Starship Krupa

That is teh secks. I love the combination of rosewood fretboard and dark stained body. I'll post some shots of my Peavey era-spanning custom frankenbass when I can find them....

I think TrueVerb was my first ever Waves Black Friday freebie, way back when.

There are other optimizations you can do at an OS level that will make things run even more smoothly. First and foremost, since you're using Kontakt and Spitfire sample libraries, go into the Windows Security settings and exclude your plug-in, Cakewalk Projects, and any folders where your samples libraries are stored from Windows Defender realtime scanning. I use Windows 10 Pro, so I have disabled realtime scanning globally, but if you want to leave realtime scanning on for the rest of your system, at least exclude whatever folders are going to get heavy reading while you're in projects. That will take a big load off your CPU, as it won't be scanning your Spitfire Orchestra samples for malware every time they're read.

Okay, I also do In The Box (aka "ITB") projects, and I'll offer this advice: Where sample rate matters is when you do your final export/render. Depending on your soft synths and FX, you may likely get better sound if you export at 88.1K or 96K and then use a converter (I use and recommend MediaHuman Audio Converter) for creating files for distribution. (And BTW, I consider it best practice to make ONE master rendered file and convert it for distribution rather than doing a FLAC export, an MP3 export, etc. The reason for this is that soft synths and FX have randomized elements that will be different every time you render.) Cakewalk has a built-in feature, plug-in upsampling. You enable this by clicking on the "2X" button in the Control Bar's Mix Module. For ITB projects, this will have the same effect as rendering at 88.1 or 96. If you enable it during mixing/composing, you'll hear any differences at that time (if you hear any differences). What it does is make your plug-ins "think" that they're running at double the sample rate. One caveat: I've gotten unexpected results from upsampling while having the 64-bit precision engine enabled. Since the word is that the 64-bit precision engine is kinda snake oil, I now leave it turned off. I hear no difference in playback or rendered audio. YMMV. If you're interested in the reason for wanting to do this, it has to do with aliasing, which I won't go into here. It's a kind of distortion that's usually considered unpleasant (unlike the GOOD kind of distortion). Either just try it and listen for a difference in quality, or study up on aliasing in soft synths and FX. It can especially have an effect on reverbs and distortion FX. HTH.

I use dual 23" monitors at 1920x1280. I consider that to be just at the edge of legibility with my aging eyesballs. This is not just for CbB, I use some older plug-ins that aren't scalable, and they're hard to see even at that resolution. We'd all love to see vector scaling in Cakewalk, and the devs have hinted that they'd like to do it, but it ain't there yet. There is some dusty code in Cakewalk!

The aforementioned ProChannel Quadcurve EQ that others have mentioned has spectrum analysis, but I'd prefer a free plug-in like Voxengo SPAN or Meldaproduction MAnalyzer (the latter is my favorite).

Or take a thumb drive to the nearest Internet cafe, download the installer and bring it home (don't mess with BandLab Assistant). At that point, all you'll need to connect to the Internet for is validation, which is trivial as far as data transfer.

And I'm happy to see that your state of being "done" with making Cakewalk tutorials was brief! As far as human impulses go, the one to share what we know with others just because it feels good to help people is one of my favorites. I subscribe to the notion of this being evolutionary (in whatever sense of that word): as human societies developed, the people who had useful information that could help the tribe were valued and given resources, thus ensuring their survival. Translate that to whatever spirituality one may follow. Compared to other impulses, like the one to clonk someone on the head and take their stuff, it's pretty cool. We just do it because we like the idea that it will ease others' struggling to do something we love doing ourselves. Rather than selfishly hoarding the information.

