msmcleod

We ship basic chord triads as articulations with CbB as standard, but these are there for convenience in the PRV and fall way short of a chord track. A chord track, to my mind should: 1. Identify the chords within the existing audio/MIDI, allowing the user to correct them if necessary. 2. Allow the user to change chords within the chord track, and have this alter the chords within both the MIDI and audio - you should be able to exclude tracks from this process. 3. When changing chords, the chord picker should suggest alternative chords based on the current chord and key of the song. Alternative chords should be presented in order of which is most closely related to the existing chord, to those most distant.

It's the VST that causes the number of changes - not CbB per se. VST's are meant to wrap parameter changes in beginEdit/endEdit calls. That way, for example.. initializing a preset which alters 20 parameters is seen as only one change. Some VST's dont' do this, meaning it's seen as 20 changes. Automation can also trigger "changes" in the VST depending on the VST.

The smoothing is always applied when recording automation, however if using the freehand drawing tool afterwards, you can use the Freehand Smoothing option in the Clips View Options: Setting it to it to one of the "As Drawn" options should do what you want.

Typically you'd just add volume automation to the bus. You can either draw this in yourself, or typically what I'd do is record it via my control surface and ride the faders through the whole song:

It's worth mentioning that velocity is a property of the note event itself, not a CC (continuous controller). So changing a velocity envelope after the note has been initially sounded will have no affect whatsoever. As @Lord Tim mentioned, volume (CC #7) and expression (CC #11) can also be automated and are continuous controllers. Even so, depending on the VSTi, volume automation may not be picked up by notes that already playing. Expression usually does affect playing notes, assuming the VSTi supports it. If properly implemented, Expression should give the same effect as changing the velocity while the note is playing - i.e. you'll hear tonal differences as well as a volume difference. Volume however only affects the volume.

One of your synths has MIDI output enabled, whilst another is set to "Omni" for it's input (it'll appear as "None" if it's not the active track), e.g: Uncheck this: Disabling the MIDI output unless you need it is recommended, however it might also be worth setting the MIDI input of your synth tracks to "All External Inputs" rather than "None" or "Omni". If they actually require input from the output of another synth, then set the input to that only rather than "None" or "Omni".

It's always been this way. You can add your own controls to FX Chains (which in turn control one or more plugin parameters), and these controls can be automated. There's no ACT button, but there's a Learn button in the context menu which serves the same purpose. Alternatively, use "Extract FX Chain Plugins" to move the move them out of the FX Chain into the FX Bin. The ACT button will then return.

Make sure your mains output is set to 0db. If it's set to more than that, then that is why you're hearing a lower volume on export. In other words, Cakewalk is boosting the mains output by x amount, making it sound louder inside Cakewalk, but the actual level leaving the Master bus is quieter - and this is what you're hearing after export.

I suspect this is down to an interaction between "Split MIDI Notes" being enabled, and splitting a step-sequencer clip: When Split MIDI Notes is enabled, notes are split at the split point, and any controllers events are repeated at the split point. However, as step-sequencer clips also rely on the position of the notes/controllers being quantized to the step-sequencer grid, you may get unexpected results if you'd split the clip at a point that is different to the step-sequencer grid resolution. The simplest solution is to uncheck Split MIDI Notes. It does raise the question around splitting step-sequencer clips though. We could disable splitting step sequencer clips at any point other than the step resolution, however this might be a bit restrictive. On the other hand if we don't do this, it means that notes/controllers could be misrepresented in the step-sequencer view. To be honest, I'm not sure what the best course of action here is. I'll discuss with the team.

Thanks to @David Baay for a repro on this. The issue has been identified, and fixed for the next update.

