Starship Krupa

At present, the only way to open Skylight panels is to either click on a rather tiny button or a keystroke. It occurs to me that there's a much larger target, the bars at the edges. I'd love to be able to double-click on them to open the panels. It would save a lot of mouse hunting and make the program feel more slick. This would especially help me (and others) when working on a laptop with a 14" screen.

Which includes being responsible for the creation of REAPER. The founder of Nullsoft took his money from the AOL buyout and started Cockos.

Here's a discussion on the Meldaproduction forum, including Vojtech himself weighing in: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=593291 Since I have licenses for 90-some Meldaproduction products and none for UVI products, this was the bigger news. When a larger more established company acquires a smaller one with fewer resources, the smaller company can gain access to the larger one's accounting, marketing, support, web design, IT, graphics and (praise heaven) documentation staff. In the case of Meldaproduction, I've always gotten the idea that he's been almost a one-man show, hiring contractors and part-timers as needed. There are plenty of things that he's said he just doesn't have time for, and with luck, this might free him up to delegate. The addition of the graphical interfaces to many FX were welcome, but they're a mixed bag. Some look great, others kinda lame. Help from a larger company's graphics staff might improve things. Same with their longtime Achilles' heel: documentation. I don't know how good the FL Studio documentation is, but it would be hard for it to be worse than the existing stuff. (Thanks to Meldaproduction's inadequate documentation, I have a huge collection of some of the most powerful processors in the business....and feel as if I've only ever scratched the surface of any of them. Fortunately they are still excellent at a basic level of use. Speaking of scratching, MRhythmizer is one that I've so far been utterly unable to create my own presets for but that I know if I could figure it out would be great for some things I have in mind. Fortunately the supplied presets still do a lot, as do the ones from the preset exchange. There are some vocal FX that I know I could get with it, but for now I'm stuck with the supplied presets.) Unfortunately in the case where the acquired company already has that staff, they run the risk of being made redundant. I don't think Meldaproduction has enough staff for this to happen. I'd also feel more comfortable knowing that he might educate other programmers about how to use his development framework and code. Seeing as one of Vojtech's hobbies is rock climbing, having someone else able to take over the coding would increase the value of the "free updates for life" license. So, cautiously optimistic. I was 1000% right regarding BandLab's purchase of SONAR, so here's hoping I'm right this time. Worst case scenario is that I'm "stuck" with a collection of plug-ins that work great as they are and are so deep I will never reach bottom on their feature sets. Regarding iZotope's acquisition and management of the Exponential Audio IP, I've personally benefited from it. They dropped the licensing down to the peanuts level on Phoenix, Nimbus, R2 and R4, which allowed me to start using reverbs that instantly leveled up the sound of my mixes. And they've kept Stratus and Symphony, which are the same algos. EA did the thing of adding features and reissuing their plug-ins with new names, requiring purchase of new licenses. They kept the older versions on the market. So Stratus is a tarted-up Phoenix and Symphony is the same for R2. What iZotope did was weed out the redundant versions. Shoulda been done long ago, but at least we got to acquire licenses on the cheap. Also, as noted, they iZotoped the algos into Neoverb, which follows in the iZotope tradition of being a resource hog, but also follows their cool licensing policy. And they seem to be good for dropping the price on it. It's a deal at $25.

I've had it happen that a plug-in conflict caused CbB to lock up or poof right at Creating UI. It just means that it took Cakewalk and the plug-in a little longer to figure out that they were mortal enemies or that the conflict itself waits until Cakewalk is painting the UI to fall down and go boom. My IK Multimedia and Native Instruments plug-ins are all running fine, but one of the reasons I retired my Latitude E6410 from audio work is that those companies both released instruments last year that require full DX12 (not emulated) in order to either install or display correctly. That is, I think, overall a good sign if it means that they're offloading more to the GPU, but it also might mean that display issues will get trickier if they don't do it correctly. Scientific progress goes BOINK!

I think the Feedback section is the right place for your question, Milton.

What likely happened is that when you installed the Magix demo, its installer installed their generic ASIO driver, which is known to cause problems with Cakewalk (and from the looks of it, Pro Tools). If you uninstall your Magix demo, my guess is that Cakewalk (and likely, PT) will start working again.

I'm assuming that you're using ASIO mode for both of them.... No idea, but I'd be curious to find out whether this is the case with non-UAD FX in both DAW's. UAD are kinda Pro Tools-centric, so it might be that their AAX plug-ins take better advantage of their hardware. Seems like we would have heard about it if that were the case, though. Maybe try it with REAPER or Waveform to see if it's Cakewalk-specific?

Also, I notice that your processor is an i7-4790K. It might seem counterintuitive, but if you have it overclocked, maybe you could try going a bit more conservative with that. Thermal issues happen when overclocking is pushed too far. But no matter what, I'd still check the paste and look into a tower cooler if your case is wide enough. There are some well-reviewed ones on eBay for under $20 if you don't want to spend so much on an older system.

