Michal Ochedowski

Ok I found the issue. I had no idea that updating Cakewalk to newer version can affect my Preferences. Luckily I keep notes of all the changes I made compared to default state. 

First of all I realized that audio stuttered on STOP command even when I played a single .wav file. So I went to Audio / Playback and Recording. I noticed that Fade On Start, Fade On Stop were back to 0. Previously I had them custom-set to 1 millisecond. After that small change no more stutter when I STOP playback. 

47 minutes ago, scook said:

I believe you may be thinking of Always Stream Audio Through FX

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=0x22B19

I always keep above-mentioned option switched ON. That's not what I meant though. I did mention Surge's built-in effects, which do no fall into the same category as FX chains in Cakewalk. 

For a minute I thought that problem was caused by option "On Stop, Rewind to Now Marker" which I also have switched ON. Unfortunately I didn't make any difference in performance. 

I tried using AIR Music Technology Hybrid and Ichiro Toda Synth1. They also cause the same short stutter when I press STOP. I'm sure it has to be a Cakewalk issue. 

Hello. I have a problem with Cakewalk and MIDI playback. 

Short description of my setup: 1 MIDI track with pre-recorded chords and 1 Instrument track with Vember Surge. Surge is receiving data from MIDI track. When I press PLAY everything works fine, no audio dropouts etc. When I press STOP I hear a very short stutter and all processing from Surge stops immediately. This includes built-in effects which belong to Surge's patch e.g. delay, reverb etc. 

I created the same setup in Reaper. When I press STOP, I can still hear audio fading out. Delays and reverbs can also be heard. 

Is there a setting in Cakewalk that would allow synthesizer patches play-out their ADSR envelopes and effects, without stopping them so abruptly? 

Works great, thank you. I noticed that it has to be clicked each time a window is open. Is there a way to give all keystrokes to plugin automatically, to whichever VST is at the front? 

Hello. I've been having problems with certain VST plugins. I mean the ones which allow user to input values e.g. enter certain amount for volume, panning etc. One of the most popular samplers TX16Wx is affected. Also AIR Music Technology Hybrid synth doesn't recognize keyboard input. Numerical keyboard on the right side simply doesn't work. When I try using top row numbers, different Cakewalk screensets are selected. Not all plugins are affected, but it's very annoying. In different DAWs like Ableton Live or Reaper plugins mentioned above work properly. 

Is there a way to change this behavior? I tired pinning plugin windows, but it didn't help. 

To be clear, it's not just the latest Cakewalk build that has this problem. It's been there for a long time. 

2 hours ago, msmcleod said:

For Duplicate Clip, this has been fixed for the next release. It will retain the original selection size and not crop to the last note.

Good news keep coming today. Thanks for this update! 

19 hours ago, LarsF said:

Reaper is good in the sense there are no track types - as I recall. You handle audio and midi on the same track, and route however you like.

That's right. Reaper really shines in this matter. It has the least problematic approach among DAWs that I know or tried. 

19 hours ago, LarsF said:

Regardless of daw though, you have a choice to look for solutions or problems. Looking for problems you will swap daw all the time. If there are showstoppers it's nothing you can do but swap.

But Patchwork makes me free to do this regardsless of daw I use. And why I don't use anything stock plugins either - all 3rd party. The plugins are the tools you need to learn - and you move them to any daw of choice without relearning your tools.

You make a very good point. I have the same attitude towards stock plugins. 

I noticed Blue Cat Audio Patchwork in a lot of videos over the years. I'm aware of what it can do, but somehow always wanted to avoid it. Just like I'm staying away from bridging 32 bit VSTs in Reaper. 

15 hours ago, azslow3 said:

Can you believe such common format as VST no longer allows you to process all MIDI "as is"? You still can process some MIDI messages, but far from all (and everything except Notes is transferred rather tricky way). That is VST3... Note that no new developers are allowed to created VST2 (not possible to sign the license).

Cakewalk still support DX MFX only, but curiously that can be an advantage in not so distinct future. At least everyone can write DXes without rather "fancy" VST3 license. F.e. everyone who has signed it agree to switch to ANY next format, so VST3.10, VST4, VST5 within fixed time period... Steinberg has learned that declaring VST2 "obsolete" many years ago  does not prevent this format is still in use. So they have decided to solve the problem in advance...

You provided some valuable info. Thanks for sharing. 

16 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

I can't provide the "why", but if I ever need to enable Groove Looping in a MIDI clip, I ensure that the first and last notes of the clip start/end exactly on the beat by editing the notes.
I believe a MIDI clip's length is defined by the data in the clip, not how long it appears.

You are correct. I noticed that too. However only in Cakewalk I have stumbled upon such a "requirement". To keep the clip length even, make the last note even. Thanks for the input. 

15 hours ago, Klaus said:

If you want to keep the length of an extended MIDI clip, you have to switch to 

Non-Destructive MIDI Editing

in Preferences -> Customization -> Editing -> MIDI

Otherwise moving/duplicating a MIDI clip will always truncate the length of the clip to the end of the last MIDI note.

