Blades

@Will Hackett I like to do cover tunes. I am not a particularly good songwriter and I find it entertaining to try to learn a tune as close to the original as I can, sometimes moveing in a different direction. It's a lot about pushing myself to be able to play the parts - to hear them all and play them well enough to get away with it. It's also because I like to mix things and I need material to mix, so I work out these cover tunes. I also typically really like the song and/or the artist. @emeraldsoul The lead vocal has a chorus (fx) on it. When I get back in and make some more changes, as referenced, one of the things I'm likely to do is to pull that chorus (fx) down just a hair and to double-track the choruses to thicken the vocals there. The mic used was a Rode NT1 going into the Presonus Studio 1824 with processing coming from the Fat Channel in Studio One. @Chuck E Baby I WISH this were my tune. It's a song by PFR from the album Them. Here's what it really sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGy3_g4ICBI .The arrangement is how it is on their album. I tried not to change much about it and tried to match things as well as I could. I am certain that some of the chords are not exactly right, as there was no music for this, just by ear. I used a Variax 500 for the Acoustic Guitar parts and my new Epiphone Traditional Pro-II Les Paul for the electrics. All of the Guitar effects were done with the Line6 PodFarm. I played these parts a LOT of times to get them right. Glad you liked them. It's funny that my main instrument - Drums, at which I'm most proficient (recorded with my Mimic Pro, where my previous tunes were done with Roland Td10 or TD20 modules), is the thing that people comment on the least - or at all. Not on the playing, the recording, the mixing, or anything. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing!

On the old forum, I recently "ranted" just a bit about coming back over to Cakewalk after using Studio One for a while - with the complaint that there are a LOT of things that are far easier to do in Studio One for me. Unfortunately, I placed that rant square in the middle of a thread of a different color and got shot down more for my behavior than for my opinions (and maybe rightly so, as I veered WAY off topic and got the thread locked! 👎) And it's not like I am not familiar with Cakewalk and how it works. My observations were made from the perspective of someone who knew Sonar pretty well, defended it commonly among non-Sonar people, and STILL found Studio One superior in a Lot of ways, especially after the 4.x update brought in Drum Maps, which I really missed in 3.x after using Sonar for SO long - even having done video tutorials on using Drum Maps. In the end, as many have stated, there are great a terrible things about Any DAW. I personally don't really care that much for the ProChannel. I like the Fat Channel (with the added EQ and Compressor emulations that were recently released for free for a short period. Still don't have all of them, but a decent selection - and they sound good. I think I could probably create something very similar sounding in either CbB or Studio One at this point, but I think I find the process more enjoyable S1. People keep saying "they are only tools". I don't really agree. Just a tool could apply to a hammer or nailgun - does that mean "just pick one and learn it and you'll get the same results"?. I think not. I believe that there are other factors about them: 1. The plugins that are native to each and only available there. This isn't something you can just swap around and it changes the usage, the enjoyment, and the end result, all significantly. Each can do their thing, but there is a difference. 2. The look, feel, and interaction can definitely assist or interfere with the recording, mixing, mastering, and even playing when they have an effect on your MOOD. Music is SO tied to mood, it's hard to believe that "just a tool" would have an effect. And many more - the price, the stability, the latency, the performance (on each hardware combination and each different interface, etc. And as I said on the other forum - this Forum has a lot to do with why I am still here. CbB being ALIVE at all certainly matters too, as if it were just Sonar, I wouldn't be using it at this point. But the community here is stronger. Even just getting feedback on a mix - even when created in Studio One got me more interaction here than on the Presonus forum. I got exactly one reply there. I got 8 here. That's all for now. And now I'm back to deciding which old project I should finish over here in Cakewalk, over there in Studio One, or which new one I should attempt. Thanks for listening.

So... I tried again this evening. Here's what seems to be happening/working: (and I also found a different version of the manual on my PC from what I was looking at from the office Internet. If you press the Bus button, it shows busses. Before pressing that, you would see the lit Track button at the top and no other buttons lit on that column. In Studio One, you would press the All button at the bottom of that column of buttons, but in Cakewalk, that button lights but performs not function (as the manual indicates). If you press the Audio button in Cakewalk, you get ALL of the tracks. The MIDI tracks show in this mode as well. So, even though there were no buttons lit on the bottom section when Cakewalk was started and it was showing ALL tracks, once Bus is pressed, hitting Audio seems to put it back to the same mode. Also, the manual says that if you press the VI/Midi button, you would get MIDI tracks. You don't. It seems to take you to the Hardware Outputs - like Shift-Bus should do. There are definitely some things in here that don't act like you would expect, but it DOES seem to do more than the surface items. You can't (apparently) count on the manual to tell you what those things are, however.

Interesting. The transport on several devices is what I have always had success with. The following all have transport controls and all work in Cakewalk here: Edirol pcr800 Bcf2000 Contour shuttle pro PreSonus faderport 8 Frontier designs Tranzport I wonder why you are having issues with multiples if them when transport controls are so easily mapped to keyboard shortcuts. Devices with dedicated transport controls shouldn't be giving an issue.

Also - I just found that (Craig is right): The BUS button on the Faderport 8 DOES work in Cakewalk, showing just the busses, but getting back to the tracks seems to be impossible. I think I got it to work once by going back to Pan mode and then back to Track mode, but I haven't gotten it to work since. Seems like a bug to me since the button doesn't do what the manual says, acts like it is going to work right in bus mode (even when new busses are added while in that mode) and then won't allow for a switch back to track mode, no matter what buttons are pressed.

