Starship Krupa

Okay, I Googled harder and found the answer to my own question. Cakewalk uses Event mode. "WASAPI has four different modes of operation. SONAR supports WASAPI Exclusive mode using event signaling, because this mode is best suited for audio programs." https://gaga.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=AudioPerformance.28.html Oddly, the documentation for CbB changes this to: "WASAPI has four different modes of operation. Cakewalk supports WASAPI Exclusive mode and WASAPI Shared mode." https://legacy.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=AudioPerformance.29.html This could be one for @Morten Saether. Maybe it could say "Sonar supports two different modes of WASAPI operation, WASAPI Exclusive mode and WASAPI Shared mode. Sonar uses event signaling for WASAPI Exclusive mode, which is best for audio programs." Or something. It's not like it comes up very often.... (apologies to the "it's not possible for DAW's to sound different from each other" crew 😊)

This is one for @Noel Borthwick. Does WASAPI Exclusive Event allow for lower latency (and/or jitter) than WASAPI Exclusive Push? Which method does Cakewalk use? Conditional question: if Cakewalk only allows Push, might there be benefits latency-wise (and/or jitter-wise) to have the option in Sonar to use Event? tl/dr: I was messing about with my music player apps, which offer different options for WASAPI Exclusive, so I looked it up. Event is said to offer lower latency on devices that support it (the DAC controls the flow of data, continuously "pulling" it from the app), and Push (where the app "pushes" it to the DAC) which is said to be more compatible with older devices but has higher latency. Another aspect is jitter. Event relies on the clock in the interface for timing whereas Push relies on the computer's clock. Interface clocks are known to be more stable, and audio quality can suffer when there's more jitter. This made me curious as to which of these Cakewalk uses, with the idea being if it uses Push, might having Event as an option for WASAPI Exclusive allow for lower latency (and/or jitter)? Optional, 'cause we wouldn't want to break anything. It could be like Thread Scheduling Model. Only for use on systems that support it. It works a treat with my laptop's Realtek.

I'm surprised that I didn't address this a couple of years ago. In my varied career (I'm like @bitflipper in that regard 😊) I've worked for software companies both tiny and huge. Hardware/software integration, bundling deals, etc. were invariably the bailiwick of the marketing department. The marketing people would get together and schmooze, do lunch, hang out at NAMM, and either work out concrete deals, or just do what they could to convince their colleagues that mutual support would be beneficial to both companies. Anyone who's worked in "shrink wrap" (as we used to call it back when software shipped in boxes on CD or DVD ROM's, but it meant "consumer" rather than corporate developed-in-house software) can probably attest to this. Despite the many benefits of BandLab's stewardship of Cakewalk, this is one area that at least up to this point, doesn't seem to have been covered. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but CbB has always relied on the simple fact that it's free to do its marketing (along with the stalwart advocacy of many YouTubers). I recall one appearance by the team at the 2019 NAMM Show, but there was a long gap between NAMM Shows, and these days, fewer and fewer companies even participate. As it transitions to payware, along with the revenues I hope comes greater attention to marketing, in this and other areas. I, and probably anyone else who's worked in development for shrink-wrap, used to roll my eyes whenever a marketing person would approach, because they were known for sometimes having unrealistic ideas about what would be possible and desirable. In retrospect, though, I realize more of what value they actually did bring to the table. They are the "boots on the ground" out there researching what (they think) people want, what new features might be important to add, etc. What they say of course should always be....reviewed, but there's great value in having a dedicated person or staff to do that stuff. Even if the developers are all musicians or whatever, they may not be working in the latest genres, etc. There have recently on this forum been more requests for better controller integration. This may be due to more younger people adopting the software and wanting to use it with pad controllers and the like. I'm an older people and I want to get more into realtime control, don't have a pad controller yet but I will someday. I need to crack my knuckles and spend some time in the woodshed with Ableton Live and Matrix View. I have one control surface, a Korg nanoKONTROL 2, and it's been an absolute pain in the rear to get it working with Cakewalk, despite the fact that one of the developers uses one in his own studio. For any who might question whether "official" support by the hardware company is that important, it would be good to know that both Cakewalk and the other company have your back if you have issues. I don't worry about this with plug-ins, because the companies I spend money with either state CbB compatibility or are reputable and established enough that if anything goes wrong, either the Cakewalk engineers or the plug-in developer will fix it pronto.

