Feral State Sound

Make sure you have the option "show vertical gridlines" enabled in the View palette.

He just answered most of our comments in a new video:

1 minute ago, puddy said:

I'm still standing by my view

Could you develop your opinion more? I think that this guy is making a real effort on creating free content for the people interested on Cakewalk but he cannot continue due to those bugs. Nevertheless, he is a reasonable person and he mantains his commitment of creating tutorials for it.

7 minutes ago, puddy said:

That guy should just go away...

I think that him should stay considering that he has the biggest Cakewalk oriented Youtube channel... In fact, I think that Bandlab should contact him for keep making content and also try to fix these bugs as soon as possible (Fabfilter is not a underground plugin company and all of reported bugs on the video are severe).

3 minutes ago, jkoseattle said:

In PRV is there a way to keep the Auto Focus button always on? I keep enabling it then a few minutes later it's off again. I'm not sure what I'm doing to disable it, but I always want it enabled.

I have "Auto Focus" always enabled only by pressing the button one time... That's a weird problem Did you tried to contact the support?

I have followed Scott videos since I have started to use Cakewalk SONAR on 2016 if I remember well. In those times, Chernobyl Studios was the only "serious" channel that was making free updated and quality material about that DAW. So much was this way that even Cakewalk had contacted Scott for making the last official Cakewalk videos and to provide official Demo projects that are still present on CbB. I was truly disappointed for the Bandlab decision of not contacting him for keep making quality official Cakewalk content. I hope that at least Bandlab consider to listen some of his (more than reasonable) criticisms. 

1 hour ago, SomeGuy said:

I think the basic Lens is fine, honestly, and can't see much reason for the second point as its usefulness is completely dependent on ex-SONAR users caring enough to "plug-in" functionality from SONAR into other DAWs... and they'd probably want to become as proficient using the actual other DAW's functionality as possible... particularly for industry professionals.  That would certainly look nice on a feature list, though...

I think the biggest issue with Cakewalk are:

1.  Windows-Only

2. Bugs that have persisted since older versions (and still aren't fixed):  Example

3.  Weak Bundled Plug-In and Instrument Bundle.  Beginners do not want to spend 20 hours scouring the internet for subpar instruments.  Virtually no Loops bundled - and no avenue to buy what used to be in/bundled with the Sonar Platinum product (It's been a year... how long will that take?)

4.  No Marketing; Lots of people simply don't know about it, because Cakewalk (the company) didn't really do as much as they could to push it.  Similar issue to VEGAS Pro with Sony.

5.  Not a lot of learning material.  Not covered in nearly as much depth as competing DAWs, due to lack of industry momentum.  Improving, but the quality of the material isn't yet on par with other, newer, DAWs.

6. Lack of AAF support inhibits it in some niches (Film Audio Post, etc.),  as well as its collaborative potential with people who do not use Cakewalk (AAFTranslator is $199, mind as well just buy Studio One if you're going to blow that much on an OMF->AAF Utility, frankly).

Platform-locked plug-ins don't matter to beginners and hobbyists/upstarts.  They probably won't be using multiple DAWs, anyways, so depending on them to pick up Cakewalk as "another DAW" is not a great strategy if that level of the market is a big deal with BandLab.  I wouldn't even recommend those people double fist two DAWs.  Learn ONE and then learn about Music Theory, etc. so that you can actually produce good work.  Don't bog yourself down with redundant software.  That's for "later."

I think that only the first two points and maybe the sixth are applicable to Cakewalk this times. AFAIK Bandlab is working on the bundled Cakewalk instruments and maybe we will see more of them added soon and there is no need of marketing for a free product. In my opinion, being free for everyone is the best possible marketing strategy (but maybe it would be better to announce the actual program on the Bandlab main page). The learning material is growing each day and I think that this is going to be the rule as long as the program remains free. 

When I started to show some interest on Cakewalk SONAR (maybe 2016 or 2017), there was only one Youtube channel that was making updated and quality free training content for Cakewalk, Chernobyl Studios. For me, that was symptomatic of a dying program. Now, if you search for "Cakewalk" on Youtube, you will see tons of new updated videos about the program and even people switching to Cakewalk from other DAWs (Fortiori for example). As if it was not enough, you also have the Craig Anderton book and an official online and offline free wonderful manual. So, in this part I think that the program is advancing adequately. 

