Jerry Gerber

18 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

Hi Jerry

Really enjoyed this and as Ed said, interesting around 3mins

Cool, thanks for posting

Nigel

 

You're welcome Nigel. Glad you enjoyed it..

On 6/26/2021 at 10:55 AM, InstrEd said:

Nice. I like what you did at a little over 3minutes in.  

Always have to have a listen to your work Jerry

Ed, glad you found pleasure in listening!

Jerry

Moderate Tempo,  theme derived from arpeggiator's ostinato in softsynth.

PLAY

On 6/18/2021 at 10:33 AM, Jim Fogle said:

Mr. Gerber,

I received a reverent feeling while listening to each of the compositions.  All are impressive showcases.  I'm glad you include the lyrics and score to each song.

 Should you desire to try something a little different how about a public domain hymn such as "The Lord's Prayer".  That would allow the listener to compare what they hear against a known entity.

Hi Jim,

Thank you for listening, glad you had the feeling you did as that is the feeling I intended the listener to have...

Jerry

23 hours ago, AndyB01 said:

Jerry what an unusual technique (well to me anyway) and a fascinating result. You're right in that whilst the words are not perfectly formed, the acoustics and reverb in places where choirs perform often have that effect. Impressive stuff. Thanks for sharing, Andy

And thank you Andy for listening...

Jerry

After producing 15 albums, 3 concertos, 11 symphonies and many short works, I am currently turning my attention to writing short hymns using the EW Choirs and their word builder. 

I'm planning on composing somewhere between 20-30 of these, some of which the words I have written and some of which the words are written by others.  The unifying factor is the theme:  Spirituality, life, death and the soul.

Here are several examples:

https://www.jerrygerber.com/hymntothedivine.htm

https://www.jerrygerber.com/thankyouspirit.htm

https://www.jerrygerber.com/desire.htm

https://www.jerrygerber.com/onefriend.htm

https://www.jerrygerber.com/whendeathdoescome.htm

https://www.jerrygerber.com/remember.htm

https://www.jerrygerber.com/greed.htm

As usual, all produced using Cakewalk, always my DAW of choice.

Jerry

I certainly may be one of the oldest Cakewalk users around here.   I turned 70 this year and started with Cakewalk for DOS back in 1991.  I recently released my 15th album , every one produced with Cakewalk,  and I'm very grateful to Bandlab for taking the baton and carrying Cakewalk into the 21st century.   In my opinion CW is better than ever.  When Bandlab decided to do some work on the staff view and add back the icons and fix the snap function I dropped Sonar and am very glad I did.   And thanks to all the people creating themes!  

As far as forums go, though not perfect, I have found that the CW forum to be the most friendliest and helpful.  And this is from a guy who generally hates forums.  I don't post or participate on any music forums any more other than occasionally on CW.   As Craig Anderton mentioned, the signal-to-noise ratio on many forums is often intolerable. 

Jerry

https://www.jerrygerber.com

https://www.jerrygerber.com/discs.htm

Hi,

When I insert a tempo in the newly designed tempo window, Cakewalk always inserts two tempo changes when I only insert one tempo change.  For example, if I insert a change at measure 3, beat 3, it inserts the same tempo change at m3 b3 and at m4 b1.  

Is this a bug or is there a new setting to control this behavior?

Thanks,

Jerry

www.jerrygerber.com

5 hours ago, Canopus said:

Your wait is over. Lead has now been updated to 2021.04 build 175, and that goes for Gran Vista and Carbon as well. Enjoy!

Thanks!  Lead has been, and still is, my favorite theme!!

Jerry

www.jerrygerber.com

11 minutes ago, scook said:

Until the official update, adding the Tungsten Key/Meter view images for insert, delete and properties should work for Lead too.

Run two copies of the theme editor, load Tungsten in one (this may be easiest by running the editor from preferences)  and the theme to modify in the other, then copy/paste the images between Tungsten and the dark theme needing the update.

Thanks, but how do I know which elements to swap? Does it have a name? 

43 minutes ago, scook said:

2021.04 Update 1 (build 175) was released with new images for Key/Meter view insert, delete and properties replacing the old tempo view images.

These need to be updated in custom themes.

For dark themes based on Tungsten, I copied the new images from Tungsten.

