Patrick Derbidge

On 4/21/2021 at 8:03 AM, User 905133 said:

IMO, favorite features / benefits of using Cakewalk (or anything for that matter) vary from user to user and in no way can used to assess its usefulness to other users. That being said, for me, they are:

(1) Cakewalk's  flexibility / ability to be customized based on user preferences.

(2) The ability to work with a wide range of external gear and virtual gear, including the automatic migration of many plug-ins (instruments and FX) owned/licensed by users of SONAR. 

(3) The developers' interest in and helpfulness in working to help debug and if possible solve individual issues even when the issues are the result of user lack of knowledge, user error, etc. or the result of things Cakewalk has no control over (e.g., third-party plug-ins).

(4) The ability to work with a wide range of audio and midi interfaces / devices. 

(5) The developers' interest in user experience and dedication to continually implementing changes/ improvements and fixes.

(6) A forum for staff and knowledgeable power users to help users.

For me the top weaknesses are:

(1) Some default color choices that cannot yet be customized (e.g., dark grey text on a light b ackground).

(2)  Lack of built-in polyphonic audio-to-midi conversion (without having to pay big bucks for third-party products).

(3) Non-resizable track control images ("widgets").

(4) A staff view that has not been updated nearly as much as other features (including the lack of rhythmic triplet-like structures beyond 3, e.g. 5 or 7).

(5) Lack of small scale and large scale compositional midi data generation (21st century equivalent of musical "figures" like mordents,  turns, etc.).

Again, what I like about Cakewalk and what I find needs improvement should not be used to assess Cakewalk.  

Thank you for asking. I hope this helps.

PS: Will you be making the paper available to us to read?

Thank you so much. I suppose I could make it available but we'll see how it turns out. I'm not sure my writing skills are anything to "write" home about, LOL. (sorry, Dad joke)

I am enrolled in a class at my University called Alternative DAW's, which basically means alternative to Pro Tools 🙂 My final assignment that just got sprung on me was to write a a paper on an Alternative DAW of my choice.  Besides explaining some of how it works I wanted to get your feedback on your favorite features of Cakewalk. Perhaps give me a couple of your favorite features and a couple of weaknesses to balance the paper out. I am mostly a Reaper user so I'm not as versed in Cakewalk as I'd like to be and Reaper was already taken by another student so this was my next choice. Thanks for your help in advance.

On 1/1/2021 at 11:28 AM, jude77 said:

So true.  One thing I love about CW is it's fully pro looking interface.   I love S1, but I wish it didn't look so much like a box of gummy bears.

When it comes to a DAW I'm looking for fast, usable, stable, and functional not a trophy wife.  If there was a contest for the most updates, Reaper would win hands down.  Not for everyone but I'll take stable over pretty.

I have more Kontakt instruments, soft synths, wav files, plugins, than I know what to do with so this might take up more space than I need, however from what I've seen and heard I think if you're starting out and low on cash this looks like a worthy pickup. Even with all that I own I'm half tempted just because I like having loads of sounds to choose from. The downside is there is a tendency to waste a lot of time going through sounds when you have as much content as I do so I'll listen to the demos some more and decide if I like any of the sounds enough to jump on it.

6 hours ago, Fleer said:

Ain’t no 70. 

They were when this was first posted. I'll admit I thought it would go through the weekend so with a busy week I was going to do my research and decide which ones to by but now.... I guess not.

I don't need this at the moment but I know some really good jazz composers that really like this drum kit for that genre so if Jazz is your thing this might be worth looking into.

12 minutes ago, simon said:

I can only speak for Terrie - but how many songs call for a sample of "Amazing Grace" sung with full on improv in one specific key ?  There are lots of examples like that.

I noticed that one of the other libraries has them singing the full version of "She Moves Through the Fair" - which is handy if you are doing a cover of that specific song ?

The more generic stuff might see some use though.

Exactly. I think that loop and phrase libraries like this are more usable for genre's like hip hop where it's part of the genre to take loops and phrases and manipulate them with the beat. For everything else, it's hard to say how useful they will be. I don't write as much music as I'd like lately (too busy trying to pass my music theory class which I have yet to decide how much it will help me) but I own a few of these libraries and haven't used a single one yet. Price is right though. I find if I use something once, I'm happy. It's hard to put a price tag on something that contributes to a finished piece of work.

9 hours ago, chris.r said:

• J37/Kramer Tape < IK/Overloud/Softube/Slate/Chow, maybe even airwindows tapes
• Qclone < IK Master Match
• NLS =/< Slate, Cakewalk, maybe even airwindows consoles... for saturation I like to use T-rackS EQ73 and 81 which can add a sweet sweet tone when driven, or True Iron... there was sknote Stripbus that had a very big potential for being the ultimate ITB summing box but was a little too buggy the last time I've checked it, didn't mess with it since then
• Electric88 < Neo Soul Keys Studio, Scarbee EP88, Acousticsamples VTines, AK Mark One
• Clavinet < Clavitube
• Codex < Synthmaster One
• F6 < MAutoDynamicEq
• ADT < MDoubleTracker
• R-Deesser < FF Pro DS, PA both de-essers or something like soothie
• Rbass < ???😱😱💀!

