Craig Reeves

Yes you are exactly right Kevin Perry that is the workaround for now. I was about to put up a Youtube video to show a workaround for that! But the feature still needs to be added because such a feature shouldn't require such workarounds. But I will later post a video on that very workaround.

For audio, as of right now, the only way to use Elastique to follow project tempo is through AudioSnap. The problem is that AudioSnap very often detects the wrong tempo and doesn't allow you to manually put the correct tempo in.

In some cases, it will allow you to choose from a few tempos the algorithm guessed, but most of the time none of the tempos AudioSnap guessed are correct and so there should be an option to allow us to manually type in the  correct root tempo. The groove clip loop editor (ALT+7) allows this. AudioSnap should as well.

Well the problem is that in order to follow project tempo using Elastique Efficient/Pro, the only way by which to do that is through AudioSnap, which AudioSnap doesn't do this very well.

If Cakewalk had a way to automatically slip-stretch audio clips as you increase or decrease tempo, there would not be any need to go through AudioSnap to follow project tempo using Elastique.

I would think such a feature would be pretty easy for Cakewalk to implement.

Cakewalk is one of the best paid or unpaid. It's not perfect, but no DAW is. The only real glaring weakness with Cakewalk is the timestretching. It's just plain bad compared to other DAWs in it's class, especially Ableton Live.  This is mainly because AudioSnap is pretty much broken and Cakewalk tends to crash when stretching too many audio claps, that or the audio engine craps out and has problems.  Outside of AudioSnap (which is broken), there isn't an automatic stretch-to-tempo outside of Groove Clip which is like, 15 years out of date.

Cakewalk's support is excellent. All the developers, including Noel, are amazing, talented and passionate about what they do. I complain about Cakewalk a lot it seems but I believe it is the best DAW in the world!

On 9/28/2020 at 5:24 PM, Craig Anderton said:

Computers are a house of cards - when one card goes, the whole computer falls over. So many times, the "problem" with a DAW relates to something that has little, if anything, to do with the DAW itself.

For example, for several weeks I tried to figure out why Windows was suddenly taking so much longer to boot. Turns out there was a blank CD in an optical drive, and removing it solved the problem. I guess Windows was trying to boot off the CD, which of course must have been a highly unsatisfying experience for the operating system   

Yeah. It turns out the offending software was Streamlabs OBS. It slowed Ableton Live 10 down even WORSE. I just have to turn my latency up when that program is open it seems.

Nevermind, the problem was with another piece of software that was running in the background that was for whatever reason slowing Cakewalk down.

I have a very, very fast computer. So when I open heavy loaded sessions, my computer doesn't have any issues.

However, I still get pops, cracks and late buffers not because my computer is slow (I have a Ryzen 9 3950X CPU with 128 GB of RAM on an SSD), but rather, the Audio Engine Load is around 30%-50% in many cases while the Audio Processing Load is less than 4% and Disk load is about 2%. 

Is the problem that Cakewalk hasn't modernized their software audio engine to take advantage of faster PC's like mine? And have other DAWS done so?

Ctrl+D: The unsung hero of workflow!

16 minutes ago, sreams said:

These are all valid points, but kind of off-topic. I'm referring to a very specific bug that occurs with Elastique algorithms only. The usefulness of AudioSnap is a separate conversation that deserves its own thread.

You're correct. I'll delete the post.

9 minutes ago, marled said:

Okay, I understand now! 😉 You only want to stretch the clip as a whole, no intention to quantize audio! Sorry, in this case I have misunderstood!

Exactly.

2 minutes ago, marled said:

I don't agree to that! I have tested several audio stretching implementations of other DAWs and also read about some more and IMHO they don't suit for professional work or only restricted to certain material (sometimes even confirmed by their DAW gurus)!

The problem is that all of them that detect the transients automatically make a lot of incorrect detections and there you must have the possibility to adjust this like with AudioSnap! You must be aware that there is no algorithm to detect the transients absolutely correct, because there are instruments (like vocals) that allow to choose the transients in various positions to sound "correct".

