Craig Anderton

1 hour ago, John Vere said:

This has turned into a Gear Space thread.  

Sorry, but it doesn't exceed that threshold until actual name-calling and fistfights break out.

...and let's not forget rubber pinch roller and belt deterioration, azimuth alignment, head lapping, demagnetization, flaking oxide over time, having to redo bias and EQ adjustment every time you changed to a different reel of tape, and those hellishly expensive alignment tapes. And of course, replacing the capstan motor when you took variable speed down too far...not that I ever did that at Record Plant...it wasn't me. Really.

Free is always nice. But I suspect the new Sonar will be well worth what Cakewalk charges for it.

Just remember...with 2" tape, it cost $200 to record 30 minutes of 24-track music at 15 ips. We're getting off easy

5 hours ago, John said:

Just deleted a few more spams. 

I hate to see spam deleted. I come to the Cakewalk forums specifically to learn about granite countertop epoxy, custom kitchen cabinets, and how to improve my SEO with "verified user" review farms in Bengladesh. How can we possibly expect to get the most out of Cakewalk without this vitally important information?

I don't think it's designed to be universal, but to enable taking advantage of a DAW's feature that may not be available in your main DAW.

For example, it wouldn't surprise me if people did tracking and proprietary forms of editing (e.g., audio chord tracks, algorithmic composition tools) in one DAW, then moved it over to Cakewalk to mix due to its fluid mixing environment. Or, created a project in Cakewalk, then moved it over to Bitwig to do the inter-track modulation tricks that make Bitwig seem more like a modular synth. Or, transferred a Cakewalk project temporarily to Digital Performer to do notation, then back to Cakewalk to do everything else.

You can pretty much do all those things now with import/export, but it would be faster to just open up the project in another DAW, do what you want to do, and then go back to where you started (or finish off in the other DAW, e.g., likein the example of moving to Cakewalk and mixing).  At least I think that's how it would work in theory

3 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

In my opinion the new owners should honor that commitment.

They didn't make the commitment. They bought intellectual property, not a business model.

The concept of having a free trial so you can check out a program, and then paying for it if you like it, is not exactly new. The only difference here is that the free trial lasted a really long time

18 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

I personally could care less how they choose to authorize it. I use to be a die hard Off Liner but as Noel just pointed out that's pointless. If you don't like a companies anti piracy policy shop elsewhere, and good luck.  

Probably in the minority here, but I find programs like Native Access, Waves Central, and IK's Authorization Manager an improvement over physical media and weird key codes. They keep track of my authorizations, let me know about updates, and Waves Central has useful utilities for cleaning up or repairing installs. I also appreciate that the way these manager programs are set up, getting everything back up after a hard drive crash or upgrading to a new computer is simple. Some of the download sizes are brutal, but with something like Komplete, that's better than looking for various CDs, DVDs, and authorization codes accumulated over the years. 

The technology giveth, and the technology taketh away

1 hour ago, Lord Tim said:

Actually this is a very important point that we tend to gloss over a bit in the forum because our advice is usually Cakewalk specific - other programs may not give you the options that Cakewalk does when it comes to drivers

Indeed, and it's shame because WASAPI is closing in on the Mac's Core Audio drivers for performance and low latency. Cakewalk has always been at the front of the pack for supporting Windows improvements (not just WASAPI, but things like the pen). And credit where credit is due, Mixcraft was also quick to support WASAPI. Cross-platform programs don't seem as interested. Sometimes I think their official attitude is "We support the Mac. Oh yeah, right...glad you asked...Windows, too."

I understand from an anonymous Microsoft source that they fully expect to meet or exceed the Mac's Core Audio specs in the future, but we're not there yet.

What Lord Tim says is correct. An audio interface (like a Focusrite 2i2 or whatever) with ASIO drivers designed for that interface will improve the overall performance dramatically. He's also right about WASAPI and RealTek. However, if you use multiple programs, not all of them support WASAPI properly. So, following is a fallback approach,

I assume you want to use the FL Studio driver because it doesn't shut down other audio on your computer, like ASIO4ALL does. So, uninstall ASIO4ALL completely. But FL Studio's driver was designed specifically for FL Studio. In theory, for other programs the performance isn't as good as ASIO4ALL in terms of latency and CPU load. If you have to use one or the other, ASIO4ALL may give you better performance with Cakewalk.

But, that's a big if. Although some people have had success with ASIO4ALL, I know others who had a real interface with drivers for it, but had problems if ASIO4ALL was even just installed on their system. It's a kludge and while it's clever, it's still trying to fool your program into thinking Windows' native drivers are something other than what they are. With FL Studio, note that when you install or update, you have the option to check or uncheck the FL Studio driver. So here's the summary:

• Your best option is to get a quality audio interface with drivers designed for it.
• If you don't want to buy an interface, want to run multiple audio programs, and the Windows native drivers don't do the job for you, use the FL Studio driver. However, this will likely give worse performance with Cakewalk than ASIO4ALL.
• Use ASIO4ALL with Cakewalk and uninstall the FL Studio driver if you're willing not to use several programs at the same time, want better Cakewalk performance than with the FL Studio driver, and ASIO4ALL works in your system.

