Johnbee58

Good suggestion. I'll put your words on my bathroom mirror too. 😉

As far as the lyrical content of this song, I was considering re- writing the the words, but I think I'll leave it as it is. At the time I was depressed and frustrated. It was an off moment for me, but that's cool. That's what art is all about and it's a beautiful thing. I don't feel that way now. I've come out of the fog, but I'll have this song to look back on when I need to remind myself of those dark times and thoughts. Kind of like what Lennon did in his song "Yer Blues". EDIT-Lest someone take the Lennon/Yer Blues" statement above out of context (that's happened on this board already. Believe it or not), I am NOT comparing myself to John Lennon as far as talent or songwriting ability. I'm not putting myself" up there with him." I just mean that he expressed himself and his depression in that particular song. That's what I did here in mine. Please don't misunderstand that. 😉 🙂JB

Thank you amiller. I won't find another singer because nobody could sing my songs they way I do. I'm not being conceited or delusional. My own vocals don't bother me. They used to but I'm not going to let it bother me anymore. I do my best singing MY music. 🙂JB

No. I've changed my outlook. I AM good enough! I'm an amateur and I'm I'm proud or it. And I give up trying to be what I am not. If I don't measure up to your musical expectations, please don't listen because I'm not going to keep trying to beat a dead horse attempting to do the impossible! If you're going to make the same old critiques and cannot accept my music as I present it as best as I can, please don't listen and don't bother repeating yourself with the same old tired critiques that I say time and time again I can't do anything about! If I make only one person on this board happy, I'm fine with that-from now on! That sounded a bit harsh and off putting. Please accept my apology for acting a fool. Let me put it another way. I'm not going to apologize for the shortcomings in my music anymore. It is what it is. If you like it, fine. If not, fine too. I will no longer respond with hurt and offensive tones. You can flame all you want and I will try my best to take your suggestions and do something with them. If I can't, then I can't. As I said, I'm only an amateur. Some here are pros and I respect that. I feel wonderful for you and I respect your opinions and feelings, but understand that unlike you, I'm limited. But I'll take what you suggest and work with it as much as I can, IF I can. As far as my self loathing, I'm done with that too. Fact is, I'm proud of what little I can accomplish. I do and I will take pride in my music. This song here, for instance. I'm happy with it. Sure, somebody else could probably sing it better, but I'm happy with it because it came from me. I was also very happy with "Quietly She Sings". A few of you called me on the vocal work being out of tune and throaty. OK. That's how you see it and I respect that. As I said, I can't do anything about that but thank you for your suggestion. I'm proud of it anyway, really. It expresses me and that's all I really want. I'll keep making my music and keep posting it. If you enjoy it, I'm glad. If you don't, I'm glad too. Thanks for listening to the small amount of self expression I can get out. And thanks for your opinions and suggestions. I will do the best I can with them, but I won't make promises. Yours in music 🙂John B

Thanks, Jesse. I really appreciate that. 😀Just an amateur having fun. JB

Bjorn & Rik-Thanks so much. You're being too kind. ❤️ 😀JB

Great! Thanks so much! 😀JB

This is why I don't jump right on to updating. I wait to see if there are any complications like this. I did run it on my spare PC in my bedroom but not yet on my music PC. I have a small project which I'm just starting with only a few bars written in Scaler and EZ Keys on the bedroom PC. Works fine, but as I said, it's only about 5 bars so far. I won't update the music PC until this is solved. 😀JB

I've been wondering if it's possible to accomplish something in CbB. Probably not, but it's worth asking. If I have a vocal track that I'm just mixing using no particular special effect and I want to do a line or two with say, a doubler or flanger, I have been up to now putting the lines I want doubled on a separate track for the effect. I'm wondering if there is some automation in CbB that would allow me to cue a special effect to trigger at a specific point on the time line instead of using a whole track and channel for just the effected part of the vocal. I hope I'm not being too vague in my explanation as to what I want. I'm figuring the pros probably don't have to use separate tracks and maybe the Cakewalk Bakers baked a tasty morsel like this into the program. Thanks in advance! EDIT-While I'm asking, is it possible to make automated changes in things like EQ and compression too? 🙂John B

Thanks so much, guys! The "vocal drops" just kind of happened naturally. Glad you like them. The groove is from the new "Urban Jazz" EZ Keys and EZ Drummer packs, but with some of my own variations and chord progressions. I also upgraded to NI Session Strings Pro 2. For the benefit of other Session String users here who haven't taken it to Pro 2 yet, I highly recommend it. It's much easier to use than the older versions of SS and has some great new features. 🙂

