Craig Anderton

In terms of bass VST instruments, I really like IK Multimedia's MODO bass. It uses modeling rather than sampling, so it can be quite expressive and also offers a number of bass instrument sounds (Ric, P-Bass, Hofner, etc.). It's $299, but if you have the bucks, I think it's well worth it. A cheaper, sample-based alternative is to use the TX16Wx free sampler and bass samples. The TX16Wx is full-featured, and certainly, the price is right I don't know what sample packs are available for it, other than the 3-bass pack of sampled Gibson basses I originally did for Rapture, and ported over to the TX16Wx. However. the pack costs $40, so you might want to look around and see if there are any free bass sounds for the TX16Wx. Hope this helps...

I think the way it's currently being handled is unobtrusive and convenient. But since the topic is software and interaction with the company, I'd like to throw in my 2 cents about enabling analytics. I do this on ALL my software where there's the opportunity to do so. There's always some sort of boilerplate somewhere from the company about how they use this, and in all the instances I've seen, the data is anonymous. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with content, only a program's operation. I've talked with several companies about whether this is useful or not. They all say at the very least, it's good to know what was happening before a crash. I think some get more granular, like which functions are used the most or the least, but again, I see it as an opportunity for users to help participate in making a program better.

It might also be worth mentioning that companies cease support not out of disrespect for older customers, but because support resources are limited. With a free DAW, it's unrealistic to assume a company can support multiple operating systems. With paid DAWs, if they're cross-platform, the service nightmare is exponential, which makes it even less likely they'll have the resources to support all types of customers. Windows systems continue to multiple into different permutations. You can have a rock-solid, 100% stable system but then something as seemingly trivial as a graphics card driver update can wreak havoc. I image my system drive a lot - then no matter what happens, I can at least get back to where I was. [Edit] IMHO the biggest danger in never updating is more about hardware than software. If you have a computer that's several years old and the motherboard or the CPU dies, you may not be able to find a replacement. At that point, you're basically going to have to start over from scratch with new hardware and new software. We've de-evolved from component-level repairs, to board-level swaps, to system replacements.

There's a pretty simple solution that at least worked for me. 1. Keep your data (projects and customizations) off of your system drive, which you should be doing anyway. 2. Image your hard drive that contains a Windows 7 OS, program files, and Sonar (or CbB or whatever). Then clone the image so you have two copies. 3. Wipe your hard drive and install Windows 10 OS, your plug-ins, and the latest version of CbB. 4. Try it for 30 days. You will have little, if any, trouble loading your projects into CbB+Windows 10, editing and saving them, and loading them into Sonar+Windows 7 later if needed (assuming you're not doing anything that would be incompatible with Windows 7). 5. If you like it, keep doing what you're doing. If you don't, restore the Windows 7 image. At least, that's what I did, after waiting about 2 years to move from 7 to 10. I still have the Windows 7 image sitting around somewhere...I ended up finding Windows 10 better in several ways. As to the constant security updates, unfortunately the people planning attacks are becoming ever more numerous and more persistent. OS companies have to keep on top of things, on a virtually daily basis. This is true of the Mac as well. The only truly safe approach I know is either never to go online after you know for sure your system hasn't been compromised, or not clicking on anything that touches the world outside of your computer (but I'm pretty sure that applies to any OS).

Hopefully that's because they find Cakewalk easy to figure out, so they're making cool music instead of looking at YouTube

I recommend at seminars that no matter what Windows DAW someone uses, they really owe it to themselves to download Cakewalk. There are several unique functions that other DAWs don't have. I think many people have moved on from the "one DAW must rule them all" mindset, and use more than one DAW. It's easy enough export/import tracks, or even drag and drop, to use multiple programs for what they do best. There's no reason why you can't track or edit in one program, and mix in another. It would be one thing for me to recommend Cakewalk if I expected people to shell out another $300 - $500 in addition to whatever other program they're using, but jeez, it's free. The guitarist/engineer for 60s folk-rock icon Melanie used to live in the neighborhood, and he used Sonar Platinum for all her projects. He was one of those people who was leery of Windows 10 and switching from Sonar to BandLab, but I talked him into it Turned out he wished he had done it sooner.