Sure Steev. For whatever it's worth to you or anyone else who might be reading this thread: I am quite happy with the Faderport 8 and the way that it works for ME. I like how it has the level of control that it does in Studio One. I set out to record this for folks who might be interested in it as a relatively inexpensive introduction to the world of control surfaces, while still having a pretty decent amount of control over Studio One (or a little less of Cakewalk by Bandlab). Maybe you have or maybe you haven't read my other threads, but I am using BOTH Studio One and Cakewalk at this point. I am more happy with MANY of the functions of Studio One at this point, but wanted to make use of my new hardware in Cakewalk if possible. It has surpassed my use of the BCF2000 (that I actually liked except that it was bereft of visuals to make it more easy-to-use). By the way - here are a few shots of my "room", if you care 😜

Quick follow-up after reviewing the manual. I am not sure why it is stated this way, but the section of the Faderport 8 called "mix management" where the Bus/Output would be controlled in Studio One says that for Sonar (MCU): "These views are not available in Sonar. However, there are several useful functions mapped to these buttons in Sonar:" And then describes those. However, in the same section for the Logic (MCU) it shows that the Bus button shows busses only. Interesting, since both are listed as MCU and considering that the BCF2000 in MCU mode with Sonar DID allow for the bus switch. I'm not sure why that would have been skipped in this implementation. Maybe it's a firmware thing? Maybe I'm looking at an older manual, as I'm not in front of the DAW at the moment, I can't see if this is so or not. More later.

Steev , that's quite a lot of detail and far deeper than I dug. A few points from here... 1. I bought it to control studio one 2. I wanted to get Some use out of it in Cakewalk 3. I had a bcf2000 before and on either studio one or cakewalk, this is a major step up. 4. I agree about the knob vs wheel. I had/have a contour shuttle that really liked for its spring based Ring for shuttling around. Unfortunately no longer natively supported in cakewalk so controls are iffy. 4b. Surprisingly, the scroll support in mcu mode in Cakewalk is better, allowing for setting the wheel to move per beat where it is only per measure in studio one. 4c. Likewise, the ff and rw in studio one is much more granular and not as obviously attached to things like beats or measures, so it has mostly replaced the spring ring for me in studio one. Takes getting used to but it works pretty well. I will dig in a little deeper to see if I can find such things as you pointed out. For example, the bcf2000 supported channel vs bus mode in mcu mode, so it seems there might be a way to make that happen. Thanks for your Comments!

Not really sure where this would go, but from the choices I have, it seems that this is the most appropriate: I have a number of projects that I'm still working on in Cakewalk by Bandlab, so I wanted to see how my Presonuns Faderport 8 would work there. I created a Blog post about it and thought it might be a useful overview for some people who might be considering a control surface like this one, especially considering how it might work in a non-Presonus DAW like Cakewalk. Please check it out here: https://www.blades.technology/music/daws-sonar-and-studio-one/presonus-faderport-8-with-cakewalk-by-bandlab

So - nevermind my last request on this. Just click the dot to the left of the topic and it will go to the "last read post" in the thread. This is in both desktop and mobile. It says that when you hover over it on desktop, which of course you can't hover on mobile.

Looking at the forum on mobile, which is generally fine, I am missing where (or if) the button is to go to the last read post in a thread. Like, I looked through 73 posts in a thread yesterday. I want to start at post 74 today. Am I just missing it?

For lack of a better place to put this, I thought the Coffeehouse would be appropriate. I have posted this elsewhere, but on a DAW forum, it's hard to find a spot. A hardware forum topic might have done the trick, but this will work. I converted an acoustic snare drum (a DW 13" x 5.5" many-ply maple drum, to be specific) to an edrum using parts purchased from UFO drums. I did a post on my blog about it, along with a video of what the end product looks like. I'm sure that I will have have future posts about how it performs. Want to see what I made or know someone who might be interested in such a project? Point them at this link: https://www.blades.technology/music/v-drums/a-to-e-snare-conversion-ufo-drums

Thanks mkerl. All is well.

This song was posted on the old forum. I'm still looking for some additional feedback and final thoughts before I nail this one up in its last mix. My wife says that there are a still a few things that could be improved on the vocal parts of the mix. What she described is the ever elusive sound that seems to come from a combination of better-than-I-have mics and more-than-I-have talent, but I'd like some other recordists/mixers around here for what else might need to be done before I clamp down on a final mix.My initial thoughts are that I'm going to re-record the first part of the first verse, as it seems a little unsteady and I this is partly what is making it stand out negatively - my first recording of the morning and all that...As mentioned in the blog post, this is my first recording with this soundcard (Presonus Studio 1824) and with my Pearl Mimic Pro drum kit. While it was recorded outside of CbB, I still look forward to any opinions you might have.https://www.blades.technology/music/songs/anything

I like the look: fine I am good with the new editor: fine Here's what I don't understand: It has been a long-time coming for the replacement of the old forum, and as recently as about last week, it was stated on the old forum that it was "not as easy as one would think". I was expecting that the delay in all of this was the bringing over of all of the old profiles, signatures, preferences, forums, posts, etc., but instead I get here and it is a completely blank slate. This is also fine, as I'm sure many will be glad for the clean-up, but then, why did it take so long? As a web designer/developer and user of Many packaged systems, like forums, blogs, etc, isn't this just a brand new forum that should be able to be thrown up in a shorter period of time? That all said - thanks to all those involved in keeping Cakewalk alive and continuing to move it forward. I'm critical, sure, but still hanging on the sidelines to see what is happening, where Cakewalk is headed, and how the product and (importantly) the forums will move forward. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and a festive "whatever you celebrate" to all!