On the other hand, I am not sure about the Bandlab commitment to fix the long-standing Cakewalk bugs or any intention to make the program cross-platform. The second can wait but I think that it is a must in the long-term if Bandlab plans to reach a large audience. Regarding Cakewalk bugs, although it seems that Bandlab is concentrating on stability and fixes, it is strange that some of the serious bugs stills remains one year after the re-release and the same applies to the half-finished features, they are still half-finished and there is no commitment to improve them (ehem ehem Staff editor , cough cough Matrix view). Are you losing interest on developing the product? Everything seems to go reaaaally slow.

Edit: Please don't tell me that I cannot make any requests or demands because the program is wonderful and it is free. Cakewalk is only free for now as we finally know what are the Bandlab plans for it. For me, the program it is free to download but not completely free, at least as long you are sending analytics about your personal use. 

19 hours ago, mdiemer said:

Cakewalk is far easier to use than Reaper. If you think CbB is esoteric and difficult to use, don't even think about Reaper.

As for lazy people: they never get anywhere. Any significant accomplishment requires significant learning and effort. 

I agree with you, the Skylight interface is one of the best UI of all DAW. But it is true that the developers should consider selecting the BASIC lense as default for newcomers. REAPER has excellent performance when using VST plugins and is less-bloated than Cakewalk by default, but it is only a matter of time that you start adding custom actions, new toolbars, shortcuts, scripts, skins and such.... 

On 3/23/2019 at 12:27 PM, ChernobylStudios said:

My original goal when starting the channel was exactly this. I actually was personally involved in producing official Cakewalk tutorials on their YouTube channel for a few months before Gibson pulled the plug. 

 

I used the crossover discount to buy Studio One 3.5 and found the DAW to be very similar to Cakewalk. However, I do a lot of MIDI work and I found S1's PRV to be frustrating. I personally believe Cakewalk still has the best PRV functionality. (I may be biased, I used it for over 15 years.)

The Cakewalk PRV is great! I prefer it over the stock REAPER PRV also. 

6 hours ago, Royarn said:

Just bought this instrument for a project I'm working on in CbB. Sounds great but key up sound doesn't work in Cakewalk for some reason. Tried it in Studio One and it works but my project is in Cake. Anyone using this Waves plugin having similar problem.

Roy

I have reported weird problems with this plugin when using It on Cakewalk long time ago (VST3 ver)... To Bandlab and to waves respectively. In my case, the plugin works only when I reset all the scanned plugins on Plugin Manager and with Manual Scan enabled under preferences. If I enable Scan on Startup, the plugin it is not detected when I re-open Cakewalk.

17 hours ago, Morten Saether said:

The Cakewalk Reference Guide PDF can be accessed directly from this forum. To view and download the PDF, click the Cakewalk by BandLab forum menu and select Reference Guide PDF, or download the PDF directly from here.

 

Wow! It is true that Bandlab is listening to the community 😄 Can this manual be accesible from the DAW help menu? Thanks!

On 4/3/2019 at 2:30 AM, Lee D said:

I know a lot of people use Cakewalk for heavy audio work.  

I wanted to get a pulse of how many people are using Cakewalk nowadays as their main DAW for Heavy VST instrument / MIDI use?

What type of music are you doing in it?  How has your experience been since Sonar X series?

I am on VST/MIDI 95%, currently doing orchestral music with the exception of some recorded vocals and occasional guitars. I have found Cakewalk to be and exceptional MIDI sequencer. It is very intuitive and I really like the PRV setup for multi-track editing, the floating toolbar on mouse cursor, the groove quantize templates, the synth rack and the in-built midi track controls and MIDI plugins. The ProChannel and the Skylight interface also help me to be more productive while composing because the first give you a set of standard mixing tools right at your fingertips (maybe it is all that an average composer would ever need) and the second offers and excellent work-space set-up for staying organised on large projects (MIDI or audio).

On the other hand, there are things that I do not like so much: the score editor is a joke, you can't see note-names on MIDI notes either you can't choose not to audition notes on note insert. CAL is also an outdated and unpredictable way of doing some basic edits like make some notes to be "Legato".