 

We have a winner! I don't think I would have ever guessed that this option was responsible for truncated clips. Thanks for sharing this tip. 

3 hours ago, LarsF said:

..to expand a bit - you can always chain a couple of instrument tracks together, taking midi out from one as input to the next.

Then to repeat this, just save this config as a track template and this is done in a flash for you.

Thank you for the suggestion. I actually thought about chaining tracks together, but very quickly realized how counterproductive it would be. I'm also discouraged based on the amount of time I already spent on this issue. Sure it would be a workaround, but I'm all about simplicity, so I'll pass. 

I can't believe that such an advanced DAW doesn't allow a function, which to this day I took for granted. Chaining a few MIDI effects together and being sure that data will be transferred from one to another. Really disappointing.  

10 minutes ago, scook said:

There is no way to pass MIDI data from one VST effect to directly another so, even if one puts VST MIDI effects in an FX chain, the MIDI data would not flow from one plug-in to another. With very few exceptions, to send MIDI data to a plug-in requires an instrument or MIDI track. 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer. I especially appreciate the sentence quoted above. I'm glad I asked on this forum. Wasted enough time already looking for a solution. Now I know that what I wanted to achieve was not possible. 

Hi. 

When I first installed Cakewalk, I noticed that all my third party MIDI effects were placed in the Instruments category. Today I wanted to create FX chain with three MIDI effects and couldn't do that. "Save FX Rack as FX Chain Preset" was greyed out. None of these effects generate sound. In other DAWs: Ableton Live, Reaper, Waveform they always appear as MIDI effects, which is not the case in Cakewalk. 

To be more precise, I mean a free set of effects from developer CodeFN42 and one effect from eaReckon called MIDI Polysher. 

Is there a way to change classification of these effects, so they appear in proper category? I've already looked in the Plug-in Manger, but couldn't find any solution. 

Hello. 

This subject has been bothering me for a long time. No matter how many times I try, I can't figure out the solution. At measure 1:00:000 I start recording a MIDI clip. When I press stop, it usually ends up with uneven length. Example from my current set: 7:03:869 (M:B:T). Now I can select this clip, go to Properties in the Inspector and manually input 8, which results in new clip length being 8:00:000 (M:B:T). So far so good. Can someone explain to me, why this new length changes back to where it was as soon as I duplicate this clip or even move it slightly within the track? Is there a setting I'm missing? 

It also doesn't matter if I use the Edit tool for this task. The clip changes length after any movement anyway. 

I've finally found the reason why I couldn't see this plugin. It looks like some VSTs are not available, when I have custom plugin layout active. When I switched to "Type" view in Audio Plugins, Big-Sur showed up. 

Can someone confirm that they installed Big-Sur plugin from this collection and it appeared in the VST folder? I tried it in Cakewalk and couldn't find it. I even performed full reset and scan of all plugins. Big-Sur still not showing up. In Reaper I had no issues. It also worked in old version of Ableton Live. 

That's the very first VST which I couldn't get to work in Cakewalk. 

On 5/11/2020 at 3:47 PM, Michael Vogel ( MUDGEL) said:

Do you remember the name of the Preset/s? Maybe try doing a search for the file that naming the preset would have created. Or perhaps a Registry search for the Preset name. 
 

I’m on a phone at the moment but when I get back to my PC I can have a look for some clues. 

Thank you for your response. I should be more precise in my first post. Recreating shortcuts is not an issue, especially since I haven't had a lot of them, yet. My question was more about the disappearance itself. I thought that shortcuts would simply be available again, once I properly restarted my laptop with external disk connected. This wasn't the case. They never showed up. 

Perhaps you have some information about the divided menu? 

I honestly thought someone would know the answer. Manual doesn't mention this particular thing. 

I can confirm that import works fine for me. I selected option to split to mono and it did. 

Hello. I store all my samples on external hard drive. In Cakewalk's Media Browser I saved some shortcuts to folders with sounds I frequently use.

Yesterday I launched Cakewalk without the external hard drive. It was switched off. I ran the program for a few minutes, didn't even use the browser.

Today I launched Cakewalk with external drive present. I noticed that my custom shortcuts to folders were gone. Is that possible? How can I retrieve them? 

Also, can someone tell me, why drop down menu in the Media Browser is divided like that, with partially duplicated directories? Is this how it's suppose to look? 

1 hour ago, azslow3 said:

I may be see it wrong... But if everything in a project is 48kHz and there is just "saving" into 96kHz... I expect all frequencies above 24kHz should be strictly zero... no?

That's correct. 

1 hour ago, azslow3 said:

I mean it is like using 64 bit depth for recording (from 24 fixed point interface > maximum resolution of any interface), does not make sense at all.

Again correct. It doesn't make sense. However example of Ableton Live comes to mind. Everything in this DAW is processed internally at 32 bit. As far as I'm aware, this behaviour can't be modified. So to avoid unnecessary bit depth changes, it might be a good idea to keep all internal recordings at 32 bit. It's even recommended in user manual.