OK thank you. I hope the other themes like 'Lead" get updated as well.. 

Hi,

I have several themes I like but there's one element that is too dark.  It's the "+" and "-" keys on the meter menu.  I've attached a screenshot.  Which element does this correspond to in the Theme Editor?

Thanks!

Jerry

screenshot of menu colors.docx

17 hours ago, Fret Flintstone said:

 Jerry, you realize this is "The Coffee House", v2.0 nonetheless?

There hasn't been much intelligence and thoughtfulness here since . . . well jeeze, you might be the first?.

As for credits, you might find a few who'll take credit for the stuff you'll find behind the doors and on the walls of public toilets?.

Any way, best of luck with your search. 👍

Fret Flintstone or whatever your real name is:

I really wish that you hadn't posted and hijacked my thread with irrelevant comments. 

Hello,

I am just beginning pre-production work on my 15th album.  I am seeking someone to write the liner notes.  This involves getting very familiar with the recording and being able to write intelligently and thoughtfully about the music.  It's a paid gig of course.  Must have writing credits!

Contact Jerry Gerber if interested at:

jerry@jerrygerber.com

or

415-242-4003

Thanks,

Jerry

www.jerrygerber.com

This is my first attempt using the latest incarnation of East West's Word Builder and choir.   The results are not bad at all.  When I go to hear a live choir in a church I usually do not  understand the text unless I have the program notes with the text printed given to me.  So I included the words too.  I may make a few changes in the next few weeks....

Jerry

PLAY

34 minutes ago, mdiemer said:

Not as long as those of us who use it who continue to be vocal about its value. I guess I'm just trying to make sure they know how much it means to those of us who consider it an indispensable part of our workflow.

I strongly doubt they will get rid of it. 

5 hours ago, mdiemer said:

That would be great. I'm not sure though about bundling something like Muse Score with Cakewalk. If it replaced staff view, definitely not. As an additional tool, it would be wonderful. Once again, this gets at the difference between notation software and and a score editor. What Staff view is, is another way to edit, for those who prefer working with notes. for us, it's easier than PRV. But to expect it to compare favorably to true notation software is to misconstrue its purpose. Once you accept it as an editor for people who read music, all the problems go away. The fact that it doesn't always display notes correctly doesn't really matter if you're not going to print it out and send it to musicians to play. What matters is that it allows you to quickly select, cut, copy and paste any number of notes/measures. and adjust velocity, length, transpose, etc. I do all that is staff view. I also use Event List a lot. that's my workflow. It isn't right or wrong. It's just what works for me. 

I applaud the bakers for the incremental improvements they make to Staff View. mostly though, I just pray that they don't remove it. If they want to bundle muse Score, that's great. but please don't do so at the expense of one of the best (for me, the best) score editors of any DAW.

Do you have any reason to suspect that the developers would remove the staff view?  Especially after updating it and fixing longstanding bugs? 

My mistake.  CW can display up to 23 staves at one time, regardless of screen size.   I wrote 18, but that's not correct.  What I'd love to see is MusicXML being able to export all tracks that contain staff view data at once.  Exporting using MIDI type 1 files works OK but it would be nice to have XML as a choice...

15 hours ago, Maestro said:

Even when the display of the score is wildly inaccurate?  An accurate score is needed for productive work.  No one is asking for press-ready output out of a DAW score editor.  I'm asking for a more accurate representation of the music.  DP delivers that to a far greater extent than Cakewalk.  You're free to prefer one DAW to another, you're not free to pretend objective differences in the quality of this feature are "personal preference."

Never had this issue on my machine, and the issue with Cakewalk's isn't performance per se.  It's that the playback is often not in sync with the audio, and the Staff View doesn't display tons of notes accurately.  This is awkward when looking at the score while paying things back.  This may be due to other components of the pipeline, but I've not done tests THAT extensive.  However, the PRV does play in time... so I'm doubtful of that.

I only speak to things I've used.  Touche. 

I don't care what DAW you use, or why.  I am not here to convert or convince you.  I'm giving feedback.  My reply had nothing to do with that; your reply did.  My reply had to do with the issues I saw in the Cakewalk Staff View - all of which are fairy objective and easy to test and verify (and, indeed, longstanding).

