Misha

Mark, "Everything I've ever heard made with Bland In A Box sounds cheesy and terrible." I don't know what you "heard" and "where" you heard it, but I respectfully disagree. I don't follow your "something from a 90s home keyboard" comment. Midi segments are Midi segments. If they were played / programmed well, they will sound good 100 years from now. They are just instructions, just as with gazillion EZ keys MIDI "packs", that people can't stop buying, which are essentially melodic (or rhythmic) MIDI snips.

Given at one point we will get a Chord Track with a combination of Arranger track (which we already have) It should be fairly straight forward connection. As an alternative a style can be "unpacked" as a grouped set of MIDI files (because that's what it is) in Media Bay that you can audition from there and dragged to chord track. With all its weaknesses I love BIAB, but unfortunately working with 3rd party MIDI clips and re-harmonizing them is a big pain. Essentially I am putting a request for enhanced Chord+ existing Arranger track combo.

David, its's not too "outside" A friend explained that a Chord Track in Studio One does just that. It reharmonizes given MIDI clip to whatever you input in the Chord Track. A Chord Track is a highly requested Cakewalk (Sonar) item. A Style is just a collection of MIDI clips. So in a way it is an extension of a Chord Track request. P.S. I am well aware and a proud owner of BIAB.

Done this request a while back. With the arrival of new Sonar on horizon want to revisit this wish. I think it would be neat to have a MIDI style based arranger baked in new Sonar. A software version of something like Yamaha QY100 or Roland backing modules, etc. Likely with tens of thousands free and paid multi part / multi instrument styles available, there is no shortage of content. Styles can be used for many different proposes, such as complete backing tracks, partial tracks to replace a "missing" musician, practice, assembling arrangements for keyboards, composition companion, good source for retro music and less common genres MIDI content not traditionally found in content sold as MIDI loops, etc. The only professionally written (but limited) software option that I know of was a Yamaha Mobile Sequencer. Unfortunately it's only on iOS and was discontinued this year. All others don't come remotely close. I am aware of likely most of them. P.S. Similar to what EZkeys does with MIDI phrases following MIDI chords or chord track. Everybody love it...like it's something new, while root technology existed since 80s. if not much earlier. Thank you for considering.

Hey, thanks for trying. I never experienced this particular behavior (with several 4+ interfaces) in the past 5 years . This started with this last Cakewalk update. ------------------- Update Uninstalled Cakewalk. Installed Nov 2022 version - No issues. Reinstalled Early Access patch, everything is working fine now. Hopefully just an isolated glitch of some kind.

The install of last version was smooth... but there is in my opinion a serious issue (Sorry for double post if it was reported already) In earlier versions (last 5+ years) when a resource hungry VST was a culprit, you would get "Stopped Audio Engine" toaster and playback would stop. What happens now is it would play through without any warnings (No stopped Engine toaster) , with audio and performance meters unresponsive and no sound coming out. Restarted Cake, restarted computer. Issue still present. See video:

mettelus, It worked like a charm, following your instructions. Thanks again!

mettelus, Thank you very much! I will try this later today after work. I understand the theory behind what the guy in the video is doing, I am just a bit confused how to do it in Cakewalk. Hopefully with your walkthrough it will do the trick (It seems it should). Thank you for your time! I will follow up either later today or tomorrow. Hopefully someone else will find this useful.

Hi Folks. I watched the video (see below). Can somebody please walk me through step by step if I want to do same in Cakewalk, with lets say stock FX? I am a bit confused about two buses (an the rest of routing for that matter). The way I understood... The initial setup in Cakewalk would be to create two buses, Lets assume Bus A and Bus B. The vocal track output would go in "Bus A" , "Bus A" output would be set to "Bus B" and "Bus B" output would be set to Master.... Thank you in advance!

Scook, Thank you!!!

Hi Folks. I was recording. Saved project, but left Cakewalk opened (with project on screen). Computer froze at later, with non music related issue and had to be force - rebooted. I re-opened the project, but the waveform graphics are gone. Lanes look "flat", while audio is present. If I freeze track, waveform is visible... If I unfreeze, they are gone. I don't want work with "frozen" tracks. How to get that waveform image(s) back? I tried opening/closing Cakewalk, different workspaces to see if it will refresh gui, saving project "as". Closing/opening project without closing out of Cakewalk. Is there a straight forward fix for this? Thank you for your time!

Thanks! ALT works beautifully! I still like the idea of option at the bus, to force color of that bus to tracks that have other or no color selected belonging to that bus

As a workaround, you can use t-shirt. P.S. BTW There are plenty of 3rd party samplers free, cheap and great. It would be "nice" for Cakewalk to have it, but there are choices. I think most fanboys/girls (including me) would agree that workflow is one of the main jewels of Cakewalk. I believe my request is valid in sense that it contributes to workflow with relatively minor add on. A "dialog which forced all strips connected to the bus to be the same color"

YES THAT

Both are useful, but... If you have a set of tracks that have custom colors set already, changing Bus color will not overwrite these colored tracks. So you will still not know which Bus they belong to unless you expand and search individual tracks. It seems the easiest way to solve my request is to have an option to force color selected at the bus to all related tracks, even if they have other colors set.

No crying in my thread. I am out of tissues.

Thanks, that would be ideal. I've thought about that and actually tried it yesterday, didn't work for me maybe a glitch. I will try on another project when I get back home.