TBF, though, a large percentage of regular forum participants (as opposed to lurkers) are people who got burned by your old bosses. I'll spot them a bit of FUD, although in their 6 years of driving the bus, BandLab have never shown anything other than exemplary behavior toward the userbase. Keeping the legacy registration servers lit for a company that went under 6 years ago? Something I used to point out way back in 2018 on the old forum when people would suggest that CbB would become a trojan data harvesting app, that BandLab would own all your music, ad nauseum. Such behavior would ruin a company's reputation forever. A lot of time, money and effort to spend for that result. I (and many others) have some projects that I wonder whether I'd finish if I had until the heat death of the solar system to do so. 😄 There are of course no plans to lock anybody out. BL have said that registered and validated installations of CbB will continue to function. And given their past behavior in regard to how you can still download and install SONAR, I don't expect that to change. CbB will be a legacy app just like SONAR. I'm certain that if someone contacted Cakewalk support and told them that they lost their BandLab username and password and now their old copy of CbB is in demo mode, whatever, they'll be taken care of. They do that for SONAR. And given that stuff like SONAR 8.5 still (mostly) works even though there are CbB users were not even born when it was discontinued, it should be decently immune to being broken by Windows updates for a good long while. I once pointed out that if BandLab vanishes in a puff of smoke, as a last resort, unplug your computer from the internet and set its clock back to whenever CbB was last validated. 😄 BTW, re: the original topic, BandLab/Cakewalk are claiming over 2M users in their marketing material for Cakewalk Sonar. As I pointed out back then, they have the means to know this.

Sucka free over here.

MCompressor from the MeldaProduction FreeFX bundle is the one that most helped me understand compression and how to set up a compressor. It's both a great learning tool and a great compressor. If you haven't yet purchased the upgrade for the FreeFX bundle (and if not, why for heaven's sake), it's very versatile without the upgrade.

Have you experienced or heard of an audio plug-in being or delivering malware or harming someone's computer? I'm curious because I've downloaded and tried every freeware plug-in I've heard about for the past 10 years (hundreds of them) and never had one turn out to be destructive. A number of these free plug-ins are ones I consider essential.

Snark aside, I suspect that you'll have better luck using the included TTS-1 synth for playing back General MIDI. It should work, and it will definitely sound better.

Are you saying that you bypass the modules, then close the ProChannel, then open ProChannel, after which the modules are not bypassed? If that's the case, have you checked the state of your Read Automation and Write Automation buttons on the tracks in question? When I first started using Cakewalk, I got into trouble because I had been making fader moves and such that were being written and read as automation when I didn't want them to, I just wanted the fader to go where I put it and stay there. So try it: if you disable automation read on the tracks, does it still happen?

So convert them from active to passive: wire them so that the amp part is out of the circuit. Get a nice little 35W stereo power amp to drive them.

This one might get you in the ballpark: https://www.wavesfactory.com/free-audio-plugins/snarebuzz/

This. A combination of most things having been done to death, greater ease of creating plug-ins, and people seeking quick fix magic beans.

Those descriptions don't match. Looks like the ones for MCabinet, MHarmonizerMB, and MWaveShaperMB. Is that what came in the email?

https://bandlabtechnologies.com/brands/cakewalk/

TBF, MSoundFactory Player has Monastery Grand, which is a very good sampled grand piano. Also SuperSaw, not a bad sounding synth. But yeah, it's basically just a delivery system for Monastery Grand.

Chip amp probably gave up the ghost. That's almost always what it is with these powered nearfields. Odd because it sounds like you weren't pushing them too hard. If they were manufactured in the mid-late 00's, then it could be a 'splody electrolytic cap (or two) in the power supply section.

