Starship Krupa

Mixcraft is one DAW that handles this very well. The video track behaves like the audio tracks, you can export just sections. Mixcraft is also a rudimentary video editor, you can even add titles and fade in/out. My only issue with Mixcraft in this area is that it renders video to HUMONGOUS file sizes, so you always have to run it through a converter. I usually stay away from armchair development quarterbacking, but I believe that Cakewalk uses FFMPEG as its video CODEC. FFMPEG can handle what the OP is talking about.

I use the notepads in the track lane header: And sometimes in the Track Inspector: The per-track ones are good for when I'm auditioning different synth sounds, when I hit a good one I make a note of the synth/patch, but of course it could also be used for stuff like which mic I used, etc. As for the issue with the older plug-ins being declared missing, that's got to be a side effect of migrating to VST3's. I've had it happen where even when the manufacturer is diligent and uses the same plug-in ID in the 64-bit, 32-bit, VST2, and VST3 builds, the host will still not recognize the plug-in as being the same one.

Right, of course. I forgot about that. But hey, this is a mystery issue, innit? Anything's possible. I really have no idea, this is a really unusual situation. All VST2's work and no VST3's do? That was pretty standard in 2014 or so. 😄

Or any of the 10 I listed. One thing that nobody has mentioned is that Cakewalk has to have C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 in its scan paths in order to pick up VST3's, whereas most programs scan that folder automatically, due to its being a canonical location. OP should check their scan paths to see if somehow those lines aren't in there:

The solution to plug-in names being "greyed out" is to either switch your theme back to Mercury or better still, try one of my custom ones. If you like it dark, I suggest Racing Green or Midnight Blue.

I'll just go with some freeware ones that are easily obtainable. You can check the Favorite Freeware Instruments thread for more. Surge, TAL-Noisemaker, Vital, Sampletank 4, Stringya 2, Orchestools ROMplers, Vienna Synchron Player, Atmos 2, Numa Player, sforzando. All work perfectly in Cakewalk for me.

Don't. Don't do that any more.

Pointless for OPW's. I don't mind them so much; if the discussion turns into something helpful. Those of us blabbermouths must remember that most of the people who visit and read this forum never even post. Not once. So the more information we can lay down, the better. I do it for the lurkers.😄

I bought one of these MIDI adapters on Amazon and it works perfectly. I looked inside and the PCB is actually branded "Wersi," which is a venerable German manufacturer of organs and synths. They are sold under various brand names, just get this one or one that looks like this, with the window and MIDI indicator light: https://smile.amazon.com/FORE-Interface-Converter-Adapter-Laptop/dp/B0719V8MX1 (if you read the fine print they even say it's compatible with Sonar) The cheaper ones like in the original post are poop. I tried one and it was stuck note city. This one has never given me any trouble, and is class compliant so it needs no drivers. I've used it with my laptop and my iPad with no glitches.

Even though Noel is the CTO (or whatever they call him), he still has bosses. They are probably the ones responsible for the free subscription model and its implementation. While I understand (from reading accounts by level-headed people such as you), that for some it is a hassle, I'll probably never understand it myself. All of my computers are running all the time, connected to the internet. Something needs to phone home for registration or whatever, fine. If I don't use a computer for a while, then when I do sit down at it I run the updaters. I keep the main system and my notebook up to date and then do the others as needed. It's not a burden. I've only ever been able to theorize (and based on some comments by Noel) about why Bandlab do the subscription model rather than just a one-time validation with update notices. There are plenty of ways to get that info. Maybe this was something that someone came up with off the top of their head and they stuck with it and see no reason to change. I once thought that Bandlab Assistant was never going to go away, and I was wrong on that call. I understand the fear of Bandlab going casters-up and no longer being able to validate Cakewalk activations. It's happened before and it can happen again. I also understand that if that happened, and they didn't offer permanent licenses for existing users, some clever person would come up with a way around it. At the very least, I could keep setting my computer's system clock back.

https://www.waproduction.com/bundles/view/mstarterfxbundle 16 plug-ins from the MFreeFXBundle in their "extended" versions. MEqualizer, MCompressor, MLoudnessAnalyzer, MFreqShifter, MCharmVerb, MBitFun, MAutoPitch, MAnalyzer, MStereoExpander, MSpectralPan, MSaturator, MRingModulator, MRecorder, MStereoScope, MWaveShaper, MWaveFolder. In their upgraded versions. Considering that MEqualizer and MCompressor are a couple of the best of their kind, this is a deal if you're in a hurry. I use MStereoScope on every project, and MAnalyzer and MLoudnessAnalyzer also see plenty of use. I think they're all vastly underrated due to the fact that they're free. Voxengo's SPAN gets a lot of love, but IMO, MAnalyzer blows its doors off. However, if you're not in a hurry, I suggest using the free versions until one of Meldaproduction's 50% everything sales comes up, which include all bundles. This gets you the upgraded versions of all 37 for about the same price. And of course if you're a first time buyer, you can sign up for their newsletter and get 10€ credits, and use my discount code, MELDA1923165, and get another 20% off. That will get you the entire upgraded bundle for under $10. I'm fond of gifting friends with this when it comes up. The 50% off everything sales come up a couple of times a year, and sometimes they drop another one in. It may be worth keeping an eye out for this on WA Production's sales; they do deep discounts as well and may have one for this bundle at some point.

