you have the codes, and have done the initial activation sometime earlier. For downloads, people are downloading everything and saving it. Not sure about the authorization, however. Another strategy is to have system images that have your programs already up and running*

There are other threads here on this issue, so you should check them out for more detailed (and accurate) info.

*For that matter, you can keep an entire computer as a backup. Thinking of upgrading your computer and OS to W10? Hang on to your old one with Platinum, Artisit, 8.5 or whatever, on W7, XP, etc. I still have my 20 year old Gateway, with W98, which I recently reinstalled (what a trip that was, involving floppy disks, command line work etc), and reinstalled Cakewalk 2000 on it because I needed to see something from an old project. I couldn't find the score I had printed out years ago, and it much easier anyway to start the computer up and check it there, as the score is so minute that even with glasses I have to use a magnifying glass to see the notes.

Anything that installed by disc will authorize as long as you have the codes, and have done the initial activation sometime earlier. For downloads, people are downloading everything and saving it. Not sure about the authorization, however. Another strategy is to have system images that have your programs already up and running.

There are other threads here on this issue, so you should check them out for more detailed (and accurate) info.

34 minutes ago, scook said:

I don't think so. Registration code generation is a one time event. I have not installed 8.5 in a very long time but have re-installed other Cakewalk products that use a similar activation process. They activated with their original serial numbers and registration codes.

Thanks.

2 hours ago, scook said:

The SONAR 8.5 upgrade download is unique. It was the first upgrade available as a download. To reduce its size, for slow connections and bandwidth limits of the day, the SONAR 8.5 upgrade download depends on an existing SONAR 8 install. Every upgrade download after SONAR 8.5 were full retail version.

So, if I need to reinstall 8.5 (quite possible, as I plan to continue using W7 indefinitely, and CbB may at some point no longer work on it), will I need online activation? Which would no longer exist, I assume. I seem to recall being able to activate simply by putting in numbers, after installing witrh my install discs.

I have install discs for 8.5 Studio and Proucer. Studio is a single disc, Producer is 4 discs. They install and authorize via codes. You may have to go online to doso; I honestly don't remember at this point. The only stuff I downloaded was to update to 8.5.3.