Starship Krupa

On 7/14/2019 at 10:58 AM, Variorum said:

One other thing to check is the Control Surface mapping (Preferences/MIDI/Control Surfaces). When MIDI devices are added or removed, the In Ports and Out Ports can get scrambled. If any of these Control Surface In Ports are set to your Korg, they will effectively intercept all the MIDI data and you'll get the symptoms you're describing. This catches me occasionally and I always seem to forget about it

Thank you, thank you, you have rescued me from the depths of MIDI-no-worki H377!

All I did was switch my active Firepod, which I do every 6 months or so to even the wear between the two of them. I usually only use one at a time, with the other one held in reserve in case I need more than 8 inputs or another submix or whatever.

During that switchover, Cakewalk decided that Firepod 1 was its new best friend and that it liked it so much it would use it as the In Port for my control surface instead of my Korg nanoKONTROL thereby causing both the nanoKONTROL and my MIDI keyboard to go completely limp and lifeless while of course they worked perfectly outside of Cakewalk.

Good for "referencing" mixes, eh?

Time for a bump to the top.

Another of my favorite stereoizer is Polyverse/Infected Mushroom Wider.

Said to create stereo from mono without phase issues, man oh man can this effect ever get extreme. I've not tested what it sounds like summed to mono.

If, like me, you like having a, uh, wide variety of ways to turn mono sources into stereo, grab it. The UI is pretty cool.

I can't help feeling that there's something I'm missing with it, because obviously the developer put a ton of work into it, the UI is beautiful, it has all these options, there are the people raving about it on YouTube, there are announcements about add-on packs, etc.

So I take all that trouble and time to get it to work and it seems like a tarted-up arpeggiator. If I had put in the same amount of time and effort running scales on my piano....

Well, if anyone here sees the white light and can tell me what it is about Instachord that makes intelligent-seeming grown men froth at the mouth, please do. The guy I'm thinking of seemed to know some music theory, so it wasn't just excitement over finally making his synths sound like someone good was playing them.

I know I sound down on Instachord, but I wouldn't be disappointed if I hadn't been interested in it to start with, and if anyone reading this wants to try it out, the price isn't too steep. Pluginboutique has the bundle of both Instachord, Instascale, and the 3 preset packs, all for $10. This runs through August 4, 2019.

3 hours ago, Gerry 1943 said:

Thank you everyone for your input.

Like a good little/old boy I did as I was told and am now in ASIO. However the issue of Audio Dropout has not gone away. It is still there.

So I guess MME vs ASIO has nothing to do with the issue.

I guess I will have to live with the problem!

Heavens, no, you've taken your first good steps toward getting your system working great.

Well done so far, I say.

Your system is quite capable of doing what you're trying to do, i3, plenty of clock speed, 8G RAM.

The original problem you were having was because Cakewalk was forced to deal with two different audio devices, one high-quality and capable of low latency (AudioBox) and the other made for playing back YouTube videos and whatever from the web (onboard Realtek).

When you do that, Cakewalk (or any program like it) will revert to the (s)lowest common denominator.

For low-latency droput-free monitoring while you record, you should remove the Realtek from the picture completely.

In Cakewalk's Preferences, make sure that you are in ASIO mode and that there are no references to the Realtek anywhere. Plug your speakers (or headphones) into the AudioBox.

This is the configuration to be in when you are doing DAW work, tracking or monitoring. If you still get dropouts when set up that way, check back here and we can help you sort it.

Now, as far as the question of how to still listen to YouTube videos and whatever else happens in programs other than Cakewalk.

The solution that I use, because I am one of those "golden ear audiofools," is that I don't use my onboard Realtek at all. I have Windows set up to play back everything, even YouTube videos and the rest, through the nearfield monitors connected to my PreSonus Firepod. Music is very important to my life, and life's too short to listen to it through a Realtek chip when I have a Firepod handy. 😂

Windows will happily use just about any audio output device that's properly connected to it. In order to do this, just go into Settings, select System, then Sound, then Choose your output device. Your AudioBox should be listed as an option. Down at the bottom of the page there are further, more advanced audio options if you care to mess with them.

If nothing else, this will make your YouTube videos sound better when you click on the little gear icon and switch it to "720p."

Another solution, the one mentioned by Mark, is to use a physical switching device, or some people use "computer speakers" plugged into the onboard jack for browser sound.

You don't have to live with it, as I said, your hardware and Cakewalk are quite capable of doing this without glitches.

