mdiemer

2 hours ago, James Argo said:

Indeed, I feel lucky Cakewalk has one of the best community in the world.

I think this may be the reason people feel sad about leaving. It is one of the best forums around for music creation/production. Even when I left for awhile to explore Reaper, I was on this forum every day. so many people here have a tremendous store of knowledge, and are willing to share it. not always the case elsewhere.

You can delete them in the Synth Rack view. Click on the synth and hit delete at the top. If you mess up, use the edit/undo and it will come back. 

I think it would be nice for users to be able to set their own default for the smart tool. I work mostly in staff view, and I frequently have to delete notes I inadvertently create because I forgot to switch to the "select" option. "Select" is really what I use most. I can lasso notes and transpose, them, copy and paste, change length and velocity, all with that one tool. The only other one I use is "draw" for those instances where I need to insert notes, and don't need to use Step Record or actual recording the notes from my keyboard.

Well, as a long-time Cakewalk user, staff view has never gotten as much attention as most of its users would like.  So I'm not holding my breath. I resigned myself years ago to just hoping it doesn't deteriorate. I only use it as a composing tool. IMO, that's what it's intended for. It's not really true notation. For that you need a dedicated program.

I agree that Cubase's note view or whatever they call it is way overrated. you can't scroll to the right past the margin, so you can't select any notes beyond what you can see. so as a composing aid it sucks. Cakewalk does let you do that. Reapers's notation also does. In fact, their notation view is on its way to being the best of any DAW, IMO. 

2 hours ago, pmj_rit said:

KS stands for Keyswitch.  Trying to put Key switches and actual notes on the same cleff gets pretty messy especially if you wan to see several parts at once.

Ah, I get it, sorry I didn't catch that the note was a keyswitch. Use 'em myself, although I hate them, and much prefer CC events. I use a separate staff for the buggers also. As you say it gets crazy if you put them on the same staff. I think they were invented more for on-the-fly use, so you can change articulations in real time as you play in the notes. VST libraries should give you the option of using either one. 

In the original screenshot, the clef is a bass clef, but the instrument is violins. That note is an extremely low one, in fact almost the lowest note that basses can reach. So the clef needs to be changed to treble, if it's for violins. As for the "spelling," it's correct, since the key is E Major (4 sharps). The note is a D#, but as I said, with the bass clef it is way out of range for the violins. Although, if you are using a general midi set, you could in theory use a violin patch and still get sound below the point where violins can't normally go (unless you tune the G string lower than G). GM sets don't limit you to notes actually playable by real instruments. You can use a piccolo patch and play it as the lowest note on a piano. Although it would sound weird.

If you are using a double clef (treble and bass together), and if you are using a violin patch and intend it only for real violins, no bass clef is necessary, only the treble. 

I sure hope nobody thinks I'm elite. My only Vienna Library is Special Edition 1, purchased several years ago for about 280.00, and cross-graded recently to the Synchronized Edition for 50.00. I bought Vepro, their library player,  not too long ago, but I don't even use it. Epic Orchestra was a freebie that came with it, but I barely use that either. Now Mir, that's something I've dreamed about for years.  But if I got it, I'd have to remix everything yet again. Does it ever end?

For those doing midi, and especially those doing orchestral work:

for years I tried my own panning schemes. I thought that, because I used several different orchestral libraries, and they all have their own natively-panned positions (in both dimensions), I needed to make them all agree. I have recently realized this is not a good idea, for the very reason this thread is about: simple panning causes loss of signal in one of the fields. Now, Vienna Instruments has something called "power panning," which is true stereo panning. but you still have to decide on pan positions for the whole orchestra. And move your other libraries, with their baked-in room reflections, which are difficult to improve upon; so that they agree with the Vienna positions. 

Then, I discovered I could get a cross-grade to the Synchronized Special Edition, which is the same library, but panned to the settings of their Synchron Stage. Finally, I could use the Special Edition in great-sounding pre-panned positions (well, mostly; some of the instruments actually sound better if you move them to another setting. Like, the bassoons sound better coming from Epic Orchestra's Timpani setting (Epic Orchestra is a bonus collection I got when I purchased Vepro 7).

