Starship Krupa

Also, SnapHeap has an Asteroids-y game built into it. I am not making this up. I just found it by clicking on a button I couldn't identify.

Click on the odd little button in the upper right and it will start:

Observe this warning:

$29, and I bet there are no Waves plug-ins with Easter Eggs this fun.

On 7/5/2022 at 8:42 PM, John Bradley said:

I've got snap enabled, and the grid set to 16th notes. I'm drawing notes that are roughly a 32nd in duration.

If you do a clean click, you get a note of the desired duration aligned with the grid. But if you move the cursor slightly to the right while clicking – because you're entering a bunch of notes and you're in a hurry – the note snaps to a tiny line (duration = 2 ticks).

I'm going to have to try this to see if I can get it to do it.

It seems like maybe one of those things that happen more or less often depending on individual mouse technique. The one that plagues me is trying and failing to grab the lower edge of a track so that I can resize it. I'll swing and miss 3 or 4 times in a row because apparently I click it "just right" with a moving mouse. Part of it is because the hot spot/cursor change ain't quite right in that area, but still, I seem to have a special talent for it. 🤨 The appropriate authorities have been notified in detail but have yet to comment.

I, too somehow wound up with a free license for Snap Heap. Now that I have so many modules, must check it out.

This is the latest graphic change from the more stock Cakewalk iconography. Revamped Tools module buttons.

Two goals: make the icons as large as possible for greater legibility (the stock themes' buttons don't use all the pixels), and try to make what's on the Tool button resemble the cursor that you see when you switch to the tool. Ever notice how the Draw Tool's cursors all have the line shapes at the top end of the pencil but the Tools module buttons have the line shapes at the bottom? Also, the Edit buttons look nothing like what you get when you select them. Maybe there's a better choice for the Mute Tool than just the letter "M." How about the usual symbol for "mute?" And what's up with the wrench for the Edit Tool? I've thrown more spanners into the works with the Smart Tool than the Edit Tool. 😄

6 hours ago, ilir bajri said:

suggestions, requests and such are most welcome

I'd like to be able to customize the colors, even if it's just the module backgrounds. As you can see from my sig, I love to customize my tools.

Especially when I'm doing orchestral stuff, I like to use sends for reverb, so versions of the presets without the convolution would be a convenience.

39 minutes ago, mibby said:

It makes me wonder what they're up to?  Maybe they just want a larger user base?

Maybe trying the Meldaproduction (and BandLab) ploy of free licensing a package of goodies to build brand recognition and loyalty? I don't know how many of Vojtech's current loyal userbase downloaded the MFreeFX bundle before spending however many hundreds on their pay licensed plug-ins, but I bet it's a lot. It hooked me, for sure.

The replies here and in the thread I posted in the Deals forum show that it draws attention and interest. If you Google "freeware fx for Cakewalk," this thread is the top result. Every forum has people who just lurk, never post or react.

If a YouTuber like @Xel Ohh or @Creative Sauce puts this information in one of their periodic freeware roundups, that's even better reach.

Whenever a manufacturer does this, I think it's a cool thing, so I try to do my part by spreading the word.

10 hours ago, SVSX said:

try the compressor its almost aliasing free, nice sounding and easy to use. Never heard of them before and now i'm a Kilohearts fan

I'm a hard sell on compressors, I collected so many of them that I now have a lot to weed out. With Meldaproduction alone I have MCompressor, MModernCompressor, MTurboCompressor, Mdynamics, then elysia mastering, elysia mpressor, Shadow Hills Mastering, T-Racks Opto, and the Lindell 76-alike. Not to mention the ones in ProChannel. Those are just the ones I'm keeping. It also omits the multiband ones. I'll keep it and try it because it's probably part of some good SnapHeap presets, but if it weren't, I'm done with introducing new compressors into my workflow. Same with EQ's, I have too many top quality ones as it is.

Since I acquired my favorites kind of recently, now that I'm building a new(er) workstation, I'm in the (probably not uncommon) position of having to keep a whole bunch of stuff I'd never use in new projects on my previous system just so I can open the projects that are on it.