A couple of years ago I was working on an audio project and it started to exhibit this behavior. It was just the one project, and I eventually resolved it with the help of the devs, but I can't remember what I/we did to solve it. It had other issues as well, like scrolling up and down with the mousewheel had a crazy amount of delay. I sent my project file in to them and they examined it and figured out the issue and made changes to Cakewalk which solved it. This suggests that there may be multiple things that can trigger the behavior. As others have suggested, maybe try a complete fresh install of Cakewalk, try recording some simple tracks and see what happens. You've obviously been very diligent in trying to troubleshoot this. It's probably time to contact official support, who can get the attention of the devs if they themselves can't help you fix it. Believe me, the devs will want to know about this. As others have said, it's not happening for them, but it's entirely possible that it's happening for an unknown number of people who don't visit the forum and/or just switched to another DAW when they couldn't work it out. Cakewalk is under new management. The devs are much more able to address issues like this quickly than they were in the past.

Oy vey. I had to go through some serious hassle to even get these Dream Machines playable on my system (I documented my flailings in Meldaproduction's forum). Then once I did, I discovered that each "Dream Machine" only has 6 sample slots. They each can hold 2 samples, but only ones of similar type, like you can have 2 different hats or 2 different kicks or 2 different toms in the same slot. Then to use them, apparently you have to write automation to switch back and forth between the two samples. There's no note choking that I can see either. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the freeware Sitala has 16 pads, each with individual outputs, and can load any sample you want. You can also do things like trim the sample, reverse it, whatever. So IMO, if you're going to sell me a single shot sampled vintage-style drum machine, it has to do at least as much as Sitala would with the appropriate samples loaded into it. Otherwise you're just trying to sell me a nice vintage sample set with a lame player. Here's a review I wrote on the Meldaproduction forum. Caveat emptor on this one (there was someone who said that with an MSoundFactory drum machine there was "no way around" having only 6 slots because MSF only has 6 outputs. Which started a mini discussion around how hard it would be to add a couple of outputs to MSoundFactory to accommodate this. Uh, suuuure, it's not possible for different notes to go to the same virtual output?) Since I wrote it it occurs to me why not just have all 12 sample slots able to be triggered by MIDI notes, that would at least put it in the ballpark of other drum machines that have 16 slots. Breaktweaker is the only one I can think of that only has 6 slots. I own Breaktweaker, I've used Breaktweaker, and Dream Machines is no Breaktweaker. .... I got a license for MSoundFactoryLE partly because of excitement around this, but add me to those disappointed to have only 6 slots in each "machine." I didn't read closely and figured that some of the "pads" would be doing double duty. As a programmer of beats, for me the minimum for usability is 8 slots, each with their own MIDI note. Preferably with choking between hi-hat slots, and individual level and pan controls for each slot. The reason for this "minimum" is that the classic drum boxes had at least this variety of sounds. If I'm trying to program something to sound like a DMX, 808, or Six Trak, it won't sound like one without at least 8 slots (some might say more). You can't program "My Adidas" or "Posse on Broadway" with 6 slots (although you might be able to do "Blue Monday"). The most basic freeware pad samplers can do this. Unlike others who have contributed to the discussion so far, I don't need 8 individual outs. I don't think there's "no way around it" at all. The number of outputs has nothing to do with the number of note slots; some MSoundFactory instruments have 88 notes and only 2 outputs. Doubling up a couple of outputs is fine, closed and open hats and hi and lo tom (or whatever) can share outputs; it's not like my beats aren't going to work if I can't separately process my closed and open hats (or toms). Automation can take care of that if it's really necessary. Lots of people use their DAWs' step sequencers to make beats, that's especially important in the absence of an internal sequencer (as with Dream Machines). It's impossible for users to program in sample changes via automation while we're using our step sequencer. I have to have access to all of the different sounds I'm going to use while I'm creating the beats. If I have to use automation to be able to use kick, snare, claps, OH, CH, and hi and lo toms, I'm just going to reach for another instrument, maybe load the samples up in Sitala or something. I'm a drummer, the head guy at Meldaproduction is a drummer. Just as I come up with beats on the fly when I'm playing my "real" kit, I often (usually) come up with them on the fly when I'm programming them. I even sometimes program them by recording "key drums" in real time with my left hand on the General MIDI drum keys. Can't do that unless my sounds are all mapped to notes, not being switched with automation. That would be like having to record myself playing the hats closed and then overdubbing myself playing them open. My request is, at the minimum, allow independent triggering of "Sample A" and "Sample B" via MIDI notes. Maybe a mode switch for "trigger Sample B via MIDI note?" That would take it over my usability threshold. More flexibility in which sounds can be mapped to which slots would be nice, as would hi hat choke. None of it seems terribly out of reach for virtual drum machines hosted by a synth engine that (I presume) can recognize, respond to, and output 127 MIDI notes. An 8 sample drum machine with 6 assignable outputs seems possible, and surely no threat to MDrummer. I don't even usually use individual outs on my drum machines, virtual or otherwise; as long as the drum machine has individual pan and level controls I'm fine.