Now, that's kinda bash-y. 😄 I suspect that pre-BandLab, SONAR suffered (as many programs do) from feature/license chasing at the expense of polishing what was already there. Cool new feature, everyone buy your upgrade licenses! But then the cool new feature (and many existing bugs) never quite gets finished as the team gets assigned with the task of implementing the next big feature. I think that in the past 5 1/2 years, Cakewalk has benefited greatly from not having to chase upgrade licenses. The code is in the best shape it's ever been. However, I also think that it's fallen behind somewhat as far as adding new features. Only two major ones in 5 years? Yes, great features, and of course all of the smaller ease-of-use features are a longtime user's dream, but the other DAW's have been taking bigger steps in regard to features. I'm not griping, I love using the software and I have much respect for BandLab and the Cakewalk developers. It has been interesting to see where the free subscription model took Cakewalk (and I think the results were wonderful), and it will be interesting to see where the return to a payware model will take it in the future. BandLab claims 2,000,000 CbB users. I don't know how they're counting, if that's people who installed it or people who continue to use it (which they get updated stats on due to the need to refresh the license). I hope it's the latter. Other DAW's are still just getting around to adding features that Cakewalk had many years ago (Studio One just implemented their version of Workspaces and Pro Tools just got a clip launcher). I'd like to see Cakewalk return the compliment. 🥰

Masterful musical parody by Neil Innes. Heaven knows so many people have tried to cop The Beatles' sound, and he did it spot on and repeatedly, through all of their phases.

What I meant was that there's no way to program one's own arpeggiator patterns for the built-in arpeggiator. Yes, the Step Sequencer is great, and has some really cool hidden features having to do with randomization that I bet few people who use it know about. I only found them while working on themes. You can change the probability that a given note will sound in a cycle, which can make for pleasing variations. Which tool were you referring to that you think could be improved? And how could it be improved?

Were you referring to something someone said in this topic? I don't see any bashing going on. If you're referring to my opinion that Cakewalk Sonar is going to be, feature-wise, in the under $99 leagues, I don't think that's "bashing" at all. I certainly didn't mean it as such. As a producer of electronic music, I'd like to have an integrated sampler instrument. I'd also like for the process of setting the program up for drum synth programming to be smoother. I've ranted about it multiple times in the past: the process of setting up the Piano Roll View to display drum instrument names is needlessly obscure and clumsy. An Ableton-style clip launcher for that style of performance/composing is necessary. Matrix View exists, but development seems to have stopped a little short of being finished. It does most of the things a clip launcher panel should do, except that you can't record directly into cells. Matrix is a solid foundation, it just needs a little bit of finishing off. More integration with Track View. As an example of the kind of "integration" I'm talking about, in regard to both the sampler and Matrix View, there should be things like being able to select a region of audio in Track View, right-clicking, and having the option to send the selected audio to a Matrix cell or sampler slot. Another feature that needs just a little bit more polish is the built-in arpeggiator. It's already great, and one of the coolest Cakewalk features, but there's no facility for programming one's own patterns. It's restricted to only the presets that come with it (and the "Alesion" set that's floating around). I guess Project 5 could program new arp patterns, but it's not around any more.

I think you'll find that to be more true for people who have been using Cakewalk for a very long time. For people like me who started relatively recently ("only" 5 years ago), it may be different. The only time I've ever paid any attention to the Synth Rack was when working on themes. To add synths, I use the button above the Track Headers or drag and drop from the Browser.

BTW, for the aforementioned themes that "fix" the button states, see me sig. All of my Mix Modules have buttons that are "lit" when the feature is "on," and for the "off" states, there is a slash. Actually, as a joke and nod to a local Bay Area band, my FX bypass button has "NO FX" in red when FX are bypassed. Also, my Simple Instrument tracks show the icon that has both MIDI and Synth together, because that's what Simple Instrument tracks are. The Synth icon is used for Synth tracks, and the MIDI icon is used for MIDI tracks. For the life of me I don't understand why it's the other way around in the standard themes.

The EQ in my avatar is our beloved ProChannel QuadCurve EQ. I wanted an avatar for the old forum and was putzing around with the EQ, and thought of the expression "put a smile on the EQ."

I've seen this happen as well. And yes, silly move on the part of the plug-in developers. Still, CS should be able to tell the difference between a dll and a directory.

You disagree that "Pro Tools users can be pretty dismissive?" I didn't say are, I said "can be," which is quite different. And I'm sure that things are indeed, as you suggest, different today than they were even 10 years ago in that regard. It would make sense that they would be different because Avid (and Digidesign before them) have not exactly nurtured up and coming music makers. These days, it's more likely that someone using ProTools would have started out using another DAW. Most of us in this subforum have been around quite a while, and back in the day, PT users were pretty snooty about other DAW's. How about "Pro Tools users could be pretty dismissive back in the day?" 😄