Starship Krupa

Nice. Haven't seen a W.A. Production deal in months.

I just acquired MCompare in the Essentials bundle, and was psyched, but I couldn't get it to do the Gain Match thing right off. Seems it needs more study. Gain Match is near instant gratification, so I'm glad to have both. Gain Match is kinda resource-y, so I've taken to getting it set up and then disabling the upstream instance that does the analysis. Alternately, I dial back the gain on the plug-in's output and delete both instances.

Not having it "grovel" for VST's at startup is going to be huge, but I have a question: is there some way to pass it this parameter when Sound Forge is launched by double-clicking on an associated file? More than once that VST scan has brought my workflow to a halt because I launched Sound Forge in that way.

I have from the start of the BandLab era been vocal on this topic. Not going to jump in with anything that's already been said. A thing about this that continues to baffle me is why people seem to think that a bunch of random users on a public forum would be able to answer this. We're not privy to any insider information. Any software company can go out of business. Steinberg, Presonus, MAGIX, Cockos, Tracktion (has done at least once), Acoustica, all of them. When companies go out of business, they sell off their assets. In the case of software companies, their intellectual property (software code base, patents, trademarks) gets liquidated. This is how Cakewalk got to its current favorable status. If BandLab should decide to tank the whole Cakewalk experiment, they will likely liquidate the IP and it will live on. While I feel the pain; who likes to pay for something that shows up a week later as the Pluginboutique freebie of the month? Happened with me a few times. I paid for Ozone Essentials, which today seems crazy, it's being given away left and right. If I had waited 30 days, the $20 I spent on BYOME would have dropped to free with my vouchers. It's all in the game. I got to mess with BYOME for a month, which is a lot of value. And the guys at Unfiltered deserve some of my hard-earned for making such a great bit of software. They deserve more than $20, actually. My take on it, as someone who coughed up for a SONAR license about 20 years ago and then started back up in the BandLab era is that (y)our license fee(s) weren't thrown away, they went to keep the company afloat long enough to survive to be picked up by another company (who is of course delivering on updates in a big way). Also, your copy of SONAR Platinum came with other software that I'd love to have but that money literally can't buy. Now we can collaborate in native format with anyone with an internet connection and a Windows system. I'd say that there are worse deals.

🤦‍♂️ I somehow missed it. Apologies to both. Ugh, yes, this compounds the issue I'm having. I have a good buddy who is a database master, I'll forward him library.db and see what he can come up with.

That is a bigger pain than having a long category menu, for me. I test out multiple plug-ins every week. Maybe I'll do some spelunking in the registry, see if I can find where Cakewalk is storing these.

I notice that your WavesHell vst3 is version 12.0. The current one from Waves is 12.7. If you run Waves Central, do you get any update notices for your plug-ins?

That doesn't address my issue, which is that the categories list in the menu where I choose a category (or categories) has grown humongous. I haven't had the best luck with that. The layouts I've created with it are initially fine, but things go sideways when I install new plug-ins. They don't show up in the Browser. Also, the utility is on the deprecation list, so I am shy about using it.

As someone who tries out and obtains a LOT of plug-ins, as well as likes to customize and organize his plug-in layout. Now, after 3 years of running Cakewalk I have 56 different categories that pop up on the menu when I'm selecting a category. I guess what Cakewalk does is every time you install a new plug-in that has a new and unique "Category" tag embedded is it adds that category to its list. And that process seems to be a one-way street: I can't find a way to delete categories that I don't want to use. You get the picture. Ever-expanding category list. How do I knock it down?

It's good practice in general to exclude Cakewalk and your project and plug-in folders from examination by your anti-malware software. They aren't going to be infection vectors and virus scanning slows down the read/write process that is vital to Cakewalk's recording and playback.

I noticed that I was too dependent on (or maybe "used to") the Smart Tool, expecting and trying to finesse it into performing the operation I wanted. Now instead of cursing whenever it wanted to draw when I wanted to move or whatever, I just got good at going up to the F5-10 keys. Comping especially became less nerve-wracking with the Edit Tool selected, and the Piano Roll View easier to get things done with the Select or Move Tool.

There's also my current go-to, Speedrum Lite. It's similar to Sitala and Poise. 16 pads, drag and drop from a folder or Cakewalk clip, each pad maps to a note on your MIDI keyboard. Also free. I find Sitala, Poise, and Speedrum Lite to be similar enough to be interchangeable for my uses. I settled on Speedrum Lite because I liked the darker UI and the 16 outputs. They all have their discrete charms. Poise can do multiple samples per pad with velocity switching, which is good for drum kits that have multiple samples per instrument, Sitala can do beat slicing. Speedrum Lite has an attractive, scalable UI. I consider them to be what I'm using while I wait for Cakewalk to get its own sampler. Who knows?

Today's multiple free instruments come from Electronik Sound Lab. They have 8 different freeware instruments, including a variety of vintage drum machine emulations. Their other specialty is atmospheric keyboards, as they make Darksichord and Creepy Piano. They also are now the keepers of one of my favorite ambient instruments, ATMOS, now in version 2. Tracktion have issued WaverazorLE, a lighter edition of their Waverazor synth. Nice graphics on this one. They also have a collection of vintage video game sounds. Sega, Nintendo, Commodore SID. Ironically, I haven't been posting in this thread as much as I once did because I'm getting so many freebies! I don't always have time to make note of them here, so I'm catching up.

