Starship Krupa

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-3-2-is-out-now/ How far off is VSTi support and a piano roll? 😄 (also future CLAP support?)

I'm surprised that nobody else picked up on this. If you just duplicate the same take of an audio track and pan it, all you get is a louder, reinforced mono track. Which sounds kind of like what you're hearing. Is this a single take just duplicated, or are these multiple takes? If what you want is the sound of a doubled vocal coming from a single track, you need to do this with FX. iZotope Vocal Doubler is a popular free plug-in that is (obviously, from the name) intended for this use. With just one track to apply FX to, you'll find it much easier to use compression. However, if I have this wrong and you did re-record your vocal multiple times, what I do for this is route the vocals to a bus, then use compression on the bus to even them out. Taking a look at some tutorials on how to EQ vocals to sit in a mix might be helpful as well. It's amazing how much low end you can roll off, and the positive effect it has on the mix. I usually wind up rolling off my vocals around 400Hz. That way they don't step on the other instruments as much.

This is not necessarily an apples-to-apples test. Your test uses the same audio file for every track. If the issue has something to do with reading the audio data off the disk, Cakewalk streams every audio file in a project in real time. If Antre's project has 130 unique tracks, that is reading 130 different audio files at the same time, that is a very different test condition. If someone has a project with over 50 different audio tracks, check that, observe how fast it goes into Play. And please, fellow forum folks, lighten up. The issue is that Antre has observed this issue across every release of Sonar/CbB for years, on multiple PC's. The idea that a single computer he's using is somehow unique and causing a problem is spurious. He's (I am presuming gender) not threatening our favorite toy, he would like to be able to use it more effectively. Testing similar projects across multiple DAW's and computers is reasonably diligent troubleshooting. He has way more experience with Sonar/Cakewalk than I do. @Antre, do post the specs of one of the computers that's exhibiting the behavior, preferably the fastest one you have. Especially memory, video card and audio data drive. If nothing else, it'll reassure the skeptics that you have plenty of computer power.

Would really like to have a .BUN file of an offending project. That way those of us who would like to help can try it on our systems and see if we get similar results. If we don't, well, that narrows it down. For those saying that it's not all that long a delay, I'm thinking maybe you don't do a lot of comping? When in that process, I'm usually constantly starting and stopping the transport to make sure the edits line up, are inaudible, etc. Those "little" delays became really annoying, got me out of the creative flow. This is not "much ado about nothing." At the time it was happening, I had two other DAW guys looking over my shoulder, one a Pro Tools guy and the other Ableton Live. They both agreed it would drive them nuts to the point of making it unusable. I do encourage the OP to get with Windows 10 unless they know for sure that something critical to them is incompatible. Letting a system age like that is just inviting trouble.

I'd like cool new stuff to come at a faster rate, but I don't think Cakewalk is falling behind. The first couple of years were a "target-rich" environment, where they had a many-years-long list of deferred bug fixes, code optimizations, and feature additions that had already been put into the pipeline. I'll go with "working on something big." For instance, it's been made pretty clear to the devs that the best feature they could add to give the program better uptake with the dance music segment is a built-in sampler. That's a pretty big job. Or maybe it's something else like the vaunted "chord track," or one of the existing areas of the program known to need some love like Staff or Matrix. Or better UI scaling. Anyway, I think they harvested a lot of low-hanging fruit, and now it's going to be something with a longer initial development cycle.

Go here, and nominate your favorites: https://www.kvraudio.com/readers-choice-awards/2022/ As usual, they've ghettoized programs that are free licensed, but I "misunderstood the rules" and nominated Cakewalk in the categories I thought were appropriate. After all, it's been said many times that Cakewalk isn't really free because you have to register for a BandLab account to install and use it. 😄

Best place to ask that question and get answers is in the Q&A subforum. It can be done.

1. No 2. Any plug-ins that work correctly in Sonar Platinum will work in Cakewalk 3. No firsthand experience, but I have built new Cakewalk workstations since it came out. The things that are stored in the registry, like presets you made using the internal preset system, will come right across. For keyboard shortcuts, there is an export/import function for those. For templates and whatnot, no problem just copying them to the Cakewalk templates folder, or set your templates folder location to your Sonar location. With all the new features, you might wish to update your project templates to make use of them. If you run into any issues, the forum will be quick to help you, most people here started with Sonar and upgraded to Cakewalk. 4. The workflow that you wish to do, which is start the song with BandLab Android, then transfer it into Cakewalk for finishing, is the easiest way to use Cakewalk with BandLab. It's basically a fancy, well-integrated import that you can do from inside Cakewalk. Works splendidly IME. Going the other way is different, naturally, because Cakewalk has such a greater feature set.

I totally misinterpreted your reply! Apologies. It didn't sound like you to say that about the last 5 years of development. 🤪

Wow, they sure are in mine. The customizable Smart Tool was huge. The modifier keys for dragging clip boundaries, huge. Ripple Edit indicator? Check. Nested folders? We like. Improvements to the audio engine and screen updates are pretty universal. Maybe you meant something else....but the thing is, a lot of times, the smaller fixes or feature additions are forgotten about because they're how the program should have worked in the first place. I forget that they were added because I find it hard to image the program being the old way. Maybe someday I'll catalog all of what I consider the "smaller" features that have been added since I started using Cakewalk, but that make it so much more pleasant and smooth to use....

Probably depends on whose piano roll and editing tools you like better.