So all those flashy programs like Ableton that do it the "easy" way, they just cheat you! Because if you have wrong detections and no possibility to adjust it, the stretching is not usable at all, unless you allow the performance being destroyed! And some other programs (like Reaper) even lack a "real" stretching functionality. They provide only a very basic stretching support that is really labor-intensive!

Back to AudioSnap: Aside from its brilliant design I agree with you that there are some issues (and I still hope it is being fixed one time), but they may be caused more by the stretching algorithms and by their application.

As I pointed out, Groove-clip stretching works perfectly fine. It doesn't need to find the transients. What needs to happen is that if you increase the tempo by 6%, the audio should be stretched accordingly without having to manually slip-stretch each one of them yourself.

[Deleted original post]

I will discuss AudioSnap in another post.

Yes, the quick-group automation works fine when it is set to touch. The issue is with Latch, not Touch.

12 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

A bug can exist forever if it's not reported. Things don't get fixed automatically. I have never heard of this one. Please write up a proper description and recipe for it as a separate post and we can look at it for a future release.

Thank you so much for your response, Noel!

I've created a separate post with instructions on how to reproduce. You can find it here:

I was able to reproduce this bug in SONAR as well so it has been around since at least then.

(Note: MIDI tracks do not seem to have this issue. It is only Instrument tracks and Audio tracks that seem to have this issue).

How to reproduce:

1. Open a new project or an existing project.

2. Create two to three Audio or Instrument tracks and Automation write enable them

3. In the Inspector view, set each track for Latch automation

4. Select each of the tracks and press play

5. While holding down the CTRL key, move the volume either in the Arranger, Console or Inspector up and down for one of the selected tracks. Automation data should be recorded for all the selected tracks.

6. Play back the track and you will find that despite not touching anything, each track now is overwriting instead of only doing so when the fader is touched

Video below:

Yay! No more sticky-selects in the PRV! Thank you! Works so much smoother now!

MODO Bass also now works perfectly as well so thank you for that too!

Unfortunately, quick-group latch automation still does not work properly, resulting in overwrite behavior rather than latch behavior until reopening the project. This bug has existed for years so I can't imagine that nobody else has reported it.

This is more of a suggestion...

When a clip is selected, Cakewalk should automatically select the track it belongs to. Here's why...

Bump!

At this point, Cakewalk just needs to do updates strictly dedicated to bug fixes. Cakewalk is a very buggy DAW. I'm not saying it is Logic Pro X level of buggy, but it will get there if things are tightened up.

Another bug.

Quick-group latch automation results in overwrite automation faders until saving and re-opening the project.

Also, the console doesn't refresh when changing automation type.

I found a couple of issues in the Piano Roll:

- Sticky Selects: Selecting notes doesn't always deselect notes that were previously selected

- Runaway Zoom: Zooming in and out seems to move the focus away from the now marker even when the track options are set to focus on the now marker

On 6/20/2020 at 6:25 PM, User 905133 said:

Yeah, that's the way bank switching on my gear works. For example,   

[Advanced Orchestra ROM]
Patch[8448]=Proteus 2000 Siedlaczek 0
Patch[8449]=Proteus 2000 Siedlaczek 1

8449 / 128 = 66 with a remainder of 1, so CC0 = 66 and CC32 = 1

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Instrument_Defs.07.html#1117553

ADDENDUM [2020-06-21]:   Just to be clear, a program change with bank switching works on my gear if CC0 and CC32 are inserted before the program change.

Same here. That's how I am doing program changes now and that works fine, but there's no reason why the Program Change method shouldn't work, and there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to type the value in.

I'm sure that works fine, but the way I mentioned ought to work too. If it doesn't, Cakewalk needs to fix it.

Cakewalk just simply has a tendency to pop and crackle more than other DAWs. That's just the way it is, even when there's barely any load on the CPU. It's not a big deal at all but that's just what I've observed. When stopping playback, it's not uncommon to hear a light clip sound like when you suddenly stop a vinyl record that I don't hear in a DAW like Studio One even under the same load. Don't get me wrong, Studio One has it's own problems, believe me! That said, however, Studio One does have a smoother audio engine than Cakewalk, and I would imagine other DAWs do as well although I haven't tried others.