Also the Player version, right? The way I understand it is that the full version gets you everything, the LE version gets you everything except you can't create your own instruments, and the Player gives you Monastery Grand and Super Saw. With Player, you can buy more instruments, like for instance the Dream Machines thing that just came out, and I would presume the Meldway Grand that's been Coming Soon for a while. Both of those are being given to Full and LE users at no extra cost. With the Full version and LE version, it's Melda's call which new instruments get added to those for free and which stay separate? My impression at the time was that he was trying to set up his own ecosystem like Kontakt and Sampletank, with the obvious differences. Does Sampletank have 3rd-party libraries that use the Sampletank engine like Kontakt has all those 3rd-party instruments? I haven't seen any but that doesn't mean there are any. My sample library needs are modest and completely satisfied by free ones at this point.

Wow. First impression is that the 8 patches from Modular City are my least favorite in all of Swatchlandia, as a group. Usually there's at least one cool and/or useful sound. I wonder what happened here. One of them sounds like the typical "default" sound on a subtractive synth emulation. Is the idea to show how pure a sine wave their algorithm can generate? "How more sine can it get? None. None more sine."

More for stage than for studio, I would think. I'd rock the snot out of a set of those at an electronic festival. (as if I'd ever get invited to play one)

A|A|S have come out with Modular City, a soundpack for their modular synth, Multiphonics CV-1. This suggests that since it will also play in the free A|A|S Player/Swatches app, Multiphonics CV-1 uses the same modeling synth engine their other instruments are built around. The promo includes the soundpack and Multiphonics CV-1 for 50% off list. Also: Swatches has been updated to 1.60 and now includes patches from Modular City and Love Lost (the latest Strum soundpack). This brings Swatches up to 628 different patches, which is astonishing. They're excellent sounds, too, the ones that A|A|S have picked to show off each soundpack.

Isn't part of the MSFLE (and Player) deal that 3rd-party instruments can be used in whatever version? That would make it up to @Chandler whether he wants to put it out for the world to share (or buy), unless of course he made it under contract to Meldaproduction. I tried an MSF instrument that someone on the Melda users' Discord made, and it sounded great, but the GUI got all messed up after a software update. That made me concerned for the future of 3rd-party MSF content. If Meldaproduction can't keep it backward compatible, that would not be a good thing. The only other 3rd party content I've seen for MSF was that thing that came with the issue of CM with the Meldaproduction feature. It was....kinda awful. Controls that operated the wrong way, a promise of more devices to come that never did. Not a great showcase for it.

Yeah, the page Brian linked to was kinda 4 different drum instruments, the Monastery Grand I already have, and then "MSoundFactory Essentials: Whatever That Is." Click on "Details" and you get this wonderfully Meldaesque non-description: "Essential data for MSoundFactory: MSoundFactory comes up with various resources, mainly samples. You can download all of them here directly and install them using Menu/Install product, or use the integrated downloader inside MSoundFactory, which can be started directly from the MSoundFactory main screen and will do all the heavy lifting for you." The description of the instruments package is....kind of like if you asked someone to describe the Amazon shipment that came this morning and they told you all about the box it came in. I know the guy has decent verbal skills, he comes across as articulate and funny on the forum and in interviews, but it's almost as if he doesn't want his products to be used to their full capacity. I trust Vojtech enough to buy the thing anyway, but I sure do thank you for that list. I assume that each of the "instruments" is truly an instrument, like a Kontakt instrument, with its own controls and set of patches? I think that some of the Super Saw patches sound great.

