Moving Air Productions

Have there been any updates to this thread? It's frustrating not being able to run those plug-ins that are "mono/stereo" in a stereo channel.

I've had this same problem for years. The 'mono/stereo' plugins USED to work in either form, but they've been strictly mono for many, many years now. Which is frustrating because if you want to run, say a PRS guitar amp sim into the CLA Guitars Stereo plugin, the CLA only sees a left channel coming out of the PRS amp. Very frustrating. I've wanted a fix for this for the better part of a decade now. Never found one.

So this is basically a late response with no solution.  But at least someone else feels your pain.

So I've been experimenting with this, and I think my mistake was simply not knowing to lock the midi sections once they were in place. I didn't realize that was a thing, and now what I'm doing that, everything seems fine when I set the measures to the video. Rookie mistake.  Now I'm going thru the video, re-setting everything to where it should be, and locking it. I don't seem to be having issues with midi stretching/collapsing, even using Shift+M. It was setting measures to cuts that was doing all the damage.

There doesn't seem to be much info out there about using the Shift+M feature. It's super handy for pushing/pulling the tempo to make beat one start right at a specific point, like a video cut. But I didn't know how it would completely affect everything if your existing audio/midi wasn't locked in place first.

Again, rookie mistakes. Thanks everyone for your input.

11 hours ago, bdickens said:

Chill out, man. I asked a simple question that just requires a simple answer. I don't think it calls for you acting as if I have cast  aspersions upon your ancestry.

I do tempo changes all the time and inserting a new tempo does not change anything that came before it.

Don't take it negatively. I was literally saying that, if you have more experience working with long-form videos, I would love some advice. I'm new to it and there has to be a better way than what I'm doing. I did not mean it in a pissy way.

2 hours ago, bdickens said:

I don't have any such issues here. Are you sure you don't have change most recent tempo selected instead of add new ltempo?

Yes. I've had to rebuild this film twice now because of issues from adjusting tempos. I'm currently going thru it, rebuilding everything, and once something is fixed, setting it to "absolute" time base and locking it's position and data. I'm hoping beyond hope that this is a work-around for my issue.

Do you do much with 1+ hour film editing using the tempo map to match measures and cuts, Bdickens? If so, I'd love any additional pointers on this, because I've wasted two days on fixing what's gotten screwed up.

I'm working on scoring an indie film right now, and I'm having MAJOR problems doing it in my favorite DAW, Cakewalk.

The biggest issue I'm running into is the fact that, no matter what I do, if I add a tempo change marker later in the film, using only  "jumps" from tempo marker to tempo marker,  it still moves everything in front of that marker around. It SHOULDN'T: I mean, If I change a tempo marker at the 50 minute marker, why the hell should it affect things up at the 40 minute point, right? But yet it does. BADLY.

I tried setting everything to absolute time, which worked great for any real audio tracks, but it destroyed the MIDI tracks. It would move them, condense or extend the tracks, etc. And even if it didn't move the track, it would usually knock the MIDI out of time, so I would have to stretch and/or re-quantize. So I would get close to the end of the film, and have to go back and basically rebuild and realign the entire film. And if I leave things set to  a 'musical' time base, it's even worse, because then all the audio shifts around as well.

I like the idea of using the Shift+M feature to align my measures to match cuts in the scene. Seems like an extremely practical feature, right? And, the way I see it, that should only affect as far back as the tempo of the previous marker; making the previous tempo marker faster or slower to adapt that number of measures to fit that amount of time, right? But if I change the tempo, it will move markers, sometimes going all the way back to the beginning of the film. And - again - shift parts well ahead of where I'm working. So it's work, back-track to fix what Cakewalk has screwed up, work, backtrack, work, backtrack, and on and on.

So I'm PLEADING with the powers that be at Cakewalk: PLEASE fix the system so that:
1. Adding a tempo change or using Shift+M to move the beat of a measure does not affect ANYTHING before the previous tempo marker.
2. Protect MIDI tracks from shifting, stretching, and/or collapsing when tempos are changed, so nothing has to be rebuilt at the 30 minute mark because tempo changes were made at the 60 minute mark.

Adding a tempo change should ONLY affect what comes after it, not before. And using Shift+M to shift the start of a measure to fit a cut should ONLY affect things up to the previous tempo marker.

