aleo

I recently opened an old cwp file that I created back when I was using Sonar. it contains eight audio tracks that I was in the final stages of mixing. The tracks' volume and pan envelopes still need some work and I would like to finish this project, but I noticed that everything was recorded 44.1kHz and 16 bit. From the standpoint of preserving the fidelity of the recorded sound, would there be any advantage in exporting these tracks as 48kHz, 24 bit wave files (using pow r 3 dithering) and them importing them to a new CbB project set to work at 48KHz and 24 bit and finish my final mix in the new CbB file? if I do this should I remove the old volume and pan envelopes prior to exporting the tracks?

I just wish the Bakers would get around to fixing the Colors section of Preferences so that every part could be changeable and work like it used to in the old Sonar versions. Please work on this.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the responses and info. I am a complete amateur/noob at mastering. Katz' method or system seemed to have a lot of merit and I knew it had been used with success in the film industry. I'm currently mixing down my tracks for an album, CD and other venues, but plan to have a professional studio do the mastering. I also want to look into LUFS.

Is anyone familiar with engineer Bob Katz' proposed "K-system" of integrated metering and monitoring? Has there been any interest in this system among audio engineers who are doing mastering?

Guys, Thanks so much for responding. I'll check out Steve's utilities.

Would it be possible to connect the Help function to the Cakewalk Reference Guide so that it would work in a way similar to the way offline Help worked in the old Sonar program? With Sonar, you could click on Help and get a feature that would allow you to search the user's manual by either table of contents, the index, or by key word(s). Many users prefer to keep their DAW computer offline as much as possible and though I always keep an updated copy of the Reference Guide on my DAW computer, I have to go outside Cakewalk to access it and cannot search for help on a topic as easily as one could have with the old Sonar program. This would be a great time saver and a very valuable improvement.

Erik, Good to hear from you. I enjoyed reading your reference to JGS. I upgraded to v. 2020.05 about two weeks ago and everything is running nicely on my system, so far. Hoping to get the stems recorded for the last two pieces on our up coming album. Best of luck with your creative projects!

Wookiee, Good to hear from you. I don't expect perfection in software, but in the spirit of W. Edwards Deming, it's a good target to aim for. Best of luck with your creative projects!

Jonathan, I appreciate your prompt response. You didn't comment on my system so I'm assuming it is at least adequate. Good. You seem like an earnest fellow and the confidence in your product that you express is inspiring. So... we'll go ahead with the upgrade to 2020.05 within the next few days. If all goes well I will announce it proudly in these pages. If my computer blows up you owe me a beer.😉

Noel, Good to hear from you; I've been wanting to talk with someone on the Staff. I do read the Release Notes and I do appreciate the improvements stated in Features and Enhancements, and Optimization. This is progress. But, I also read Bug Fixes, about 65(!) in v. 2020.05. This seems high for a program this far in its development. They can't all be coming from the old Sonar Platinum program--hence, my concerns. To help you understand my perspective, our company used to publish manuals. We would try to ferret out all of the errors and typos, but the first printing would usually contain say 15 to 20 errors or typos. By the second printing we could usually get the number down to eight or ten, by the third maybe down to two or three. Help me understand what's going on with Cakewalk. The problems (there are three more that I did not list above) may be caused by something in my system. Here are the specs: Computer: Creation Station 450 v6, i7 8700, 3.2 G.Hz., 32 MB RAM, 64 bit, with plenty of space left on both C and D drives. O.S.: Windows 10 Home ver. 10.0.17134 Screensaver -- always off, Sleep Mode -- always off, audio drivers: ASIO, almost all of my projects are run at 48 KHz., 24 bit. This system was built and set up by Sweetwater to run Sonar X3 and it did so without any major problems. If you see anything here that might cause a problem, please let me know and I'll get it fixed. If you see anything here that could be changed or tweaked to optimize performance with CbB, please let me know and we'll get it done. You suggest providing concrete evidence. I would be happy to send a copy of my cwp file containing the problem to BandLab Tech Support (I did this once before), but since they will be running it on their computer will they be able to determine whether or not the problem is being caused by some part of my copy of CbB possibly being corrupted? Finally, I gather from your post that you recommend that I proceed and upgrade to v. 05, is that correct?

Josh, Thanks for responding and your advice; your letter was very encouraging. it may be that that some of the problems I've encountered have to do with my computer, the version of Win. 10 I'm using, or something in the program has become corrupted. I intend to get back to Noel on this with more details about my system later today. I go back with Cakewalk to the mid-nineties, ver. 7 I think. Best of luck with your creative projects!

Scook, Thanks so much for all the information. Sending a copy of the cwp file to the Forum is an interesting idea. I have submitted project files to Cakewalk support in the past, though lately they have been slow in responding--probably owing to covid19 pandemic. Yes, I've learned the hard way not to let Cakewalk run too long unattended. If it can develop vexing little glitches in an hour or so, who knows? By the end of the day it may become self-aware and decide to take over the world.😮 Wish you success in your creative projects.