Therefore not a VocalSynth killer.

I'm getting interested in purchasing MSoundFactoryLE. I have enough referral credits to get it for no cash at the current price. I've also been eyeing MAutoEqualizer. My concern is that some of the MSoundFactory SuperSaw patches brought my laptop to a halt and I'm wondering how much of a hog it is in general. Meldaproduction FX are unanimously frugal with resources, but is MSoundFactory? And is there somewhere on the website that lists the instruments that come with it?

I'd be very interested to see what you come up with. Please post results on the Meldaproduction forum or here in Tutorials or Instruments and Effects. These days so many instruments come with built-in sequencers that it can be a chore to learn them all. That said, if you're emulating classic beatboxes, they really oughta have the original patterns available.

Anyone hungry for loops should check out W.A. Production's endless collection of freebies. Also, hidden in plain sight, the much-despised Bandlab Assistant is actually a great source of free loops.

Eesh, yes. However, MSoundFactory Player comes with a very comprehensive (no surprise there) arpeggiator that could probably be used for that purpose. For those who haven't stumbled across the arpeggiator, it's down at the very bottom of the toolbar (the strip on the right with all of the standard controls). In typical Melda fashion, it's extensive enough that you should be able to get a certification for figuring it out. Lord how those products could benefit from better documentation....

It's a really easy mod, all you need is a pair of flush cutters. You clip out 6 small diodes. There are optional steps I take for tidiness sake, I don't like having unused parts just sitting on the PCB, but just taking out those diodes will do the job. If you can read component reference designators on a PCB to identify the components, you can do this. The two sides of the RA-100 are on different PCB's, so you can try it first on one channel for comparison (which is what I did). For me, the difference wasn't even subtle. It was like the difference between a FLAC and a 64K MP3. My handle on that board is "Euthymia." The RA-100 is designed for easy servicing (another reason that I worked so hard and long to try to get mine to sound good). You're the second person on the forum to request the mod info, so I'm going to start putting a link to it in my sig. I invite consultation on any aspect of the process. I'm a pro audio repair and design person with many years of experience. Once you clip out that protection circuit, it should be a great monitor amp to go with the Point Sevens. I prefer self-powered subwoofers myself. As John said, you can run your sub from a different output on the MOTU. You could even do the crossover in software, using EQ plug-ins in Cakewalk's Console.