I don't care about reputation.  DP's scoring display is far more accurate than Cakewalk's.  That is fact.  I want to look at a score view and get the most accurate representation of the music as possible.  That is why it exists, otherwise, why bother?

No one made that insinuation.

This is only a pissing contest insofar as your reply was pissy.  That's the extent of that.  What you prefer has nothing to do with what you were responding to, so I really don't care.

Give an example of "wildly inaccurate", other than the tied and dotted triplets, which is common knowledge.  Why waste your time on a CW forum, why not spend time on the DP forum telling everyone how great the notation editor is, when in fact it's no  better, and in some cases, much worse, that CWs?   Your feedback is not as objective or as fact-based as you pretend it is.  I've used both programs extensively and CW is better in countless ways, including text size, handling of VSTs, the ability to customize CC and instrument names, the simplicity and power of audio envelopes, and of course the notation editor's speed and visibility of more information. I can go on.   CW is without doubt the most underrated DAW on the market.  And speaking of markets--CW is free.   You don't know a great value when it's staring you in the face!

JG

www.jerrygerber.com

7 minutes ago, Maestro said:

How much music it can show on one screen is really of no concern.

How accurately it can display the music and notation (symbols, articulations, etc.) is most important.

If I want to view tons of music on a screen, I'll just use the piano roll.

DP has one of the best in-DAW score editors on the market.

Maybe it's of no concern to you, but when a piece has 45 tracks, the more staves I can see on one screen and the more measures I can see on one screen the faster I can work.  DP's notation editor is slow.   Very slow.  And it cannot display nested or tied triplets (or maybe it's dotted triplets?) correctly.  CW cannot display tied or dotted triplets correctly either, but again, it plays them back flawlessly and correcting those kinds of things in Sibelius is easy.  I don't go by "reputation".  I go by my own personal experience in the studio.   Of course I don't expect that what works for one musician will work for another, we're all different.  So I'll bow out of a pissing contest and just say I prefer CW's notation to DPs any day.  That's why I went back to Cakewalk. 

Have you tried using or comparing CW's tabs to DP's clumsy switching between various groups of staves?   The tabs are instantaneous, so I can go from winds to strings to brass in a fraction of a second, there's no lag time.  I really appreciate that. 

Jerry

www.jerrygerber.com

12 minutes ago, abacab said:

Well, that was just an ironic coincidence that the score I tested with only had 18 tracks/staves. I wasn't aware that 18 was the apparent limit.

So, I just grabbed another score, this time with 24 staves. Opened the .mid in Cakewalk, viewed all 24 staves in staff view, and then exported the .xml with all 24 staves accounted for. This was using the latest 2021.01 version of Cakewalk.

So I assume that limit was regarding an older version of Cakewalk?

Wow!  I hope you're right.  I'll check in a few minutes.  Last time I checked, 18 staves was the max.  But maybe it depends upon screen size?

21 hours ago, Maestro said:

Cubase's Notation Editor has nothing to do with Dorico.  If they ported over a feature or two, that is practically ignorable in the grand scheme of things.  That being said. for a DAW Score Editor, it's fairly complete.

Pro Tools and Studio One both do use the Scoring Engines from their "sister products" (Sibelius and Notion) and have decent round tripping with them (particularly Studio One <-> Notion).  Steinberg hasn't even bothered to integrate Cubase and Dorico, yet.  Their Expression Maps implementations aren't even the same (maybe they'll port this over to Cubase :-P).  The products are quite different.

Digital Performer, Samplitude Pro X, MixCraft, and others have Notation Editors in the DAW that are better than Cakewalk's, but don't own Scoring/Notation Software packages.

The biggest issues I have with Cakewalk's Staff View are:

• No MusicXML Import
• No Display of Common Scoring Symbols - Ideally, these would import and display properly with MusicXML import, as they do in many DAWs that have that feature.
• It's very difficult to get the score to display decently.  For example, it's hard to get grace notes to display properly - or at all.
• The score view often does not sync up properly with playback.

That being said, there are a number of DAWs that completely lack a Score Editor/Staff View (FL Studio, Ableton Live, Reason, etc.) so things could be far worse than they are.

