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Craig Anderton

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Everything posted by Craig Anderton

  1. Or any software: Master Tracks Pro, Studio Vision, MOTU FreeStyle, Temper, Project 5, Bars and Pipes, etc. Software has a lifecycle, like everything else. Personally, I'm not worried about Cakewalk. I'm sure Meng knows that if he wanted to make money with Cakewalk by selling add-ons, VIs, etc. in a Cakewalk store, he could. The fact that he doesn't perhaps implies that making bucks from Cakewalk is not a priority. There are plenty of reasons to keep it going, and few reasons to shut it down. [No inside knowledge, just how it looks to me.]
  2. Past experience shows that the longer the time between updates, the more stuff (or the more in-depth stuff) the update includes.
  3. I think your attempted fixes rule out that there's a problem with the external drives, because you get the same problem with different drives. It seems perhaps there's more of a processing bottleneck that's causing Cakewalk to take a long time converting the project into an exportable set of files. This could be any one of a number of things. Once this happened to me and it was because there was a blank CD-R in my optical drive. Go figure. Another user I worked with had similar problems to you and when he removed ASIO4ALL they went away. I doubt these are the culprits in our case but it just goes to show that if your computer gets hung up doing something you don't want it to do, it can slow down seemingly unrelated processes. Perhaps your best bet is to get support from Obedia.com. They're who I use for intractable Windows problems, they do a remote desktop probe and they've never failed to fix a problem. It costs $30 for 30 minutes of consultation (i.e., you "subscribe" for one month) but it's never taken them more than 10 minutes to solve whatever was ailing my computer.
  4. That's a great tip, to which I'd add one more variation: I often copy the vocal, and play around with Melodyne to create one or more harmony lines. Then, I learn the harmony lines, and sing them.
  5. ...which reminds me of the famous line from the movie Spice World, where the producer (IIRC) says: "That was absolutely perfect...without actually being any good."
  6. One more thing about pitch correction. I use pitch correction (admittedly, selectively) because it adds life to my music. Say what? Here's why: I can sing with more freedom, knowing that if a part were far better than other takes but there’s one bad note, pitch correction can fix that one note. It’s not necessary to re-record or punch, and potentially lose what made that take my favorite.
  7. I don't know what kind of keyboard controller you have, but some of them can function as a control surface.
  8. What many people don't realize is that even the Essential version can do polyphonic MIDI guitar. Yes, polyphonic. You can't edit polyphonic parts, but Melodyne will parse the MIDI data, which you can then use to trigger virtual instruments. You will have to clean up the part unless you play very cleanly, but simply deleting all notes shorter than a particular duration, and all notes under a certain velocity, will get rid of most of the glitches caused by false triggering. Like Jacques Boileau, I also use Melodyne with electric bass but let me explain why. The pitch of electric bass strings varies considerably as a note decays. There's nothing you can do with your playing to fix this, because bass strings are freaks of nature - they should be a lot longer than they are to produce notes that low in pitch, given a proper amount of string tension. Melodyne can even out those variations. This is important because at those low frequencies, the beating of the out-of-tune pitch with other instruments is noticeable. I even use Melodyne to do envelope-controlled flanging on drums. Melodyne can also move timing around. It's pretty awesome, actually.
  9. Are you perhaps thinking of VCA Channels? If so, perhaps the following will help. This article describes how to achieve VCA-like functionality in Cakewalk. This video describes a similar, but alternate, approach.
  10. Mark could probably give a definitive answer, but maybe if you created a symbolic link in the folder where Cakewalk does its auto-saves, and linked to a different drive, the files would be saved there?
  11. It's worth having a hard drive with nothing but installers, authorization codes, updates, and the like. Then you don't have to spend hours downloading. Sometimes installers still need to verify your existence onnline, but it still saves a huge amount of time and frustration.
  12. I wonder if running a Firewire adapter with Thunderbolt would be the most foolproof option. Wouldn't that "divorce" the Firewire from the PCs innards? I have no idea...just thinking out loud.