Real talk: depending on how girly she is, one way to help her understand might be to gently offer that musical tools are similar to a woman's wardrobe: in need of updating from time to time. And just as difficult for the other gender to understand; I've been rocking plaid shirts and jeans for 45 years. When I started, it was "Laurel Canyon hippie rocker," then 10 years later it was punk (you get to keep the jeans longer because huge rips in them are part of the look), then 5 years after that the pinnacle of the Seattle look. If I want to switch to business casual, I grab the least faded jeans, switch to a button down and press it before I put it on. As Joe Jackson famously said "it's different for girls." The age old reply to "why do you need so many guitars?" "Same reason you need so many pairs of shoes, each one is different and used for different occasions." Just don't be a dick about it like you're throwing it back in her face. If she gets that it's a tool that you use in your (ahem, second) favorite pastime, well, the new version will let you do more and explore new things.

I thought that might be what you meant, and I'm right there with you on that. Also agree about iZotope's suites. When I got my first precious license for Ozone Elements 7 (was that the first one with the Mastering Assistant?), it was humbling. Just running through the presets, they just slew my best efforts. Then I decided to go John Henry on it and worked on my chops and mastering chain until I liked my results better. Fortunately it worked out better for me than it did the legendary Mr. Henry. It seems to me, though, that as audio (and video) production software matures, these leaps forward are coming farther between. I used to work in the software industry, then IT, and I kind of got bored with computers about 20 years ago. That was the point at which they stopped doing new things that interested me. We had full screen first-person video games, we had DAW's that would do audio and MIDI (I had a paid SONAR license back then!), and we could edit videos. Word processing, spreadsheets, online communities, laser printers, color printers, all that stuff that revolutionized what people could do. Once those were all in place, I stopped getting excited about computers themselves and just went about using those tools. The big innovation is that the price of admission has dropped so steeply. Those were the things that interested me, and now I can have them literally for free. My last 2 DAW computers were ones that people gave me. They both still run Cakewalk with aplomb. I don't know that I'd want to try much video editing on the Core 2 Quad system, but it's now in the hands of a friend who will be recording with Cakewalk and a load of plug-ins that I handpicked to run well on it. It ran Vegas Pro 10 reasonably well, and again, I never scratched the surface with that version.

I neglected to mention earlier: the Meldaproduction MFreeFX Bundle* has (among 36 other excellent tools and processors) a very comprehensive loudness analyzer called MLoudnessAnalyzer. As far as limiters, my favorite safety limiter is KHS Limiter, from the (also freeware) Kilohearts Essentials Bundle. Barebones, lightweight, easy to configure. (*If you ever want to upgrade the Melda bundle to the pro versions (which gives you access to some nice-but-not-crucial features like the ability to customize the look of the plug-ins and internal upsampling), they put it on sale for 50% off a couple of times a year. You can combine that with the 10 euro bonus you get from signing up for their newsletter and also with their 20% first purchase discount (use my referral code, MELDA1923165) and bring the cost for the pro upgrade down around USD11.)

I agree in some cases, in others, less so. In the case of iZotope's suites, they're known for applying the latest analysis methods to automate as much of the process as they can. So if you want what they have to offer, part of the price you'll have to pay is resource management. Either get a system that's powerful enough to run what you want to run without a second thought or get good at managing what resources you do have, by freezing tracks, waiting until mastering time to use mastering FX, etc. Me, I don't really care much about iZotope Ozone. I didn't even install it on my new computer. It was great when I was newer at this, but it's been the case for a long time that I like how my mastering sounds better than what Ozone comes up with. I guess my philosophy is that, regardless of the generation of the software, if it's doing something computation-intensive, well, that's just the way it is. If I want to run it, I have to have a system capable of running it. When I start to scrutinize is with established types of software. There's no reason that I can think of for a basic compressor or EQ to push the limits of my hardware. Maybe that's part of what you mean by "generation?" Not so much "version" as "what it will do?" I learned early on to steer clear of Acustica. I was trying to run things from them that were just compressors and EQ's, and it was bogging my system. Sorry, Acustica, but there are plenty of great-sounding compressors and EQ's out there that barely touch my system resources. The reverbs that I consider to be the best-sounding I've heard (Exponential) have been around for a long time and are not too hard on resources. I only use one or two instances of reverb in my mixes anyway. I'd even go as far as to say that if the software is still being updated, and those updates are mostly maintenance updates, it's not unheard of for the latest versions (as opposed to generations, I guess) to be less resource-hungry, due to code optimization. Looking at Cakewalk itself here. Nothing has been added to Cakewalk in some time that would justify it becoming more resource-hungry in basic use, and indeed, it runs more efficiently than it did 4 years ago on the same systems. If some high-powered data-crunchy analyze-y functions were added to the program, I would expect greater resource usage when using those functions, but not at other times. It's good business for software companies to pay attention to system requirements. The more systems out there that are able to run a program, the more potential customers there are for it. Especially in a field like music that often attracts people with less disposable income. It used to be that we'd have to just suck it up whenever a new version of Windows (or Office or whatever) came out because it would usually require a fair horsepower upgrade, but when was the last time that was the case? Windows 11 supposedly leaves behind a lot of computers based on hardware, but my understanding is that it's not due to performance requirements, it's due to nervous-nellie security requirements. "Um....yeah, we're gonna need you to install those TPM modules. Great. Yeah." The computer industry has reached a point, both with software and hardware, where we can actually choose whether we want to upgrade. The audio software I have is already beyond my ability to fully learn before I finish my time here on this lovely planet. Unless there's some innovation that results in the audio sounding much better (something I never rule out), I'm okay for a while. Even though my interest in games has picked up in the past 6 months, the kind of games I'm interested in run like a bat on my aging computers. Slower-moving adventure-y things that don't require a fast frame rate to play.