mettelus

I am assuming that your reference track is imported into the project and only one track... that is the best way to compare to a reference track... then use the Exclusive Solo on the reference track only... when you click the reference track, you only hear that track, when unchecked, you hear the rest of the mix you are working on. Alternatively, if you have issues with other routing, you can mix down your current work to a new track, then go back and forth using exclusive solo on that mix down track and the reference track.

MXXX (and MXXXCore) look great on paper, but the complexity of them makes them difficult to use in most real-world scenarios. They also have the disadvantage that if you set up something, then walk away from it, that you cannot visually track how it is set without running through the modules, much akin to trying to figure out your sends in an old project. Another downside (for me), is that I would love to be able to have the outputs go to other tracks so they could be further processed as separate entities. I saw some post saying this can be done using surround channels but was never able to get that to work (and would much rather just output them to other tracks).

That is actually depressing to see, since the delta between those two bundles to buy them outright (now) is only $96. Those 3 synths are $773 (regular price), so $547 doesn't even pass the Eternal Madness muster ($386 if caught in the 50% off weeklies), let alone the "current delta" between the bundles 🙁. Matt had said a while ago that the best deal is to go all in on MComplete when it hits one of these sales.

At first I thought "wow 60%" then realized that 60% off price is close to what 50% off was 4 years ago. MCompleteBundle went up 300 in that time, but is still a little cheaper with the 60% off. It also has 10 more plugins than it used to.

I was hoping for that too since they are so close. I didn't even realize till recently that iZotope's CEO came from Cakewalk, so not sure of the history between the two.

+1 on both counts. I downloaded the audio from one of these (possibly this one) and made a video of the response curves on the old forums. The low frequency was definitely not accurate as a "number" since the curve is so wide on the low end that there was content stretching well above 50Hz when the number was reading below 20Hz (the crux of that post was someone saying they can easily hear below 20Hz). The high end was off as well, IIRC, but I cannot find that post. Interestingly, I found another oddity with MOscillator when this thread posted running it through the Realtek chip (and forget which host); above 12KHz the frequency began to oscillate and never went above 16KHz, and "20KHz" landed around 13KHz for some reason (i.e., hardware matters). I need to revisit that at some point and see what was really going on (and should have recorded it in the first place since it could have easily been a host blip). Last time I did this with MOscillator on proper equipment I was around 14KHz in my left ear, and 16KHz in my right. Regarding the high end... A fun game to play on folks is to use a good EQ that has a steep slope and lower the frequency of a HPF starting as high as it goes on a commercial track until a song can be identified. It will need to go a lot lower than you expect. In many cases, the content over 10K isn't contributing as much as people suspect, but you have to isolate that part and hear it for yourself to get a feel for it (try it on commercial tracks you know well). Bottom line, I wouldn't get too worked up about high end hearing, since it is much more often used to determine hearing loss. Content below 8K is what matters the most. The important part is to protect your hearing properly so that you get the most use from it for as long as you can (especially musicians). I walked out of a convenience store the other day and could hear the loose metal rattling on one kid's car (was louder than the bass), rolled my eyes and thought, "That poor ***** is going to have tinnitus before he is 25..."

I am confused... is this implying Sphere is not compatible with Studio One or just that they do not have the FX you are using?

Another consideration for "clone vs clean install" is from an organizational perspective. I did a clean install with this machine to purposefully look at what I was loading onto the machine (scraping off the stuff I never use), and set up junctions as I went (I keep my C drive small for imaging purposes). But even that route isn't fool proof, since I have 536 programs installed now and use maybe 10% of them with any regularity (junctions could actually be considered "bad" in this case, since it allowed me to put those 536 programs in less than 100GB of the C drive). Also... if using junctions... be sure to keep batch files for the creation of them. During a "clean" install you can simply run the batch files daisy-chained together (copy/paste them all into one master batch) to re-link a new C drive to the other drives in the machine. I let everything install to default locations for the most part, then junctioned anything (data file directories) that exceeded 4GB. The fastest drive in this machine is actually the x4 NVMe.m2 drive, so data files that do get used regularly went there.