In summary, Cakewalk is still a strong contender on MIDI sequencing and editing but it needs some improvements, specially on the long in the tooth score editor. A proper staff editor and decent video support are basic tools for many MIDI composers and maybe that is the reason most of them still rely on tools such as Cubase, Logic Pro or Digital Performer. These days, even REAPER has more useful and updated tools for that. 

Edit: I forgot to mention the Overlound Breverb 2 plugin, maybe one of the best stock reverb plugins of all DAW and another essential tool for MIDI composers. QuadCurve EQ is also excellent.

7 hours ago, ChernobylStudios said:

As I mentioned, Cakewalk was losing the market because it was windows only and the bugs. I do not recall people saying that SONAR didn't have enough features or that they did not innovate. I mean, the X1 Skylight Interface was directly lifted and implemented into Studio One for example.

I do have to say that to this day I reach for the Sonitus Delay plugin over just about every other delay I've tried. I haven't tried the soundtoys stuff but until that happens I'm quite happy with Sonitus Delay.

I am not sure if it was because being Windows only since Vegas Pro is hugely popular despite not being cross-platform (The same applies to Logic Pro and Final Cut). In my opinion, The Bandlab move is extremely clever, because they just converted a losing ground DAW into a no brainer DAW for Windows users (cost-functionality wise). Here you can see the number of times that people have shown some interest on Cakewalk during the last two years: the first remarkable point is coincident with the Cakewalk closure, the second is coincident with the Bandlab resurrection and the program going free and the third is maybe mainly because of the Bandlab NAMM presence. 

https://trends.google.es/trends/explore?date=2017-01-01 2019-04-02&q=Cakewalk 

It is not crazy to think on a new big press announcement from Bandlab during this year, specially since they already own the Music-Tech magazine. In my opinion, Cakewalk future looks promising and probably more than ever.

58 minutes ago, soundregion said:

I can't seem to find a proper area to discuss the Bandlab system itself. I feel that it's a site with potential , but also areas that needs to be improved. Would it be an idea to have a for support and feedback for using the Bandlanb site and integrations with Cakewalk ?

https://help.bandlab.com/hc/en-us/requests/new 😁

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

The Cakewalk Mac prototype was hardly a failed experiment! It was very successful considering we got about 80% functionality with very low development cost, and it demonstrated to us what we would need to do to take the project further if we wanted to. It also helped us to make several improvements and optimizations to the SONAR codebase. Ultimately it was a budgetary decision to not pursue it.

These days all cross platform apps use a framework. It makes little sense to write per platform apps from scratch due to the high cost of development.

And is there any plan to bring back that project now with Bandlab? Thank you!

3 hours ago, Alan Tubbs said:

Of course, if cakewalk had a Mac version they’d still be part of Roland since Roland  wouldn’t have had to provide an Mac  daw for their hardware products as well as the pc cake.  Cakewalk tried and tried to make a Mac version but failed.  Don’t expect one.  Cakewalk should have made a p5 Mac version when they wrote that daw.

Digital Performer and FL Studio are now cross-platform. I don' t know why we shouldn't expect a Cakewalk MAC version if the Bandlab main goal is to make music production available to everyone. All of Bandlab apps are cross-platform and if they want to use Cakewalk as a host for uploading or importing music from or to their social media if makes more sense than ever to think on a MAC version, even if it implies a high cost.

When I started to use SONAR PLATINUM I thought it as a program that was losing users year after year. It was not used by the majority of the music professionals and It wasn't supported by major hardware manufacturers (Komplete keyboards for example). Now, every time I go on Youtube I see a new Cakewalk video. For me, this is a symptom of an slowly and steadily growing user base.

What do you think about this? I don't care about popularity as I tend to use what I like the most but I have to confess that I would like to see more hardware manufacturers interested on Cakewalk as a viable music creation platform for developing custom products (hey Roland V-Studio )

28 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

it was a failed experiment, i wouldn't waste any time trying to get it to work, google the old forum for the scary details

Yep... It isn't a native MAC version and it is unsupported now. I hope Bandlab to make the program crossplatform eventually. Many of us don't want to rely on a single OS always.