There are other things I'd love to see as well (better video display, a faster way to find what you're looking for when you have a ton of tracks and you're scrolling through all the vertical files, and BETTER ZOOM FOCUS. If I've selected a track and use Ctrl+up/down to zoom in, STAY FOCUSED ON THE SELECTED TRACK!!), but these are the biggest things wasting massive amounts of my time right now.

Is there any way to move multiple markers at the same time? I'm working on a film score, and I had everything marked out, then they sent me a re-cut version, and I have to shift everything. I'm doing it manually, but some of the changes were substantial, and my markers are nowhere near where they should be. Is there a way to grab multiple markers and drag them to a new part of the timeline?

I agree, Base 57. Two major areas where I think Cakewalk could accellerate and make a dent is:

1. Create a more flexible workflow for movie people that would involve being able to treat a timeline like, as you say, a roll of tape. So you can add/modify any part as an individual section, rather than as part of a singular whole. That, and improving video sync, would give them a foot in the door for audio-for-film people. And,

2. Improving the Cakewalk "Jukebox" feature, which almost no one remembers anymore, for live performances. It was a brilliant process that gave them the ability to compete with other popular live tracks software, like Ableton. Back in my live production days, I set up an entire show using Jukebox. Every song contained the backing tracks, video, and MIDI for lighting. And the best part is the drummer could fire off every song using a basic MIDI trigger. But they stopped developing this powerful feature for whatever reason. But if they worked on this, that would put them in a strong position for touring acts who travel with their own backing tracks.

I'd love to see either one of those areas improved, and I think Cakewalk could expand it's fan base.

That's really really helpful, msmcleod! I had no idea that lock was in there. Between that and finding the way to lock the markers to absolute time as well, this has been EXTREMELY helpful.

However, I do still wish I could arbetrarily set measure starts. If a hard transition happens at timecode 01:08:33:00 (the one I happen to be looking at), it would be amazing to set that as beat one of however many measures. Set the tempo for that section, and record.

So I've been working on a movie, and I know I'm new to it and maybe there's a better way to do it, but I've been bouncing around, scoring it a scene at a time, out of order. And my biggest issue is that I would like to be able to set the tempo for one song and have everything I do "lock" in place. So if I work on something ahead of it, changing the tempo map won't affect what I've already done. Right now, if I change the tempo somewhere, it pushes or pulls everything I've done behind it.

So my thinking is: would it be possible to set it up almost like the Arranger view: once I'm done with a scene, I can lock that in place. So if I do scene five, for example, then I go back and do scene three, and decide to jack the tempo for scene by 50 BPM, it will not do anything to any of the scenes following it. So it's almost like the measure numbers wouldn't be counted. They would all be just downbeat indicators. I can see it in my head, but I'm having a difficult time putting it into words. It's like locking sections of audio to the time code instead of to measures. So if sequence three starts at the 15-minute mark, then it doesn't matter what you change ahead of it,  the audio for sequence three will start at the 15-minute mark. Does that make sense?

Also, the ability to set starting measures arbitrarily would be fantastic. Because trying to take someone's pre-edited film and have the 1 land exactly at the start of a scene cut... Well, it's an ugly proposition. To be able to set the start of a measure the way you can currently set a marker would be AMAZING.

For people working in a non-linear fashion like this, that would actually be really handy. Right now I would either have to do everything from the beginning, in a linear fashion, in order to avoid problems changing the tempo map, or else I just cannot use any time-based effects or samples.

I know video production isn't Cakewalk's bread-and-butter, but since the functionality is here, I'm trying to use it to score some video work. I'm running into a couple of issues that I would like to know if they could be addressed by the team:

1. The video thumbnails do not seem to properly align with the video. They seem to be off by quite a bit, actually. It would be great if that could be tightened up.

2. Automation points seem to slide around in relation to the video sometimes. This is a harder issue to pin down, but I can set automation to match a transition in the video, then next time I open the project, it has shifted by a noticable degree. Maybe this is more an issue of the video shifting as opposed to the automation?

3. This is the big one: I would LOVE it if there was an option where I did not have to re-encode the video when I export. There should be a setting where it just takes the video AS ALREADY ENCODED and replaces the audio. There are other video encoders out there like Avidemux that can do this, and it would be a MASSIVE time saver for scoring.