For some reason I read RX as Ozone so was scratching my head till I realized I cannot read.... Spectral Layers Pro 7 has less artifacts from my experience, but RX Advanced will let background vocals through in many cases. In spectral Layers you can additionally split the stems into sub components (sometimes this will separate background vocals from the lead, but is iffy - can check the content for each layer as you go), but you may also need some post mixing to get the desired result. I forget offhand if RX Standard will do this, and RX (via the Mix Rebalance) doesn't actually give you the ability to export stem tracks to work with elsewhere (that I am aware of) but Spectral Layers does. The price point between Spectral Layers and RX Advanced is also significantly different.

Did you try to leave a message with the hospital for his wife? I doubt getting on a forum for the world to read is on anyone's agenda, but dropping off a phone number with the hospital so she could give you a call would probably work. Plus she would realize there are others out here worried for the whole family. Many apps let you call anywhere in the world free when on wi-fi (just in case a direct phone call is not free).

I have a couple of these and they are quite useful (the colors make it easy to track which is which too). I scratch my head at times with these reliability reports. There is not a lot mechanically going on in an HDD (most use the same vendors on piece parts to boot), and about the only way to fail it is to park heads on the media (even on loss of power, the inductive kick would park the heads on power loss 20+ years ago) or to get a nice 100g head slap from dropping it while spinning. I have yet to have a drive fail (even an SSD, and I trust SSDs far less), so seeing stats of less than a year make me really wonder. By the time they are assembled into drives, all of the piece parts have been tested out, and the drive banks run them for a bit to write the sector markers before they ever get packaged (and not a lot of run time is needed on the board to make sure the components don't smoke). That said, the smaller drives were also the ones where we got challenged to make price points way back when. Extremes (either low or high) with capacity I would be wary of due to the "price point challenge" or if the areal density (and bit rate at the outer cylinders) is being pushed. I had to chuckle writing this... the cash cow I ran years ago was 1G per PLATTER (4 max)... boy we have gotten spoiled!

^^^^This is an issue with multiple media-editing programs, and usually linked to the Undo History, or more specifically how many revisions are maintained in the Undo History. That is something to check on each program that can be adjusted (I have noticed some default to 100+ actions). When working with massive files, the Undo History will chew up RAM quickly and begin writing to disk, so you can see things either slow dramatically or become not responsive for extended periods (some recover, others do not). Setting the Undo History to 25 or even 10 for many programs is definitely something to consider. "Saving often" seems to clear that RAM out for most programs (you can no longer "undo" after the save), which is why they run more smoothly. Saving prior to a CPU/RAM-intensive operation is also good practice for this same reason.

Another consideration I didn't notice is if you intend to use plugins. Different vendors cater to certain platforms, but most include PP simply because they are the standard. You should be able to find that readily on FX vendor sites, but PP has always been on the compatible list that I have seen.

Woe to the poor guy that buys this without already owning 7! Forum will get flooded with complaints soon about having to buy 7 to install 8...

Don't overlook other options as well. Local hospitals, police and the phone company are also resources that can be reached out to. You may not be able to get into direct contact via these sources, but you can give them enough information that they can pass on your information (name, contact info, and why you are trying to reach him) to either Terry (hopefully) or his emergency contacts/next of kin. Certain things cannot be divulged to a stranger, but finding out if so-and-so is a registered patient, explaining the situation and asking them to pass your information on is not uncommon. Police do similar with wellness checks, but be conscious of things that might be perceived as invasive by his family.

Yeah, they had a 14-day wait on that first survey, but it came without issue for me. Installed it but never used it 🙄

+1 I got the V63M years ago cheap. They can be a bit finicky for setup, but once you get how sensitive they are (and/or noise print reduction software) it has been surprisingly good. It is a good idea to keep it boxed when not in use anyway. The diaphragm would not take well to dust.

