mettelus

1 hour ago, treesha said:

Hi Charles, not a dumb question because the folder can get large. On windows, mine is  - c/users/(name)/documents/celemony/separations. I hadn't emptied it in a while and its 1.17 gb!

Yeah, you want to check the Separations folder. Unless you changed the settings inside Melodyne, that folder defaults to 10GB.

Ouch, that makes things a bit trickier depending on how complex the project is. Corruption is certainly not heard of. Reconstruction can be a royal pain to drag/drop tracks between projects but is an option. Other options like bouncing entire tracks to a single clip or even exporting the project as stems can reduce clip "count," but will in turn make them HUGE (even silence has "size" in that case) as well as other potential issues.

If you start trying things like that be sure to save the cwp with a new name so you always have the original to fall back on. Hidden tracks seems the most likely, but if that is already a dead end for you, I am at a loss on what is most efficient to address your situation.

Ah, the waveform I euphemistically call "the worm." I have cautioned a lot of newer folks about creating a "visual caterpillar" with their work... in doing so they have already removed a prime ingredient from the song.

4 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

I wish there were some feature to display only the files that are actually used in the project, and not least making the names of those clips popping back up in the timeline as markers.

A common cleanup trick may be simpler for you to try. If you open a cwp and do a "Save As..." then save to a brand new folder and check "Copy all audio with project" the new Project/Audio folder created will contain only the audio in use by that particular cwp. Bear in mind if you have multiple cwps in a given folder, this would need to be done for each one to preserve all audio used by all cwps, but if you are working on a final mix version, this will create a new folder with only the audio being used by that version. It can be easy to create massive audio folders from bounces and this trick can lighten the data load on your disc (if you are being limited by space and need to clean up the original project folder). In your case, that new Project/Audio folder is only the files in use by the cwp in question.

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Painter is, at least on my system a "save early and often" affair as regards stability. It crashes, and when it does it just vanishes, straight to the desktop.

One thing to check/change with both of these programs is the number of Undo levels they are allowed. For both programs (actually ANY media program, even DAWs) the number of Undo levels can cause incredible RAM consumption for no good reason. Disabling/closing "Navigators" or shifting to a slimmer workspace will also prevent thumbnails being created and loaded into the apps.

Specific to Paint Shop Pro 2023, File->Preferences->General Program Preferences... the "Undo" at the top is where to check, and I set undo levels to 10 for pretty much all apps. The rest of that pop up is good to check just to see how things are tweaked. Another (rather major) issue with PSP 2023 is if you upgraded from a previous version, there are issues with sluggish behavior (especially while painting) caused by carrying preferences forward from 2022. This thread solved that one for me, but was a royal pain till I realized what it was.

In Painter, Edit->Preferences->Performance... is where to focus (in addition to the workspace). I give the app use of all but 2 threads (Core 0 is always Windows' workhorse anyway), 80% of RAM, and limit Undo to 10 again. The scratch drive is to an SSD, and the "Brush Accelerator" app is nice to see how the system performs from tweaks made on that page (and a GPU contributes a massive amount of performance to the app). I forget if I disabled auto-updates, but Painter had a patch recently and both programs have a Help->Check for Updates... feature.

All that said, the real irony from BF was Rebelle 7 Pro getting pre-released for $30 to anyone. It is still $30 off ($119), but that being $30 was an outright steal. It has already had 7 updates in 6 weeks, and the only feature in lacks over Painter is the cloning features for things I typically do. Some of the new features in Rebelle 7 Pro make Painter pale by comparison (plus the graphics engine is much smoother, even with the "nanopixel" setting enabled).

I am not familiar with your first question regarding renaming clips/markers, but hopefully someone can chime in to address that. As far as active clips in the project, there is an old utility for SONAR called "Project Scope" that may be useful. I am not sure if it still functions properly in CbB, but it gives you insight into cwp files without needing to open them (including wav files), so has the advantage of only looking at a specific cwp rather than the entire Audio subfolder.

Wow, first it gets extended, and now it is back. It is a buck and change more than it was for BF, but still a good deal. Actually, they removed PSP from the 7 item bundle, so there is no reason not to get the full set now... you now get Painter and PSP for that extra $1.79 (was only for Painter previously).

