msmcleod

Everything you've asked for can be done already in the screenset control bar module.

BandLab does indeed have the Splitter tool, which will split a stereo mix into separate bass, drums, vocals etc.

I believe Cakewalk Next will have this feature too.

I'm not sure if the new Sonar will have this feature on day one of release, but I AFAIK it's in the pipeline.

 

As far as I can tell, the PRV will hide the track if it's hidden the Track View - at least that's what I'm seeing.

Just now, John Vere said:

@msmcleod 

Question. In another thread I was having issues with exporting a chopped up track and bringing it back as a complete track. I would export as stem, delete and replace with the stem. I’ve done this a zillion times. But all of a sudden the audio engine was randomly stopping. 
Someone recommended I just bounce the track to clips.  
I did this and it most certainly seems to create a complete track. But reading what you just said brings up this question. 
The way I did it before created a true new audio file that was complete end to end with no edits or Melodyne ghosts. 
So does bounce to clip not create a clean audio file but simply is a visual change and the audio file still has a zillion edits that Cakewalk has to decipher as it plays? 
This would be important to know. 
 

Bounce to Clip, Bounce to Track and Audio Export all use the same code behind the scenes.  They're all creating clean audio files.

Of course with the bounce commands, you still have the old clip objects in memory and the old clips' audio on disk to support Undo, so until you either clear the undo history (or reload the project), they'll still be taking up resources.

It depends.

If it's an audio clip, and it's doing real-time stretching, then yes.  It'll also likely not sound as good, as the real-time stretching algorithms prefer speed over quality.

For MIDI clips or audio clips that aren't being stretched, the difference will be negligible.

It also depends what you mean by resources... if you mean CPU, then the above is true.  If you mean disk-space / memory, then bouncing it will actually increase disk-space or memory usage.

Simply put, this shouldn't happen.

The rules are:
- The envelope shapes are stored in start time order
- The time base for each shape can be either in musical time or in sample time, but the time base must be the same for a single envelope stream.
- The end of one shape cannot be after the beginning of the next one.

Somehow one or more of these rules is being broken... finding out why / where is the tricky part.

It would be useful to know if there are tempo changes in your project, and you have a sample-time based envelope.

There is logic to update all sample-times within a project when the tempo map is altered (which is why editing the tempo track envelope is slower than other envelopes).  I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the logic here, but it's a possibility.

It's more likely a bug in the envelope editor code itself.

It's worth mentioning that the new Sonar will have a completely new set of icons, and will be in a completely different format (i.e. they're vector based)

So if you're planning on moving to Sonar once it's out, I wouldn't spend too much time getting the icons from CbB.

It may be easier to just do a screen capture and cut out the icons you need.

@pulsewalk - yes, this looks like an envelope bug.  We've seen this from time to time, but unfortunately it's almost impossible to reproduce.

If you can get an envelope in a project in the state before this happens, with a reliable recipe for editing it to get it into that state afterwards, then please let us know.

The only thing you can do is edit the envelope to put it back to a sensible state.

The most common reason for this is that the encoder can't write to the file, either because it's on a read-only drive, or something else has got it open.

3 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

Yes I have found a bug. It has to do with export. It seems that some envelopes get pegged after an export is done. I’m not sure all the details yet but I am sure export is causing it. I’ll try to look and figure out more. 

Are you using jump shapes?  Jump shapes only apply their value at the time they hit a node - anything in between effectively means "no value". 

At the moment, Articulations aren't applied to real-time MIDI input. 

This is something we can look at for the new Sonar, but even if we did, it would only apply to Transforms (i.e.  the "Transform Existing MIDI Events" section), and not Triggers (the "Generate New MIDI Events" section).  It would apply to any "active" articulations at the Now Time.

This shouldn't be a huge issue, as clicking the articulation will fire off any triggers in any case.

It's likely this would have to be an "opt-in" for each track via Track Properties.
 

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\TungstenTheme.fth  is essentially a resource dll.  It contains all of the graphics used by CbB.

 

If you don't want to separate out your tracks, another way of doing this, is to put all of your processing in separate sets of verse/chorus buses.

You can then automate the bus sends for each track to send to the appropriate bus for when it's a verse or chorus.

1 hour ago, HIBI said:

@msmcleod 
Has Cakewalk changed its use of Webview2 runtime?

