Jim Fogle

It is a good habit to bounce midi to audio when you're putting the finishing steps on a project. The midi soft synth may not be available but the original midi track and bounced audio still will be available.

Thanks to the BandLab Technologies team and Meng for keeping Cakewalk alive and the Cakewalk development team together.

What would be really nice would be to enable letting the user grab and hold the aim assist position marker to "slide" and reposition the position marker wherever the user desires on the aim assist line. That way the aim assist position marker can be positioned within the user's direct line of sight and moved as the user's attention shifts.

I found a short article that provides an answer to the question, "Why engineers prefer analog VU meters". https://www.hoytmeter.com/news-events/sound-engineers-prefer-analog-vu-meters-recording-studios/

My personal choice would be to have a collection of four or eight meters in a module with the possibility of adding more than one module. In the track view they could be used for gain staging and in the console view across track, buss or main outputs. On a different note, wouldn't it be neat to have a meter bridge inline between your computer audio out port and your audio interface or audio mains input?

@Warner, another good resource for comparing tools is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_digital_audio_editors On another note, composition doesn't get any quicker than ChordPulse: http://www.chordpulse.com/

I never exceeded the capabilities of the Music Creator consumer DAW formerly offered by Cakewalk. The products were extremely stable and worked with audio, groove clips, song construction sets and midi. The earlier products shipped with a printed manual that explained how to set up the DAW and its capabilities in easy to understand language. The manual offered tutorials that were instructive and easy to follow. Some audio content was included to learn and practice on. My point is, Cakewalk use to know how to educate a beginner new to audio production. I believe Cakewalk has either lost that knowledge or that goal is far down the "to do" list. My question is what can forum members do to fill that gap and is there a desire to do so?

I just received an e-mail from the Midi Manufacturers Association or MMA announcing that forum member @Craig Anderton has accepted the position of Vice President of Public Relations. Congratulations Craig! The announcement is not up on the association's website yet: https://www.midi.org/

One example, I want to record myself. Prior to recording I mentally do a count-in while tapping the requested "tap tempo" button. The tempo switches from the 120 bpm default to my "tapped" count-in tempo of 102.37 bpm. I'm now ready to record. The Transport Module has three metronome buttons just to the right of the tempo window. The buttons turn on the metronome during playback, metronome during record and opens the metronome settings window. Perhaps one of those buttons can perform double duty as a tap tempo button.

What an excellent production. Great vocals, great instrumentation, great arrangement, great mix. It "feels" right.

@pwalpwal. I get what you're saying and agree more than you might think. I get aggravated almost anytime someone evangelizes a thought and did not suggest that method of attracting new users, But perhaps you misunderstood my post . @Joe Dun restated my thought much better than I possibly can. @Francois van der Merwe's comment is very interesting. I wonder how many forum members have looked at the online DAW. I admit I haven't but not for the reason many suspect. The online DAW requires the user to install and use Google Chrome and I don't use Chrome. I've tried alternate browsers that rely on Chrome technology but the BandLab.com website rejects them. However, I've used the online mixer available on another website and was happily surprised at the ease of use.

Welcome to the forum! I recognize your name as I subscribe to Bedroom Producer. I hope you'll often visit the forum.

@Tezza, Excellent post. I didn't see anything you wrote that I disagree with. The key point for me is we (forum members, DAW users and music lovers) HAVE to come up with solutions that will attract new people to the business or hobby. @chuckebaby, We have disagreed, I just can't remember when the last time was.

The idea is simple, you're new to computer based audio production so how do you get started? I'm proposing this thread as the go to thread to help beginners get started in this hobby. If you've found a video, downloadable pdf file, online course or other content suitable for an absolute beginner with no prior experience in the field of audio production then please place your links here. I'll begin by placing links to some content I'm aware of. Website: Play With Your Music http://www.playwithyourmusic.org/ Online Classes: The Technology of Music Production https://www.coursera.org/learn/technology-of-music-production? The Art of Music Production https://www.coursera.org/learn/producing-music These two online classes can be audited for FREE. YouTube Video Series: Mixing Fundamentals https://youtu.be/ydbkZ1ZWQGM

@Cookie Jarvis, I agree with you 100%. Audio production is not easy, simple or easy to learn. However a beginner is going to need more than the will to learn. They will also need a roadmap to follow, some direction. If someone wants to have a successful learning experience the learning experience needs to have structure; a starting point, middle and end. That starting point will depend somewhat on where each beginners interest lies. For example someone interested in recording performances will have different needs than someone wanting to create using loops. Yet both will need to learn about mixing and distribution. The Morten Saether "Getting Started" thread with links to various videos is a good start assuming you are familiar with audio production or perhaps live sound but if you have no background in audio production even those videos are a deep dive because you see what Cakewalk by BandLab can do but you'll have little or no idea what needs to be done.