Back in late May, Kilohearts greatly expanded what's included in their collection of Kilohearts Essentials freebies, adding 24 new FX to go with the half dozen that originally came with the package. It looks like they're taking a hint from the Meldaproduction marketing playbook. They have the very minimal ("essential," one might say) UI's associated with these plug-ins. Where there's overlap, they're no threats to the ones in MFreeFX Bundle, but sometimes you don't need/want that level of power/complexity, right? With Meldaproduction, some people never want that overdose of control. 😄

Where they don't overlap, there are some useful goodies in the collection, especially Reverser, Tape Stop, Pitch Shifter (freeware pitch shifters are hard to come by and this one sounds pretty good), and Ensemble. I haven't tried all of them, but the ones I have tried have the typical kHs great sound quality.

These are the new ones from May:

• Bitcrush
• Comb Filter
• Compressor
• Nonlinear Filter
• Distortion
• Filter
• Flanger
• Frequency Shifter
• Gate
• Haas
• Ladder Filter
• Dynamics
• Phase Distortion
• Phaser
• Pitch Shifter
• Resonator
• Ring Mod
• Reverser
• Reverb
• Trance Gate
• Transient Shaper
• Tape Stop
• Ensemble
• Formant Filter

As always, Ilir, thank you so much for bringing us ORCHESTOOLS. They've mostly replaced my use of Sonivox Orchestral Companions.

This may have already been posted, although I did my usual search.

Back in late May, Kilohearts greatly expanded what's included in their collection of Kilohearts Essentials freebies, adding 24 new FX to go with the half dozen that originally came with the package. It looks like they're taking a hint from the Meldaproduction marketing playbook. They have the very minimal ("essential," one might say) UI's associated with these plug-ins. Where there's overlap, they're no threats to the ones in MFreeFX Bundle, but sometimes you don't need/want that level of power/complexity, right? With Meldaproduction, some people never want that overdose of control!

Where they don't overlap, there are some useful goodies in the collection, especially Reverser, Tape Stop, Pitch Shifter (freeware pitch shifters are hard to come by and this one sounds really good), and Ensemble. I haven't tried all of them, but the ones I have tried have the typical kHs great sound quality.

These are the new ones from May:

• Bitcrush
• Comb Filter
• Compressor
• Nonlinear Filter
• Distortion
• Filter
• Flanger
• Frequency Shifter
• Gate
• Haas
• Ladder Filter
• Dynamics
• Phase Distortion
• Phaser
• Pitch Shifter
• Resonator
• Ring Mod
• Reverser
• Reverb
• Trance Gate
• Transient Shaper
• Tape Stop
• Ensemble
• Formant Filter

3 hours ago, satyabrata satapathy said:

It may not support Pcie M.2 SSD

Incorrect.

The article says that the new motherboards may not support Gen 5 M2 SSD's, which are themselves still in the prototype phase.

What it would mean in practical terms is that if they do forgo full support for Generation 5 drives, and you want to be able to use Generation 5 drives, you'll have to wait for the next generation of motherboards.

On 7/2/2022 at 6:00 PM, Paul Young said:

Whats not to like with a Hello Kitty Drumset?

Maybe it's a crutch, but I'm pretty attached to using a snare on the backbeat.

On 7/3/2022 at 2:49 PM, kennywtelejazz said:

I get annoyed sometimes  with a lot of the extra choices and learning curves many of the third party plugs I bought on sale seem to bring to the table 

Right now I'm in the process of building a new (new to me, it's all used parts that are higher spec than my current rig) DAW computer, and rather than throwing every mixing plug-in that I've acquired over the past few years on to it, I'm slowly adding only the ones I want to focus on. So much stuff I've installed just because it was free for the downloading or came in a bundle.

21 hours ago, Mark MoreThan-Shaw said:

as long the option  to keep the track / console  views in sync is selected ??

I was referring to this. I don't keep the views in sync because I do want to see MIDI tracks in Track View, while I never do in Console View.

3 minutes ago, RexRed said:

Yes I saw that less expensive version. The transformer does not look as good inside that and there is more inside the newer version. 

Huh. Weird. I didn't compare the gut shots, but they are indeed different. I wonder why they would use the exact same model number. Maybe get in touch and ask them what the differences are.

I like the gut shot of the orange one better because the transformer is mounted to its own PCB rather than the one for the front panel. I like getting heavy components down off of highly-populated boards. They can wiggle around and cause other components' solder joints to break (a fault you have experienced).

