Jump to content

Noel Borthwick

Staff
  • Posts

    4,193
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    46

Posts posted by Noel Borthwick

  1. 34 minutes ago, Michael Richards said:

    Still on the workflows topic, I would really like you guys to produce some of your own videos on tips, tricks, and better ways to streamline the workflow process. As it is I am sure there are many ways of doing things that I don't do because I am writing music and (for me) writing music consumes all my brain power. I learn almost everything I know from this forum, but videos speak  in volumes.

    @Morten Saether is working on several video's for Next. We also may do new videos on Sonar.

    • Like 7
    • Thanks 1
  2. 11 hours ago, Michael Richards said:

    If you add Repeat, I will buy it. I’ll probably buy it anyway, but so many times I would like to repeat many things that I wonder why we don’t have that function. It  would make my workflow much quicker. A quick example would be lowering or raising the pitch of a midi file in one instrument and then selecting any other midi clip and selecting Repeat without having to go into Transpose. Same thing wit an audio clip. Same thing with quantizing. 

    Say you apply a specific delay for a guitar track and want to apply that very specific delay to a piano track. Repeat can do this.

    Quick grouping handles most of the commonly used operations like changing track or plugin parameters over multiple selected tracks.
    I see your request however.

  3. 40 minutes ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

    . I'll be interested to see how it works in Next and hopeful that it will make it's way to the new Sonar in due course.         

    Thanks for your thoughtful reply and we are def interested in any workflow changes that enable more efficient production. You can check out Next today by signing up for the beta eval. 

    In next there is also track bounce in place. Doing that in Sonar just requires choosing bounce to track with the same destination track but I hear your point about streamlining this.

    If I add bounce tracks in place to sonar will you buy it? 😜

    • Like 1
  4. You are right about biases in the industry. It's not just with software, bias permeates the entire music industry!  
    I'm sure you have seen Mac bias where not having a Mac version is deemed inferior or less professional.
    Hopefully us having a MacOS DAW now (Cakewalk Next) will alleviate that.
    CbB being free also was an issue with some vendors who don't test with "free daws" 🙄

    • Like 14
    • Thanks 1
  5. 21 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

    Off the top of my head ....

    1. Proper sampler / sample based workflow

    2. Chord track

    3. Easier hardware integration for control surfaces etc

    4. Negative offset

    5. Bar zero

    6. Spatial Audio Ready

    7. Remote Control

    8. Varispeed

    9. Retrospective Midi Record

    10. Scale constrain

    11. MPE Supprt

    12. Bounce/Renderin Place

    13. Loudness Metering

    14. Updated Browser

    15. Scratch Pads

    Mark with all due respect, you have quoted a bunch of features rather than workflow deficiencies. While some of these might be on our future roadmap, over the last 5 years we have favored stability and workflow improvements as well as refining features we already have, over adding a bunch of half-baked features to compete with other DAW's. Cakewalk is already very feature rich and benefits more from this approach. Look at the improvements to export or tempo management as just a couple of examples.

    I'd also point out that Cakewalk has several other features that other DAW's lack or are only just catching up to.
    Every user is going to find something lacking in any given DAW at any time, so its in their best interest to find one that satisfies most of their needs, or use multiple DAW's

    BTW Bounce render in place is already available in Cakewalk. I'm not sure what you mean by remote control but it's been available for decades.

    Re: Sampler our new product Cakewalk Next has an integrated sampler. Its cross-platform code, so you may see that in Sonar someday soon.
     

    • Like 11
    • Thanks 3
  6. On 6/7/2023 at 4:52 PM, Teksonik said:

    All you're doing is regurgitating the same old lines.  I get it, this is a DAW forum so defense of DAW mode is to be expected. 

    As for your "The plugin dev will likely pick 5 DAWs at max - realistically only 2 or 3", that's simply not true. Every developer I've ever tested for (including Cakewalk back in the Z3ta+2 days) tests in as many DAWs as possible. That's one reason to have a beta team. Each member brings different DAWs to test with and different methods of testing. I test in 6 DAWs alone and the other testers and people who write the code test in most all of the others. Of course there are some obscure, discontinued, or outdated DAWs that may not get tested but their user bases are so small that it's usually not an issue. 

