msmcleod

Personally, I found the track sounded fine for the most part, but I do get what you're saying. Firstly, I found your vocal sound could be improved by: 4db cut at 6.8K (Q at around 5) to remove the sibilance 3db cut at 2.2K (Q at around 11) to remove some of the harshness 1.5db boost at 250Hz (Q at 1.3) to add a bit of weight to the vocals. (the above using ProChannel Gloss EQ on Hybrid) As far as the rest of the mix goes, I think @marled had the right advice. There is a huge build up of low frequencies when all the instruments come in. Try high passing everything apart from either the bass or the kick drum. So, solo each track and keep moving the high pass frequency up until you can just hear it making an effect. Then back it off. It should sound like you've not made a change, but in fact it'll clean up your mix considerably. The next thing is to look at your low mids. One of the biggest problem frequencies in most mixes is around 300Hz, which in your case (IMO) is the sweet spot for your vocal. Try dipping out around 300Hz a dB or so in some of the other tracks to give space for your vocal here. You may even find you can turn the whole vocal down a bit as a result. Finally, as a general rule you should take a step back and look at what frequencies are dominant in each of your tracks. If more than one instrument is dominant in the same frequency, decide which instrument is going to take preference, and cut that frequency in the other track. Take no notice at this stage what it sounds like in solo. In most cases things like organs, pianos and guitars will dominate more than one frequency. You should use a bit of give & take here, so if you decide the organ is dominant in one of the frequencies, let the piano or guitar be dominant in the other. Try swapping it about to see what sounds best. Really all you've got left then is balancing the tracks, which should be a lot easier when you've not got tracks fighting each other for dominance in the same frequency space.

No - keep Sonar installed. Sonar comes with a lot of free 3rd party plugins/instruments you don't get with Cakewalk. You'll want to keep them if you want to use them in Cakewalk as well. In any case, Sonar itself only takes up around 200Mb.

The Groove3 video is the better IMO, but unfortunately it's not free: https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Focusrite-MixControl-Explained

I've experienced this with really old SONAR projects, but not a Platinum one. The easiest way to get around this, is to create a new project then drag the old project in from the Media Browser. I've done this with projects created way before the Pro Channel even existed, and after dragging them in, every track had a Pro Channel assigned.

I'd do a quick video, but my Studio PC is busy backing up at the moment. So... Right Click on the device, select "Update Driver" Click "Browse my computer for driver software" Click "Pick from a list of available drivers on my computer" At that point, you should have a list of drivers. It should show at least one Korg driver, and "USB Audio Device" at the bottom. Click on "USB Audio Device", and click Next. If it's still not letting you pick from the list, try the following: Uninstall the KORG USB driver software The try the "Update Driver" steps again. If it's STILL not letting you pick... Go back into device manager Right click on the device, select "Uninstall device" Click on "Uninstall device" on the confirmation box Check the box to uninstall all the driver software Once it's uninstalled, unplug your device. Reboot your PC Plug it back in, then go through the "Update Driver" steps.

Hmm, that sounds like a latency issue. Maybe your ASIO buffer is set too high... is there a noticeable delay between you playing the note and it sounding?

Haha! I've found a fix. Just go to device manager (right click on My PC within Windows explorer, click Manage and choose devices). Then Right click on the Korg device, update your driver, Pick from List and set it to "USB Audio Device" instead of the Korg one. It'll then work in both Cakewalk and the Korg Kontrol Editor. I found this by accident... basically I'd setup a clean Windows 10 1093 install for the purposes of testing out updates etc, and didn't install the Korg USB drivers on it (I totally forgot about them, and they showed up and worked anyhow). This Windows install didn't show any issues with Cakewalk or the Korg Kontrol Editor. So I had a look at the Device Manager, and they were set to USB Audio Device.

Are you using lenses? If you are, try setting them to "none" :

As scook says, this sounds like a sample rate problem. The most common cause for this is when Windows is set to use the same audio device as you're using in CbB, and they're set to different sample rates. I find that restarting the audio engine within CbB normally fixes this:

No, I'm seeing the same. I'll investigate further... [Edit] Ok, I've tried loads of things, and can't get the Korg Kontrol Editor to work. This includes deleting all the Korg related registry entries, re-installing the driver and the editor, but I can't get it to recognise the devices. It doesn't even display the Korg MIDI devices in the manual MIDI preferences. Korg say this: "We can inform you that KORG USB-MIDI Driver and KORG BLE-MIDI Driver are not compatible with Windows 10 May 2019 Update and advise you not to update your operating system until compatible versions has been released. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding." https://support.korguser.net/hc/en-us/articles/360028457032-Information-about-Windows-10-May-2019-Update-version-1903- So until Korg fix the issue, the Korg Kontrol Editor isn't going to work in Windows 1903. I guess at least they're aware of it and acknowledge it. In the meantime, the registry hack above gets it working in CbB.