I have a variety of vintage amplifiers, each of them was designed for pro studio use. An 80's Symetrix, a couple of 70's Crowns, and an early 90's Alesis. In their respective stock states, the definition and stereo image of the Symetrix and the Crowns was way, way better than the Alesis, which made no sense to me as a designer and repairer of audio hardware myself. I looked at the schematic and spec sheet and it was a clean design and I could see no reason in the audio signal path why there would be such a great difference. So I went in search of answers myself with my theory books, and inquired among colleagues. One of them identified a possible culprit in the form of overcomplicated output short protection circuitry, which I then removed as an experiment. This brought the Alesis into the same sonic league as the others. I hadn't considered it because my understanding of solid state audio amplifiers extends only as far as the elements that actually do the amplifying. I don't know from protection circuits, especially poorly-designed ones. Now at least I know that if it looks like the protection circuit is too complex and embedded in the audio amplifying parts....be suspicious. I tell this story not to brag about what cool amplifier modificationers my friends and I are, but rather to illustrate that not all amplifiers sound the same, even ones with a frequency response that extends many Hz on either side of the abilities of human hearing. There are things that make for good detail and imaging like phase coherence, slew rate, and minimum group delay. The Alesis RA-100 has gotten a poor reputation in the 30 years since it was introduced, which is both well-deserved and unfortunate. If the designers (and I guarantee that there were multiple cooks spoiling that soup) hadn't been so nervous-nellie about output short protection, perhaps had just copied the (comparatively simple) protection circuitry from someone like Crown, it would have gone down in history as an incredibly great sounding amp for its price point. A positive side effect of their poor rep is that I can get them for under $50, and they're great workhorse amps, once modded. Using a home stereo receiver is not a great solution, for exactly the reason you've noticed: receivers are designed to sound good, not necessarily accurate. What we want for mix engineering tools are things that are as accurate as possible so that our efforts can provide as much of the good as possible. If I've got an amplification system that itself is trying too hard to make my music sound good, I probably won't do as good a job making it sound good myself. You didn't ask for advice, but I'll suggest you get a power amp that's purpose-designed and built for professional audio use. Read the spec sheet, it will tell you whether it's flat or not. I like second-hand gear because it's cheap and I know how to bench test it and fix it myself. It doesn't have to be expensive, but one from a reputable brand name is preferred. Crown, Carver, Mackie. You don't need anything over 100W unless you seek to deafen yourself and/or destroy your Point Sevens. To drive a pair of Point Sevens, you don't need much wattage at all. One of my best (which is to say accurate) sounding monitor amps is my 20W per channel Symetrix A40. It can drive my Event 20/20 passives, Boston A70's or Alesis Monitor Ones to chest-thumping, discomfort-inducing levels. The number "20W" looks laughably low on paper in these days of "500W" home theater receivers, but it's a professional amplifier with professional specs, and when they say 20W, they mean that you could drive a pair 20W lightbulbs with it 24/7 until we're all long since dust and it would stay happily within its distortion and frequency response specs. While mounted in a rack, with no ventilation. I'll refrain from offering advice on aspects of your mixing environment about which I have no information. I will say that books are very good absorbers of sound, and bookcases can actually make pretty good bass traps. I myself use Alesis Point Sevens (with a subwoofer, and I even use those little plastic "cane tip" things they supplied to plug the reflex ports) as my main computer speakers and secondary reference system and I think they sound really good. I spend many hours a day with them, I listen to them more than my main monitors. I wouldn't be as confident doing complete, finished mixes on nothing but those due to the higher bass rolloff (assuming no sub), but they're perfectly good speakers, ones I can listen to for long periods of time. Mine have a pleasantly extended top end compared to my other monitors, so if something is icepicking, I catch it better when I flip over to the Point Sevens. Their big brothers, the Alesis Monitor Ones, were designed to be sold in a set with the RA-100 amplifier. I've heard from multiple mix engineers who were around the scene in the 90's, and the poor Monitor Ones got an (IMO, undeserved) reputation for sounding bad, which I now know is more the fault of the amp they were originally paired with. Too bad, I also have a set of Monitor Ones and also like their sound. The RA-100 itself sounds amazing now that I've pulled the idiot-proofing circuitry out. My output short "protection" consists of not letting my speaker leads touch each other, especially not when the volume's up. Simple, but effective.

Another that I can think of is that most of the (wonderful, actually) freebies that NI already do give out seem designed to whet the user's appetite for paid products. An NI freebie of that magnitude should lead them to want to buy the full version of Kontakt, Reaktor synths, Guitar Rig models, etc. What's the upgrade path from a no-longer-developed synth? I think the deal with the lack of work on the fancy Cakewalk plug-ins (such as synths and LP EQ's) is that the only people I've seen on the forum or elsewhere who are interested are people who already use Cakewalk (or did until 5 years ago).

Thanks for sharing what worked for you. There seem to be a number of us trying to get our NanoKONTROL2's working with Cakewalk. I've managed to get mine to control some plug-in parameters, trigger Matrix cells using the track control buttons, etc. It's fussy, to be sure.