In the following thread, @Jesse Jost explains "For clarification, the WebView2 component is necessary for sign-in because it supports the modern web. (~omission~) Due to account authorization and product activation, not having this runtime is not an option."

We changed sign-in to launch the browser, as too many people were having issues with the WebView2 component at the time.  

I can't recall exactly when this was, but I think it was some time mid 2022.

1 minute ago, Promidi said:

Not sure about Edge, but you definitely need Webview2 for CbB's activation.

I suspect that because CbB2023.09 changed the activation server, they also changed the Webview2 requirement to the 64bit version. 

I believe that once you get a successful 64bit Webview2 runtime installation, CbB should activate.

I believe that’s that’s your show stopper.

I'm pretty sure this is not the case.

WebView2 isn't used for testing the internet connection, nor is it used for activation.   It's also not used for authentication - hence why it launches a browser. The only time WebView2 is used is when a web-page is shown inside the application - if it's not there, it'll fall back to IE... the content may not display properly, but at least in CbB it shouldn't cause any major issues.

Cakewalk uses sockets to connect to bandlab.com behind the scenes for both testing the connection and activation.

If Cakewalk can't connect to bandlab.com or establish a session to the BandLab authentication API, you'll get the "Unable to connect. Check internet connection" message.  At this point, it'll not even launch a browser for you to login.

The issue is almost certainly one or more of these issues:
1. Something is blocking Cakewalk from connecting to the internet
2. Something is blocking access to bandlab.com
3. Particularly slow access to bandlab.com is causing it to time-out and fail the connection
4. Security updates are missing from Windows 7 (e.g. at the SSL/TLS/Certificate authentication level), which is preventing a BandLab API session from being initiated.

It may be the case that having Edge installed will solve issue 4, but I'm pretty sure there were other security updates that were pushed out just before Windows 7's EOL, that updated some of these.

1 minute ago, Milton Sica said:

Would it be possible for the program to issue this alert when it identifies this problem when trying to create each automation?

Something like:

Attention ! This plugin doesn't respond to CC #7.

No, that isn't possible.  Neither hardware MIDI devices nor plugins report what they respond to.

16 minutes ago, Milton Sica said:

Automation on MIDI channel is not processed.
In this case I did Speed and the sound remains.

MT PowerDrum Kit doesn't respond to CC #7 - this is a plugin limitation, not an issue with CbB automation.

@pulsewalk - if you're using all the default options, it should be as simple as selecting the tracks, opening the Bounce to Track(s) dialog, and clicking OK.   There might be some additional checks you need to do if you've got more than one hardware output, but here's an overview:

Velocity is a property of the note events themselves - there is no way to automate them.

Expression ( MIDI CC#11 ) is probably the closest thing to it, assuming it's been implemented by the VSTi as it was originally intended.

What CC11 should do is scale what the velocity comes out as - so at 127,  a note with velocity 127 will sound at full volume. If expression is at 64, then a note with a velocity of 127 should sound as if it was played with velocity 64; notes with a velocity of 64 should sound as if they were played at 32 etc.
 

My recommendations:

1. Try to identify chapters etc with Arranger Sections.  You can have more than one arranger track, so you could have one track for broader sections, then another arranger track with more granular sections.  You can use the Arranger Inspector for navigation to jump directly to the section within the timeline.

2. Use the scrub tool to audition at a more granular level.  To do this, hold down the "J" key, then click on the waveform. While holding down both the left mouse button and the J key, moving the mouse to the left will play forwards through the clip; moving to the right will play backwards.

@RexRed,  @Noel Borthwick may be able to correct me here, but I'm not sure a complete fix is possible with Melodyne's current ARA interface.

As I see it there are two things we could do here:

1. Automatically bypass the Region FX for that clip when it's muted - you'll still see the blobs, but they'll be shown as muted within Melodyne (they'll have a gray fill); or
2. Remove the Region FX for that clip when it's muted.  The blobs will not be shown, but you'll also lose any edits.

My gut feel tells me option 1 is the correct solution, however I can't find any way in Melodyne to get it to hide bypassed regions within the editor. Without that, you'll still get blobs overlaid on top of each other when you add the new take - although at least you'll kind of  be able to see which ones are muted.

So whilst we could go some way to solving the issue, Celemony would need to implement a "hide bypassed notes/regions" option within Melodyne for it to work how you want.

