msmcleod

Yes, this is what you're looking for: 1. Create a MIDI track and arm it. 2. Start recording, playing a single note (usually quarter notes) along to your song. 3. Once finished, select the MIDI clip and choose "Fit Improvisation" from the main Process menu. This is much quicker than using Mark Measure/Beat - it essentially takes the duration of your song. However it is only as accurate as your MIDI performance, but you can use Mark Measure/Beat at various points to clean it up.

The results from BIAB are incredibly impressive. Turning a chord progression into a song really is just as simple as typing in the chords, and choosing a style. The DAW integration (i.e. using it as a plugin) is awesome. The BIAB app is pretty powerful but at the expense of a pretty confusing UI. The plugin reduces everything to the minimum you need, making it a breeze to use. However, there are some drawbacks, some of them being pretty much blockers for me: 1. The styles are very middle of the road. Even within specialized genres they sound middle of the road (for example the Prog Rock styles are based on the most "normal" sounding Rush & Pink Floyd songs). If you're doing country, country rock, blues rock, or some styles of jazz, it's incredible. Anything else, and you'll be struggling to find something that fits. In saying that, you can isolate a part (say a guitar solo) from a completely unrelated style to what your song is in, and it can sound amazing out of context. 2. Time signature support is essentially limited to 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 and 12/8. It fudges things like 7/8 by splitting it into a bar of 4/4 and 3/4 (so really it's 7/4), which can work, but you're pretty much stuffed if you wanted a 3/4 followed by 4/4 feel. 3. Unless you buy the audiophile edition, the backing is pretty much mp3 quality.... which sounds fine for the most part when you listen to the arrangement as a whole, but some instruments (especially distorted guitars) can sound a bit on the lo-fi side in isolation.

Tempo changes are still discrete jumps, but just at a more granular level. The tempo map is derived from the tempo envelope each time it's edited so it doesn't have to calculate it in real-time. However, an absolute time offset it's still quite complex to do, due to the way MIDI events are queued up in time ready to play. Part of the queuing process is determining which events to queue and when to queue them. This is all done in batches of musical ticks at the moment. If the delay (negative or otherwise) was specified in milliseconds, this would ultimately have to be converted to ticks - but when tempo changes are in play, the amount of ticks could be different for the start time for searching through what to buffer and the start time of each MIDI event. Getting this wrong could result in either missing notes or notes queued up twice. As far as it being computationally intensive... this is partially true. Retrieving the tempo at any point in time is a fairly quick process, but does involve a binary search of the tempo map. Doing this for every note may have an adverse affect on engine performance, but then again, it might be fine on faster machines. Not saying it's impossible, but it's not trivial. That part of the code is pretty involved (even more so now that we have articulations). Part of me thinks this might be better served by extending the articulations to allow +/- delays. The reason being, is that: 1. You could incorporate it into existing articulations, for example all legato articulations would be delayed by "n" ms, whereas pizzicato wouldn't 2. You could have a more granular control over what was delayed and when - for example, you could filter out channels, or have different ms delays for different octaves; or you'll have the ability draw the delay articulation over a specific region of notes in time.

It all depends on which order the clips are processed. I've not looked at that code in a while, so I can't recall what determines the order. But say you have two clips right next to each other, and the first clip is processed first. This will result in the second clip being moved to accommodate the first, then the next clip moved again because it's part of the selection. If however the second clip was moved first, both would move as expected. As I said, it's the wrong tool for the job when dealing with the entire project. Insert Time is the one to use in this scenario, as it's a far simpler command and far less complicated than either ripple edit or slide (therefore much less chance of anything going wrong).

You're using the wrong command. Project->Insert Time will do what you want. Process->Slide does something different... kinda complicated to explain, but it's all to do with closing gaps: - If you slide a clip by one measure and there's more than a measure gap between the clip you're moving and the next clip, the next clip will remain where it is. - If you slide a clip by one measure and there's less than a measure gap between the clip you're moving and the next clip, the next clip will move by the the sliding amount minus the original gap.

If you're using a control surface with a master fader, clicking the lock button in the middle of of your hardware output can solve this problems. However, be aware that if the hardware output is not at unity gain, your audio exports will sound louder or quieter than what you're hearing in Cakewalk. A better way, is to assign your master fader to the master bus. If you're using Cakewalk's Mackie Control control surface, you can do this in the Mackie Control dialog under the Utilities menu.