Good list. I especially like the Melda plugins. I have actually put together my own list with alternatives for each of my Waves plugins. The problem is that my Waves are working just fine for now so there is no real push for me to replace them all right away. Every once in a while when there is a good sale on an alternative I'll pick it up. I like airwindows console but they haven't replaced NLS for me but it's not like NLS is a plugin I'd die without, I just like to use it. The truth is, if I lost all my Waves plugins today I wouldn't be despondent. Plugins are not a cure to poor mixing skills and luckily I've been through enough training that I'm happy with my improvements and I never stop learning new mixing tricks to keep me current.

58 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Yeah, J37 was a hard one for me to give up, I do like it.  I use a combo of things.  Airwindows Tape isn't the same but surprisingly good when I add it with other things in my chain.   Toneboosters Tape is good, but I find I have to compensate for the high end roll off.  Honeslty I think there are some better options on the market - IKM for example but haven't seen it go on a real sale outside of the bundle which I don't need all of the different tape machines. 

NLS was the other hard one to give up, sound is good and the workflow is better than some alternatives for sure.  I can't say any that feel like a real 1:1 replacement, but I have found other ones that I think are good enough and use depending on the sound and the project.  

Plates sounds very good, but so process intensive, I just gave up on it.  The Exponential Audio stuff covers most of my baisc reverb needs (though you have to buy two of them or you are also stuck in the 1 seat model), and Arturia EMT Plate whcih was free at one point - is no slouch on that similar concept front.

I actually like WAVES Sibilance better than the De-esser.  Haven't found a single De-esser that does everything on every source so I use a combination of them.  Some are dirt cheap (Hornet), ToneBoosters CM, Airwindows DeBess, Flux Bitter Sweet come to mind.  

 

Ah sibilance, you're right, it is better. I used that a lot on my last mix and remember liking it better. Thanks for the reminder.

4 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Only WAVES plugin I didn't find a reasonable replacement for is Omni-Channel.  I fully agree they have some good sounding and useful plugins.

Curious which one(s) you are clinging to?

 

WUP is a percentage off of the retail price not the sale price, so I've found instead of doing WUP, it makes more sense to just buy another seat for the same plugin on sale if you can't get out of the WAVES system.

Not many but I still like J37 and Kramer tape. I like Abbey Road Plates, Abbey Road Chambers, Scheps Omni Channel, Renaissance De-esser, Reel ADT ,NLS and F6 Floating Band Dynamic EQ.

I also like using One knob pumper for it's ease. I have others to do this but they tend to need a little massaging to avoid artifacting whereas One Knob just works.

I also use Waves Tune which I could replace with melodyne but it keeps doing its job so I haven't bothered yet.

All the replacements I've found for these that I'd be satisfied with are a bit more money than I want to spend right now so as long as my Waves plugins keep working I don't have much incentive to move on. I still use a lot of others from Waves but mostly just to change things up. I have plenty of alternatives for the ones I didn't list here.

1 hour ago, Fleer said:

I am so anti-WUP. 

Me Too Fleer but to be fair their plugins are so cheap that a WUP is usually not that expensive. My plugins have kept working so I've only done WUP on one or two for under $10 during a WUP sale. Nevertheless I would much prefer to pay upfront a good sale and get lifetime support like Melda plugins. Over time I have replaced my waves plugins for Melda and others but there are some that I haven't found a replacement for, YET(:

Although I completely understand the WUP hate and the sometimes confusing install process and issues one thing I will say about waves is that their plugins are of good quality. At least the ones that I have cherry picked over the years have been solid. I wish I could say the same for Plugin Alliance plugins. I have loved them but for reasons I have not been able to figure out, if my project gets too large then my plugin alliance plugins crash Reaper. It only happens with their plugins so I have, unfortunately, stopped using them.

48 minutes ago, Pluto Gabo said:

But, but... you can still get Carousel for free.

Face Palm! That's right I forgot. LOL. I guess I better grab it.

9 hours ago, John Bohlen said:

It's not a patch. They're both individual instruments. But if it were a "patch", is the other way around. This is from SOS:

"The Carnival is very much a ‘sister’ instrument to Carousel; whereas Carousel is the larger, more bombastic type of organ, The Carnival presents two smaller-scale barrel organs, simply named Big and Small, each accessible from the one–page GUI."

Darn. Now I'm sad I forgot about this promotion going on. Oh well, can't say I've used these organs as of yet so not too big of a loss.

It looks like an organ patch from Carnival, which I already own.  Maybe I'll download and compare sometime.

I like their non loop stuff but loops in kontakt are not for me. Not sure why I find  loops in Stylus useful but not any other way with exception of a few wav loops I own.