Hope this helps...

On 9/8/2023 at 9:52 AM, Milton Sica said:

Good thing we're not talking about cars. I don't know one person in the whole world who would buy an automobile knowing it has a known amount of defects/bugs.

Tesla owners, for starters.

Anyone who is not aware that cars are recalled periodically, and fairly often, to fix issues is not an inhabitant of this planet who drives a car.

21 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

The bigger question to ask is why anyone who cared about their music in any capacity would not want to pay a reasonable fee to support the development of a product they use.

Noel, my bigger question is why people don't understand that you can't go into a supermarket and say "I should get my groceries for free because some guy on an internet forum says I should work for free."

Call me crazy, but making more resources available for the new Sonar can only result in it continuing to improve. In any event, whatever it ends up costing, it beats spending $245 for a reel of 2" tape on which you can record 22 minutes of music at 30 ips.

1 hour ago, Conteloto said:

Big error from bandlab, CbB is a great free software, but there are several app out there that can do the same work and they will be free. Half a hour and you have them to start working.

If you're thinking of the free, "lite" versions of software, no. They can't do the same work.

2 hours ago, JohnnyV said:

Good work Bandlab and Cakewalk team. You deserve a pat on the back. 

I agree 100%. It's a true success story in a world where bean counters usually strip what they can from an acquisition, then throw it in the trash. Hopefully other companies will learn something from BandLab's example.

You mentioned Studio One...for what it's worth, the Studio One contingent at PreSonus was pretty freaked out when it appeared Cakewalk was headed to extinction. They appreciated that Sonar was its own thing, distinct from Studio One, and respected the effort and programming that went into the software. And they also really sympathized with the user base, because they're musicians and could only imagine what it would be like to have the rug pulled out from under you (hence the serious discount for Cakewalk users who were looking for an alternative at the time).

The music industry is very different from a lot of other industries, where something like MIDI - a global cooperative effort among fierce competitors - could never happen. I think there's more "competition" among the users of the DAWs than the manufacturers, who are more likely than not to be hanging out at NAMM after hours. I'd be willing to bet that most companies wish Sonar well - as long as it's not well enough to put them out of business 

6 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

So you're saying we need to putrefy Sonar to make it greener. Noted   ?

I think what Ms. Bombeck meant was that those who think the grass is greener on the other side might not want to dig too deep, because they might not like what they find 

CbB works well for me. My only complaint is that the beta version of the anti-gravity module you shared a few years ago was never developed further. But, unleashing that kind of power could have unintended consequences. You probably did the right thing.

Most X.0 programs have an X.0.1 release shortly thereafter. Cakewalk has a history of introducing hotfixes when needed. I can personally vouch for that - several years ago I alerted Noel to a problem no one else caught, and there was a public hotfix in a week. 

So...yes, you have 6 months to decide if you want to go to the new Sonar, but that also means you have 6 months where you can chill and check out a somewhat later version with bug fixes. You don't have to use the very first release, you can wait for one or two "point" updates if they're needed, and see how things unfold. 

I look forward to seeing what the Bakers come up with. I'm encouraged that it's not being rushed to market.

I use a lot of different DAWs. They all have bugs. Windows has bugs. MacOS has bugs. More complex programs have more bugs than simpler programs. 

Books have typos. Movies have continuity problems. Doctors misdiagnose. NASA lost the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 because of a miscalculation translating between metric and imperial units of measurement. And I wouldn't get into a self-driving Tesla, if you know what I mean. 

Although a lot of people claim to have come up with the phrase "the grass is always greener where you water it," the phrase originated with Robert Fulghum:

“The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.”

I don't have problems with DAWs because I live within their limitations, which all DAWs have. There will never be a perfect DAW, so the goal is to work with the one that best fits your needs.

But also remember the words of Erma Bombeck: "The grass is always greener over the septic tank."

42 minutes ago, JohnnyV said:

This forum has almost been totally replaced with Facebook now. 1,000's of new users ask questions there instead of here. There are at least 5 different Sonar/Cakewalk Facebook pages that are at least as active or even more than the main forums here. For a few years I became active on a some of them and answered 100's of questions there.  I would also post my Tutorial s as I released them as You Tube has that as part of the publication process.  I probably gained 80% of my subscribers from there.  You want a bad answer to your question-- try Facebook. The blind leading the blind mostly.

As some of you may know, my "Sound, Studio, and Stage" online forum/discussion group has been in continuous operation since 1995, so I've seen a lot of changes come and go.

The "lack of activity" in a forum like this is, IMHO, a good thing. By and large the people who post here are cool, helpful, and follow decorum. The forum also has a database aspect, because you can find answers to older topics much more easily than on Facebook.

The site that hosts my forum, musicplayer.com, had a huge dropoff in participation when Facebook became the behemoth it is today. BUT the end result was the "social media" aspect of the site disappeared, while the tech part remained. Also, participation in my forum keeps creeping back up as people get burned out on social media in general.

