Base 57

A long time ago I found a method to consistently break Cakewalk for DOS; causing it to freeze or crash completely. The method worked in Pro Audio, Sonar, SPlat and continues to work in CbB to this day.

The method is simple....

Record or edit for 4 hours without saving. Depending on the complexity of the edits or recordings it may not last 30 minutes.

When I Save often, I never have problems with Cakewalk. I hit Cntrl-S after every take; If I'm editing; at least every ten minutes. And here is the important bit.

    Auto-Save is not the same thing as Save. 

 Auto-Save is a different file and does not "clear" a "dirty" project file.   Failure to Save your work is the surest way to lose it in any computer application. 

10 hours ago, J. King said:

opened up a fresh new project and same thing... 1800 measures

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but Cakewalk always displays measures on the timeline relative to the current tempo and Zoom factor.

On my screen a blank project zoomed out all the way displays over 1800 measures at 100 bpm. It is possible to move the Now Time in a blank project forward by days (presumably weeks or more). But if you hit Cntrl-A (Select All) nothing is selected because there is no data in the project.

Locked Screenset? Maybe a Workspace setting?

3 minutes ago, bdickens said:

Real musicians don't make random variations

^^This^^

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

Actually good musicians have very perfect timing

This is true with the caveat that what is musically perfect is rarely mechanically perfect.

Before using any randomizer, I employ the Tempo Map. For the typical three minute song, a linear increase of the tempo by  just two or three bpm from the beginning to the end can add energy and help to eliminate the robotic feel. A Tempo Map can be as simple or as complex as you want but a static tempo is always going to sound robotic.

In addition, CbB has the Groove Quantize function that I think is more musical than any randomizer.

As always, YMMV.

Thanks Mark. I did still have the build 29 installer in the downloads folder. So, in the future I know how to roll back easily when there is no link.

I ended up going back to 21.10 and the problem persisted. I knew those projects were working then so I bounced all of the tracks in one of them and it started working properly again. One of the resulting clips had Melodyne appended to the name so apparently, I had an unrendered Melodyne edit in that clip. Perhaps that was the problem.

I have reinstalled Build 28.02.0.037 and this project is now working as expected. I am assuming that I can get the other two projects that were problematic to work now.

Thanks again for your help.

Where is the rollback installer for this EA? I am having an issue* that I want to confirm is only in the EA but there is no rollback link. 

-the issue is, on a couple of projects (not all) when I change screensets during playback, the timing of midi tracks gets... um... screwed up. After stopping playback, the timing is correct on the next playback. Projects that work correctly and those that don't are using the same template and use the same plug-ins. The content of the screenset doesn't matter and the problem happens even if I reselect the current screenset.

And yes, I have tried turning it off and on again🙂.

52 minutes ago, JeffSouth said:

A vid on yt says I should have the vocal send on the track, NOT to the vfx bus, but sent to the fircomp2 bus.

You need 2 sends from the Vocal track; 1 to feed the FX, the other feeds the ducker.

You don't need 2 busses. Just add the compressor as the last effect in the same FX bin as the Delay/Verb. Be sure the sidechain is turned on in the compressor and the second Vocal track send is assigned to the sidechain.

This can be kind of a cat skinning contest as there are various ways to accomplish your goal. However, @bdickens suggestion of using automation should not be ignored. It is the simplest solution.

10 hours without saving + No autosave = recipe for disaster in any computer program. I don't work for 10 minutes without hitting Cntrl-S.

9 minutes ago, Tim Smith said:

I recently loaded some new libraries and another DAW. Cubase

I believe it is Cubase that by default loads an audio driver that is based on ASIOforall that hoses Cakewalk. I don't remember seeing any posts on the forum complaining about it recently, but in the past there were several.

C- hides the control bar. Shift+C collapses the modules in the control bar.

1 hour ago, Moving Air Productions said:

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

When Bandlab first acquired Cakewalk, they started a thread on the old forum asking everyone for their top five feature requests. The only one I could come up with was "Song Markers" - the ability to put multiple songs into the same project, each with its' own downbeat. No one else seemed to like the idea.