When is the next iteration of Cakewalk coming out? Because running 2021.12, Cakewalk crashes ALL the time now. I've been trying to work on simple podcast projects for the last several days, and it's been crashing about 5-6 times a day. This is a new phenomena that I am not at all partial to. Today, it's crashed twice in the last 20 minutes and all I was doing was attempting to change the panning on the tracks.

I've noticed that, for a while now, if you have audio in your project that has been manually stretched (either by using the transient sliders or just using the SHIFT + CRTL keys to drag an audio track), if you try to export the project as an audio file, the stretched audio does not automatically process anymore and does not end up in the exported track. It's just silence where the stretched audio should be. So it forces you to bake whatever changes you've made permanently into the tracks. This isn't helpful if you're just experimenting with some ideas and don't want to commit to something or play the CRTL +Z game all the time, running the risk of mindlessly saving your project just out of habit.

Can it go back to the way it was on this?

A lot of interesting options here. And while they all have their place, I just want a "What you hear is what you get" option, where I don't have to worry about "did I leave a track highlighted accidentally?" or anything like that. While there are plenty of uses and situations where you could want ONLY that section run thru the meat grinder, for me, those times are much fewer and farther between than just "mix is done. squash it out."

On 7/19/2021 at 4:29 PM, Will_Kaydo said:

You have to save the workspace with the template. You first save the workspace and then the template. 

That's really good to know. Thank you.

I would still like to see it integrated into the "Save As..." menu. Just have a checkbox that says "Save workspace with template" or something like that. Or a side list similar to the Export page: A list of check boxes. It can be "Save with template: Workspace, Bit rate," etc. That's all.

This is an issue I've had with Cakewalk forever. Might as well work it out.

Why, when you go to "File>Export>Audio" and even though you have "Entire Mix" selected as your audio source, if you happen to accidently have a clip selected, THAT is the only thing that gets mixed down? I would really like to see this get changed. Because I don't know how many times I've worked on a song, exported it, and closed out to polish the song in another piece of software, only to find out that only clip three of the trumpet sample actually got exported. So I have to re-open Cakewalk, then re-open the project, then re-export the song, making sure I haven't clicked on a track before doing it. It's just a frustrating and unnecessary waste of time.

I would like it so when you export via the File menu, and it says "Entire Mix," then you should get the entire mix, REGARDLESS of if a clip is selected or not. If I wanted ONLY that clip, then I would select "Tracks" as my source.

I really like the fact that the Export module in the control panel will give you everything, regardless of if something is highlighted or not, but then you get none of the advanced options, like dither, fast bounce/real time, etc.

So can this issue be fixed please? Just make it so "Entire Mix" gives you everything, regardless of if a clip happens to be selected. Maybe add a "Selected Clip(s) Only" source option for when you only want a specific clip or clips to be exported. And/or add all of the advanced bouncedown features to the Export module of the control panel. I would actually love it if the Export module had all the Export pane features anyway.  But either way.

That's interesting. How do you get it to save the control panel in the template? I can't seem to get mine to do that.

I've mentioned something like this before, but I'm taking it a step further:

What if there was an option to record EVERYTHING in a template: tracks, plugins, bit & sample rates, control panel layout, and things like tempo grid display.

I work on a lot of different kinds of projects with a lot of different settings: 44.1k podcasts, 48k recording projects sent to me, and 96k recording projects I do myself. It would be GREAT to be able to store all the necessary layout info for each type of project in a template. So for podcasts, I have a reduced control panel, no visible tempo grid on the tracks, and it sets the sample rate to 44.1k. Then for my music recording projects, I can have a 48k and a 96k template that automatically changes the sample rate, displays the tempo grid, and gives me my talored control panel.
This would also be very helpful for people who use Cakewalk for video work as well. To set up with video on, turn off the tempo grid, and a modified control panel for their purposes. I think this would help a lot of people who work on diverse kinds of projects.

On 7/13/2021 at 11:12 PM, treesha said:

... but i find vst 2 works better. I was getting blank gui with vst3.

That's very interesting. I didn't think of trying the VST version. I only used VST3. However, after trying them both, I still get the same result. No mix groups. Thanks for the information though.

On 6/30/2021 at 9:29 AM, Moving Air Productions said:

Also, I'm noticing that when I put SmartEQ 3 on a channel, it does not appear in the recently added plugin list when I go to add another channel. This is the only plugin I've ever used that does this. It's like Cakewalk isn't acknowledging that the plugin even exists. Has anyone else run into that?