When I worked with Gibson, I had access to MI Sales Trak, which showed what software was selling at retail. It didn't give total/cumulative numbers, but monthly sales figures. It would have been a major faux pas to reveal any of that data, but suffice it to say there was a period of time where Cakewalk was doing quite well. These days, the data is not as relevant since so much software is sold online. As to Sound on Sound, they stopped running my column because they had done a reader survey, which showed Cakewalk users were a small percentage of their readership. Magazine space is a finite resource, so Cakewalk was dropped. Another magazine said they were interested in my doing Cakewalk-related articles, and I proposed doing either text, videos, or some combination thereof - whatever worked for them. They said in early March they'd get back to me ASAP, but I never heard back. I also checked whether BandLab would be interested in selling my over 400-page eBook of Cakewalk tips, but there wasn't any interest there, either. So I've given up on trying to spread the word through other outlets. When I have something Cakewalk-related that's worth posting, I put it on craiganderton.org. There are currently four Cakewalk-specific articles, but also, several more general articles based on Cakewalk (e.g., about ripple editing, loops, etc.). Unfortunately, the Cakewalk-specific articles are close to the bottom of the most-read list, which doesn't give me a lot of incentive to write more, especially because I can't monetize the time put into them (the site is free). The irony, of course, is that Cakewalk is better than it's ever been. If it ever deserved attention, it would be now.

Unless I misunderstand what you want, you can just jump to a marker that designates the point you want, and hit stop.

I use the IK CSR Hall, which has more parameters than the Breverb. So, you can't really do a 1:1 parameter match. To create the preset, I started with the same reverb time as my desired Breverb setting. Editing the usual suspects - crossover, damping, low frequency multiplier, etc. - got it super-close. Then I did a few more tweaks for diffusion etc. There are some elements that really don't correlate, like it seemed like a needed 35 ms Pre Delay on the IK to get the same kind of early reflections as 10 ms for the Breverb. But after a bit of tweaking, the differences were so minor I saved the IK preset as "Breverb Hall Emulation."

That's what I've experienced. However, I could always re-install it with the original code that was given. I "cloned" my favorite Breverb settings in IK's Classic reverb plug-ins in case I couldn't use Breverb any more, but that hasn't happened yet. I was just going to bite the bullet and buy Breverb (hey, it's a great product!). But then I figured out how to make my own impulse responses for convolution reverbs, and that's become my new go-to.

Sorry, I missed seeing the link for the image. Too many windows open at once... Do you think simply doing an uninstall via the control panel's Apps & Features might be enough? Then the VST folder thig wouldn't be an issue.

Hit the down arrow next to the update button, choose Install Add-Ons, then check Melodyne. That should do it.

I know a lot of people who signed up for the free updates felt burned when Gibson closed Cakewalk's doors. However, I think the fact that so many people were willing to pay for, and support, Sonar may have been one reasons why BandLab saw something that deserved to continue. And we're getting free updates anyway

I remember during the Gibson days when many people complained about the monthly updates, because they felt there wasn't enough time to learn new stuff before there was more new stuff.

My understanding (Noel would know more) is that metering is fairly CPU-intensive. So that may be the source of your issues.

Try mid/side processing, see my post in your question about 90 degrees out of phase.

Well, I'm a guy on a forum AND a professional mixer, as well a mastering engineer who's mastered hundreds of tracks, one of which won an award, and one of which was nominated for the Hollywood Music in Media awards. So I've around the block a few times I've done a lot of research on stereo placement. My favorite tool for doing so is using an M/S encoder, putting the sides in mono in one track, the center in mono in one track, and comparing with exclusive solo. This makes it easy to tell who's doing LCR panning (which has more than one meaning , it also relates to live sound). Doing this also reveals two major philosophical differences in mixing. For example in Madonna's "Ray of Light," the main guitar and synth are panned hard left and right. The sound seems like it explodes out of the speakers, and leaves lots of room for the center voice/kick. It sounds nothing like a live performance (of course, not that there's anything wrong with that). LCR is also good for giving a "vintage" vibe because with limited tracks and ancient mixing consoles, your only choices were left, right, and center. Another advantage of LCR is it translates well over different systems, because you're not dependent on nuanced stereo. When you listen to someone like Peter Gabriel, the sides are used more as a frame around the center to provide ambience. This sounds more live, and flatters the voice because it's the center of attention - it's not competing with the sides. If you hear the way Gabriel and Madonna handle the voice, there's no doubt who wants to put the center of attention on the vocal more than the production. I feel both artists made the correct artistic decisions. Or at least, that's the way I would have mixed them. My personal reference for mixing is live music, for two reasons. First, when someone listens to my music, I want them to feel they're watching a performance. Although I'll place sounds toward the left or toward the right (sometimes quite a bit toward the extremes), I never pan hard left and right because that's not the way live music sounds. Second, if I ever play the music live, I want to be able to reproduce it so it sounds at least somewhat like the album. As to stereo wideners, I totally disagree it's a band-aid if it's based on mid/side processing, not phase differences, which seems to be what the guy in the video is referring to. No one considers mid/side miking (which uses the same principle as quality wideners) a band-aid or amateur technique, in fact, it's considered rather advanced because of the options it gives on mixdown. Of course, you don't want to "widen" things to 200% of the width, but just a little bit can open up some space in the center that would be difficult to do otherwise. However, I prefer a more DIY approach, where I encode the signal into mids and sides, process those components separately, then decode them. For example, I just re-mastered an album by Martha Davis for vinyl. By separating it into mid and side components, I could make sure the bass was 100% centered, as well as keep extraneous bass out of the sides. By increasing the highs a bit on the sides, because highs are more directional, the apparent stereo width was greater. When done this way, it also collapses perfectly into mono, which I also consider important. I could go on but that's enough for now. Feel free to check out my latest album project (link below), which is selective in the approach to panning, and combines the two techniques. Some parts within a song are more centered; in some songs various instruments are panned much more to the sides. I feel the variety makes the album more enjoyable than if everything was panned hard left/right, or treated strictly as framing for the center. In other words, pan, don't pan, widen, narrow, whatever will best serve the song - which will tell you what it wants if you listen hard enough. And whatever the song tells you will be more appropriate than anything you read on a forum, or hear from a guy who knows how to post a video. Good luck with your projects!! https://youtu.be/ONQkKQcuego

