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David Rubenstein

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Posts posted by David Rubenstein

  1. I have been actively assigning new keyboard shortcuts to cakewalk functions that I use often.

    However, many functions are not assignable. For example, SHIFT-R turns step-record on/off. But, there is no function to close the step-record menu. This function requires using the mouse.

    It would be great to bring more (unassigned) functions into the Keyboard Shortcuts menu, to allow users to assign more key bindings.

     

    • Like 2
  2. Do you use Windows 10?  I ask because it has a built-in video record function.  It is intended for recording video games, but it works for me, for all sorts of purposes. The shortcut is Windows-Alt-R to record.  Also, the shortcut Windows-Alt-G brings up a set of menus for screen captures and other things.

  3. I found a possible answer to this problem in the old Cakewalk/Sonar forum here:

    http://forum.cakewalk.com/Export-Audio-issue-m3747886.aspx

    I was having freezing and export problems; Long MIDI notes were shortened, and the result was unsatisfactory. Increasing the Mixing Latency/Buffer Size to the "Safe" zone did not help. Instead, this suggestion by scook helped:

    Try increasing BounceBufSizeMsec in Preferences > Audio > Configuration File

    My default value of BounceBufSizeMsec  was 0 ms. I changed it to 20 ms, and the problem was solved.

  4. I have been having a problem with both freezing tracks and exporting. I am using the 2020.11 version of Cakewalk by Bandlab. 

    When playing the music inside Bandlab, it sounds fine. However, often--but not always--when I export a track, some of the instruments do not come out in the WAV file sounding correctly. Long-playing notes only play as short notes, sort of staccato. This happens regardless of whether the reverb plug-in is in the individual track or a bus.  

    In order to mitigate this problem, I have tried freezing the problematic tracks. But the same problem occurs when I play back the frozen tracks.

    Another thing I have tried, is to turn off the "fast-bounce" option when either exporting or freezing a track. This often helps, but of course it is time consuming. I have also played around with various options in the Export Audio menu, such as bit depth, 64-bit engine, and sample rate. There are many possible combinations of options, but I haven't found a combination that is fool-proof.

    Any advice on what is happening?

    Thanks for any suggestions!

  5. I LOVE Cakewalk by Bandlab.  (I've been a Cakewalk user for 24 years!). However, as an orchestral composer, I am really jealous of Cubase users, because they have a powerful feature called "Expression Maps".  There is no similar feature in Cakewalk by Bandlab, although it has been suggested a number of times.

    instead of using Keyswitches, a VST Expression Map makes changing articulations much easier and faster. The link below shows a video tutorial about how Expression Maps work with Cubase. 

    What are VST Expression Maps

  6. Here I will throw in a bit of my own experience. I started using Cakewalk Home Studio about 25 years ago, using so-called "Sound Fonts".  I progressed to Cakewalk Professional - 9,  got an external synthesizer/sampler, and composed a lot of music with it. It wasn't simple--the external synthesizer/sampler was complicated, and required a lot of integration with Cakewalk.

    Now, many years later I started to use Cakewalk by Bandlab, and purchased some VST instrument libraries. This was a whole new ballgame, and I could not figure out how to make ANY Midi-generated sound come out of it at all! The voluminous documentation did not help at all. So I started looking at YouTube tutorials. After watching many many videos, I happened upon ONE online tutorial that showed in detail, every single button press needed to work with VST libraries. I carefully wrote all the steps down, and -- it worked! I was back in business. Since then, I explored alternative approaches that somewhat simplified the whole procedure.

    The point is, that this is complicated software, with a very steep learning curve. It was steep for me, even though I was very familiar with Cakewalk in the pre-VST days. One approach that has been suggested, is to add a new Workspace option that is even more basic than BASIC. But I would suggest, instead, a very simple Quick-Start users guide. Such a guide would show how to go from a brand new installation, step-by-step every single button-press needed to produce Midi-generated music. Also a section on how to record audio from a microphone or guitar.

    • Like 2
  7. Expression maps are used in Cubase to change articulations when using sample instrument libraries. This allows one to give individual notes different articulations, without having to use keyswitches. Personally, I don't mind using keyswitches, but they are available only for some, but not all, instrument libraries. Besides, each library has a different set of keyswitches, and it can be difficult to remember them all. A single expression map for articulations, (that the user could set up separately for each instrument library) would be very useful.

    Thanks!

  8. I have an idea about the problem. I have been comparing all of the settings between my two computers. On my second computer (which does step recording correctly), the "Navigation" readout (which is in the lower-left corner of the step record window in Basic mode, and near the lower right in Advanced mode) shows the Now Time in terms of MM:BB:TTT (Measures/Beats/Ticks).  For example, if the Now Time is at the beginning of the 2nd beat of the 5th measure, it shows 05:02:000.

    However, on my first computer (which messes up step recording), the Navigation shows the Now Time, but not in MM:BB:TTT, but in HH:MM:SS.SS, that is to say, in Hours/Minutes/Seconds.  I think this is the cause of my problem.  There is not enough precision in a 1/100'th of a second fraction to end up exactly at the right number of ticks when the step advances. 

    So, how do I change the Navigation read-out to be in terms of Measures/Beats/Ticks instead of Hours/Minutes/Seconds?

  9. scook, yes I have tried all of those things.  (The problem does not show up when stepping whole notes or half notes--only quarter, eighth, etc.) 

    But, since you mention that you cannot duplicate the problem, I tried it on my second computer--with no problem. Step record works correctly on my second computer.

    So, perhaps it is an issue of a setting?  I cannot figure it out.

  10. Thanks for all the discussions and potential answers!

    After some  experimentation, I am finding the following workflow to be the easiest for me. Again, this approach is appropriate when the instrument does not include keyswitches.  I like to have all of the notes for a particular instrument in a single track, so that it is easy to adjust note durations, start times, velocities, CC's etc. I assign that track to a single synth (either PLAY or KONTAKT, for example). Into that synth, I load many instrument presets, each with a different articulation, and each with a different MIDI channel.

    Then, I assign a MIDI channel to each note in the track. I found two ways to do this; either by selecting individual notes and using the "Edit Tool", or by selecting a group of notes, and entering a channel number in the "Event Inspector". Each channel will correspond to a different articulation preset.

  11. Some VST instruments include keyswitches to change articulations (staccato, pizzicato, sustained, legato, etc.). But many VST instrument libraries do not have keyswitches; each articulation is contained within a separate preset. So, one approach would be to load all the articulations you think you will need into an instantiation of the sampler (for example, Play or Kontakt).  Then, you sort individual MIDI notes into the various presets.

    Is there an easy way to do this? In Cubase, I am told that you use "Expression Maps". For Cakewalk, I read somewhere that "Drum Maps" can be used for this purpose, but I don't understand how to do this. And, how do you easily sort the MIDI notes into the various presets/articulations?

  12. I am having an issue with Step Record. I choose "Follow Step Size", The parameters "% of note value" is set to 100 and "Randomize by" is set to 0, although they are grayed out.

    Nevertheless, I am getting randomization; sometimes the notes advance a bit more than the step size, and sometimes a bit less. Any ideas how to turn off this randomization of the step size?

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