    No DAW (or plugin) is 100% bullet proof not even CbB. To ignore potential issues serves no one...not even yourself.

    Like I said when a plugin I use only has issue in one DAW then I'm going to report that issue to the DAW developer. In this case I never received a response so make of that what you will.

    No, he's not regurgitating "old lines". He's giving you a reasonable explanation of why plugin crashes occur, but you are not prepared to listen to a reasonable explanation. We have no interest in being defensive about crashes and fix any issues in our software promptly as many will attest. (that are actually ours)
    Read this article which explains why plugin crashes occur and how to diagnose them. 99% of plugin crashes occur because the vendor has not tested them with all the combinations of operations that occur in a DAW. Also many of the smaller vendors tend to test their plugins in their favorite DAW and call it a day. Another common thing I've seen over the years is that some vendors only test in Mac DAW's so completely skip Cakewalk.
    The advice in the article I posted is the best way to get a resolution, if you must use a plugin that crashes. If you send us the dump we can sometimes pinpoint the crash and follow up with the vendor but most of the time only the vendor can solve it, and it is indeed the vendor's responsibilty to investigate first and contact us later if they actually claim its an issue with the host. Cakewalk has been around more than 30 years and our VST infrastructure is very stable (even Steinberg has commented about this)

     

     

    • Like 2
    • Great Idea 1
  7. 22 minutes ago, Chris Boshuizen said:

    I'm old enough to remember when this product was called "Cakewalk" by 12 Tones, not sure why they ever changed it to "Sonar by Cakewalk", and I certainly don't know why Bandlab is now repeating the  same and turning it back into Sonar by Cakewalk.  Is is it the brand or product? Was Sonar more popular than Cakewalk? I haven't been missing the Sonar brand and this seems to be just creating more brand dilution.

    Chris, Cakewalk is a division of BandLab Technologies and a corporate decision was made to have us operate independently under our own brand.
    We are now a multi-product company and have two products Sonar and Next with more to come in the future. Calling the product Cakewalk wouldn't make much sense. Cakewalk by Cakewalk? Lol

    Also, there were numerous cases in the past where BandLab users were confused with the old branding and thought CbB was the BandLab web DAW (which they have now renamed to BandLab Studio). The new branding will alleviate issues like that.

    • Like 9
  8. Thanks @Cyanide Lovesong. We have the ability to turn on/off DPI scaling at the app level and also at the individual plugin level so it's all backwards compatible. See below.
     

    image.png

     

    image.png

     

    Also, to the naysayers, we have decades of experience writing Windows software and worked directly with Microsoft engineers with some of this DPI stuff over the years. Rest assured we know what we're doing, probably more than most others in our industry at least for Windows! 
    So far we haven't had any performance issues issues, but as you say dynamically baking bitmaps is a fallback that we discussed a long time ago if it was ever necessary to do.

     

    • Like 14
    • Thanks 3
  9. 12 minutes ago, GaleOm said:

    Will UI of Cakewalks plugins also be scalable?

    All the DPI awareness work done was for the Sonar application. Cakewalk Next is already vector based.

    Cakewalk Sonar is a hybrid DPI aware application. Plugin's need to be independently made DPI aware for them to be scalable. By default, Sonar assumes that plugins are DPI aware and if there are scaling problems noted it can be disabled on a per plugin basis. There is a new "Enhanced Display Scaling" option in the plugin properties settings to control this.
    However only a few Cakewalk plugins are fully DPI aware - for example the prochannel modules. For the others you may have to disable the per plugin "Enhanced Display Scaling" for them to work. When Enhanced Display Scaling is off we rely on Windows to handle the scaling when running high dpi monitors.
    In the future we may update some cakewalk plugins to also be DPI aware like we're doing with Sonar but it's not on the roadmap ATM.
    IOW High DPI support is not available across the board for all plugins. It depends on the specific plugin.

     

    • Like 7
    • Thanks 4
  10. Guys I think there is some disconnect about what Sonar is. We aren't changing the core Sonar code from what Cbb is so its not changing the user interface. You can think of it as exactly the same as what you are using but with some new features. i.e. treat it similar to a major point upgrade over CbB. The UI will look nicer and be more modern as well.