On 3/24/2019 at 1:46 PM, ChernobylStudios said:

Hi there,

Yes, I used Cakewalk exclusively since Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.03. Many years! Before I write this, I want to say that the large majority of new people getting into audio are most likely going to be just fine and well served with Cakewalk by Bandlab. It's just that when people progress, become better, etc., certain things start to become clear.

The real truth of the matter is not about what Cakewalk lacks or doesn't lack in features because Cakewalk has and does most things most people would need and more. (Albeit sometimes in an outdated way.)

The main 'Cakewalk killer' is the inability to do any kind of consistent drum or audio editing. Anytime you start to get a decent number of audio clips in the session, the session tanks. This is an issue I raised in 2016 on the old forums and you can read that thread here. There are other audio editing related issues:

• AudioSnap doesn't detect at the zero-crossing point;
  • Always detects late, which introduces clicks and pops. It means you have to manually move all the detection markers anyway, completely defeating the purpose.
• When doing a "Beat Detective" method, splitting clips will take literally ages and the file size of the session increases by an order of magnitude. The session bogs down to a screeching halt and you can't even save properly.
• No quick quantize keyboard shortcut. Have to always open the AudioSnap menu.
• Tab to Transient doesn't work very well with grouped clips.
• Stretching only works with one clip at a time.
  • Impossible to stretch tracks for cymbal bleed, as you have to do it one at a time which causes phase issues and artifacts.
• Group clips don't split together;
  • Even after grouping a track, you can't just select one track to have them all selected. Still have to select them all. What was the point of making a group, then?

Now there are other improvements that'd make Cakewalk better, here are some just off the top of my head:

• Better keyboard remapping abilities;
• Colored markers;
• Better plugin stability;
  • Kazrog Plugins consistently crash Cakewalk, for example. These are plugins that I use all the time with clients.
• Being able to move multiple tracks at once without having to put them into a track folder;
• Being able to resize strips in Console view independently;
  • For example, the mix strips are narrow, but the bus strips are wide;
• Being able to reset all the meters globally;

So it's not about features, but stability and bug fixes for Cakewalk that'd bring me back to Cakewalk. Anybody who blindly wants to defend Cakewalk without having tried Reaper or other DAWs are fooling themselves.

Anyway, hope that gave you some insight. 👍

I couldn't agree more with you... But I work mainly  with MIDI and I am quite happy with the program as it is. There is no reason to unconditionally defend or use only one DAW. I have Cakewalk, REAPER and Mixbus installed and all of them are wonderful DAWs and also NONE is exempt of problems or doesn't have improvable parts. Here it is my feature request list:

- Better keyboard remapping abilities (same as Scott)

- Better plugin stability (same as Scott)

- Audio editing/AudioSnap improvements (Same as Scott)

- "Audition notes" button on PRV

- "View note names" button on PRV

- Better notation editor

- Finished MATRIX view 

- Better MIDI learn

- PDF manual

5 hours ago, Kuusniemi said:

You have some nice ideas here and the low brass sound you are using is very visceral.

What troubles me is that the instruments do not mix coherently. I don't feel that they are in the same space. Maybe check the spatialization and levels of everything. And check your reverb, a good reverb is essential to a coherent orchestal mix. I would also add low end, now everything feels very thin, even the visceral low brass.

I would also pay attention to the dynamics of the piece. When the harp comes it is clearly a place to have a somewhat mellower sounds, but the harp plucks at full tilt all the time. Dynamics is what makes the louder parts of the track stand out. As they are now only the final 15 seconds feel to be any other dynamic than full.

 

Thank you! I will apply every one of your tips on my next composition or maybe on a future "remake" of this song. It is my first mix and the reverb is Vallhalla Vintageverb.

I am composing some epic music for a community developed videogame mod, Perisno. This is the first theme:

I hope you like it!

15 minutes ago, scook said:

should be fixed in 2019.01 build 27 released today

It is working again! Thanks Bandlab team!

I really like the Breverb 2 plugin from Overloud... Is there any way to get a discount to upgrade the CBB lite version to the full version of the plugin? I can't see any.

Thank you!

9 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

Yeah, this was reported in this thread: 

Looks like they're going to release a fix later this week.

 

Perfect, I will try to survive this few days without it.

I have updated to 2019.1 and the Mix Recall module has stopped saving new scenes. Considering that Cakewalk has no Mixer undo, that is a problem... Someone else is experimenting this problem?