Most features in Cakewalk have been developed with a particular workflow in mind. What I described was the intended workflow, not a workaround. As far as bug concerned, there are a lot of posts complaining about bugs which aren't bugs at all - it's just users complaining that the software doesn't do what they expect, either because they don't understand the feature, or it doesn't work the way they want it to work. If it is indeed a genuine bug, then the first step for the development team is to reproduce the bug. Once we've reproduced it we can then look into what is going on, why it is doing what it's doing, and hopefully be able to come up with a fix. But unless we can reproduce the bug in the first place, there's absolutely no way we can fix it. In this particular case, from what I can tell there is no bug with snap and stretch clips. It appears to be correctly applying a snap-offset to the snap. If the snap offset is being corrupted somehow, then that is the bug. However until we can get a list of steps to reproduce that, there's not a lot we can do.

Yes, use this setting: Checking this check box causes Cakewalk to save successive versions of a project with the date the project was saved in the file name. The most recent version has no date in the name. The number of versions to keep chooses how many versions to keep. When the maximum number of files is reached, the oldest file is deleted.

I can't reproduce the issue here. Stretched clips are snapping fine for me. @murat k. - I don't think there is a bug with snap and stretched clips. Looking at the linked post, it seems to be related to Snap Offset. If the snap offset is non-zero, then it sounds like the snap is functioning correctly - i.e. it's correctly applying the snap offset to the snapped position. The question is, what caused the Snap Offset to go to a non-zero value. @Diogo Tavares - if you can narrow down the steps that cause the snap offset to change, we can look into it and hopefully find a fix. If you keep the clip inspector open and keep an eye on the snap offset, hopefully you'll be able to narrow it down.

If you select your clip, then select "bounce to clip(s)", it will solve this issue. Another reason for doing this: By default, stretching a clip in the clips view will use the online method (e.g. Elastique efficient). This is very quick, but results in lower quality results. The idea is that you use the online method to get it to the correct stretch length, then use bounce to clip(s) to "commit" your results using the offline method (e.g. Elastique Pro) giving you much higher quality results. Once you've committed your stretch using bounce to clip(s), the clip is no longer seen as stretched - it's now a new non-stretched clip in its own right.

Put the volume automation fade on the Master bus.

I think it's worth considering why the big names in mixing use templates in the first place. From what I can tell convenience is by far the main reason. Although sound comes into it, I don't think its a case of using a template to get a specific "sound" of an overall mix - it's really just an extension of convenience. Some thoughts come to mind: 1. Track / bus ordering - using the same tracks and buses for every track means you know which track everything is on. If for every song, you always use track 1 for kick drum, and track 20 for lead vocals, then you're not searching around looking for them. 2. A lot of big names use outboard gear. Using outboard gear usually means at least some things are permanently patched into certain ports, so having a bus set up ready to go for your 1176 or LA2A makes sense. 3. Most of them use ProTools... I'm no ProTools expert, but when I have used it I got the impression that it can do anything, but everything has to be done the hard way. Complex effect routing (at least before they introduced bus folders), means inserting various aux tracks/sends and routing them via numbered ports. This all takes time. Having this set up in a template means it's there for you when you need it. 4. Really just a follow on from (3)... mix engineers are listening to a mix solving problems, then using creativity to create a particular sound or emotional impact. So if they know that putting a kick drum through a particular set of compressors routed in some crazy way gives them "that sound" or using a particular chain of effects is good at getting rid of hi-hat bleed into the snare, having that routing set up ready to go means it's there for them. The point is, it's set up in their template as a go-to tool for solving a particular problem, not because they put every track through it on every mix to get an overall sound. The big names in mixing work on some wildly different genres, and there's no way they'll be treating every mix with the same effects on every track. What they will do however, is use tried and tested tools/techniques to solve problems as they come up... the most common aux track/bus/effects combinations for achieving these techniques will be in their template. A lot of this is evident by the signature Waves plugins that have been released over the years. CLA ( CLA Drums, Guitar, Mix etc), Schepps (Parallel Particles) are plugins that replicate the complex routing of several effects and wrap them up in a simple to use plugin. The more complex setup would have been in their templates at one point... but now they can just use the plugin. So with regard to things like track ordering and the buses you use, definitely pick a set of tracks & buses that works for you and put that in a template. Having everything always being on the same track/bus for every song, will mean that muscle memory will take over in time, and you'll get through mixes faster. If there's things you genuinely use in EVERY mix, then yes, put them in your template. However putting everything in your template just in case you need it is just going eat up CPU. CbB has FXChains for commonly used chains of effects, and track templates (which can include buses) for more complex routing. I'd recommend looking into building up a library of your own toolkit of these so you can drag them into your project when you need them.