Yes, exactly.

Sort of, but then you need to create an FX Chain, and involves a couple extra steps for editing, because you need to open up effects from within the chain instead of just clicking on the effect in the rack. I was thinking of something that literally just sent PC audio directly to the effects rack input, then brought audio from the effects rack output back into the PC.

I think a cool addition would be a PC module that simply sent to, and received from, the effects bin, so you could place the effects bin anywhere you wanted in the PC chain...sort of like the external effect plug-in, but within Cakewalk. Here's why. I've often been asked when you "should" use one or the other. My answer has always been that the PC is conceptually equivalent to being part of a mixer, in that the visuals are consolidated in one place. The effects bin is equivalent to outboard gear, where interface windows open up individually. Generally I think the concept works well, but it breaks down with things like Tape Emulators, which you likely want to have at the end of a chain, so that implies putting the PC after the effects bin - but you may not want dynamics and EQ there. If an "effects bin insert" existed, I'm sure there would be plenty of times I'd put it somewhere in the middle of the PC.

HEY!!!! How come I have the $99/year plan, and only get 1 TB of storage?!?

FWIW, all companies are loathe to give out any kind of sales or user figures. I know this because even if I plan to write a book about a specific product, and need to know how many people have it so I can decide if there's enough of a market to make writing a book worthwhile, it's like pulling teeth to get any kind of sales data, if I can get it at all. The problem is that if the numbers are low, they don't want to be embarrassed. If the numbers are high, they don't want some other company saying "Hey!! Maybe we should be doing that!!" Companies often like to be under the radar when something's successful. And they don't want anyone to know if it's not.

You even see that in instructional videos - "Use these five super-duper pro compressor settings for voice!" Which of course, have very little to do with YOUR voice. I can see someone using Pro Tools if their main gig is transferring audio/video files among multiple studios, but just about any other program is better as a songwriting or compositional tool. So people who follow the herd likely won't end up with what they really need. I think Cakewalk's biggest strength is that it does a lot of things well, so you can go deep if you want, or just hang out on the surface. The definition of "professional" means "relating to or connected with a profession." If any people use Cakewalk to make money on any level, then it's professional software. Case closed.

Also remember that control surfaces generally don't sell all that well. Note that PreSonus went out of their way to make the ATOM controllers do out-of-the-box integration with Ableton Live, whose users are probably more oriented toward that type of controller. Maybe PreSonus would have made a beats-oriented controller that worked ONLY with Studio One, but it makes a lot more sense to have a controller that works with a program where most users are accustomed to using a controller. With Cakewalk, another obstacle might be the response to the VS-700, which wasn't very successful. I think the best shot for Cakewalk is when MIDI 2.0 becomes common. Then there could be a Cakewalk Profile for controllers, so any 2.0 controller could query it and adapt itself accordingly - an advantage of MIDI 2.0 having bi-directional communication among devices.

Old reputations, deserved or not, die hard in this industry. People talk about Studio One being "the new kid on the block," but it's 10 years old. Some folks might think of Cakewalk as the company that made MIDI sequencers and then added audio. The "professional DAW" thing probably stems partly from guilt-by-association with Windows, which had a reputation (undeserved) of being inferior to the Mac. Also, Pro Tools got a head start in big studios because of the prevalence of the Mac, and Digidesign being the first company to really take digital tapeless recording seriously. But also, as a rule, cross-platform programs are prioritized for support, because that doubles your potential market. I suspect Cakewalk will continue to pick up users, to the point where people learning it won't even know that a program called "Sonar" existed