  13. I not only agree, but mastering within Cakewalk offers some advantages you won't have with a conventional stereo mastering program. I wrote about assembling and mastering an album using Cakewalk in this Sound on Sound column. You'll see why I think sometimes mastering in a DAW is the preferred way to go. As to peak levels, you need to consider what's called "true peak" instead of what the meters in Cakewalk show. Sometimes, the conversion from digital to analog can create levels higher than the digital signal itself (as to why, this seems like a good time to do a self-serving plug for my latest book, The Musician's Audio Handbook). True Peak meters, such as the Waves WLM or the (free) meter from Youlean, take this into account and give what the peak reading would be after digital-to-analog conversion. Streaming services have their own preferred standards for true peak values. Typically, it's -1 dB for most material, and -2 dB if the file's LUFS reading is relatively high, like -10 LUFS. Note that just because a streaming service says it wants audio that reads -14 LUFS (or whatever) doesn't mean you need to hit that level. You can master to whatever LUFS level you want, and submit it to a streaming service. They'll simply turn it down to reach their target LUFS. Hope this helps!
  14. But to be fair, after warning everyone I would be deleting the material eventually...and to copy the material if they wanted it, before it went away Anyway, the main reason I stopped by is that if anyone bought Max Your Mix!, there will be a free update coming out soon (around the end of November 2022). It includes new material about mixing with headphones, room simulation software, data compression and file exporting, how match levels in an album or collection of songs, and added information on mid-side processing, panning laws, and mix referencing/mix analysis tools (including in-depth information on the LUFS and LRA specifications). To get the free update, just use the same download code you used to download the original copy. Also, there may be an update to the Cakewalk tips book in the works for 2023. No guarantees, but stay tuned.
  15. If I were a plug-in developer, I'd recognize that since Cakewalk is free, it frees up more money for plug-ins. I'd pitch to the Cakewalk users as much as I could!
  16. If they're modeled basses, no. But if they're sampled, and left to decay instead of immediately going into a loop, this kind of pitch correction may make a major difference. However, that assumes someone didn't apply this technique before assigning notes to keys. When I did the bass expansion packs for Rapture, I flatted the pitches with Melodyne. To this day, I still use those basses for almost all my keyboard bass parts because not having pitch inconsistencies really cleans up the low end. Even very slight mistunings can cause phantom beat notes, because the frequency is so low.
  17. Maybe check the taskbar, and see if AT has a splash screen running (or some other dialog box) hidden behind something else?
  18. I believe Cakewalk has always been seriously underrated in terms of being suitable for dance music. I've used it to make a lot of EDM-oriented soundtracks, because its ability to blend traditional-style recording with features like the Matrix view and the ability to create stretchable files. The MIDI implementation is also excellent. Granted, it doesn't bundle a lot of EDM-oriented plug-ins, but you can always buy those (and even get many of them for free).
  19. I still use Cakewalk. And I still use Studio One, Ableton Live, and Pro Tools I also do occasional forays into Cubase and DP. Right tool for the right job, and all that. I used to participate in this forum more when I'd look at the topics, and see a question that didn't have a response. If I could answer it, I would. These days, questions get answered fast and comprehensively by other people so I don't really need to add anything. It's good to see that Cakewalk continues to thrive. Props to Meng, Noel, and the rest of the team.
  20. Specific DAWs (including Cakewalk) have specialized features that other DAWs don't have. Unless you need a feature that can be found only in one DAW, Cakewalk will do pretty much anything you want it to do, and do it well. Of course, the biggest advantage is the money you would normally spend on a DAW, you can spend on plug-ins to supplement what comes with the program.
  21. What about the Proteus libraries from Digital Sound Factory? They're available in Kontakt format only, but I assume they would work with the free Kontakt player.
  22. A few point...when you import into your target DAW, check that it has the same pan law settings as what you used in Sonar or CbB.
  23. Also remember that everything has a failure mode. You can usually count on DVDs or Blu-Ray (which I prefer) for 5 years if stored properly, but they don't last forever. Flash drives and SSDs have redundancy built in because they're constantly deteriorating, and over time, they will fail. Hard drives can last for 10 or more years - if they don't fail in the first six months. Linear tape is still the preferred backup medium for most large companies, supplemented by the cloud. The to key to storage is the same as investing: a diversified portfolio If you have data on a hard drive, an SSD, the cloud, and a Blu-Ray in a bank's safe deposit box, hopefully you're covered.
  24. Very cool (as usual), Azslow3. FWIW, for S-series keyboards, I wrote How to Use Cakewalk with Komplete Kontrol. However it doesn't cover the M or A-series keyboards.
  25. And companies certainly didn't want you to! It's not like the Sony CD players had big stickers on them saying "New! Now not with 16-bit resolution!" But yes, the dynamic range of today's music is so limited that even 10 bits seems generous. That gives approximately the same noise floor as tape recorders without noise reduction, or AM radio, so at those levels, you probably won't notice distortion all that much.
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