If that is really your experience with CW, you've got audio/computer issues that have nothing to do with Cakewalk.   I've never seen Cakewalk's score not sync up with playback with MIDI, although one older version of Sonar did have VST sync problems with long pieces.  But that problem doesn't exist any more as I  recently completed a 4 movement 30 minute work with lots of VSTs and no issues with sync at all.

Cakewalk's staff editor can show a lot more music than DP on one screen. The other thing that is remarkable about CW's notation are the tabs.  I have all the winds, brass, percussion, synths and strings on 5 different tabs, and switching between them is instantaneous.  With DP there's always a lag time of several seconds to switch screens to see different staves.  And because Cakewalk's editor is laid out more like an arranger's pad rather than an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, it's much better for large orchestral scoring.   I've said this before:  A notation editor in a DAW is for composition and editing, not for creating a final score. For that you need a graphics program like Sibelius or Finale or Dorito.  For MIDI sequencing, CW's notation is more than adequate.  When I am done composing and sequencing a piece, before rendering to wave, I export to Sibelius and create the score.  I wouldn't use any DAWs notation editor to create a score, they're really input and editing tools, nothing more...

1 hour ago, abacab said:

I just tested the MusicXML export from Cakewalk with 18 tracks, and it got them all.

I had first opened up a classical MIDI score in Notion 6.8, "Haydn - Symphony 104 - I Allegro.mid", that I had obtained from Notion's score library - complete pieces, and exported it as a .mid file.

Then after opening it up in Cakewalk and saving as a .cwp file, I did a select all in track view, opened the staff view, and exported as MusicXML. All 18 selected tracks were included in the MusicXML export file. Opened that up in Notion and tested the playback. All of the expression was gone.

I'm not an expert in this, but it was obvious that while the note and instrument info was still there on the tracks, all the tempo, dynamics, ties, and many other important marking features in the score were lost in the round trip. And if you open up Cakewalk's MusicXML export in a text editor, you can see that it's still on v2.0, and not the latest. I also suppose that much of that score info was lost in the MIDI export translation.

Out of curiosity, I exported the same score from Notion as a MusicXML file, and then imported it into Overture 5. At first glance side by side, the score appears to have remained mostly intact with MusicXML > MusicXML.

That's right. 18 staves is the maximum CW can display at one time. The problem is that if have, say, 25 staves, then 7 will not be able to be exported with XML. MusicXML can only export the staves that CW can display. I would love to be wrong about this but I don't think I am. 

. 

On 2/4/2021 at 9:32 AM, mdiemer said:

Yeah, it's not going to happen. Sorry to be negative, but on the old Sonar forum there was a thread on this that became on eof the longest in the history of that forum. they have made some minor tweaks, but not all of them have been received well, and most prefer the staff view that existed in the Sonar 8.5 days.

Having said that, Cakewalk's staff view is in my opinion the best of any DAW. Only Reaper's is as good. not because it's great as a notation program (far from it), but because it excels as a compositional tool. People rave about Cubase's staff view. I have tried it, and although it looks great and you can print decent scores (although still not professional quality), navigating in it is a pain. You can only select the notes you can see in the current window. There is no scrolling. Cakewalk allows you to scroll as much as you want. So you can select 100 measures if you want. to do that in Cubase, you have to exit staff view and use another view to make the selection.

In time, Reaper's notation feature is going to be the best of any DAW. Unless Studio One fully integrates Notion. I don't know how far that process has gone. I used Reaper for a couple years, but eventually got tired of the interface as well as the difficulty in routing midi. 

 

I agree.  After checking out Reaper, using DP for 18 months, trying Cubase for a few months and checking out Pro Tools, I have no doubt that Cakewalk's staff view is the best.  And now that the snap functions are completely fixed, it's even better.  I can see more staves and more notes on the Cakewalk staff view than I can on any other program.  That is very helpful.

My complaint, or question, is: Is it possible to export to MusicXML ALL of the tracks at once?   I could be wrong, but when I try to export to XML I can only do the staves that are visible, instead of the entire file.  So, if I have 40 tracks, which isn't uncommon, I cannot find a way to export all of them via XML.  Am I wrong about this?

Thanks,

Jerry

10 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

this is excellent - loved it, especially the choral parts

cool

Nigel

 

Thanks Nigel!