It looks like a layout and power supply change. The power supply components are on their own PCB in the black one and mounted on the input board in the orange one. It looks like the orange one is AC wall-wart powered whereas the black one has a self-contained power supply (that's what the big toroid donut is for, the audio transformers look the same). Whether one thinks that is a good thing depends.

Yeah, ask them. My guess is the black one is a newer model with those layout and power supply changes. The changes may be for reliability, cost, or noise floor reasons.

I like this one better because it's $180 less 😁:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/WA12MKII--warm-audio-wa12-mkii-microphone-instrument-preamp

Looks like it has a nice fat input transformer sitting in the middle of the box.

12 hours ago, RexRed said:

Once your ear is trained to hear poor reproduction of transients by an audio interface you can't unhear it.

Oh this, for sure. Thank you. Not many seem to be aware of it, even in the audio engineering world. I'd expand that to "poor reproduction of transients by any part of the audio chain." I usually describe it by saying it sounds like a poorly-encoded MP3.

I have long stories about this, but the first time I became aware of it was 20 years ago when I read the term "bit-perfect" in regard to digital. I had been doing 44.1K DAT transfers into the S/PDIF port of a Soundblaster Live. Then I read about how the chip on the Soundblaster operated only at 48K did a resample to 48K then back down to 44.1. It would actually resample 48K for whatever reason.

There were also plans for a little adapter board (about 5 components) to enable non-resampled S/PDIF input on cards that used a CMedia chip. Those could be had for under $20, so I put together the adapter circuit and tried a transfer of my girlfriend's album to see if I could hear any difference. I had already done the transfer into the Live, so I would have the two to compare.

When I hit play I was knocked out, I mean, emotionally. Previously it had sounded fine, no issues, clear. But now it was like there was a hologram of my girlfriend floating between the monitors. She was away on vacation and I had been missing her, and the experience was so emotional I started to tear up. When she got back from her trip, I played it for her, and she started crying, because it was the first time she had heard the album the way it sounded in the studio, and the sound took her back to when she recorded it.

Once your ears learn to perceive it, it's not subtle at all. My 61-year-old ears have no trouble. Neil Young, and god knows that guy has played some LOUD gigs, is a big advocate for hi-res pure digital reproduction for this reason. It affects the emotional response to the music.

I've heard it in recording/playback interfaces, even in power amplifiers (I have an Alesis RA-100 that sounded constricted in that same way until I modded the circuit). Electronics engineer types don't like talk about this because it's not something that's easily measured with test equipment (or at least it's not part of the usual frequency response and harmonic distortion tests that they rely on). They'll try to assert that it's "placebo effect" or whatever. I've learned by this time what to listen for, it's usually spatial information and things like reverb tails. If you follow the link, you'll see a bit of back and forth between me and a doubting electronics engineer.

With A/D D/A converters, the culprit seems to be jitter. It was a much bigger problem before the introduction of phase-locked loop technology in around 2009, so you really need to be careful with anything produced before (or even a little after) that time.

So I don't doubt that something along the chain, the preamp, the A/D and D/A converters, any of those can mess up those important transients/detail. It's documented. The idea that all interfaces (and amplifiers and even DAW audio engines) sound alike is a fantasy. Theoretically they should, but we don't live in a theoretical world. Design choices and corner-cutting and mistakes happen.

As for your preamp issue, it does sound like you could benefit from putting a good mic preamp in front of your interface. The less work the inputs of the interface have to do as far as amplification, the more neutral they're likely to sound, and preamps have their own characteristics as far as sound coloration.

There are plenty of choices in the under $1000 realm. Due to your concerns about tubes, look into one that uses FET's. Me, I'm thinking of building a mic preamp with transformer inputs because I know that the human ear likes what transformers do to color sound. I would like a preamp with a transformer front end. Not that I'm unhappy with the ones in my Focusrite interface at this time. Focusrite's preamps have a good rep in the prosumer world and I know that they pay attention to them. I've also been eyeing that FMR Really Nice Preamp.

I use Audio Technica mics (AT2020 and AT3035) and AFAIK there is no difference in their output level to other condenser mics.

Please try an A/B between your Behringer and the RME once you get it back. I'm very curious.