I think something parallel is happening here. My participation in this forum is I scan for topics that have only a few replies, and see if I can help. For quite a while, it was common for threads to have no replies for quite a while. However, these days, I see fewer and fewer threads that don't already have multiple intelligent responses by the time I find them. Obviously I don't know what the stats are here, but it seems participation certainly isn't falling off. And so many of the people posting here are pure gold if you use Cakewalk (and even if you don't, there's a lot of useful advice). I think the quality of the people here is off the hook, so the quantity doesn't really matter.

Would it take less time just to put new users in a queue for approval, or is participation growing too fast for that to be an option? 

16 hours ago, DaveMichel said:

We went to a nice local studio to lay basic tracks and some minor overdubbing. No MIDI, mixing or sweetening activities at all, as I am planning to do all that in Cakewalk.

What is the easiest way to get those files from ProTools (Mac) into Cakewalk?

I've had to do a lot of transfers from one DAW to another over the years, and basically use OutrageProductions' approach. My experience is that you'll want to make changes in the target program anyway that will influence the mix, so all you really need to do is export the raw tracks. 

OMF doesn't do much other than pan position and level. It doesn't check whether the two programs are using the same pan law, so you have to check that manually.  And it gets really complicated if there are tempo changes, so having the MIDI-based tempo map available is crucial.

On 7/16/2023 at 1:37 PM, Ando said:

mixing with headphones can introduce some manageable problems, but the room simulations really help with something very important that you miss when using headphones: the crossfade

It's not difficult to do this in Cakewalk with delays, buses, and filters. I'm pretty sure I wrote about how to do this at some point, but I can't find it.

9 hours ago, Quick Math said:

Regarding the evolution of modern EDM, it does rely on utilizing advanced tools and techniques that contribute to improved sound quality.

...with the irony being that the master gets maximized to end up with 6 dB of total dynamic range ?

53 minutes ago, Artie Choke said:

You might want to have a look at the following as well before you decide

There are two unique aspects to Sonarworks and Slate VSX. Sonarworks has a version that includes speaker calibration. Slate VSX removes a variable by including headphones designed specifically for the system, but of course, that adds to the cost.

In general, the plugins that emulate studios/rooms I find to be fun for listening, but (personal bias alert!) for mixing I want a flat response, with no added binaural/spatial characteristics. However, if you don't have a decent speaker setup, they can provide reality checks for what your mixes may sound like over speakers.

2 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

But they don't do so without knowing what to do with them.

Indeed, and part of that is knowing them well enough to match them with the kind of music you record. I've done a lot of classical music sessions, and you can hear the difference between something like a high-priced, linear-phase EQ and a generic minimal phase EQ. But for rock/country/EDM, a less expensive generic plugin may give the sound you want. For example, the phase shifts in minimal-phase EQs add character that a linear-phase EQ cannot. Some of the high-priced plugsins that do vintage emulations justify the price by saying that they're able to reproduce hardware's imperfections perfectly   

True story: Waves was emulating IIRC a channel strip, and it all measured out to be a perfect emulation. But their testers said something didn't sound quite right. The designers were sure they had nailed the emulation, the testers were sure they had not. Long story short - Waves emulated the noise and hum iherent in the hardware, and the people doing the blind testing then thought the plugin sounded right. Thankfully Waves is one of the companies that adds switches for that kind of thing, so you don't have to add that "character" if you don't want it.

VSX asnd Sonarworks are quite different. VSX is designed to emulate the experience of listening on speakers in a physical studio (like the Waves NX series of plugins). Sonarworks comes with curves for a ton of different headphones that flatten the headphone response. It's not a perfect process because of manufacturing tolerances on headphones, but with a quality set of headphones, that's not an issue. VSX includes headphones, so that eliminates one variable. However, I've found you need a decent headphone amp to get the best performance from the VSX. A lot of the headphone amps in audio interfaces are underpowered, and I the VSX was a disappointment until I hooked it up with a good headphone amp. It made a huge difference.

The VSX system emulates several different rooms, but it also emulates a flat response and a Sennheiser 650, which is really close to flat. It also has some emulations of cell phone, car, etc. although the Audified Mixchecker  plugin does a good job of emulating real-world music butchering systems  . The full Sonarworks version can also tune your speakers, which is a useful addition. I have Sonarworks and VSX, and wrote a review of the previous version of Sonarworks (Reference 4, which is quite similar to the newer ID version). It's in the Library section of craiganderton.org.

One other VERY important aspect I forget to mention: mixing at low volume for the bulk of your mixing time is the best approach. Your ears have a natural limiting effect at high levels, and there's the Fletcher-Munson curve to contend with. If the sound is a little bass- and treble-shy at low volumes, and a little too hot at higher levels, then you've done the best you can. After mixing at low volumes, turn up the level as a reality check. If the bass and treble are too loud, go back and trim them a bit.

You have no idea about the levels of the playback system over which your music will play. The one thing I can guarantee is that every single listener will hear a different mix--and it won't be the one you did!