IIRC, the last patch was X1d, but that had to be installed on top of X1Expanded (or the X1c patch) as it says in the description you linked. I think the "Expanded" was a paid-for add on for PC stuff, but forget exactly now. From what I remember X1 was a pain to reinstall, I have the original files, X1c patch, X1Expanded patch, and X1d patch and I installed them in that order.

^^^^ Check your the above first, then you should be able to "MIDI Learn" the parameter(s) you want to adjust with the foot controller.

Hmmm... scroll halfway down the page and this section stands out:

"Dolby Atmos Support*

ORIA integrates with the Dolby Renderer, letting you take control of the down mix functionality directly from ORIA’s user interface. Ideal for quickly checking your mix in different monitoring layouts, such as 7.1, 5.1, stereo and more.

*Pending Certification"

Fact of the matter is you can mix on any surround system with a DAW that can see it. For $2700 you can buy a a pretty wicked surround system.

2 hours ago, Misha said:

So likely I hit Echo on one of the Kontakt tracks that I don't want to touch by accident, right? 

Correct, when working with VSTis, the input echo should follow the active track unless you have manually echoed other tracks (just be mindful of doing this). This allows you to work and keep VSTis in "omni" mode and your controller set on channel 1 for "most" situations. It makes things simpler from a routing perspective, but keep track of where input echos are (they should follow the active track for overdubbing work).

However, when you work with VSTis that have pass-through, or even generate their own MIDI outputs, is when to be more diligent with channel assignments and routing. Be cognizant of this one, since you could be passing MIDI to a VSTi from the controller which is then sharing an "output" to everything else reading that MIDI channel.

34 minutes ago, Misha said:

I have several plugins that use same MIDI in channel for physical MIDI controller.  Is it possible to shift  the focus from one plugin to another, without rechanneling to other  MIDI channels or setting all others to "none"? 

Can you clarify this further? Does "plugin" mean VSTi (virtual instrument) here? If so, it is common practice to only input echo the active track (for recording), so other tracks would only be playing data already present on those tracks in an overdub scenario. IIRC, "input echo current track" is set to on by default, so that should automatically shift for you with whichever track you put into focus while working. Just to clarify, "none" and "omni" used to be interchangeable (not sure if this was ever changed), so input echo may be what you are seeking.

However, if by "plugin" you mean inserted FX, they will actively listen to the channel they are assigned to, so that becomes more complex and may require attention to channel assignments.

9 hours ago, TheSteven said:

But I must admit that while I always checkout and collect their offerings I don't use it (at least not yet)

I am in the same boat with this. With FX pre-baked into the samples (all 36GB of them) and a rudimentary GUI, the limitations outweigh the usefulness for me. I forget now which newer instrument I had caught a review of, but the GUI being used replicated LABS enough that I passed on watching the rest of it. LABS was definitely good exposure to Spitfire as a whole though, so I did pick up a few other things along the way.

Is this happening frequently enough that you can see if there is a process is spiking the CPU before the fans kick on? It is quite possible that the fans are functioning "as expected" but there may be a background app triggering the fans that may not be properly scripted to throttle itself based on CPU temp. Task Manager may be helpful if this occurs frequently enough. On the Processes tab if you sort descending by CPU, something may obviously bubble to the top of that list before the fans kick on. You can also leave it running behind the left edge of another app and squish down the "Name" column and move the CPU column next to it so you can leave it running but still monitor it while you are doing other things.

There are also a few "phone home" processes that try to do their business as quickly and stealthily as possible, so putting the machine into "airplane mode" would be another option to check. Most of them will not trigger at all without a live internet connection.

3 hours ago, Simple Verse said:

Am I correct assuming this trick is rather modern thing? I don't think they used this back in the 90's in euro dance? Or what you think? Any sample tracks where this might have been applied during that era?

If by "rather modern thing" you mean "fad," then pretty much; no different than gated drums or even the loudness wars. As far as the mechanics behind it, there is nothing new about it. That video keeps popping up off and on, but it is definitely not a "required" feature to be used. I am definitely not a "swimming in reverb" proponent, but someone had asked how to set that up in CbB specifically several months ago.

2 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

You know what really baffles me the most? Those assholes who complain that you aren't being helpful when you link them to the exact page in the documentation or to a clear, concise video that completely explains their exact question. 