The past several weeks I've been struggling with whether I want to continue to do this. This song came out of that conflict. Frustration becomes art. https://johnbowen.bandcamp.com/track/understand 🙂John B

Thanks all. SLIP-Thanks for the link. Mine is Windows 8.1. I wonder if the same applies. I did just yank it a few times and so far nothing bad happened. The drive came with a utility called "Toolkit" but there's no answers there. Maybe I'll just start putting off disconnecting it until I shut the PC down. Probably the safest answer. 😀JB

I use an external USB hard drive to back up projects and files. Until yesterday, it gave the option to eject it in the "Show Hidden Icons" area in the lower right of the screen. Now it comes up but doesn't give an option to eject anymore and I'm afraid if I don't do this step I may screw up data on both the PC and the USB drive. The drive is a Seagate and the OS is Windows 8.1. Any ideas? Thanks🙂John B

No. That's not it, but thanks for responding. I looked in my Power Sonar X3 book and found that it's the clip header. I found out how to make it show up again. Thanks so much! 😀JB

I tried all of those things suggested, but nothing worked so I just transferred the MIDI data to a new project. I figured something got corrupted because everything was working: Transport and Slider work, project is audible, aim assist still works. The only thing out of order was the white vertical line that moves under the pointer in the time line. I can put the pointer anywhere and that's the point where the playing starts. But no vertical white line under it to help me line up the clips where I want them. Thanks for all your suggestions. I consider the problem solved. 😀

The project must be corrupted, so I moved all the MIDI to a new one. The Now Time and Ruler do work. The white vertical line that moves vertically along the timeline is invisible. Thanks 🙂

When I transferred MIDI clips from a corrupted project into a new one I must've hit a key that took away the small margin on top of the clip. Now it's just one solid clip and has no margin on top. What did I do and how do I change it back? Thanks! 🙂John B

Hi On my current project the vertical white line that you use to navigate to specific areas in the transport is not visible. It was yesterday, but it seems to have disappeared. Perhaps I bumped a key that made it happen. The transport does move but I just can't see the white vertical line. Only effects one project. Would appreciate help. Thank you. 🙂John B.

It's the little vertical white line that moves across the screen is not visible on this particular projects

Yeah. That sounds right. Apparently it's disabled in my project. Can you please tell me how to enable it. Thanks 🙂

Could be. But the alpha numeric keyboard I use doesn't indicate which one is the scroll lock. Also, the "now slide"r DOES move. It's just the little navigation white line I'm missing. 🙂JB

Current project- Now slider and the little white line to mark where you are in the timeline doesn't move. The project plays but I can't navigate to where I need to be at a certain time. Didn't happen yesterday when I was working on it. Also, doesn't affect any other past projects or newly created one. It seems to be specific to this current project only. Thanks in advance for help. 🙂John B.

Thanks Lynn. The dissonance is planned. There's tension there that I wanted. 🙂 How EZ Keys fits into the arrangement is how the piano articulates the chords. I'm not much of a pianist either. EZ Keys comes with a certain amount of "style articulation" presets. You can buy more in the form of what they call "MIDI Packs". You can use the presets straight as they come or you can customize them with your own chord progressions, chop up the bars one by one and kind of "mix n' match" everything until you have your own unique piano part. These, of course, are all fully editable so if your chord progression doesn't follow what the player who programmed the articulation did as far as intervals and such, you can edit the MIDI in the DAWs MIDI editor to whatever your liking is. It's a great program and I recommend it highly. BTW-I'm not an employee of Toontrack, so I'm not paid by them to sing it's praises. I just love the program so much, as well as EZ Drummer. Thanks again, Lynn. I was getting a bit worried about you being gone for so long.😉 🙂JB

Hi! The workaround I use is back up the chord sets and save to an outside file. Then, when you install the update you can load them into the new version. If you have MIDI written on the old (broken) Scaler, you can create a MIDI track and move your MIDI temporarily from the old Scaler version to the MIDI track. Then update to the new Scaler version and move your MIDI from the (temporary) MIDI track onto the new Scaler. I know it's a bit of a PITA. Hopefully they will resolve the problem soon. 🙂John B

I got an email notification yesterday about a PM somebody sent me. We're moving in the right direction. 😀John B