Craig Anderton

There are several free VST tuners, like this one.

If you're talking about using panning to increase width, you can do it with Channel Tools. Basically you want to take advantage of its mid/side talents. Here are a couple of articles about this I wrote for Sound on Sound: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/sonar-stereo-tools https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mid-sides-eqing-sonar this one is mostly about mid/side EQ, but includes Channel Tools info.

The biggest problem I've had with MCU and Sonar is after switching to control buses, it's difficult to get back to controlling tracks. This happened with the SSL Nucleus and other MCU-compatible devices, including the FP8. I could just be doing something wrong... In my studio, the FP8 replaced two Avid Artist Series controllers. Although the FP8 doesn't do 16 channels, I love the compact size - the small footprint is a big deal for me. It sits to the right of my keyboard/mouse, and Maschine Mk3 sits to the left.

BandLab says they'll keep the old forum going as a resource, which is a smart move. I think scook is relatively young, so hopefully we'll have him around for a while. He's kind of a living legend anyway.

Well talk about off-topic!! Coffee house, here we come... Actually I was first published in 1966, so yeah, I've been at this awhile . IIRC the first Guitar Player column was in 1975. And I've been writing about Sonar/CbB for almost two decades - time flies when you're having fun. One of the great things about writing articles on CbB is the program is so deep I never run out of topics. After all, in almost 20 years, I still haven't written about the Matter Transmuter plug-in. Noel's probably upset that I haven't covered the Dynamite Blurch Injector either...I'll get to both of them one of these days.

Actually the FaderPort 8 supports both MCU and HUI. You can open the FaderPort 8 in a dedicated Sonar mode by holding down a "Sonar" button during power-up. I've been using it with both CbB and Studio One; although the integration with Studio One is tighter, it does what other MCUs do with Sonar. Whether compatibility will be further developed for integration with specific CbB functions is anyone's guess. However with CbB now free and with no official BandLab hardware controller, it seems to me there's an opportunity for PreSonus to "own" the Sonar controller space if they want to, and more importantly, if they have the resources. Hardware controllers remain a relatively small market. The FaderPort 8 manual has an entire section devoted to using it with Sonar. There's also an undocumented function...don't recall what it is offhand, I'll have to look at my notes. I was going to write a Sound on Sound column about using the FaderPort 8/16 with Sonar, but the manual covered everything so it didn't seem necessary. Officially, the FaderPort 8 MCU mode supports Logic, Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, and Ableton Live; the HUI mode supports Pro Tools.

I still have it AND a TX802. Both remain two of the best synthesizers ever for MIDI guitar. I do miss some of the Ensoniq synths, too. My EPS and ASR-10 were stolen...at least I still have the EPS-M rack unit.

The functionality of Take Lanes is very similar to Layers, but how you get to that functionality differs. Because of this, people tried to use Take Lanes the way they used Layers, and when that didn't work, they assumed Take Lanes were buggy. This isn't to say there couldn't be bugs, but a lot of those were due to unfamiliarity with a different workflow. For example, if you do manual editing with the Edit tool instead of using the comping-specific tools, Take Lanes work a lot more like Layers. I put a lot of effort into sorting this all out, and wrote up the results for my Sound on Sound magazine column. Although it's about X3, the information still applies to CbB. I think you'll find the column very useful in making Take Lanes act like Layers (especially the section on editing), as well as understand some of the benefits of Take Lanes.

It's great to see the tradition of a Cakewalk forum continuing in a brand new, shiny format Despite all the hype about social media, when it comes to asking questions, getting answers, and starting discussions, forums are the way to go. I learned so much from the original forum, and suspect the learning process will continue here. It's great to see the "regulars" moving in, but hopefully we'll see an influx of new people as well. Great job, Meng!!

Program changes are another possibility, but I’ve yet to find a VST3 amp sim that recognizes MIDI Program Changes. But program changes are less relevant in the studio anyway: send your guitar to multiple tracks or buses, each with an instance of an amp sim set for a particular sound, and use automation to mute tracks or buses you don’t want to hear. This works for recording or mixing. It might not be as much fun as stomping on a switch, but it works.

Bob contributes all kinds of useful info and insights in my forum over at Harmony Central, he'll be a great addition to the shiny new Cakewalk forum.

You can choose what to load, so if your instrument sound hasn't changed, don't reload it. I wrote an article about Mix Recall for Sound on Sound magazine that explores some of the creative possibilities. For example it's great for saving different versions of songs, including ones with vocals up 1 dB, down 1 dB, etc. One of the most outstanding aspects for me is being able to that you can recall certain mix elements from particular scenes - for example if the mix on the bass and drums was perfect in one scene, you can recall just that part into a later scene that got the other tracks right, but lost the recipe on the bass and drums. Just remember that Mix Recall is indeed that, not Arrangement Recall. If you've made changes to the arrangement itself, like added or deleted clips, Mix Recall will affect only the mix-related parameters that relate to the arrangement.

I can't tell you for sure how I got rid of it (long time ago!), but IIRC you can go into the AUD.INI file and delete the references to the Generic ASIO driver, and that will do the job. If it doesn't, let me know and I'll pursue further.