Larry Jones

1 hour ago, Cactus Music said:

I'm always willing to give it a try but if it takes too long to get things working, I return to my tried and true methods.

I'm with you on that, Johnny. as I write this, I am working on Craig's method above. I have already started over 5 times trying to get it right. I don't know if I ever will. If I don't by the end of the day, I'll just re-record the whole freaking track.

On 3/17/2019 at 10:13 AM, Cactus Music said:

I followed directions and dropped the original into the new version and tried a few times but then the guitar parts all went weird??  So I did the right thing and poured a glass of Glenlivet  and re sang it and guess what-- it's was even better!

Glad it worked out for you! But I thought if you selected just the one track, other tracks would not be affected by Audiosnap. Shows what I know...

18 hours ago, Butterfield Science said:

On 1/14/2019 at 8:24 PM, Larry Jones said:

Just curious -- have you found a DAW that will do this?

Audacity. Sony Vegas (a video editor). A tape/record. It's a pretty basic omission in my opinion. A bit like forgetting to put doorhandles on a car. A real shame, because otherwise Cakewalk is the best DAW I've ever used

Neither of these are DAWs.

9 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

There are probably lots of other ways to do this, but I think it's pretty straightforward.

Thanks, Craig. King of the workaround, Master of the alternate method! ?

@sjoens see my response to your other post about this. I'm having similar problems, just not as important to me because I don't use the control surface. But I can confirm some of your issues are not yours alone.

Reading about your problems has made me take a closer look at my Impact 61LX+. On mine...

1. Patch buttons turn the Synth Rack on and off.
2. Patch buttons do not stop and start the transport. The "Stop" and "Start" buttons do that.
3. My "Inst" button brings up the same soft synth every time.
4. So far no weird code in the Control Bar.
5. Holding down the button under fader #9 does NOT change the Mute buttons to Solo button. It causes them to do nothing.

This is about half the stuff the manual says this controller can do with SONAR. I'm too tired to go through the rest of it right now, and I haven't noticed these issues before because I don't use the LX as a control surface. Now, of course, I want to. ? But I just wanted you to know you're not alone in this.

I wonder if there is a new version of the control surface software?

I've been using the LX-61+ for a year and a half. It works out of the box as a MIDI controller, and there is a file you can download from the company for each of several DAWS. I got the ones for SONAR and Studio One. The SONAR one worked with all the DAW controls as near as I could tell, but it was not comfortable for me and I abandoned most of it after a couple of weeks. The S1 compatibility was extremely limited even with their download. I assumed that was because Presonus sells control surfaces, which they want to work better with Studio One than anyone else's control surface. There is much talk of Studio One's customization capabilities, but  Cakewalk by Bandlab became available and I went back to what I knew.

@sjoens I have the impression from your earlier posts that you did not at first use the Nektar download to set up your LX 88. Is that right? 

8 hours ago, Cactus Music said:

I will try following your instructions and see if it works this time. 

I'm a novice with Audio Snap. I guess you could drop the older, better vocal into the new project (pre-bounced to a single continuous clip), select just that track in the new project, open Audio Snap, and click the Clip Follows Project Tempo button. That seems (to me) like it should work. Don't give up, Johnny!

1 hour ago, Craig Anderton said:

I still think the easiest solution is to wait until the mix is done, then slow down or speed up the two-track.

Hey Craig! I'm having trouble with this song and I'm experimenting with tempo to find a groove, so I need to work on it as a multitrack. In other words, I might play some parts differently if the track is at a different speed. After it's mixed it's too late for that.

If you don't mind, could you please define "slip edit" and "slip stretch?" Like, how do I do that? Thanks!

Can you change the Record Timing Master to your USB microphone?

On 3/14/2019 at 2:52 AM, Michael Fogarty said:

following. I never knew you could get the audio tracks to follow a tempo change.

@Michael Fogarty With Audiosnap, yes, you can change the tempo of an audio track or group of tracks. Check out the link in my original post. Mind you, I'm not trying to have tempo changes during the track. I'm just trying to have the whole thing go at a lower speed. As I said in my many updates above, the audio tracks in my project didn't behave as expected until I bounced one (containing many clips) to a new track so it became just one clip on its own track. Then it worked, and stayed in sync.

Right off the top I'll say that you'd be far better off with an audio interface designed for this kind of work and a "real" microphone. Your computer is seeing the mic as an audio device. The mic is used as an input, but it can't be an output (for playback/monitoring), so the internal sound card is used for that. Under Edit|Preferences|Audio|Driver Settings you will probably see your internal sound card as the Playback Timing Master and your USB mic as the Record Timing Master. That should screw up your sync right there, but it's the only way it'll work at all. Maybe if you go to Edit|Preferences|Audio|Playback and Recording and change the "Driver Mode" to one of the WASAPI choices you'll get better results. Also, the mic may be a 16-bit only device, so make sure you're not recording at a different bit depth (like 24).

Cakewalk is designed for use with a single, fast audio interface and if you use one your latency and sync should not be (much of) an issue. You would never, for example, have to slide a recorded track around on the timeline to get it in sync with existing tracks. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I hope this helps.

I'm trying to slow down a project a little. I have about 40 tracks, both audio and MIDI. I'm using these instructions. But I recall reading somewhere else that I have to bounce all the tracks to clips so that they all start at zero. Can anyone tell me if this is so, or if the SONAR documentation is obsolete?