So, I am now using all instruments in Garritan, EWSO Gold and Vienna in their native pan positions, with no signal loss, and everything sounds better. Of course, this means re-mixing all my orchestral projects...see you in a few years.

You used to be able to do a custom install of Sonar, where you just install the plugins. I have Sonar 8.5 in addition to CbB, so I have things like Dim Pro, Sonitus, etc. For me, having sonar plus CbB is no big deal. but if you are needing more space on your drive, you could give this a try. 

For anyone interested in Recorders, the Tek'it instrument is decent, but needs a lot of shaping. Too much for my mediocre midi abilities, so I discovered a great alternative, available to anyone who had Sonar: The Dimension Pro has a "wood flute," which sounds for all the world like a soprano recorder. Very good sound, too.  If you need a recorder, and have Dim Pro, look no further.  It's under the Ethnic Inst. section. Just wanted to share that.

Problem solved, I contacted them and I just needed to run CW as administrator. the sound of the instrument is pretty decent, hopefully I'll be able to use it. Company is very responsive, they replied very quickly.

Anyone have any experience with this outfit? I downloaded and installed the soprano recorder (it's a flute-like inst, in case anyone doesn't know that - not a piece of hardware).  It looks really cool, very nicely done, installed easily and found promptly by CW. but there just is no sound. No signal is getting through to the synth vsti.  Maybe because it's 32 bit?

Here's the link to their page:    https://tekit-audio.com/products/instruments/recsoprano/

Thanks, Mike

4 minutes ago, Promidi said:

Dimension pro can also be a four part Multi-timbral synth.  An extract from the help file

To Use Dimension as a Multi-timbral Instrument

Load the program that you want to use as a multi-timbral program.
Click the Options button  . The Options dialog appears.
Check the Set Program As Multi-timbral option, and click OK.
Save the program, if you want to change it to a multi-timbral program.

When a program is in Multi-timbral mode, the four Elements respond to MIDI channels 1-4, respectively.

Yes, I tried heroically to get it to work as multi-timbral never happened. But it's no matter, I only use a few instances of DP  per project.

I need to clarify my remark, so people don't think I'm getting senile. I was confusing TTS-1 with Dimension Pro, for some reason. It was re: Dim Pro that I had called Cakewalk many years ago, and was told that it's not really meant as a multi-timbral instrument.  Just a harmless little brain fart. 

I was never able to use TTS-1 as multi-timbral. In fact, years ago I called Cakewalk, and was told it was not really possible to do. No matter; I can't use TTs-1 at all anymore for some obscure reason that nobody has been able to figure out. It will be interesting to hear whether you are indeed able to do it.

Jerry, my experience is that I get better results by exporting my tacks as a midi 1 file, rather than XML. I import the midi file into Notion (my notation program), and the result is actually better with the midi file than XML. Any number of tracks can be exported in this way. Just my experience, may not work you, but, well, there it is (as the guy in Amadeus was always saying).

You can do this in staff view, just use Step Record. It lets you specify the kind of tuplet you want. If you know the Event List value, you can also just set that. for example, if my memory serves me, eighth-not triplets come out as 40 (regular eighth-notes are 60). 

Been following this thread with interest. It's great to get such expert opinions on this rather mysterious subject. I'm currently trying to improve my orchestral mixes, which is really tricky. For a compressor, I've been putting the Sonitus on the mix or master bus. I find that the Vintage Neve or Complete Mix presets seem to work best for me, but in trying to make my own settings, I have not been able to do anything that helps (although I have had great success making it much worse). What did help was this: I took the Vintage Neve preset, changed "type" from normal to vintage, and put the TCR button on. Amazingly, these small changes resulted in noticeable improvement. I have no idea why, but it did help. Just thought I'd share that.