It just seems like sloppy programming to me, and as a longtime software QA engineer, I don't like sloppy programming. Adopt a standard and stick to it, at least in a single company's products. Ah well, I gots me MIDI transposin' plug-ins.

Yes, it is. Deleting it from the list of ACT Control Surfaces restored my visual keypress feedback. Thank you. Does that mean that I can either have my visual feedback of keypresses OR knob control in my VST's, but not both? 😥 If so, I kinda don't understand that. A note on is a note on, is it not? If it triggers the synth to make a sound, why not show the keypresses in the Notes Pane?

That's easy to remedy; MCompressor is part of the Meldaproduction FreeFXBundle. A (slightly cut down) Unfiltered Audio G8 is part of the Computer Music plug-in collection. I bought the upgrade to G8 because it's the best all-around gate I've yet to encounter, and cut my compression teeth on MCompressor. I've also since upgraded my FreeFXBundle to the "pro" version. MCompressor in "pro" form has internal oversampling (BTW, @LittleStudios/Chris, if you want SERIOUS oversampling, Meldaproduction plug-ins, including the registered versions of the FreeFXBundle let you internally oversample to 1024X 😝). I don't think REAPER improving its oversampling is going to change any games for me. I hit a wall with perceiving any difference at 2X. Also, I don't use REAPER.

I don't know what's gone wrong, but on my main DAW system, when I play notes on my MIDI controller, they sound, but I don't see them being "pressed" on the Notes Pane keyboard. It works fine on my other system, so what did I do to turn it off? More importantly, what do I do to turn it back on? (BTW, it's not theme-related, it also doesn't work with Mercury)

As others have said, it depends on what you want to make with the program. In my experience, it has a fairly short learning curve for the basic tasks of recording audio and MIDI. How long it will take any given person depends on more things, such as prior familiarity with DAW software in general. I had been doing songs using Mixcraft for years, and the workflow in that program is close enough to Cakewalk's that I jumped right in. As others have said, Cakewalk has 34 years of development behind it, so to master every feature in depth will take years, if one could ever even do it. But that's not how DAW's are, the initial way you learn is to decide what task you want to do and then figure out how to do them. After that, poking around different menus and Views to see what they do, asking questions on the forum or Facebook group or Reddit, watching tutorials on YouTube, reading the Reference Guide.

I checked the Reference Guide before asking here, as I always do. Asking for help in figuring stuff out after one has checked the documentation and still doesn't understand it is what the Q&A subforum is for. 😄 No insult intended. I checked the Ref. Guide before posting and couldn't parse it. That's part of why I said that I wouldn't have figured it out on my own. I think I, like @John Vere had always been leaving it at 50%, but then noticed it and thought "wait a sec, this is supposed to be a machine beat, I don't want any swing." I might have guessed that something was up when it wouldn't take "0" for an answer. I'm used to "none, thanks" being indicated by a zero. Now I know that "50%" means no swing at all. In order to figure out what effect other values might have, I'll just have to try some and listen.

Indeed, I am. My question is about playing notes with my MIDI controller and then wanting to tidy them up. In the Piano Roll View, after selecting the notes I wanted to quantize. If you select some notes and then right click (I usually right click somewhere there is not a note) in the PRV you'll get a nice process menu. Well, thank you. I can confidently say that I would never have figured that out on my own. So to have the system put the notes down dead on, I tell it 50% swing. This does not make sense to me, but I don't need it to make sense, I need it to work. If getting it to work requires typing in 50 I will type in 50.

You can specify most of them in Preferences. I wouldn't suggest trying to move your C:\Cakewalk Content\Themes folder anywhere. It's more firmly coded than setting it in Preferences.

Believe me, the developers know that this is a very popular feature request, maybe even at this point (post Arranger Track, Articulation Map, improved Export dialog, etc. etc.) the most popular feature request. The way for the developers to take notice is to keep bumping it, though. They haven't solicited for what features we want to see; I'd think that they would do that unless they have already been looking around at what paradigms already exist. I'm not really up for much reinvention of the wheel when it comes to Cakewalk getting new features. If something takes the best features that are already out there in the marketplace, that's the way I like it. I don't use one single DAW; after buying a couple of audio interfaces I now also have Mixcraft, Ableton Live Lite, and Studio One Artist. Each of them have implemented this technology in ways that would work for me in Cakewalk.