I tried this once without bouncing everything to clips, and once with the pre-bounce. Both times some tracks followed the new tempo, some didn't, and some changed tempos during the track, apparently at random (the tempo map before this operation was a straight horizontal line). I think it was the MIDI tracks that followed the new tempo, which of course makes sense, but I need the audio tracks to go along. I'm only going for a slight reduction in speed, from 172bpm to ~164bpm.

Is there a better way to do this? Or (more likely) can anyone tell what I'm doing wrong?

UPDATE 1: Some of the audio tracks not only don't follow the new slower tempo, they actually change to a much faster tempo!
UPDATE 2: I should note that none of my tracks were played or sung all the way through. They are all comped or punched, so there are a lot of clips in each track.
UPDATE: 3: It is definitely only the audio tracks that aren't playing nice. All the MIDI tracks are behaving as expected.
UPDATE 4 IMPORTANT: I bounced one of the audio tracks to a new track, making it all one continuous clip, starting at measure one and going all the way to the end. When I tried the tempo change again, this track followed the change. So I think this is the solution. I'll try it (tomorrow) on the rest of the audio tracks and render them and see how it sounds.

I'm still open to suggestions and explanations if anyone wants to jump in.

On 3/12/2019 at 4:11 AM, yeto said:

I take it Cakewalk does not have a "latency compensation" feature/setting?

Sorry you haven't been getting any help here. Can you tell us what PC you are using, what audio interface (or no audio interface), and how you are going about putting vocals onto your backing tracks?

I don't know if I'm allowed any followup whining on this Q&A forum, but...

This didn't go well. I didn't bounce to clips, I just went through the instructions noted in my original question and changed the tempo of the project from 172bpm to 160bpm. I'll have to take more time to analyze this, but it appears that the MIDI tracks followed the change, but not the audio tracks. Also, some of the audio tracks change tempo apparently randomly at various points in the song.

I think I'll try it again, this time bouncing everything to clips first. Guess I should also have a look at the tempo map, in case there's something there, although there have never been any random tempo changes in the past and the song doesn't have any intentional changes.

I thought those instructions looked too good to be true.

I'm trying to slow down a project a little. I have about 40 tracks, both audio and MIDI. I'm using these instructions, But I recall reading somewhere else that I have to bounce all the tracks to clips so that they all start at zero. Can anyone tell me if this is so, or if the SONAR documentation is obsolete?

Michael, thinking out loud here as I'm a guitar player who knows very little about MIDI... You can set up your synthesizers to receive MIDI data on specific channels 1 though 16, then change which channel your keyboard is sending on, which would in turn activate sound from one of your synths. The Alesis manual should tell you how to change the channel on that, and each synth will have a different procedure for setting the MIDI channel as well. You might not be able to set up the keyboard with different MIDI channels for different sections of keys or pads, though. It might be a matter of sending on ALL MIDI channels and selecting which synth you want to be playing.

Someone who knows a lot more about MIDI will be able to give you more guidance on this. Best of luck!

14 hours ago, Johnbee58 said:

Now that I know there's someone here who's familiar with both the hardware & software I can get with you and set the rest of it up.

?JB

Hey, @Johnbee58 and @sjoens, please do that here in the forum so I can join in! I have an LX-61+ and I'd like to make better use of it. Thanks!

7 hours ago, sjoens said:

Trying to use all the controls but it's a little confusing especially when controlling multiple DAWs that require different settings. Almost not worth the hassle. Nektar's info is all over the place and requires a bit of investigation and patience to make it all work. Not a lot of helpful videos either.

A small matter of inconvenience is not being able to change the controls. I'd like the track buttons to default to SOLO instead of MUTE and the Master/Track fader to control the... master track, not the "current" track. If this can be done, I can't find any info on how to do it.

Thanks for the reply! I only use it with one DAW (CbB) and it's still confusing. The implementation on different DAWs is not their fault, though. It has to do with what a DAW publisher exposes for third party programming. It is a disappointment that the controls on the Impact are not customizable. That would make it much more valuable.

7 hours ago, S.L.I.P. said:

A good video to understand the complexity of vocal editing. 

That is a good video. As bad as my singing is,  I really should to learn how to do this.

Wish I could help, but I've never seen this behavior. I do have a question for you, though: Do you use all the DAW control functions? I have the 61-key version of that keyboard, and I guess I'm just lazy, but I only use the transport controls. All the other hoo-ha is too confusing for me (I use it in studio only, not live).

For what it's worth I think your USB hub should be OK, since it's powered.

Putting on my Spelling Police hat for a moment: These were "ads." not "adds." That is all.

On 3/7/2019 at 4:13 AM, Starship Krupa said:

I create a MIDI Black Hole. A spot in the Piano Roll from which no sound can ever emanate.

Long way around in describing this, but it was a good read, so you're forgiven.

Also, good to read the solution. I might need it someday.

Ha! Now I have a pop up from an online dating site that says "You have a match!" Who says these ads are not relevant? Meeting women is the whole reason I got into music in the first place.? Thanks, Bandlab!

4 hours ago, Cactus Music said:

I'm afraid I'm not about to hang around and get abuse for having someone change my posts.  

@Cactus Music

In case you missed it, Johnny, it was meant as a joke.?

1 hour ago, Meng said:

Guys, this is not intentional, we'll figure this out ASAP - I'm getting it as well. 

Good to know. Thanks.