On the other hand, in Reaper there is a field named: Track mixing bit depth. It gives user a choice, which is a great feature. 

35 minutes ago, mettelus said:

You also mentioned this when you posted this video previously, but Melda has 16x upsampling capability in all of their plugins. I am not aware of any other vendor who has gone to that level of detail with plugin design (is there another vendor that does this?).

It's true that Melda Production has gone much farther with oversampling capability than any other vendor. However it's usually recommended to use the lowest amount of upsampling until aliasing is gone, at least to save some CPU power. I remember checking Voxengo Tube Amp and comparing all modes. When I got to 8x, which is the maximum, all nasty stuff was gone. Bare in mind that it wasn't a low level signal during my test. I went totally overboard to see what this little gem was capable of. Tube Amp is free if anyone is interested to see for themselves. 

4 hours ago, sjoens said:

You're not gaining anything mixing at a higher rate than your recording. 

I disagree. Lets' not forget about saturation or distortion type plugins, that can add a lot of harmonic content. Sometimes they don't offer oversampling e.g. Wave Arts Tube Saturator Vintage. If micv was to use them during mixing at 48 kHz, some unwanted nastiness/aliasing would fold back into the signal. Mixing at 96 kHz will prevent a lot of aliasing from appearing below Nyquist frequency. Then when he mixes down from 96 kHz to 48 kHz all this unwanted stuff will be discarded.

I tested it many times myself. Even though aliasing doesn't seem to be totally gone at 96 kHz, it's level is significantly lower at this sample rate. I'm talking about a single track use. If you consider multiple tracks in a single project, this nasty inharmonic content becomes much more apparent. 

Can someone check on their machine what I proposed in my last post ? 

On 4/28/2019 at 6:08 AM, Michal Ochedowski said:

I invite forum users to test it. 

- With "Audio Data" folder completely empty, open empty project in Cakewalk. 

- Preview eg. 10 samples in a row.

- Then click on them again in random order previewing each sample one more time. So it should give 20 previews all together. 

- Without closing Cakewalk go to "Audio Data" folder. Are there any files present ? Do they have numbers in brackets ? 

I'm still waiting for additional response. 

Correction to my last post: I've just previewed some samples after opening Cakewalk. The numbers in brackets to which I referred to previously, represent summed up consecutive clicks for all previewed samples during current session. So they don't represent number of previews for each sample. They are summed up. Right now I'm at number "(87)". This means that I clicked 87 times on different samples since I started Cakewalk. It doesn't mean that I clicked on the same sample 87 times. 

I invite forum users to test it. 

- With "Audio Data" folder completely empty, open empty project in Cakewalk. 

- Preview eg. 10 samples in a row.

- Then click on them again in random order previewing each sample one more time. So it should give 20 previews all together. 

- Without closing Cakewalk go to "Audio Data" folder. Are there any files present ? Do they have numbers in brackets ? 

7 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

I think the conversion happens once per file and then stays in a memory cache. I believe we cache upto 16 previews after which it will import again.
The files are created whenever the source format is not native such as a different sample rate or a non wav file such as MP3.

This would be good. It's different in my case. It looks like each click causes sample rate conversion. It doesn't matter if I've already previewed particular sample or not. Sure sometimes new file is not being written for a while (eg. 4 or 5 previews), but it certainly is less than 16 previews before new file is written again. 

6 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

The temp files should be destroyed when the project is closed.

I can confirm that temp files are discarded when I close Cakewalk. Then "Audio Data" folder is indeed empty. I'm curious though, why these temp files are not being loaded into RAM memory. Instead they are written to disk. Noel, perhaps there is a setting I'm not aware of that will chanage this behaviour ? I've already tried switching ON Preferences/Audio/Sync and Caching: "Enable Read Caching" and "Enable Write Caching". Haven't noticed any changes. I keep them turned OFF. 

I can also confirm that those temp files are constantly being exchanged. That's what I meant by using word "overwritten" in my last post. For instance number of newly created files in "Audio Data" folder doesn't seem to exceed 10 files at any given time. Sometimes it's 5, sometimes it's 7 etc. It's only the sample names that are changed and consecutive numbers are being displayed in brackets next to each file. 

6 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Regarding the sample rate conversion popups on closing, thats some unintended stuff happening when closing the preview files. We can look into preventing that.

Perhaps this might help. After previewing a bunch of samples, before I closed Cakewalk I checked "Audio Data" folder. I had three files left. When I closed program I noticed "Sample rate conversion" message being displayed very briefly, three times. So it looks like Cakewalk is also performing sample rate conversion prior to closing. I have no idea why though. Temp files are going to be deleted anyway. Bare in mind, during my tests I didn't have any files imported into session. 

4 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

it's not a store front (yet) 

Thanks. That's the last thing I would be interested in when using sample browser. 

Are there any downsides to using sample manager mentioned in this topic ?