2 hours ago, Kevin Roberts said:

Mark

Thank you for taking the time and effort to make the screen capture.  Very helpful.

I cant do a motion screen capture but I can tell you how it works for me and where it is different with screen shots included attached.

Until this version we've all used Bandlab assistant with no issue. This new update is now without Bandlab assistant so I don't use it.

1. I'm using  Windows 7, with the most up to date version of Firefox set as my default browser (tried it with Chrome and Edge as defaults with the same results). My fire wall is set to off. I have no issues opening or downloading anything from the internet.

2.  I launch Cakewalk from my desktop shortcut.

3. Cakewalk opens and starts loading plugins.

4. The start screen pops up and then  a message box pos up: "Cant reach Internet - The requested service requires an internet connection. Please check you internet connection, or firewall settings, and try again" - I have solid internet connection that functions without issue.

5. I don't get the Bandlab splash screen you show in your screen grab. Thats the difference.  - I do get the pop box stating: "Not Activated - Please sign into your Bandlab account to activate cakewalk"    As long as the Cakewalk program is open this box either stays on the screen or if I close the popup, it will reappear in the corner of my screen  from time to time as long as Cakewalk is open.

 

Seems to be some issue with the ping process with Bandlab,  as you've described it.

Any other thoughts an something that may need to be enabled or disabled on my end? I've done the TLS 1.2 as described.  I did uninstall  Webview 2 and Edge as the whole machine ran worse after that. Once i uninstalled them, things went back to working smoothly. As long as I need neither of those I don't think that has anything to do with my issue.

I'll try anything anyone thinks will help.

I'm now not going to update Cakewalk on my windows 10 machine for fear of loosing Cakewalk completely. Hoping a fix can be found for this issue. I wanted to be making music, not fighting activation issues.

 

Really appreciate everyone trying to help.

 

First of all, BandLab assistant will not work with the new authentication servers.

The only thing you can do is try to work out why Cakewalk can't see the internet.  Something must be blocking it.

Ensure there are no 3rd party firewalls or virus checkers, anti-malware etc blocking Cakewalk.  Double check your firewall rules (even if the firewall is switched off).

This is what activation should look like in Windows 7.   I've got Firefox set as my default browser.  Cakewalk was upgraded to 2023.09 from 2022.11:

14 minutes ago, Kevin Roberts said:

Mark

Thank you. I typicly use Chrome and Firefox for browsers. I've Never had edge n this machine until today when I ran the 2023.09 update. It automatically installed it  this morning so I imagined it needed Edge/MS Edge Webview 2 to process the activation?

When I'm in the help tab in Cakewalk it  says "Sign into Bandlab" (which I'm already signed into)

When I use "sign into bandlab" I don't know what browser its viewing when it says "No internet connection?  

I show logged into both  band lab and cakewalk.  Another message pops up saying "sign into your bandlab account and then gives me the same No internet connection message which is not correct.

I'll try logging out of bandlab & cakewalk and logging in with Firefox to those sits but I cant seem to point Cakewalk to any browser. Am I missing something?

 

Appreciate the suggestion.

Being logged into BandLab in a browser is completely separate from Cakewalk being logged in to BandLab.

Cakewalk uses a browser to perform the login, then the browser calls back to cakewalk to tell it whether it was successful or not.

In order for Cakewalk to use a browser to sign in, you must have a default browser set up ( here's how you do it in Windows 7: https://youtu.be/fpT6e3CmdAI?si=0R-UE4ixKK0SH9Jl )

Cakewalk tests for internet by pinging the BandLab website.  It doesn't use a browser for this, just standard Windows sockets. If it doesn't get a reply, you'll get the "No Internet Connection" error message.

Firewalls, Anti-virus software etc can interfere with this, so it might be worth switching these off temporarily if you're having issues.

You might also want to ensure that TLS 1.2 is enabled.  This is not enabled in Windows 7 by default. You can enable it yourself by following these instructions:
https://manage.accuwebhosting.com/knowledgebase/3008/How-do-you-enable-TLS-1-2-on-Windows-7.html

@Kevin Roberts - I'm not sure if this will help or not, but I've got Firefox set as my default browser on Windows 7.  This is one of the few browsers which is still receiving security updates.

When I went to re-activate, it fired up Firefox for me to login to my BandLab account, and once logged in, CbB re-authorised.