Depending on internet traffic and your internet connection the initial download can take an hour or even longer. As suggested by others your best bet is to start the download, turn around and walk away from your computer. Also make sure your computer doesn't go into selective power down, sleep or hibernate mode because of the lack of user activity. The good news is once the initial download is up and running, future updates are comparatively quick at five minutes or less with only new or modified files downloaded and installed.

Belated Merry Christmas to everyone with BandLab Technologies, fellow forum members and DAW users everywhere! May your 2020 be prosperous, healthy and bright.

@Lexi, Greetings! Welcome to the forum, to Cakewalk by BandLab and to audio production. Unfortunately, audio production and DAWs in general have a pretty steep learning curve in the beginning. It would help us help you if we had an idea of (1) what task or tasks you would like to accomplish, (2) your computer specifications, (3) what external hardware you have. I can give you some general suggestions that were useful to me when I was first beginning in audio production. Structure is very important in the beginning. Information needs to be presented in a structured manner, 1-2-3 not 3-1-2 for example, so there is a beginning, middle and end. There are several free, online classess that are good starting points. I'm partial to Coursera's Music Production classes: https://www.coursera.org/learn/technology-of-music-production#about & https://www.coursera.org/learn/producing-music#about The classes are free to audit; you just need to read close to find out how to audit. Don't purchase a specialization program unless you want to. Another great educational source is Groove3.com: https://www.groove3.com/all-access-pass . One year of access is currently $99 US or $15 for one month. I purchased video series for Sonar, which Cakewalk by BandLab is based on, and for another program I use, Band-in-a-Box. Both series are wonderful. Another free source is Play With Your Music: http://www.playwithyourmusic.org/ It is an experimental teaching website but has some REALLY good information. It's just not organized in a traditional manner. Finally. the Cakewalk Reference Guide is a pdf download available at the top of each webpage under the Cakewalk By BandLab tab.

Anything is possible but BandLab's focus seems to be on making the DAW the best it can be. The question of what will happen to the rest of the intellectual property has been asked multiple times and in multiple ways. The answer has been consistent, nothing has been decided beyond Cakewalk by BandLab will always be a "free to download and use" product. My guess is no one outside BandLab will have prior knowledge of any changes until changes are made. Why dampen or raise expectations by spreading rumors about upcoming actions beforehand?

@Jack Stoner, My suggestion to update was based in the Win 10 Pro build information (1901) in your original post. Good to read you're current. If you haven't tried clearing browser cookies or flushing the browser cache you may want to. Some information such as settings carry over even after an update and it could be as simple as a stuck data bit.

@Mr Snowman, Welcome to the forum and to Cakewalk by BandLab! If you like to read when you're offline there is the excellent Cakewalk by BandLab guide. At the top, left of each forum webpage is a "Cakewalk by BandLab" tab. Select the tab and then select "Reference Guide PDF" to download a manual that explains Cakewalk by BandLab in great detail but also has a bunch od generic information about digital audio workstations, or DAWS, in general as well as computer audio. I mainly mix audio created outside the box, play with audio and midi loops and create midi. I don't have an audio interface but have found a simple surface controller useful. The surface controller allows me to use regular knobs and faders to move faders and turn knobs inside the DAW

Here is a Wikipedia comparison chart that lists many popular software packages , what operating systems they use and has a feature comparison chart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_digital_audio_editors

@John Nicholson, Hi. Welcome to the forum and to Cakewalk by BandLab or CbB. At the top left of each forum webpage is a "Cakewalk by BandLab" tab. Select the tab and then select the "Reference Guide PDF" link to download the "Cakewalk by BandLab Reference Guide". The Reference Guide is more than 1700 pages of information about CbB, digital audio workstations (DAWs) in general, midi, loops and computer audio. More than 1700 pages is a lot of information so an easy way to find specific information is to open the document in Adobe Acrobat and then press the Control + F keys at the same time on your computer keyboard. Ctrl + F opens a search window where you enter words. Adobe Acrobat will report how many times the word occurs in the document along with providing "previous" and "next" buttons to navigate to each time the word appears. As an example, in the Cakewalk by BandLab Reference Guide the word "glossary" appears 14 times. The first time you select "next" you discover there is a glossary which starts on page 1675. Select the "previous" button and you'll see the glossary ends on page 1686. A popular online glossary has been maintained by the online music store, Sweetwater since 1997. The online glossary is available here: https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/category/glossary/ Merry Christmas and have a happy, prosperous and healthy New Year!

@Noel Borthwick, Thanks for that answer. I thought the Melodyne plugin always retained the ara association. It's not clear to me where the Melodyne plugin is placed so the plugin is a region based effect. Please provide more detail.

@Jack Stoner, It's likely some kind of data is stuck in the Edge browser cache. I would try going through the browser settings to remove the site history, delete cookies and refresh the browser. The browser might also be refreshed by updating the operating system to V1909.