Try increasing your MIDI prepare buffer from 250 to 750:

If your Q80 sends out MIDI start/stop messages, then you should be able to get it to control Cakewalk. You probably don’t want it to send tempo or song pointer information though, so make sure these are filtered out in Cakewalk’s prefs,

In general, a desktop is always going to be faster than a laptop. Desktop top CPU speeds will always top laptop CPU speeds, as laptops can't dissipate the heat like desktops can. In saying that, a good high end laptop will be fine. I've got an Asus ROG-GL552VW gaming laptop with an i7 6700HQ (2.6GHz with 3.5GHz turbo), and I've yet to create a project which causes it issues. It's performance is easily on par with my i5 3570 desktop running at 3.4GHz. Note I chose this particular laptop for a reason: it's successor had absolutely no expansion capabilities. You couldn't even change the battery. This is a common issue with laptops, so beware. You'll want at least 16GB of RAM, so if the laptop doesn't come with it, make sure you're able to upgrade it. Also pay attention to the number of cores. Just because it says it's an i7, on a laptop this doesn't automatically mean it's got 4 cores/8 threads. For example, the i7 6500U has only 2 cores and 4 threads, whereas the i7 6700HQ has 4 cores / 8 threads. The downside of course, is that the ones with more cores have a pretty poor battery life (mine lasts 60 to 90 minutes if I'm lucky). Finally, you're going to be limited in the number of USB ports on a laptop. A USB hub may help in some instances, but you certainly don't want your audio interface running through a hub... oh an be careful with iLok's sticking out of the side of your laptop - they're very easily knocked, and may damage your USB port.

We didn't have a Memorial Day on Monday here in the UK - it was just our Spring Bank Holiday. The UK equivalent is Remembrance Sunday, which is Nov 10. I believe Germany has an equivalent (Volkstrauertag) the following week on Nov 17.

According to Intel's website, the i7-8750 supports OpenGL 4.5: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134906/intel-core-i7-8750h-processor-9m-cache-up-to-4-10-ghz.html I'm using an old Intel i5 3570, which supports OpenGL 4.0. I'd be surprised if these aren't backwards compatible with OpenGL 3.2. As most people here are using newer Intel processors than I have, I think we'd be seeing far more crash reports if this wasn't the case. However, given that disabling OpenGL solves it for the LP plugins, it does point to a graphics driver issue. The question is, is it the NVIDIA or the Intel ? I agree with @scook - generate a crash dump, and get it sent to Cakewalk support. Hopefully they can at least narrow it down.

This is by far the best way. I've got cheat sheets for everything nowadays. I even have to remind myself how my gear is wired up!

I got a set of keyboard stickers for my mine. It took a bit of searching to find ones that were up to date, as most were geared at Sonar X1/X2. The thing is though, there's so many keyboard shortcuts it makes it kind of overwhelming. Once you start using any program regularly, you get to remember the shortcuts in any case, and the usefulness of these aids is vastly reduced.

There's just been a new Melodyne update (4.2.2.004) in the last few hours. It's looking good so far.

Maybe try disabling your NVIDIA card or try forcing Cakewalk to use the on board Intel graphics. The NVIDIA card on my laptop didn't play well with some plugins. Jamstix 4 was the worst, but at least they acknowledged the issue. Cakewalk doesn't need a powerful graphics card in any case.

@AxlBrutality - have you tried disabling any cloud sync services (OneDrive, dropbox, etc) & virus checkers? I've had crashes in the past where those type of services were trying to access files Cakewalk was using. The fix was to make sure all of Cakewalk's directories, and any VST's directories were excluded from syncing & scanning.

I had this issue with Jamstix 4 when it first came out, but only on my laptop. The issue was due to an incompatibility with the NVIDIA driver. Making Cakewalk use the onboard Intel graphics instead fixed it, and I've not seen this issue since.

Yeah, the list of plugins available are not exactly the best, until you get to the $29.99 pm "deal", and even then I couldn't see the SSL4000 or Scheps 73. So on the basic plan you pay $120 for 6 plugins, which I guess isn't bad, but I'd be stretched to find 6 I'd actually want out of that list. L1, MV2, R-Bass are the only one's I'd look at. I guess V-Comp, V-EQ and either TrueVerb or R-Reverb, but I wouldn't choose them other than to fill up 5 + 1 free.

@cmbrowns after upgrading to Windows 1903, I had exactly the same issue. I found this fix: https://thedigitallifestyle.com/w/index.php/2019/04/23/fixing-korg-usb-midi-driver-issues-in-windows-10-may-2019-update/ The "distilled" instructions are: Open up regedit (windows key + R, type in regedit, followed by return), then follow these instructions: The two registry addresses to copy/paste are: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32 Note: If you've more than one korg device, you'll have to do this for each one. So for me, my NanoKontrol was 0011 / midi5, and my nanoKey was 0012 / midi4. Each device should have a different alias.

They key things for me, was to get to know the different cursors. The Smart Tool does loads, and the tool mode can change not only with combinations of shift/ctrl/alt, but also depending on whether you're at the top half of the clip, the bottom half, or the start/end. It might seem a lot to learn at first, but once you get used to it, you can do edits very, very quickly. But knowing what the different cursor icons are and what they mean can help stop you slipping up along the way.