(In this question I am referring to only MIDI notes and the recording and editing of such) So, I had a hi hat and snare pattern that I laid down by drawing the notes in the Piano Roll. Had trouble getting the kick drum part down, so I decided to record just the kick using Sound on Sound. Pretty simple, everything is 8th notes, no fancy 16th note stuff, but I think I had the grid set to 1/16th. Whatever, my idea was to play it with the MIDI controller and then have Cakewalk quantize it to the grid. All goes well, the kicks are about where I want them, this is supposed to be a machine beat with no swing or anything. I'm not a machine, I was a bit off with a couple hits, so quantizing was in order. Selected just the kick notes (the other notes were already on the grid because I placed them there with Snap engaged), right clicked, got the Quantize dialog. Resolution 1/16, strength 100%, Swing 1%, Window 100%. Left everything on the defaults, so MIDI Event Start Times, Audio Snap Beats, and Only Notes and Lyrics were checked. Hit OK, and....the notes shifted a hair, but I could see with my eyes that they are not evenly on the grid. So I tried it again, this time with the Duration to 1/8 and the grid set to 1/8. Again, a slight shift, but still a little off. I clicked on the "off" notes to check them with Event Inspector and they're all 9 ticks later than they should be, given that I told the Quantizer to basically crowbar them onto an 1/8th note grid. Most of the notes made it on grid, but about 20% of them are 9 ticks late. No amount of repetition of the command, nor change of settings will move the start times of those notes to exactly on the grid. They will get no closer than 9 ticks. What am I doing wrong here? I thought MIDI quantizing was for putting note start times and durations on the grid. I selected the notes by clicking the note name over on the left (this is using the drum grid). This has always worked for selecting notes in the past. Am I misusing the command? Expecting too much from it? What gives? Why are the ones that are off all off by the same miniscule amount?

I had this issue big time a couple of years ago, then the devs implemented some fixes and it's been great since then.

Wow, I think at some point when trying to explain how it can be free, I may have mentioned Paul Allen's investments in certain things because he through they were cool and wanted to leave a legacy. Cinerama Theater in Seattle, for one. I haven't seen the books, but if a single screen movie theater can earn its keep in this day and age, I want the recipe. This model of producing a free product in order to spread brand good will was by no means new when Kuok Meng adopted it for Cakewalk; it wasn't even new to his company. They were already producing and distributing 3 other freeware DAW's before the Cakewalk acquisition. Meng doesn't need to pay the rent with Cakewalk or the other Bandlab DAW's, other parts of his business are paying the rent. The things that are business expenses, like the development of Cakewalk and their other DAW's are expenses that are written off. It's a promotional item, like a nice canvas tote bag you get at a trade show to hold your literature. It's an advertising premium, that's all. There doesn't need to be any more justification than that. I guess it's hard to see Cakewalk that way if one had become used to it being a commercial product, whose sales supported a whole company of administrative people, accounting, sales staff, marketing staff, layers of management, etc. If you've ever walked around a software company and thought to yourself, as I have "these 5 engineers are the ones who actually create the product, and the rest of us are overhead that is necessary for there to be a company around it," well, Bandlab got the code and the 5 engineers. After 30 years of existence and adoption, it didn't need to be marketed except by word of mouth. The basic code and design and UI and everything were already there. Anything can happen, of course, but Bandlab suddenly deciding to start charging for Cakewalk is not likely to happen. It's not even donationware, there is no way to pay for it even if we wanted to. I'd LOVE to have Cakewalk logo t-shirts and laptop stickers available for purchase. Why not believe the head developer when he says the reason for the 6 month validation is because they want to know how many people are using it and want to make sure that people at least have the opportunity to get upgrades to their prestige premium product? If there were plans to take it back to payware, why have Bandlab seemingly not spent a dime on advertising or promotion to grow the user base in preparation for the big change?

Why can't VSTi manufacturers/preset designers decide on which octave their "basses" are supposed to be played? Case in point, I'm auditioning bass patches in bx_oberhausen, Consumer of Resources, and every third preset, I have to hit the Transpose MIDI plug-in I keep racked up for just such occasions. Up one octave to get it out of the complete mud, then back to no transpose to get it out of the "pad" zone. I could forgive it better if it were different across different manufacturers' synths, but these are factory presets from one single source. 1st world problem I know, but it chafes.

Way late to the party here, but that sounds like a tape stop to me. There are multiple free FX that can do that. I think Wavesfactory has one.