16 minutes ago, jsg said:

Yeah, I do that too.

1 is velocity, 2 is transposition, 3 is length and so on.   But I still prefer to right-click method because I can do it with only one hand, the hotkeys requires the other hand on the keyboard...

 

 

Ah, I gotcha. Little things like that might not seem like much to most users, but for those of us doing orchestration, they mean a lot. Hopefully the developers can help us out a little here...

Jerry, I work exactly as you do. What I do is: I made keyboard shortcuts for Length, Velocity and Transposition. So, I just lasso the note or notes in staff view, hit L, T or V, and up pops the appropriate process. I also use Event List a lot, as you do. I find this a fast and easy workflow. Hope that helps.

Dan, if you are really interested in doing music on Linux, I suggest you check out the Reaper Forum. There is a native Linux version of Reaper in development. Folks have it up and running, and there is a ton of helpful info on how to make it work. Some folks are even using Windows vsti's on it. Won't work for me yet, as it can't handle  my orchestral libraries, but many are finding it superior to windows. There's a drummer who used to post here a lot who is now totally doing Linux.  He goes by the name of Glenbo. Also a guy named Jack Winter, who has done a ton of work on this.

https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?s=77f9496f8a3ed4b21b4e7e303e1cf480&f=52

If you rely on the sounds bundled with your DAW you are limiting yourself to just those sounds. Better to get in the habit of finding sounds you like, not just those you have because they came with the software. Unless they are really world-class sounds. Any sounds bundled with DAWS or notation programs are just beginning points.  something to play with until you get the stuff you really need.

Without closing the new piece, open the other one. Just highlight, copy and paste from there. Make sure you are actually in the new piece and on the right track and at the right time. I had to fool with it a bit to make sure I had the right piece open when pasting, but it's pretty straightforward.

17 hours ago, vst power user said:

Some plugin makers use a flanger to simulate the timber difference in multiple instrument applications with the same part. Per same instrument but keep the flanger mix more toward the dry side since you only want to sound like the timber harmonics are swelling.  Reverb is not a necessary component in an orchestra composition and is only a byproduct of the stage.  If you are looking for depth you can use a filter or equalizer to reduce bass > mid and little to the high.  But most importantly in your listening environment you need speakers with a flat frequency response (which practically means your natural speaker equalizer contortion to the audio) which is natural as possible.  Then other peoples magnets or speakers you play your tunes in will colorize the frequencies from their disability to be as natural as possible.  sometimes speakers come with amp chips which modulates frequencies in stereo images but it really doesn't do good as you are trying to hear your product and not someone elses!... . .  Maybe this can work, and also sometimes the microphone is at the body for those instruments so you may want to lower the 350 hz approximate area frequencies some(if the instrument sounds like it has full body). 

     Good luck.. .. .

Interesting remarks. Some of the libraries I use are totally dry, so reverb is necessary or they sound dead. A concert hall is configured to create reverberations, and allow everyone to hear the music regardless of where they are sitting. If there is another way to produce this effect without reverb, I am not aware of it. With a library like East West Symphonic Orchestra, the samples already have reverb baked in. You can get away without adding any. But most sample libraries do need some reverb. 

I will try your suggestion of a cut at 350hz, that may help. I am making slow progress. Artificial panning is the source of some of my troubles, as well as lack of EQ. There are all kinds of opinions on whether to use it for orchestral music (same for compression). As in most things related to computers and music, good results can be achieved in many different ways. I have shied away from EQ as it's so difficult, but I am now taking the time to study it more. I contacted the creator of Cinematic Strings, who gave me a good tip on a couple simple adjustments to make that library sound better.  He also advised me to stop using CC7 and 11 for volume adjustments. Not sure how I'm going to deal with that one, however.

Thanks for your suggestions.

You may need to add the Dim Pro scan path to Cakewalk's plug-in tool. Basically, you click the add button, do a search, locate where the Dim Pro is hiding, and add it to the scan path. Then re-scan your plug-ins.