On 8/27/2020 at 1:53 PM, antler said:

For those not in the know (i.e. me), what's the relationship between the Adagio, Agitato, and Anthology series?

Oh this is a fun one. It's like a mystery you have to solve 🙂 But I cracked it! Basically Adagio came first. very expressive but also a bit clunky and full of every type of legato style and some unique ARCs. Then came Adagietto which was just the ensembles from Adagio and has some very nice sounding sordinos.  Later, they did new recordings in the same church that was meant to blend with Adagio and Adagietto and they called this Agitato. Then they decided to take some of the "best of" recordings from all the previous libraries and combine them into a more streamlined interface and workflow and called this Anthology. Anthology used to be a free product if you already owned all these other products. Many people found that the processing done to the samples in Anthology were too stale and lacked air that the originals had so 8Dio decided to try again. Same samples, I think, with maybe a few changes to what ARC's were chosen for the new product but essentially a new and improved Anthology but this time they got rid of the old Adagio, kept Anthology in the line up named the new product The New Adagio, which I find to be a very strange decision. I would have preferred they called the new product Anthology 2, got rid of the first Anthology and kept the old Adagio series because they had some really cool articulations that are no longer available to the public unless you already owned the original Adagio.  Clear as mud? I thought so.

Dang, I actually paid for this one a few years ago. It's worth adding. It has those sounds you would have expected Exhale to have but surprisingly doesn't.

One of my favorite delays. It really has that sort of produced sound. The only issue is that it does take a little bit of set up and tweaking to get the delay you want but worth the extra effort.

7 hours ago, simon said:

don't agree 100%

lots of EZD packs are 16bit unlike the SD3 24bit - and the SD3 specific kits are better quality (the orchestral percussion / hansa etc) so SD3 is still the better choice and you can still load EZD packs but not the other way round.  Also the SD3 packs come with lots of processed presets just like EZD ...and you can load EZD presets too so nothing to lose going SD3

🕊️

Interesting. I own a lot of EZD packs but never thought to look at their bit rate. Maybe that's why 9 times out of 10 I prefer the sound of my AD2 drum kits. EZD2 has an some awesome composing tools though so sometimes I'll use it for laying down drum lines and then transfer it all to AD2.

Out of that sale I like the Wrenchenspie and the Steel string guitar for the ambient guitar patch. For regular sounding guitar work I use Orange Tree and Ample Sound the most. I have all their older strings, which are not on sale right now, like the Adagios and the Agitato's and Anthology which the new Adagios are sort of a repackaging of the Anthology's. Don't get me started on the confusion they created there, however I do use their strings a lot and really like them.  They take a bit of work but I still prefer them over the Spitfire Albion One Strings. Between my 8Dio strings and Audiobro Lass2 and East West Hollywood strings I feel like I have a lot of my string needs covered. For Rock and Pop music I find the New Adagios work pretty well.

4 hours ago, RSMcGuitar said:

If I could do it again, I would have avoided this company altogether. I'm convinced about 90% of their budget is spent on marketing.

To be fair, I think they have some really good sounding cabs and emulations but they are just waaay over priced. I only purchased the standard version of Bias FX and Bias Amp and still felt like I was lacking content for what I paid. At the time I could have spent less money on Slate's VIRTUAL ANALOG BUNDLE and had Scuffham S-gear thrown in giving me both great mixing tools and one of the best Amp Sim bundles available. Unfortunately with the Slate's move to subscription model that option no longer exists.

6 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

Wow! People took me serious. 

I would never take you seriously😉

Did anyone watch the promo video of the app he developed for these sounds? I think it's pretty dang cool.

1 hour ago, Jim Roseberry said:

• Threadripper - TDP = 280w
• i9-10980xe - TDP = 165w
• i9-9980xe - TDP = 165w

280w!!! Wow, that's hot, although we are talking 32  cores vs 18. I wonder if Intel will find a way to do better when they get there.

6 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said:

The problem with Threadripper is the TDP is too high.

An ultra quiet 3970x build simply can't be done.  I know for sure (I've done everything possible to make it work). 

Way too noisy for myself and clients!

I can definitely believe that.  One of the main reasons I didn't consider AMD over Intel for many years was due to how hot they ran,. Having said that, wouldn't an Intel 9980xe be more of a comparison to the Thread ripper? I'm pretty sure a 9980xe would be a beast to try and cool as well.

That's why I prefer to stick with Ryzen's or a 9900k from Intel. If Intel wasn't so stingy and finally drop the price of the 9900k I'd probably pick one up for a second build. My order of preference, based on budget from least expensive to most expensive would look like this:

1. Ryzen 3600

2. Intel 9900k

3. Ryzen 3950x, although you bring up some good points about those who might want the best low buffer, low latency performance might need to look at 9900k regardless of price.

Also, if you can find some good deals on the Intel 8700k's then you could build a pretty nice system around that as well.