    • Like 9
    • Thanks 2
    • Great Idea 1
  11. 16 minutes ago, backwoods said:

    noel I cant access my legacy cakewalk account to retrieve old products. foprgotten password and reset emails arent hitting my account. any ideas?

    backwoods I suggest you contact BandLab support. I don't really have access to all that data. If you have a migrated SSO account they may be able to help you. Old unmigrated accounts are a different story.

    • Like 1
  12. 1 hour ago, Alan Tubbs said:

    Next - I’m not sure what it is.  A step up from the free Bandlab software? Maybe pay.  Hopefully you can use it on the Mac so cakewalk can have an in there.

    Next is a completely new DAW designed from the ground up by us over the last five years. It was developed to be cross platform and works equally well on Mac and PC with full AU and VST support.
    The focus so far has been on creation centric features as opposed to the more production centric features that Sonar has.
    For example, it has very intuitive lyrics entry and song arrangements, a built in sampler and pad controller which is quite powerful, allowing you to set up sampler or instrument pads. 
    While Next might look visually similar to the online web based BandLab Studio that's only because we followed branding guidelines. It has full integration with the BandLab ecosystem with integrated browsing of BandLab loops as well as upload and download to the BandLab library. The product itself is quite deep and includes many of the bells and whistles Cakewalk users have come to expect, like multiprocessor support, background plugin scanning and flexible routing. Routing is very simplified and elegant in Next and can all be done via track folders (unlike Sonar). There are many more exciting features coming in future roadmaps. I'm sure in the upcoming weeks Jesse will post more information about Next.

    In the interim, interested users are welcome to request beta access if you want hands-on experience with the application.

    • Like 19
  13. 7 minutes ago, chris.r said:

    My single question would be, can you still drive your car or keep using your appliance in case the maker decide to close? (not wishing you any of it) ;) 

    Cakewalk as a company closed in 2018. My question to you is can you still use SONAR Platinum today? If the answer is yes, then you have your answer for the future.
    Most ethical companies handle terminating events like that gracefully and we are no exception. When Cakewalk was shut down, we had escrow plans to unlock licenses for users permanently if it came to that. We never needed to, since BandLab acquired the software and keeps the license servers running even though we make no profit off of it. 

    • Like 16
    • Thanks 5
  14. 2 hours ago, Terry Kelley said:

    I said want. And it's not impossible but certainly unlikely. And if I disconnect from the internet Windows will continue to work even if it never connects again. The fact that companies do it now doesn't mean it's desirable.

    Get ready, your heated seats, remote start and entertainment system in your car will be subscription.

    Want.

    My car is already subscription (OnStar). If I want remote access to it or to check stats, I have to pay $15 a month :)
    I got a few years of free access when I bought it. Actual appliances have already gone this way. 
    The classic 90's software model of paying for a specific version has changed many years ago whether we like it or not. As I mentioned in another thread, back in the day we had a hybrid model where you could do either pay as you go or buy that years version outright. It worked pretty well and satisfied most users needs.
    While we haven't baked the final details I think Cakewalk's offering will be a pretty compelling value even compared to other DAW's. Obviously not free...

    • Like 13
    • Thanks 3
  15. 3 hours ago, ancjava said:

    Can staff confirm if the new Sonar will require more resources than CbB or if the PC that run CbB smoothly (in my case 4 core CPU and 16 GB of RAM) should be enough to get the same performance out of new Sonar?

    If it runs on cbb today there is a very good chance it will be fine. The main difference would be the new vector based UI but we don't expect that to require more resources. In fact it could take less since the overall footprint of the app will be smaller.

    • Like 8
  16. 4 hours ago, GroverKen said:

    I’ve been a user (and serial upgrader) of Cakewalk since the Windows 3.0 version and would ask one thing - please don’t lose the backwards compatibility. Last week I resurrected a project from February 1999 when I saved everything as .bun files. Lo and behold, the latest version unpacked everything successfully and I could continue from where I had left off all those years ago. My workflow may have changed and there might now many more “toys” to play with but it worked. Impressive!

    Won't happen. It's the same base codebase so no functionally changes. It will be 100% compatible with earlier projects

    • Like 10
    • Thanks 4
×
×
  • Create New...