LOL, this one got me a while back with someone doing a tempo map in Melodyne. I had even bookmarked the start time in the YT link and it was only 40s long to watch! After that thread ran for a another page, I finally broke down and asked if they even watched it, it is only 40s long??? Good grief. Some people seem too focused on the attention from having a "problem" than really wanting a solution/work around. Usually I just back out of those without saying a word, but that one actually triggered me.

Do you happen to have any Corsair fan controls installed? The only time I have seen this occur is from their drivers (and on a desktop), but the situation was rather unique. They actually drilled into the UEFI and adjusted clock settings, so had created a cycle of massive CPU heat generation due to extreme O/C inserts followed by "jet engine" cooling cycles. I had to go into services to manually disable that (was Corsair LINK 4 on this machine), then into UEFI to re-clock the machine.

Barring that very specific, oddball situation, be sure to always run a laptop on a hard surface with the vent ports totally free from obstruction. Fans kicking in like that are triggered by a temperature threshold, so a utility to monitor all temps is warranted until you can find out what the fan is triggering on and what is causing the heat. Moo0 System Monitor is a lightly-weight utility that may help; the "portable" version is specifically handy because you do not need to install anything and can carry it around with you on a thumb drive to use when needed.

I am with @57Gregy on this one. An interface conflict like in the OP is very common when it is in use by another program (even Windows). It seems from the OP that you have both applications open, and since Guitar Rig does have recording capability (for the looper), I am assuming you opened Guitar Rig first and it locked your Scarlett on you. Guitar Rig should only be used as a VST internal to SONAR in this case.

Windows is also the gatekeeper, so another thing to verify is that both "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" and "Give exclusive mode applications priority" are unchecked in the Properties->Advanced tab for the Scarlett in the Windows Sound Control Panel. Even silly things like browsing YouTube or such can cause Windows to give control of your interface to the browser with those options checked. Windows is very much "first come, first served" so I even go so far as to explicitly assign the RealTek chip as the default sound device in Windows so that most apps won't even see the interface unless you assign it within the app itself. The first app that sees that interface and uses it can lock it on you.

There have been various iterations of pop ups/warnings over the years to varying degrees of effectiveness for missing components, but this situation warrants a pop up when the transport is started. A pop up with "You currently have no output device selected. Would you like to select one now?" and a button that either drills them directly into the preferences page or a routing blurb would help new folks a lot. A routing map of the current project would be true icing on the cake, but this particular one is a (not-so-obvious) showstopper. Even something as simple as highlighting the drop down in the Master to RED when "none" is selected would make people take notice (they could be monitoring a buss instead, but it would make the situation more obvious just in case).

+1 to the above. Another thing to be cognizant of is that many "solutions" are static in two regards... 1) they assume collapse to mono, and 2) they often apply a solution that will not change during the duration of a song unless you actively intercept that. While neither is inherently "bad," they tend to ignore two other important elements, panning and faders. Another thing to keep in mind is to focus on elements in the same way that you want the listener to track them (even with simple faders/automation) to give space/focus when introduced then move them more into the background if they are repetitive. Even with frequency collisions, the louder will take precedence at that point in time, so EQ may not always be the right choice for the situation.

While many "unmasking" tools can be super helpful, just beware of things that give you a static solution irrespective of the dynamics of the song itself, verse, chorus, yada yada, across an entire track.

Did you add the other "recommended" things by accident? On checkout all you need is an email, name, and zip code to claim it, it is free. You are required to create an account with them after that or it will not activate.

I was pleasantly surprised that it automatically finds installed apps and embeds itself as a plugin. It even found Photoshop from CS5.5 (failed to install automatically, but it added manually just fine). It is rather rare to find apps that support the "pre-CC" Adobe products.

3 hours ago, pbognar said:

What is O9A?

iZotope Ozone 9 Advanced. The stem separation is also available in the Standard version.

On 1/25/2024 at 11:23 AM, ST1 said:

When I play the problematic songs in Cakewalk, the meters that would indicate playback is happening don’t show any activity either. It’s like the song has actually become silent across all tracks. It is bizarre.

As rsinger noted, this isn't a device issue, this is indicative of a routing issue. You may have opened a project without the initial Master output connected so it may have defaulted to "none" on you at that point. If you saved it after that point, the routing will continue to have no Master out until you assign it manually to something that Cakewalk can see (via Windows). It is always good practice to have devices connected and online before launching the app that needs them.

1 hour ago, craigb said:

Just remember!

Exactly! Some bean products even come with warnings for good reason!