I have the same issue with SEQ 3. I've been chatting with Sonible for a while, as they have a few issues. For example, I keep my studio computer off-line, so I don't need to worry about anti-virus software, etc. That disables mix groups for me, even though it shouldn't.  They say you don't need to be online for it to work, but that isn't the case (with my Cakewalk, anyway.) They admit they haven't been testing with Cakewalk, so they were unaware of how things were working. But I did tell them about it not showing up in the 'recently used' apps.

has anyone else here transitioned from Smart EQ 2 to Smart EQ 3? While there are things about 3 that are great (like the dynamic equalization), I don't think the automated EQs are as good as they were in 2. I think 2 came up with more usable plots. Am I the only one who thinks that?

Also, I'm noticing that when I put SmartEQ 3 on a channel, it does not appear in the recently added plugin list when I go to add another channel. This is the only plugin I've ever used that does this. It's like Cakewalk isn't acknowledging that the plugin even exists. Has anyone else run into that?

On 5/25/2021 at 6:45 AM, Pollux said:

What I noticed is that Smart EQ 3 produces different results than Smart EQ 2 using the same profile and audio source (a simple sampled kick drum for example). I found Smart EQ 2 to produce more pleasant results. I reported this and am waiting to know if it's a bug or a feature

 

I would agree: Smart EQ 2 did give SUBSTANTIALLY better results. I'm curious how it all changed so drastically.

Also: Have you had any issues creating the SEQ3 mix groups? For some reason, my copy won't make them. I'm working with Sonible on it, but was curious if anyone else was having problems with this.

Here are a few things I'd like to suggest, none of which are "make or break," but maybe some people would find helpful (?)

1. For people who use Cakewalk for things like podcasts (and I suppose audio for video as well, although I don't do that, so I might be talking out of my butt on that), one thing that is of no use is the tempo and the tempo grid. What would you think of having the option to disable that when creating a new project? So it turns off the tempo and removes the tempo grid. I know this is a SUPER MINOR thing and many people would say "why bother," and you're not wrong. I'm just thinking for when I go back and forth between doing podcast work and doing songs, it would be nice to create a new file specific to what I'm working on, without unnecessary things cluttering my view.

2. What about having the ability to embed the desired sample rate into a template, so it would open at the rate  you want, not the "default" that is in Preferences. I bring that up because I work in 96k when I'm doing music projects, but I have a bunch of podcasters I do work for, and all those projects are in 44.1k (that's what the files are that get sent to me). So when I throw those into the podcast template, it would be nice for the template to open at 44.1, rather than me having to go into Preferences and change the resolution before I open the template. Again, not a huge thing, but it would be very convenient to have that option. That way I can leave my default at 96k, but the template would know to open that new project at 44.1k.

3. I really appreciate the new "Export" drop down menu that has been added to the Modules. Currently it has the output options to set sample and bit rate. If you're going to have those, could you add a 'Dither' option there as well? I think that would be super helpful for the best output. The options are there if you do the old "File>Export>Audio". I don't think ALL of those features necessarily need to be in the quick Export menu (although would it be bad if they were?), but I think if you can set the bit rate, you should be able to set a dither level as well, in my opinion.

Thanks.

This is just a question. There are a couple reasons for it:

1. They don't recommend combining VST2 and VST3 plugins on the same channels, so if you're combining plugins (95% of what I run is VST3), and I have had some glitchy situations with combining 2 and 3.
2. VST3 plugins are more efficient. There are a lot of things that make VST3 a better all-around platform to work in. For a little more info, check out https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/vst-2-4-vs-vst-3-0-who-cares-you-do/
2. VST3 is the standard and VST2 will eventually be phased out. Might as well keep things usable for a while.

This conversation has been going on for a while. I found other threads about it on the old Cakewalk forum. http://forum.cakewalk.com/VST-vs-VST3-Plugins-m3363634.aspx. Since it doesn't appear to be a gigantic leap, programming-wise, from 2 to 3 (they seem to be built on the same base coding), so I thought I'd ask.

I'm not a programmer and fully admit I have no idea what would be involved with this process, but I was wondering if Cakewalk by Bandlab has ever considered upgrading the plugins that used to come with Cakewalk (like the Tube Leveler, Boost11, Percussion Strip, Vocal Strip, etc.) to VST3? I think some tweaks to these and getting them up to today's standards would be an excellent addition to the modern Cakewalk.

Thoughts?