Nicely done Gary. I am partial to the less reverb version as well. I like this mix a lot. This particular song is difficult to listen to on the first go for me because I will forever link it to the opening scene of "Blazing Saddles." I always anticipate the interruption for the second verse! One of those "rewind, start over" things. Ironically, I grew up 4 miles outside of Camptown, so when I told someone that once they burst out laughing for the same reason (next part of the same scene).

Anything by Yoko Ono...

Giving both of these guys a quick bump because I have been referring them to others. The easiest way to find them now is by sorting the Instruments and Effects forum by "most viewed." They are #1 and #2 now, so stickies are not really required to find them anymore. 😁

Giving both of these guys a quick bump because I have been referring them to others. The easiest way to find them now is by sorting the Instruments and Effects forum by "most viewed." They are #1 and #2 now, so stickies are not really required to find them anymore. 😁

The OP is faced with audio stretching regardless, the difference is in how many errors are going to be introduced with the process(es) chosen. If adjusting each track/clip separately, it can introduce compounding errors into the result. Once "too deep" into a mix, it is much simpler to finish the mix and apply the audio stretching as a one-time process to keep everything relative. Audio stretching is audio stretching whether is it pre- or post-mix; some programs just do it better than others.

Check out the "Step Sequencer" before passing judgement on yourself (Chapter 27 of the above video set). The fact is that many parts of songs repeat in one way or another, so the copy/paste capabilities of working with MIDI can greatly speed up the initial composition phase. With the Step Sequencer, it automatically enables "Groove Clip Looping," which allows you to drag the right edge of your simple beat to repeat for the duration you choose. Then you can add details by right clicking that track and "Bounce to Clip(s)" allowing you to surgically edit it in the Piano Roll View (PRV). You can even create initially in the PRV, right click a snippet to enable "Groove Clip Looping" and drag it out from there (or even the old standby of copy/paste). The Matrix View (Chapter 26) is another way of looking at repeating loops in a song (similar to how Ableton Live does things), and can be used in tandem with the linear track generation of other tracks, or even recorded to linear tracks. Being primarily a guitar player, my first experience with Cakewalk (20+ years ago now) was to create the drums from "Jack and Diane" in the PRV. Once I got the hang of things, it took me longer to figure out the nuances of the drum fill than to create the rest of the entire track, and I was brute forcing copy/paste wherever it applied.

With being new, importing and tempo mapping audio might be more of a challenge. Joe's recommendation of using default instruments would allow you to do much of the work in the MIDI realm. The Studio Instruments that come with CbB cover most of the bases (soft synths), so you can sketch out a lot of material fairly quickly once you get the hang of things. The other advantage to MIDI is you can replace the soft synths the MIDI is driving at will, so sketching with something that doesn't sound "perfect" can be resolved later on (even collaborating with others can be helpful for this, since you may not own a soft synth you would prefer but someone else does). Working with MIDI, the Piano Roll View (PRV) will become your best friend. Drum beat creation is simpler there, and many of the editing tools allow you to modify your work as notes, rather than as printed audio (which can be trickier, depending). For composition, MIDI tends to be quicker in some respects, then you can flesh out audio tracks as the song structure takes shape. There is no defined method to do things, so play around (and ask around) with things you specifically want to achieve. Many of the folks here have been around for years, and it is incredibly rare to not find someone who can answer a question. Sometimes it is as simple as knowing the term to search for. Another resource that came to mind that you may find useful is a tutorial set from SONAR X2. It was called SWA Complete SONAR X2 and was made freely viewable on YouTube (9 hours of stuff); and the vast majority of it is applicable. Unfortunately, the chapters have no titles, but ShellstaX (from the old forums) posted them here. The nice thing about those is that they are structured by topic, so they are in more bite-sized chunks.