(I came up with the handle when I joined the Vintage Drum Forum, because I am silly, and a fan of Gene Krupa, and I like incongruities like taking the title of a prog rock/science fiction classic and combining it with the surname of a great drummer. If you complete the phrase, "Starship Krupaaaaa, flying overhead!" it's even weirder to imagine Gene playing drums, flying over your head. Or Gene Krupa dressed in a space suit battling giant insects? It fits my nitwit sense of humor.)

My apologies to the forum, I just tried following my own recipe and now I can't get it to work either.

You do know that Cakewalk is supported software, as in if you have a consistent issue you can open a support ticket with BandLab and someone will try to help you with it?

As Lady Fuzztail alluded to, you should focus on one particular issue at a time, such as a project that crashes on trying to open it, take note of the steps that lead to the crash, what type, audio, MIDI, what plug-ins, etc.

Without that information, all we can do is guess at things like drivers and incompatible plug-ins, because of course Cakewalk isn't crashing for the rest of us.

Hey Byron, I am actually of the same belief as you, despite not being the world's greatest singer myself.

If I hit a bum note I record the line again and either use the new take or comp the line in, but I am also a skilled recording and mix engineer. It's free for me to do that. I enjoy the challenge and it makes me a better singer. It's practical for me to do this, I record my songs for myself, under no deadline, I may put them on YouTube and BandLab someday, I recommend not holding your breath for that day to come.

I also play drums, I love playing drums, I'm proud of how far I've come in the 6 years I've been doing it, but I don't think I've ever recorded a take that didn't need at least one kick hit nudged. I could go back and record the track again, play until my arms fall off, but with drums, there's a point of diminishing returns, it turns into a chore, I lose the energy of the early takes, so why not just nudge that one thump? I'm still using my art and skill, just a different skill.

But really, this is a discussion among recording and mix engineers, not singers. V-Vocal is a tool for manipulating audio, which is what we do with our Cakewalk. Lots of us record ourselves, but lots of us, me included, record other people too.

I made my snarky comment because I grow weary of hearing the same grumpy grouses about the use of this tool. It's not funny, not helpful. People can't be shamed into wanting to be better musicians!

We get people who bring us bad recordings. We get singers who go out for one puff or beer too many and come back and blow a note or two. I did a song at my house for a friend who just friggin' hit the wrong fret on the bass track, dropped SuperClam right there and we didn't even notice it until after he left, perfect feel, timing, the guy was a touring pro for years and just fscked it up. I fired up Melodyne Elements and dragged the golden blob up one half step and it sounded great.

John Lennon had the engineers at Abbey Road invent automatic double tracking because he thought doubling his lead vocals was a chore, and soon, every pop song had the "chorus/flange" effect slapped on everything. Was it cheating? Heck yes it was. Fortunately it sounded fantastic.

Personally I detest the notion that every note that comes out of a singer's mouth needs to be in perfect tune anyway. I think that good singers, like good speakers, vary pitch slightly to convey emotion, and that gets lost when pitch gets over "corrected." When I play guitar, even with chords, I bend notes a little to make the guitar "speak." I do it without thinking.

So if I ever use Melodyne, I use it to fix a note that really sticks out, if the singer or whoever drops a serious clam.

Other people use it in different ways, ways I may not like, but as a recording and mix engineer I can only force the talent to do another take and sing in pitch to a certain degree. Then what? Kick them out? In this economic climate for studios? People always have and always will show up for recording dates unprepared. Under-rehearsed, undertalented, underfunded, under-whatever. So now we have a little software thingie that makes the singer sound in better tune, who is harmed?

I went out to see one of my favorite bands from the 90's on their reunion tour, was blown away by how good they were, everything spot on, vocals perfect. Then I watched the phone videos, and good heavens, I don't think she hit a good note the whole night! Just awful. I don't know if my enthusiasm created a pitch corrector in my head or what.😄

13 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

Practice?

Ha, haaa, ya know that joke just never gets funny!

22 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Izotope came out with the free Imager, I found that became my go-to

Yes, what Brian said. iZotope have a number of freebies. If you click on Products on the main page and select Ozone Imager and Vocal Doubler you can get those. Both are excellent, not surprisingly. The Vocal Doubler is their advanced take on the "automatic double tracking" effect used by the Beatles at EMI Abbey Road.

If you download the trial version of Neutron 3, after it expires you get to keep the rather mind-blowing Visual Mixer. The way this works is you put a plug-in on each track you want to control with the Visual Mixer, and the plug-in controls level and pan. Then the Visual Mixer shows all these tracks on a screen as icons, which you drag around to place in the mix wherever you want. It's the direct opposite of "mix with your ears," I guess, but it's frickin' awesome for songs that have a lot of backing vocals.