Congratulations! In the past 6 months I've had both good luck and bad luck in system-building efforts....it has gotten easier and more straightforward than 30 years ago when I built my first ones.

Shouldn't be doing that, even under a load. Maybe it's time to check the paste under your cooler, or even investigate a more robust cooler. If you've been running it since its heyday, 8 years ago, the paste is probably ready to be scrubbed off and replaced. Are you running at least 2 case fans? Fans, even good, quiet ones, are cheap. My big question with rates over 96K isn't whether my system will handle it, it's whether my plug-ins will handle it.

That is some serious purpletration!

I do not endorse this practice as you have stated it. Given the choice, I only install the VST3 version, then if I run into trouble, I can always reinstall, this time selecting the VST2 version. Installing both can lead to duplicate versions of the plug-in showing up in Plug-in Browser. Not all plug-in manufacturers use the same identifier for both versions of their plug-ins. A precaution might be to install the VST2 versions to a folder that isn't scanned by Cakewalk, then doing as you say, copying the VST2 to a folder that is scanned if you think something's wrong with the VST3 version.

Yeah, I think Cakewalk sometimes gets its routing....confused. I put MRhythmizer on a track last night, then stopped messing with it and put another instance on a bus (which the first track was not assigned to). I solo'd the bus and the track with MRhythmizer was also audible (and affected by MRhythmizer). It stayed that way even after I deleted the first instance of MRhythmizer. So a track without the effect on it was being effected. I was able to clear it by deleting the second instance, quitting the project, relaunching, and then putting MRhythmizer back on the bus. It was weeeeird.

Dell business laptops, for at least the past 7 years or more, come with a Windows Pro license baked into their motherboards. No need to buy keys or anything like that. I suspect that it's the same with other big laptop manufacturers. Might be the same with their towers. I recently upgraded from an incredibly stalwart Latitude E6410 that someone gave me after it was retired from service at their company. I think it was manufactured in 2011, so it was already 5 years old when I got it. It came with an i5, which I eventually upgraded to an i7. Slower base clock, but DAW's and NLE's love extra cores. It's still fine for that use, but it's heavy, can only accept 8G of RAM and the i7 gives it a battery life of about 1.5 hours on a fresh battery. I liked having the separate nVidia GPU chip, though. Last year plug-in manufacturers started really using DirectX 12, so I was running into ones that wouldn't work, like Kontakt Player 7 and MODO Drum. The latest one is a Latitude 7480, another corporate retiree that I found on CL for $50. It had no hard drive and the battery was shot, but $70 later, it has a 1T Silicon Power (my preferred brand for SSD's and RAM) and a brand new battery. It came with 16G of RAM. Lighter, slimmer, and has a full-featured Thunderbolt port (I have fallen in love with Thunderbolt as a result). Only 2/4 cores, but since it's several generations newer, still better performance (Cakewalk really liked turning off plug-in load balancing for some reason). The screen is smaller than I would like, but you can't beat the price. Cautions about Dell business laptops for audio: Dells in general are notoriously locked down, as befits their intended use as bombproof business boxes. So no overclocking, although with enough BIOS finesse and Windows Fu you can get the CPU into the Turbo zone and pretty much keep it there when plugged in and doing CPU intensive work. Also, and this is crucial for the kind of work we do, they are known for coming back with funky results from LatencyMon. Specifically, the driver ACPI.SYS is an interrupt hog. Look up "Dell laptop latency" and you'll see. I found a trick to at least get LatencyMon to sign off on the 7480, which is in the plugged in high performance power plan, set Maximum and Minimum CPU to 99%. Somehow that lets ACPI.SYS relax a little. I don't really understand why, but it worked. Regarding Dell towers, the locked down BIOS is also a thing, but with BIOS and power plan finesse I managed to nail the 3.4GHz i7-3770 in my Optiplex to 3.87GHz and it never wavers from that. As with all Dells, the case is tank-like. I did replace the power supply with a 500W to accommodate my AMD and nVidia GPU's. Also, and this may be important for DAW use, they offer nothing in the way of fan tuning and control, although I managed to get mine very quiet with some fan replacement. Noctua and BeQuiet fans are $10-12. You can now get an Optiplex with an i7-6770 and 16G of RAM in it for just a little over $200 as a Dell Refurbish on Amazon, probably due to the Windows 11 incompatibility windfall. Throw an nVidia 1060 or 1030 in one of those and it will handle anything you throw at it short of maybe the latest FPS games, although I haven't tried any (not my thing). On my i7-6770 system (home built) my indie adventure/puzzle games look beautiful and run like bandits. For a huge orchestral sample library user, 32G of RAM might be better, but for my use, I was doing okay with the 8G in my old laptop. There are some who seem to look down on acquiring any computer system with a CPU older than gen 11, but the only thing I can think of that that kind of CPU power is needed for is hardcore gaming. I'd ask anyone with a gen 11 CPU: what can't I do on my i7-6770 except meet the requirements for Windows 11? If there is anything, I've yet to find it.