Check out Band in a Box by PG Music: https://www.pgmusic.com/ Although it's a separate app, it comes with a DAW plugin that integrates well with Cakewalk. The DAW plugin is also far easier to use than the main application.

I've actually done away with templates, with the exception of my "band" recording template which is set up for my mobile rig. I used to use a template when I used exclusively hardware synths, which made sense as it saved me having to remember which port everything was on. However, I found that pretty much everything I wrote started to sound the same. Nowadays I add things as and when I need them. I don't do mixing for clients, but if I did I definitely would use a template - but for writing I find it puts me in a rut.

I guess it depends on which keyboard shortcuts! The main ones I use are essentially the same as they've always been. The views shortcuts were constantly changing however, which meant struggling to find keyboard stickers that were up to date... I've since given up on keyboard stickers though, as my aging eyes can't read them!

I found the transition from SONAR 8.5 to X1 extremely difficult - the only saving grace was that the keyboard shortcuts were the same. However X1 was just too unstable for me, so I continued using 8.5 pretty much until X3 came out. When SONAR Platinum was released I took the time to actually learn it properly by watching the SONAR Platinum Groove 3 tutorial. This was the real game changer, as there were so many things introduced that I was unaware of. There are a bunch links to video tutorials in the Tutorials section of this forum. One of the most comprehensive is the SWA Sonar X2 complete series: There's also an X3 follow up series:

This is how I do this:

If you set the Automation time-base to absolute, it won't change when you change tempo:

Frozen clips can be moved about using the mouse primarily to move/copy the audio to a different track. It's important to note that moving the frozen clip has no effect on the unfrozen clip in the background. So any edits you do will be lost when you unfreeze.

You're not stretching the clip, you're trimming the beginning so that the clip starts after the start of the note. Use CTRL + SHIFT to stretch.

The ASIO driver spec was devised by Steinberg, which places a limit of one ASIO driver per process (e.g. an application such as a DAW) in Windows. Some ASIO drivers allow more than one process to open the same ASIO driver, but no process can open more than one ASIO driver in Windows. Some ASIO drivers also allow more than one ASIO device to be seen by a single driver - RME is an example of this. However as @scook says, there aren't any manufacturer's ASIO drivers that will talk to different ASIO devices by different manufacturers. The only way around this is by having separate processes each open a different ASIO device, then having an aggregate ASIO driver "talk" to those processes to mix the audio. The DAW then opens the single aggregate ASIO driver. The only one I've seen that does this is ASIOLink, which is unfortunately no longer maintained as the original developer passed away. It does work, but it's extremely complicated to set up and use. However, even if you do manage to get several ASIO devices being shared, you still need the word-clocks of each device to be synced up. If this isn't done, then the audio playing on one device will start at a different time from another. This involves one of the devices being a word-clock master, and the rest being slaved to it. This is usually done by connecting the ADAT, SPDIF or BNC word-clock output of the master device to the corresponding input on the slave, and telling the slave to sync via that connection. Such a setup is so ridiculously complicated that it's really not worth the effort. I had a setup like this for a while, and it took 20 mins to get it stable every time I switched everything on. There are a bunch of audio interfaces that will give you 16 input channels (using an additional 8 channel ADAT mic-pre for 8 of the inputs). If you need more than that, the Tascam Model 24 or Soundcraft Signature 22MTK will give you 22 channels. Personally I opted for the RME Digiface USB, which has 32 inputs and 34 outputs via four ADAT ins, four ADAT outs, and a stereo analog out. At the time it was a bargain at around £300. Of course I had to buy pre-amps / ADAT converters to plug into it, but you can start off with cheaper ones (e.g. Behringer ADA8200, ADA8000 or Fostex VC-8) and upgrade as needed.