Mark, thanks... Not looking for workarounds. I would prefer it exactly as I described it. P.S. To be fair, I tried the method you described quite a few times in the past, but it just doesn't fit my workflow well.

I don't know, maybe this is possible already... I usually spread tracks of the project to ~4-5 busses. but since tracks are not added randomly (and busses assigned as I see fit) it takes a bit of time to locate which tracks are assigned to which busses at a later time in making. It would be convenient to have an option at the Bus, to shows / highlight which tracks are going into it.

In simple terms, I wonder if "Extra Buffers" set in Cakewalk in in preference sync & caching not in the ASIO driver settings can emulate behavior of (extra) buffers set in the dedicated ASIO driver settings? For example if I am mixing at 2048 and I need 4096 for the project to be stable, adding these extra buffers in Cakewalk should act somewhat similar to increasing a buffer in the ASIO driver, but unfortunately it doesn't feel it does anything. At least nothing close to when interface's buffers are doubled. In short, this is what I mean by a more stable ASIO - to have extra buffer beyond what interface can offer. For mixing.

While some statements are true, it seems to me that some folks just like to "insert" their views without even reading. If everything concerning your workflow works out for you, that is great. No need to reply to thread that is of no interest to you. I am an average user with a little better than average hardware and I do get "Stopped Audio engine" more than I would like to on interfaces that max on 2048 when mixing. To be very clear, I don't see much of real world difference when using Cakewalk's in-house adjustments such as increasing buffers in preference sync & caching, load balancing, aggressive CPU etc. I am not looking for "advice" on optimizing my system or what DAW to use, or purchasing a $1000 interface. But if it's possible to optimize Cakewalk to handle mixing better, when latency is not a factor on average prosumer interfaces maxed at 2048, that would be great.

azslow3, You made many valid points. My main request is to optimize Cakewalk for mixing, just a slightly beyond what is on plate now. As another user mentioned keeping things "liquid". I can happily mix huge projects with 4096 buffer on my Arturia. The hope is to get somewhat similar result with 2048 buffer, which is common "highest" buffer of many new interfaces. As I mentioned, I don't see much real world difference when mixing heavy projects with 2048 buffer + trying increasing additional buffers in Cakewalks preference sync & caching, load balancing, aggressive CPU etc. A different story when compared to 4096 buffer on my second interface with all Cakewalk's internal bells and whistles turned off. Almost like these Cakewalk settings don't do anything what they where supposed to do. Again, this is not an issue that prevents me of writing music, but if it's possible to optimize things within Cakewalk a bit for mixing for the interfaces maxed out at 2048, that would be very much welcomed. P.S. When people talk about the "quality" of Asio driver that is only partially true for the test of how frequent "stopped audio engine" occurs. When mixing at 2048 I get pretty much similar results in about 6 different mainstream interfaces I have tried on two different computers. I feel there is no need to praise some over others for that specific issue. Overall they hold up well, but could hold up slightly better

Mark, I am not looking for ways to hunt down ghosts in my machine. That is not the object of the thread (as it was mentioned in initial post) I will answer your question, but kindly do not derail this important topic. "How do you mean 'most circumstances' - it usually either passes or fails" That is not true. It depends on the load that computer carries at specific time frame. That is a variable that can change with some program scheduling or other intermittent processes that could occur within large intervals of time. It is a useful tool, but not a silver bullet. Having said that, overall Cakewalk runs just fine on most of my projects. But on some heavier it chokes often unless some tracks are frozen and other methods used to alleviate issue . I am not a programmer or mathematician, but on a user level, in my particular case, I feel that Cakewalk and perhaps future Sonar, if it will have identical engine needs 5-10% more tolerance on the top all other existing optimization user settings within Cakewalk to meet my needs under heavy projects. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A side note for Bakers, if someone from team is reading. Most of consumer and prosumer interfaces have a max buffer limit of 2048. That is usually what I set when mixing. Fortunately, I have Arturia Audiofuse interface that has buffer option of 4096. When I select that I don't have issues with "stopped engine". But couple of other interfaces I have and a couple that I have tried, with max buffers in the range of 1024 and 2048 would choke on heavier projects. I've tried increasing Cakewalk "additional" buffers to all kinds of parameters on these lower buffer interfaces, but it seems that it makes almost no real world difference. At least nothing close to what I would expect comparing when cranking a buffer on a device written driver.

OutrageProductions, It seems your computer is slightly faster and obviously has a different chipset. I am just a hobbyist. I am certain that buying a better computer will feduce "stopped engine" issues to something very, very occasional. I wanted to squeeze couple of years out of it before upgrading, and pretty much I can, if new Sonar will not be more demanding in real life scenarios. My request of this thread is for Cakewalk to be slightly more forgiving on larger projects. I think it is doable. Again, besides optimizing engine, a decent performance monitor with sortable list and options to reduce load of specific items would be perfect.

Byron, if everything works great for you, that's wonderful. Really. This would be a depressing place if everybody would do nothing but complain. My request is based on annoyance, not desperation. And it's a request, not cry for help Back to the topic. I never said Cakewalk sucks. Nor I accused anybody of having top of the line computer. What I said is that Reaper and Cubase seem to be more stable handling larger projects than Cakewalk and my suggestion is for Cakewalk to improve on that.