coffincoffee

Hi again.

Thanks for your reply. 

Bought this laptop in 2012. Here are my system's specs:

Asus n56v

Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit

Intel Core i5 3210M @ 2.5 GHz

8 gigs of DDR3

Seagate 1 TB sata III, 5400 rpm

Realtek Hi Def Audio 

As far as stability is concerned, in the almost 3 weeks of use to finish that little piece, CbB did not crash or hang even once. Everything was smooth sailing on smooth sea, I only had a few stutters in audio output but was quickly fixed by playing with the buffer size. 

But then it was less than 10 instrument tracks. If in future I'm gonna need some heavy processing, I'll just use the freeze button to conserve ram, that's what they say anyway. 

So up to this point I think I'm still fine.

Just downloaded some more free pianos, but havent got to try them yet, in case I need to uninstall the other version I have here, Sonar X3. Or maybe I'll go your route and get the license.

Thanx again guys.👍

 

On 10/18/2019 at 9:59 PM, bitflipper said:

Might I suggest skiing? 

That's a rather good alternative to dying in front of a DAW from exhaustion and burnout😁. Too bad, we dont have natural snow where I live, but if I could convince 10k neighbors to dump the ice from their fridges at a stadium close by, I might get somewhere close to skiing on snow!

On 10/19/2019 at 6:44 PM, Starship Krupa said:

 

 

On 10/20/2019 at 5:27 PM, Starship Krupa said:

 

There is of course the IMO pretty darn good sounding Cakewalk SI-String Section that you can download for free 

And as a matter of fact, although I still prefer my Orchestral Companion Strings for versimilitude, if I had already had the SI-String Section I wouldn't have been looking for something else and would probably just now be buying up the Orchestral Companions for $3.99.

BTW, @coffincoffee, if what you're starting with is Cakewalk by BandLab, how is it that you also have TruePiano? I thought that was a Splonar goodie?

Yes, I already have Cakewalk SI-String Section installed and have had a few hours playing with it. However I notice that the ranges of these insttuments are different by a few notes compared to the string vsts I got for free (vst4free.com). Not a big deal really, unless I was going to have my music played by real musicians which can never be the case today.

Now that you brought this up, I forgot to mention it but when I decided to have CbB installed I had a friend, who knows much better than me abt daws, over to help me with the setup. I think he said something abt trying an earlier version of Sonar on my laptop to make sure it had the juice to run a later version of it. Yes it's still there, tho somehow there's no icon on the desktop. I wouldn't have known if you had not mentioned Cakewalk TruePianos. If I uninstall it now, would the pianos still work? I'll have to get by with those free piano vsts instead.

Well some good news at last. I just finished 'writing' my first piece of music in a daw! It's not much, despite taking weeks, it's around 3 minutes, and only makes use of some strings and pianos like I intended and still not properly mixed but for a beginner I'd love to believe it's a good start!

Thanx to all who have helped👍

I

On 10/13/2019 at 1:43 AM, bitflipper said:

 😁

Seriously, though, it is a fascinating ride. I won't tell you how long I've been at it, and how much I still don't know despite my longevity, lest you be discouraged. Let's just say that the learning curve is endless and no matter how long you've been doing it there will always be something new to learn. That, of course, is what makes this such a great hobby.

I have lived long enough and been thru quite much to know that I can relate to that.

When I was in the first years of picking up the electric guitar (around 15 years or so ago! Yes, it's been a long unending journey with no end in plain sight..) I thought it would only take me 3-4 months at my pace (slow learner here btw) to be able to play 24th Caprice with a little bit of flair. How obnoxiously vain I and many people like me were..

There was a time though when I was closer to that specific goal and I could say that there was present a certain level of comfort as I went thru the routine of practising that piece. We all know the value of persistent practice..and practice is something I tend to screw up lately...I'd like to attribute this dwindling attitude to a lack of vision perhaps, not being able to define a clear set of goals..and the longer you stay away, the worse it's gonna get. Untreated it'd soon escalate into an illness and would become too bad arrriving at a certain point that a whole lot of things would almost seem to feel like a burden. Pluggin in the guitar and turning on the amp can put such a drain on the brain..

Often it's much more fun to be doing things with half a mind than to pour your whole heart into it, much easier to fool around for hours on end than to come up with something rewarding or productive. On some days you might get away with it, on some other days it's only going to hurt you pretty bad, push you many steps backward, and this in the long run is a ruinous tendency onto itself. The danger now lies in the how many more miles you're willing to tread on this path that one day you might as well end up resigning your brains to the murky waters in the drain.