I like that idea. I presented the idea of a sticky, but the powers that be seemed lukewarm on the idea, and are probably at Summer NAMM right now anyway.

They don't seem to like sticky posts and threads. I really want one for the topic "I have Sonar. What happens if I install Cakewalk by BandLab?" but no go on that one and it seems like I answer that question in one form or other several times a week.

My strategy is to start these two threads and see if people are interested. Then if it stays popular we can ask to make it a sticky or subforum or whatever.

On the old forum, it seemed like people were more interested in commercial plug-ins, and even some finger-pointing when people would experience crashes, an assumption that freeware licensed plug-ins were more likely to be buggy. People would say "are you using any freeware plug-ins?" if someone was experiencing a crash.

So it's good to have a list of plug-ins that are known to work well with Cakewalk. That helps with the uncertainty and prejudice. Cakewalk is free, and has become more stable since it became freeware licensed, as I hoped it would.

We should ask about this in another week, maybe? It's a good idea.

P.S. I don't know if I'm a freeware expert. Maybe I'm just broke!

The SFZ instrument that got me to start using the format was Sforzatron, which is a sampled Mellotron. Being a fan of the Moody Blues going back to high school, I'm also a fan of the Mellotron, specifically the string sound as showcased on "Nights In White Satin" and "Watching And Waiting."

If you install Cakewalk alongside Sonar, all of your Sonar FX, including V-Vocal, should appear and work just like they did in Sonar. As a matter of fact, the current Cakewalk Reference Guide has a chapter on V-Vocal to support people who upgrade from Sonar to CbB.

So, no kluge at all, it should work seamlessly. If it doesn't, post back here and the forumites will help you out.

Now that's great info. Thanks.

Obviously your system is more than up to the task of running any level of project you want with Cakewalk, so we can eliminate resources as a possible issue straightaway.

It happens with a very common instrument plug-in that used to ship with Sonar, AAS Strum, so it's probably not that.

That lets you narrow it down to maybe an issue with how the program interacts with the ASIO driver, which it seems to be.  I'm curious, just as an experiment, whether it happens if you use the Focusrite in WASAPI mode?

Sometimes there can be problems with the way Windows is talking to USB devices if you've disconnected a device from one port and then plugged it back in to another port. The way to check for that is to run Device Manager and select View/Hidden Devices from the menu and see if you have duplicates of the Focusrite. If there are any, uninstall all entries pertaining to the Focusrite. Then unplug it, plug it back in and let Windows reinstall it.

As for the clips issue, please do try the EAP release and report back. It is packed with fixes and feature updates to Take Lanes and editing, and even if it doesn't solve your issue, you'll find it a big step forward.

We're talking about sforzando, but I don't think there's been a link to how to download it yet.

For those who don't already know, it's a a sample player, specifically for the SFZ format.

If there's anything else to explain, I'll leave it to the experts! What I know is that there are a lot of free sampled instruments in the SFZ format available for download and this VSTi plays them like a champ.

One of my favorite compressors for the drum bus is Audio Damage Rough Rider 2.

I think you can get an idea just from the name, but if you want to get all squashy on a drum mix, this is a very good tool.

There's also an interesting fuzz plug-in for free on the site.

There's also the Windows 10 Fresh Start, which keeps only your personal files and starts your system with a fresh copy of Windows.

Something to try before getting a whole new computer.

It gets rid of all of your apps and settings, though, so it's a last resort.

Ugh, the Dell Touchpad.

While you're at it, see if you can figure out how to get Windows 10 not to turn my desktop into little shrunken versions of everything whenever I move the cursor diagonally upper left-->lower right.

Since down at the lower right is where the Synth Rack shows up, imagine what fun I have whenever I happen to invoke Synth Rack view from the menu, which is in the upper left, then try to zip the cursor down to the lower right to interact with the Synth Rack I just made visible.

And anyone thinking of offering the suggestion that I instead invoke it with Alt-9, just don't.

This issue must be something that is occurring when the Channel Emulator is used in a certain way. If it weren't, the forum would be full of complaints and the development team and beta testers would have noticed it a long time ago. The Console Emulation is a commonly used module.

There must be a plug-in, module, way of routing, something that is happening on your system. If it's a bug, it's one that's exposed in combination with these other factors, so please post more about what other plug-ins and ProChannel modules you are using, where the track is routed, etc.

The Console Emulator adds a bit of gain, so it may even be that the gain inherent to the module is causing something to go into oscillation. It also has its own resonant peak.

I think it's becoming clear from the responses in this thread that reverb, depending on how it's applied can be both a special effect and a means of creating a virtual space, even in the same mix.