@msmcleod's suggestion above is the only way to do what you want and keep all of the compositions in the same project. But it is inelegant at best.

Your use case is a perfect example of why I think the Bakers should consider changing the way projects relate to the timeline e.g., negative measures and/or song markers. Anyone who composes music for film or games would probably be very happy with this feature.

For my own purposes, I just want to treat a project as I treated a roll of tape in my analog days.

1 hour ago, Lenny Greene said:

Don't want to have to add actual pre-rool bars at the front end of projects

Sorry, but that is the most reliable way. 

FWIW I've been using RTP Midi for years. First with TouchDaw and now also with a IConnectivity MioXL midi interface. All is working very well.

On 2/6/2022 at 10:20 AM, John Vere said:

You can set up a default export folder in preferences/ folders 

Thanks John, but I am aware of this. The problem is MP3's and wave files go to the same folder. Stems and full mixes go to the same folder.  And the biggest problem is that mixes/stems for different clients go to the same folder.

When Joe Bleaux comes to record his latest masterpiece, I would like to have presets to export MP3 mixes to F:MP3/Joe Bleaux/Masterpieces, and export 24bit Waves to F:Wave/Joe Bleaux/ Masterpieces.

When Jane Deaux comes in the next day, I would like to have preset export folders for her as well. She and Joe do not get along and do not want their music sharing the same folder. 🙂

Export presets already exist and do save a little time. I think that adding the export location to the preset would save even more time.

As always, YMMV. 

edit... just saw the EA and it looks like the OP got his wish.👍

This would be an improvement, but I would prefer it to be saved as part of the presets. 

FWIW I am unable to duplicate the behavior the OP is experiencing.

I have had a little time today to experiment with this. I can drag any type of track or folder into or out of any folder or sub-folder, top to bottom without any problem. It is working as I expect it to.

23 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

yielded to their demands

I adopted this attitude a couple of years ago. Computers are much less frustrating now.

I think that looks really cool. I would use it.

If you have not already, try using USB cables that have ferrite chokes on the ends. Especially the one that connects the interface to the laptop.

The argument about the phone is pointless. Even if he had one he would have to use something like Touch DAW (which is what I use) and that can be difficult to get working right. 

The simplest workaround for now is a wireless keyboard. 

FWIW I like the idea of a fixed number of loops. 

8 hours ago, EnglandBross said:

the project has been writing in 44100 , if I change 96.000 ( in other PC) the engine doesn't change, it remain on 44.100

If a CbB project contains any audio clips the sample rate is fixed and cannot be changed. 

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

And if you start individually adjusting the ranges for each, it defeats the entire purpose.

Exactly 

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

I cannot imagine any scenario where you'd want to do that with bulk ranges

It's not always about bulk ranges. It can be about subtle nuanced changes that add space and dynamics to an otherwise static mix.

The way I currently do it is to remote control one of the group members with a midi track routed through LoopBe. That way I can use a single envelope to control the group. But it should not be necessary to use a third party app to do this. 

54 minutes ago, Olaf said:

just select all the tracks and adjust one, holding CTRL - you don't even need aux tracks,

Quick Groups cannot be automated either. 

Clearly from your last 2 posts you have not explored the use of Control Groups. Specifically "Relative " and "Custom " Groups. 

It's not just about adjusting controls up and down. They can be set to move at different rates or even opposite directions. 

You can group unlike controls so that (for instance) dragging down the fader pushes up the reverb send.

Control Groups is one of the most powerful features of CbB but the inability to write the automation to only one track for ease of editing seems half-baked to me. 

YMMV 

3 hours ago, Olaf said:

why don't you route everything to an aux track and automate that one? that's your vca fader, for you, and it's been around since forever, in any daw.

This for one...

1 hour ago, Kevin Perry said:

Because you may not want to mix the signals (eg. You want different downstream effects

And because Control Groups have relative offsets. 

And because Control Groups work on controls other than volume, such as sends and pan.

There are other reasons.