If you need an effect post fader, either create a post fader send to an Aux track, or set the track output to an aux track, then continue the processing in the aux track. It's kind of an odd thing to do though. If you really need a fader in between two insert effects, put an empty FX chain in there.

The most common reason for this I've seen over the years is when your hardware output is not set to unity gain and/or you're routing directly to the hardware output rather than through a master bus. If the hardware output level is set to less than unity, your export will appear louder.

You'll need to convert it to a step sequencer clip first by right clicking it, and selecting "Convert MIDI Clip(s) to Step Sequencer "

Yes, this is the case. However you should be aware that sending multiple articulation switches in quick succession could confuse the VSTi (obviously dependent on the VSTi in question). Also, clicking a "trigger event" articulation will send the articulation out immediately, so if you are experiencing issues, you can use this method to force a particular articulation.

The way articulations chase is depends on the chase mode, the type of articulation (i.e. latched notes / duration based notes / cc ), and the implementation of the articulation within the VSTi itself. Duration based note articulations require the trigger note to be held down for the duration of the whole articulation, whereas latching key-switches generally require a short note to engage the articulation, and then they retain their state. Whether it's duration or latched is dictated by the VSTi, so it's up to you to make sure the articulation is set up to match that - if they're mismatched then the behaviour you describe (or similar) is likely to occur. CC articulations normally behave like latching key-switches - i.e. you set them, and they retain their state until something else changes them. The above is true for triggered event type articulations. Transform articulations always need their duration cover the notes you want to affect.

FWIW their tape emulator is one of the best I've heard, and also one of the cheapest on the market. Gain staging is vital with this one, but once you get it right the results are awesome.

That's half of the issue. The other half is that the tracks are not routed to the master bus. So: 1. Route your tracks to the master bus 2. Route your master bus to the Focusrite stereo output

How are you exporting it? If the source category is Tracks when exporting, then that might be the issue. Try using "Tracks Through Entire Mix" instead.

I'm almost certain sysex isn't supported for VST's in CbB - I know it doesn't support receiving it, so it's doubtful it'll support sending it either.

It depends on the synth. Some synths allow the same note to be triggered multiple times, in which case this technique won't work. For others, this will work fine.

Right click on the gain knob, and select "Remote Control" - you can assign a CC to control it there. You're correct however - you can't automate it using automation.

You've not said exactly which UAD plugin it is - so you'll need to check their website. If it is VST3 only though, there's nothing that will make it work in Sonar X1.

Two things to bear in mind: 1. Sonar X1 pre-dates the VST3 format. 2. A few years ago, Steinberg revoked the license for releasing new VST2 plugins - essentially forcing vendors to release VST3 only versions (unless a VST2 version of the plugin was already released before the license revocation). So if this plugin is a VST3 only plugin, it won't appear in Sonar X1.

Both are great sounding VSTi's and well worth the money.

I rarely use presets for VST's (vs VSTi's), but if I do have a particular one I like, I save it inside an FX chain. If you hold SHIFT when dragging from the browser to the FX bin, it automatically removes it from the FX chain with all the settings intact.

IIRC I had to re-install the VC++ redistributables after I last installed the AIR stuff - maybe not for the synths, but definitely for the effects stuff. You may also want to re-install the iLok software. Whoever wrote the original installers didn't think to check for newer versions of the components, and just blasted over it with the ancient stuff in their installer.

Most likely a corrupt ctrlsurface.dat. Before you launch Cakewalk, rename ctrlsurface.dat to ctrlsurface.old within %APPDATA%\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core - then start Cakewalk. You'll most likely have to set up your control surfaces again within preferences.

There's also "Fit Improvisation". Basic usage: 1. Add a MIDI track, and arm it 2. Start recording and tap the same key for each beat through the song until the end 3. Select the MIDI clip you just recorded, then Process->Fit Improvisation. A tempo map will be created from what you recorded.

One other thing you could try... I've found that having lots of small MIDI clips on a track eats up way more CPU than a single MIDI clip on the track. If you've got lots of smallish MIDI clips, try consolidating them into one by selecting them and "Bounce to Clip(s)".