Anyways, I'm not the type that would allow myself to become overly worried about it tho, coz' I've come up with a highly viable plan which may only require a few minor tweakings and adjustments and some getting used to. I have a rather elevated degree of confidence in this and the key word here is motivation. Yes, in the face of a bleak uncertain future, that's the one thing we all honestly need, motivation, to enlighten the gloomy treacherous road ahead of us and to be able to discern and fully understand the challenges and difficulties we've come to pass, whenever we're required to to look back.

I'd say, have a little faith, and many things will become clear as day. And yes to that glorious end, watching all these videos, disseccting all these articles and dwelling on all thes forums have to a certain level rekindled my hopes. I'm not ashamed nor reluctant to admit that the trials and tribulations you and many people like you have managed to conquer and to think of the kind of hell you must have been through that today you've grasped it all in your palms with power and ease, have bestowed on me a whole plethora of renewed, reenergized motivations...

 

 

 

 

yes motivations...to just hurl my guitar out the window, burn my amp to cinder, wipe my laptop clean and start looking for a new, more realistic, much less painful hobby!

:😁

bitflipper, again many many thanx for the input. 

I think I have enough recommendations and tips now to start hacking away at the daw. There is tho some sort of a foreboding sense that I'm going to require months to churn and assimilate all the info I get from just this one thread😁 but I also believe it's going to be one hell of a fascinating ride.

Lotsa thanx again guys.

On 10/3/2019 at 5:09 AM, slartabartfast said:

 The magic of sound massage available these days, and our addiction to that magic, makes doing something like that seem unthinkable.

Yes I'm afraid this is so. The more we depend on the multitudes of today's sophistication the more we lose  touch of how simple and effective they had been. The moment we break them, we stretch our hands forward and begin to walk in the dark and end up knocking down a whole lot of things in our journey to reach the..light switch. 

 

On 10/3/2019 at 6:02 PM, Chuck E Baby said:

Which VST-I (virtual instruments) are you using ?

 

For the piano tracks:
TruePianos Cakewalk that came with the default installation. 

For the string tracks: (some string instruments I grabbed from vst4free.com); 
Sonatina Violin
VSCO2 Violin

VSCO2 Cello Section
Sonatina Cello 

Sonatina Double 
VSCO2 Double Bass

with different articulations for each track.

I am certain they're not the best around but for the purpose of learning and experimenting esp. for a beginner I believe they are more than enough.

 

On 10/3/2019 at 7:18 PM, MusicMan11712 (aka Dr. Steve) said:

Are you are scoring for an actual ensemble of a set number of performers?  If not, you could do something as simple as double a part (duplicate track), put it on a different instrument/patch/sound/multisample at a lower octave for starters and then tweak the part for variety.  Obviously, if you are scoring for a string trio + piano, you might have to make it a string quartet to do this.

 

Scoring for an actual ensemble would seriously be a wild dream come true Perhaps in 20 years, haha, I would be there somewhere. Basically what I've been doing up till now is create a triad on the virtual piano (by using the guitar fret pane), keeping in mind to make the root the lowest note, and then copy or separate the notes into different instruments, e.g.
 

-all the root notes go to the double bass,
- all the 3rds go to the cello
- and all the 5ths go to the violin/viola. 

I will then make some tweaks on the notes, like making a group of notes an octave higher or lower as long as they're within the ranges of those instruments and mostly  making tweaks  to the velocities of the notes.

From here as suggested by these replies, I would just double each of these instruments with each track having different articulations, pannings, volumes, etc.
 

On 10/3/2019 at 9:29 PM, Rogério said:

• Quality / Price of VST library. There are zillions of libraries, so you should research the best and which ones fit your budget.
• Ease of use vs. flexibility: Many VST libraries allow you to create realistic sounds with little work, however, they do not allow you flexibilities in different variations; there are other very flexible libraries that are more difficult to use at the same time.
• Practice: After experimenting with various options, everything will depend on your experience in creating musical works. Humanization is the most important factor after all. There are many tutorials on how to humanize works with VST.

Yes I'm aware of the many  millions libs  available out there and there's gonna be plenty of factors that I think will require some considerations on my part e.g. the capcabilities of the system I'm using here,  and not least critical, the amount of $$$ I'd be able to spend.