I heartily endorse this. Doubt it will ever happen, but if it did, I'd be a happy .STH Lord indeed. In all the time I've been messing about with themes, the devs have not fulfilled any feature requests regarding TE. Not ruling it out. I think that people who make custom themes, especially those of us who put a LOT of time and effort into it, contribute a lot to the user community at large. I have no way of knowing how many people actually use my themes; I mostly approach it as I do with every creative endeavor. I make what I would like to see or hear, then throw it out there for whoever wishes to enjoy it. I can't even remember the last time I worked in Cakewalk using a stock theme. The button images are small and, IMO, sometimes ambiguous and inconsistent. The fact that Cakewalk has such extensive theme editing (I know of no other DAW except REAPER that even comes close) is something that has brought me a LOT of enjoyment. I consider it a creative pursuit in itself. Thanks to doing it, I've really leveled up my Paint.net skills. There's a sense of community to it with The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer and your own notes. I encourage anyone to swipe my art and ideas for their own themes (as I originally copped your console bypass button images and so many ideas from you and Colin). I'm really proud of the Transport and Tools Modules in Blue Flat Dark, Green Flat Dark, and Tungsten RST.

Can you believe that we're almost at the 5-year anniversary? In that time I've changed my genre of focus (from rock to electronica) and actually released a song. What a bounty, to be able to move to something as capable as SONAR for free. I didn't even consider that. Well spotted! It's been so long since I had to add the caveat "as long as you're running 64-bit Windows." Well, if Mike is still on a 32-bit OS, I have to suggest that he upgrade the OS as well. 😁 Otherwise he can't run Cakewalk, my favorite DAW!

I've been doing some big work using the copy and paste from one instance of TE to another and have seen no issues. Can you perhaps find a pattern in the (mis)behavior? BTW, did you know that you can copy and paste images directly from your pixel editor software? I use that one all the time. The image has to be flattened, no layers allowed.

I go for Google Docs or LibreOffice. Haven't touched Microsoft Office in about 20 years.

This indeed. I still amaze folks in MYST Online with my tale of getting the entire Cyan catalog for $10 in December 2021, and every couple of years when they put out the Vegas Pro Edit/Movie Studio/Sound Forge/Music Maker/Etc. bundle for $25 it is the proverbial acephalic expenditure for me. Of course they're only valuable if you want enough stuff in the bundle. Gone are the days I could add to my A|A|S soundpack collection via Humble Bundle because they are not likely to bundle up an assortment that contains enough that I don't already have (especially thanks to that big bundle of them that they offered a few years back). Gamers especially should be aware that not everything they sell is part of a bundle. I've gotten some smokin' deals on individual titles like Lightmatter for $5 and The Stanley Parable for $7.

Since it looks like you didn't get as far as having a fully working upgraded 10 Pro system, you should be able to use the key to license it on a new system. If Microsoft's server think's you already used the key, it is possible to phone them up and have them fix it. Glad it worked! I don't know how they're doing it so cheaply. Don't much care either, as long as Microsoft accepts the keys.

I bet if you tried going back to SONAR Platinum for a week you wouldn't say that! 😄 That's the thing with the incremental "small" and convenience features: a lot of the time we don't think about them because it seemed like they should have been there in the first place. Ripple Edit indicator, anyone? Configurable Smart Tool? Comprehensive Export dialog? It depends on your definition of "must-have," I suppose. Yes, you can record and edit and render audio and MIDI with SONAR Platinum, and the new features might not even impact your workflows, but that's because you're a veteran and your workflows were developed before the most recent features came along. For someone like me who's only known the CbB version, loss of many of the things would really slow me down. Heck, Replace FX and the fact that the synth UI's open when you use Replace Synth would drive me nuts to be without (well, to be fair, the lack of them was already driving me nuts). I used to lose takes to the inability to properly name my interfaces' inputs. For new users, these "little things" really add up to the program feeling smoother at first look. I suspect that maybe over the years with all fthe changes in staff and ownership and management at Cakewalk, Inc., a lot of details were missed or put off until a "later" that never came until BandLab let the current team off the leash.

It looks like you have your folder options set to "hide extensions for known file types." Windows "knows" .INI files, so it's hiding the extension. I always run with that option turned off.

Does your Mix module indicate that there are any tracks solo'd? Was thinking maybe you have hidden tracks?

If you want the Help to be local (as I do), go to Preferences/File/Advanced and check "Always use local help."

Yikes. Music Creator 6 is ancient history. I highly recommend upgrading to Cakewalk by BandLab. It's free and does everything that Music Creator does and a LOT more. If you're not sure, it's free, so no risk in checking it out.