Yes, all good ideas that would make Loop Construction much more useful. When Xel Ohh speaks, the devs should listen. 😁

Srsly, I don't think I've ever seen you suggest a "yeah, whatever" feature, it's always something that would be really useful for a large group of users (those of us using Cakewalk for electronic music production).

I would like to be able to show/hide Console strips based on their folder membership, with the idea being that I can easily and quickly hide everything but what elements of the mix I'm currently working on. For instance, hide everything but the drums, hide everything but guitars, etc. And yes, I know that using Track Manager I can show or hide anything I want, but it doesn't recognize folder membership in Console View, so it has to be done on a track-by-track basis.

Great idea. I'd love for Cakewalk to include a sampler.

I understand that the purpose of doing this would be for an aspiring producer to have this important feature ready to go as soon as they install the program, but I'm curious about Cyclone's feature set and integration. Would it have any advantage over Sitala other than the (important, I understand) fact that a person wouldn't have to download and install Sitala or Speedrum or Tx?

 Also no pop-up message from 4 years ago telling me about how Cakewalk is now free. 🙄 I found the online documentation system too clumsy to use. Only good for the first hit, then any searching sent me to outdated pages about SONAR.

I love having the documentation local on my system. I have to remind myself that it's there, because I've gotten so used to going to the Reference Guide when I want help. But the Reference Guide is nearly 2000 pages of detailed information, therefore a lot to wade through.

17 hours ago, Wibbles said:

No. I can never work out where the music is supposed to go.

I think the question here is "have you been bad enough to be plugged into the stocks?"

I think it calls for a "clean" uninstall/reinstall of Cakewalk. It looks as if somehow, various .DLL's that Cakewalk uses have become unregistered with Windows.

6 hours ago, Paul Young said:

"The real question is: are you good enough to use stock plugins?"

Sometimes these are embarrassing.   It's like seeing a kid who can really play his Squire Strat and you know some chords that you play on your LP. 

Tough but fair.

I think I can get satisfying mix results using only the plug-ins that come with a DAW (with the exception of reverb, I don't like having to use anything but Phoenix/Nimbus or MTurboreverble). Throw in the Meldaproduction FreeFX bundle and I'm well into comfy territory.

It also can depend on how good the stock plug-ins are. I use the QuadCurve EQ in ProChannel more than any other EQ. If the DAW is Cakewalk, the Percussion and Vocal multi-FX pack a pretty good wallop. Mixcraft go the route of partnering with ToneBoosters for their suite of plug-ins, so of course those are pretty capable.

My preferred FX don't usually sound that much better inherently, but they have UI's that I like better and often offer shortcuts and features that reduce the amount of fiddling I have to do (Trackspacer, MDrumleveler, MAutoalign, etc.). I like the Sonitus suite that comes with Cakewalk sound and function-wise, but I don't like the tiny plain jane GUI's so I never use them. I also do mid/side processing on buses, which is usually missing from stock FX.

I think of a good chef: plunk them and their ingredients down in almost any kitchen, and as long a there's at least one decently sharp or micro-serrated knife they'll be able to come up with a good meal. But at home or work, they'll have invested in more and better tools that make the process easier, faster, and more enjoyable. Good mixer, blender, food processor, juicer, cutlery, pans, large cutting board, etc. My life in the kitchen became much more fun once a friend turned me onto the joys of thrift store Revere Ware and Pyrex. I also keep my own Victorinox and Henckels chef's knives shaving sharp.

56 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Cakewalk‘s info on the internet is mostly outdated.

It does have its own Wikipedia article, which goes into the need (or lack of it) for BandLab Assistant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cakewalk_by_BandLab#Licensing

(some Wikipedia cop deleted the list of notable features I included, citing a lack of references. The reference I used was the Cakewalk feature list published on the official website 🙄)

On 6/29/2022 at 3:35 AM, scook said:

Rather than mess with cleaning up the unwanted tracks, in this case, I was suggesting a different method as a learning exercise, one track at a time.

Yeah, those unwanted tracks. I'll try it the way you described next time.

I'm curious, @scook, why are you suggesting doing the outputs one by one rather than having Cakewalk create all the outputs at the time of track creation?. As follows:

I'm still kinda new at the multiple outputs thing; sometimes when I've tried it Cakewalk has created approximately 3,500 audio tracks for a sampler (kidding, but it seems like it when I have to go through and delete the unused output tracks).