Thanks for the tips, will look  further into this.

 

On 10/3/2019 at 9:39 PM, abacab said:

Start with some good studio monitors! Those laptop speakers will always sound thin, no matter how many tracks or what VSTi you are using.

Currently I'm on a pair of affordable (read: mediocre   ) Sony headphones and also earphones. Probably won't get a more decent pair of monitors anytime soon. But hopefully  when I get better at this I may get one.  

When I mentioned about  'music sounding too thin' I wasn't really referring to the laptop built-in speakers, but rather to my 10 watt single-speaker Vietnam assembled Marshall amp  Enuff for mild bedroom guitar practice but leaves a lot to be desired in terms of  it acting as a decent monitor.

On 10/3/2019 at 10:25 PM, Tezza said:

If you are not actually recording midi but writing it in, you can duplicate this by duplicating the original track and then making sure the velocities and placement of the notes are different in the second track, move them around.

I will try to explain what I mean, If you imagine the following 4 note chord is set on a grid at 64th's and has been manually drawn in the piano roll. The dashes are 64th's, the brackets are the beginning and end of the midi note and the v represents the velocity of the note. :

 

 

Lotsa thanks for a clear explanation, you nailed the answer to many of my burning questions on what it exactly means to 'move/nudge notes a bit to the right/left etc.' that I've been reading in the few articles and videos I could find on the web.

This really has helped clear a whole lot of the confusion I got when I first used the piano roll view and started tweaking those notes to meet similar objectives above. 

This is undoubtedly the 2nd most important piece of info in my thus far brief journey, the most important pieces are of course, 'how to use CbB for beginners'

On 10/4/2019 at 12:49 AM, bitflipper said:

Don't try to do orchestral arrangements with solo string instruments alone, as it's a lot of work. Get a nice library that includes both solo instruments and ensemble sections. Layering the two will get you the fatness while preserving clear melodies.

For the time being I only have instruments taht are freely available mostly from here; vst4free.com. A lot of people recommend Dimension Pro and for my current purposes it looks like it will suffice but I'm afraid it would have to come later on when I'm a bit more familiar with using all these virtual instruments.    

Question 1:
If I have an 'ensemble' track, does it need to be doubled too like the single instrument tracks?  Won't this make ensamble track(s) sound muddy/cluttered?

 

On 10/4/2019 at 4:29 AM, Sidney Earl Goodroe said:

Don't forget the most important ingredient for realistic string performance!!! ARTICULATIONS!!!!

Yes, I've been playing with different articulations for the instruments I use and they do sound a bit realistic now than they did previously.

 

<b>Question 2: 

Lets say I have a cello track for a  rhythm section that lasts for a whole minute.

Is a particular articulation meant to be played thruout the whole length of the track, or do I apply the articulation to wherever I want it to be and  not the whole of the track?

Or perhaps it's really up to one's taste?

-----------------

Many, many thanx for all the replies and tips. Looking forward to making some great music with CbB, and uh, I used the word 'great' just now with a lot of freedom and most relatively  i.e  within the constraints that  are on me.

 Oh, one final question..

Question 3:
When I need to add some effects to a vst instrument, e.g. I'd like to add some delay to a viola, do I use the 'built-in' delay that came with the said instrument or do I add the effect to the track itself  (e.g. the sonitus delay)? Or simply a bit of both would result in  a better job?  

Lotsa thanx again.  

Hello there everyone.

I've  just got Cakewalk by Bandlab installed on my rather ageing laptop here and I've been meaning to create music with it for quite some time, tho I really have to admit that this is all new territory to me. 

Until recently, apart from using it for a little guitar practice I had no idea how to go about creating complete music.  The  few videos I've watched  these last few months really  helped me set my bearings on where  to  begin  tho they have also left me with a lot to ask.

As for the moment I'm thinking of using  virtual instruments  esp. the piano and one or two string instruments: the cellos, violas etc. 

Lets say I'm planning on a little piece of music which makes use of a cello, violin and piano virtual instr. For each instrument how many tracks would  be  needed to make the music sound acceptably realistic and not sound too thin? Honestly I'm more worried of it sounding thin like listening to a song on a laptop built-in speakers...Pardon my analogy but that's what I hear when I take a listen to what little bits I've managed to create these last couple of months. Frustrating, yeah I know the feeling..:D

Hope to learn new things  from you guys here.  Thanks :D