I meant to write 2020.01 and 2020.05 in my feedback post. Hope this didn't cause a lot of confusion.

Great discussion with many good points brought up and suggestions for improvements. I'm still using staff view along with PRV when composing in MIDI and hope that BandLab stays with it and continues to improve it. It matters to a lot of us and it is a great music education tool.

Scook, "Could it be plug-in specific? The problem of some effects plug-ins buffers not flushing is not new. It goes back decades." Possibly. I'm pretty certain that the last two times I encountered this problem it occurred in an instrument track where I was using Omnisphere and controlling volume and pan with automation. I haven't been working with any plug-in effects recently, but in the projects I've been working on over the past couple of months I've been using Omni quite a bit, also tracks with Absynth 5 and, occasionally, Massive, Z3ta+ and FM8. I'll keep track of this in the future. In Preferences, Bit Bridge Server Configuration is set to Automatic (the default). I don't know if this would have any bearing, but as you probably know, in v. 2020.1 CbB changed the Playback and Recording Prepare buffer size. In my case it reduced it from 600 msec. down to 200 msec. I appreciate all the assistance and information.

Scook, Thanks for responding. Yes, Always Stream Audio Through FX has always been enabled or checked in Preferences as long as I have been using CbB. Currently I'm using version 2020.1; I'm not certain whether or not this problem ever occurred in any of the 2019 versions.

Mike, I understand. Other DAWs have their short comings too. I'm staying with 2020.1 at least for the next couple of weeks until I finish the final mix on a couple of projects thinking that it is better to deal with the devil you know. Best of luck with your projects; hopefully we'll be able to hear some of them soon!

Mike, I wish I could offer more than just sympathy, but I've experienced a problem using v. 2020.1 that seems similar to one of the problems you've described and I'm working on a CS 450v6, Win 10 Home, feeding a MOTU 828x interface (ASIO drivers, 48kHz, 24 bit) which would indicate that the problem is not unique to your hardware. Description: after playing and/or editing a MIDI track or making adjustments to the pan and volume envelopes I hit rewind, the Now Time line/cursor returns to the very beginning of the track (the beginning of all of my tracks have at least one measure of silence--the envelope is at -infinity), when I hit Play I get sound/audio during that measure and it may continue over the recorded MIDI! Clicking on Reset once or twice gets rid of the audio that shouldn't be there, but this is unlike anything I ever experienced with Sonar X3. I too have noticed a number of annoying little glitches that seem to crop up when I've working with CbB for two or more hours (see my recent letter Concerns About Upgrading to 2020.5) and sometimes the only thing you can do is close down CbB then start it again--not a good solution. If I discover anything that may help you I'll post a note in this thread. In the meantime I wish the Bakers would test the new versions of CbB more thoroughly--we are not moving forward here. I don't recall Sonar X3 having any of these problems. I think what most of us want and really need is a DAW that is rock solid and stable when we do MIDI, Instrument, and audio track playback, recording, editing, and work with software synths and plug-ins. Other features are nice, but the basic functions are essential; this is where the focus should be.

I'm currently using v. 2020.01 on a Creation Station 450v6, i7, running Win. 10 Home and have some concerns about moving to 2020.05. Below are problems that seem to pop up randomly in some of the projects I am currently working on: slider on one of the Console strips failed to follow the Volume envelope on Track 1, other sliders tracked envelopes fine, slider on Trk 1 was stuck at 0 db. I returned to CbB after taking a one hour break and found Transport controls would not respond to w, r, or space bar on keyboard, clicking controls in Transport Module did work. When using the arpeggiator, I was not able to stop it even after shutting off Latch and clicking Reset, had to close CbB. Over the past three months I've experienced five crashes while using Dimension Pro as a plug-in. All occurred when changing from one factory preset to another, problem appears to be random and not related to any particular preset. These problems seem to indicate some instability in CbB, more so than I recall in the later versions of Sonar. Under Preferences>Customization>Color, a number of the colors of various parts of the Track and Console view cannot be changed: e.g. the Hardware Output field is fixed at a shade of blue, the Input fields remain green and can't be changed. and I wrote to Tech support over a year ago about this. This feature used to work in Sonar X3. I have several important projects that are now in the mixing stage, but I feel that I have to keep my fingers crossed each time I turn on my computer and begin a session with CbB. Will 2020.05 correct any of the above problems? BandLab offers a way to revert to older versions, but this is not progress. Has v. 2020.5 been thoroughly tested? Is there a way I can fix any of the problems described above or would it require re-installing the entire program? I would appreciate any advice anyone out there in the community could offer. Please advise.

Great video Mike. I learned a lot from it.