I tend toward creating the virtual space, because I like to end up with mixes where I can close my eyes and picture just such a virtual space with everything placed in it.

Having said that, I loved Robin Guthrie's production with Cocteau Twins where everything was just doused in reverb.

I turn off synths' internal reverbs because I find they muddy things up, especially VSTi's that are based on sampled instruments.

One big feature that Cakewalk by BandLab is still lacking, in my opinion, especially for EDM work, is inclusion of a software phrase sampler.

While there are a few choices out there, the one I've found that's closest in functionality and workflow to the ones I'm used to in other DAW's is TX16Wx.

It has such a rich feature set that I'll probably never delve deeply enough to really find out what all it can do, but it quickly and easily does the bit where you get some phrases in there and trigger them with MIDI information, and that's what I want my phrase sampler to do. It has good tools for editing and pitch shifting as well, so I look nowhere else.

They recently updated it with a bunch of new features like a more scaleable GUI.

Also, don't get a copy of Eckhardt Tolle's The Power of Now expecting it to have anything to do with Cakewalk.

If you can list as much of your system specifications as possible, as I have done in my signature, it would be most helpful. OS, processor, audio interface, disk(s), RAM, etc.

In this case, I'd like to know what kind of disk(s) you have and how you have them set up. SSD? Spinny? 7200RPM? One single drive? Projects on one, system and programs on the other? We don't know what operating system you are using. Windows 7, 8, 10? How much RAM?

Since you mention that the problem has gotten worse over time, it suggests to me that it might be helped by defragmenting the hard drive where your projects are stored, if the drive is not an SSD.

Your PreSonus AudioBox is a fine interface and should be able to run in ASIO mode, and since that is the optimum mode for it, my first order of business would be to get it working in ASIO mode. If you can't get it working in ASIO or WASAPI mode, it indicates that there are problems elsewhere that need to be corrected before you proceed.

MME is a "last resort" to be used for legacy and oddball hardware, not currently supported products like your AudioBox. You won't get full capacity from your interface running it in MME mode. It's like running your car with half of the spark plugs removed.

16 hours ago, mettelus said:

Both of these threads should be stickies

I agree, but my hope for now is that they'll be "virtual stickies," that is, people will keep finding good freeware and posting them, which will bump the thread to the top. And if we keep the quality of the recommendations high, and stay on topic, we may very well wind up getting stickied anyway. Or the content may be used in a sticky.

Maybe there is so much great freeware available that you can get close to putting together your own "Cakewalk Platinum" by substituting freeware for the premium content. Maybe not, but it's a fun idea. Cakewalk Aluminum, maybe?

4 hours ago, fogle622 said:

Don't forget the Studio Instrument suite of electric piano, electric bass, string section and acoustic drum kit available as an optional download with Cakewalk by BandLab!

This, for sure.

I see people asking about where to find a good Rhodes or drum kit or strings plug-in, and wonder if they've even tried them. The Rhodes is really good, the drum kit is good if you go through the sounds and find the sampled kit you like and then fiddle with the onboard FX and most importantly for any canned drums, mess with your velocities! Especially on the hi hat. The strings are good enough that I might not have bought the Sonivox Orchestral Companion if I had already had them.

One of the problems with the Studio Instruments may be the interface, which I find makes it difficult to audition the soundsets. It's not immediately clear how to get at all the different kits or basses or pianos or string sounds. The Strings for instance, has synth pads and other different samples included, not just the default chamber orchestra, the Bass has synth basses, acoustic, fretless, and so on. There are at least a dozen different sampled drum kits, both acoustic and electronic.

These are some great links! Who needs a sticky when this keeps getting the bump? Of course I cheat it a bit by not posting the masses of links like mibby did!

Boz Digital Labs has some good stuff, especially Bark of Dog, which is a bass management/enhancement tool that used to ship with Sonar Platinum as a ProChannel module. It's now up to Bark of Dog 2, which unfortunately doesn't come in a ProChannel module format.

Boz is a good guy, though, and if you tell him that you're running CbB and ask him nicely, he might let you download the original, which will install both the VST and the ProChannel module.

Another note about the Computer Music plug-ins, one of them is Sidewidener by Boz Digital and Joey Sturgis Tones, and it is my hands-down favorite way to stereoize and enhance mono sources like iPhone recordings. One challenge I take on for fun is to take mono rehearsal recordings, like where someone set their phone down at band practice, and polish them up as best I can using things like Sidewidener, iZotope RX, proximity eq+, iZotope Neutron's transient shaper and so forth.

My friends marvel at the results and it's a fun challenge and a good way to learn what the tools are capable of. Sidewidener is the best.