Today's batch of freebie FX comes from igorski.nl. They actually have 4 of them, but the one I like is HomeCorrupter. It has 3 functions in it, each of which has its own adjustable LFO. You can reduce the sample rate, bit depth, and the one I found most appealing, "clock speed," which is a slow down effect. An LFO'd slowdown effect is a nice thing to have. It sounds sikk with Dumpster Fire. If I ever start reviewing plug-ins on a more formal basis, I think I should put each of them to the "how does it sound with Dumpster Fire?" test. Except that everything sounds pretty awesomely weird with Dumpster Fire. And that's okay. In the case of Home Corrupter, I put together a sound I called "Dead Souls on a Tilt-A-Whirl" by sticking Cakewalk's own Modfilter first in line, then Dumpster Fire, then HomeCorrupter. The other 3 are not quite my cup of tea, but if you're into degraded sounds, you might like them. One is a delay with a variety of manglers in the loop, the other is supposed to be a reverb, although I couldn't get it to sound the slightest reverb-y, and the last one is a harsh formant filter.

It should come with a warning that users may become disappointed in one or more of their favorite sweeteners. "I put this thing on my drum bus and it makes everything sound so much phatter while also enhancing clarity!" Well, yeah, it jacked up the level by 3dB, thereby hitting a sweeter spot on the Fletcher-Munson curve. That's how that works. It sure saves having to continually turn the effect's output down when I'm auditioning presets. I wonder what it's doing between the time you insert it in an FX bin and the time you see the UI, it takes the longest of any effect I've seen.

I'm sure that many of the original factory presets are indeed the result of a random name generator. My metaphor for Meldaproduction's wacky preset names and sparse documentation is that it's as if I found an artifact from an advanced civilization, and it does certain cool things when I press the obvious buttons, but then if I open a panel, there's all this other stuff that I have no idea how to operate. They're like the TARDIS, maybe that's why geeks like me dig 'em so much. 😁

Good lord you weren't kidding. That's all I can say. MTurboDelayMB on the other hand, seems like it was abandoned at some point. It has the same complement of presets that the non-MB version does, but none of them work properly. In other news, I tried MSpectraldynamicsle briefly, and although I'm still having a hard time getting my head around it, I managed to come up with a preset that I liked enough to upload. It uses the bitcrusher device and it's called "Phantom Flautist." It adds a flute-y overtone to your source. I need to get in the habit of using the "description" field in my preset uploads. Some of the presets are baffling, they don't show the devices on the easy screen, so I can't control them. All in all, it's pretty fab to get 8 new high end plug-ins for free, thanks to those who used my referral code.

This would seriously harsh my mellow. Phoenix Stereo is The Answer.

Actually, there was Cubase, too. Cakewalk/SONAR suffered from being Windows-only and from getting kinda buggy. I don't know how it compared to all other DAW's in the crashing sweepstakes, but I started with Mixcraft, which is solid as a rock, and the first version of CbB (which was also sort of the last version of SONAR) didn't work very well on my system. Crashes, freezes, etc. I felt like I was on thin ice with it, saving way more often than I was used to. And I found the comping workflow to be confusing before they made the changes to it. I think it's great now, after 3 years of repair and renovation, but I don't think I would have been comfortable with it if it had stayed as it was. They could innovate all they wanted, but what gets and keeps an important tool in my place is basic usability and dependability. SONAR, IMO, had issues with both (which, happily, were and are being addressed).

Whoo, time for a bump on this one. What we have up this time is HY-Plugins. The deal with them is that for each of their products, there is a free version with fewer features. They specialize in step sequencers of various flavors, there is also a sample slicer/sequencer, and a very nice subtractive polyphonic synth called HY-Poly. HY-Poly Free avoids some of the clutter that other synths add in order to stand out. It has really good-sounding oscillators and filters.

Here's a new discovery, great for anyone into sequenced rhythms and slicing. HY-Plugins have a variety of sequencers and a sample slicer, also a delay and filter. Slick, well-laid out UI's. Each of them comes in a feature-limited free edition. The free editions still have plenty of usefulness.

Here's an "inspiration in a can" effect, kinda like the notorious "Drip" is aspiring to be, except this one is free. Many modes, one knob for more or less of the effect. If a sound is not quite "there," you throw this on and see if you can get it there. It could also be considered equivalent to 25 Waves One Knob FX in one UI. Switch it to whatever effect you want, then turn the knob to alter parameter(s). It's a lot of plug-in for signing up for their newsletter. ujam Micro Finisher

I'd love for them to be licensed in the usual iZotope fashion, but they're re-badged versions of the products they bought along with the rest of the Exponential IP. Exponential was using iLok 2/PACE driver, single seat, so that's how it is. If we want those sweet Exponential algorithms in iZotope form (with licensing and sweet UI), it's Neoverb.

No markers? As someone who flubs a note every so often, I'd be so worse off without having markers I can lay down to remind me where I need to edit of punch in. I'll go out on a limb here and say that you've probably not used Lyrics View, at least not more than once. It's one of my favorite features, not to actually use, but just to remember it every once in a while and ponder that someone had to suggest it and then it was implemented in that fashion. It is....unique, I daresay. It's a workflow like no other.

John's layout is bog standard for Track View, and he even goes over to the Console View to show what it looks like there. The only possible hitch I can think of is that he has his Bus Pane showing at the start of the video and I'm not sure if that is open by default. If not, there is an arrow button at the lower right corner of the Track/Bus headers that will open it. The Cakewalk Reference Guide, downloadable from this forum, has good information about setting up Send tracks, too. If someone still can't figure it out after all this, the next thing I would suggest is that they check the program's title bar up at the top and make sure they're actually running Cakewalk. If so, maybe Cakewalk's not the best fit.