Craig Anderton

FWIW Waves has great tech support. You almost get the sense they like finding out if something's wrong, so they can make their stuff better.

21 hours ago, User 905133 said:

Nothing pedantic about using yyyy-mm-dd format; its purely pragmatic esp. in terms of date-sorting.

This is actually an international standard, ISO 8601, which defines a format for representing dates and times. For dates, it's year-month-day.  Hours-minutes-seconds is also standard. 

ISO 8601 is quite comprehensive, and standardizes notation for weeks and even durations. You can find out all you want to know about it (actually, probably more than you want to know!) here. 

Power supply failures are fairly common, and easy to fix. The supplies themselves aren't very expensive. Its failure doesn't mean you're going to have more hardware problems, although of course, items like hard disks can do only so many rotations. Like a vintage automobile, over time it becomes increasingly difficult to keep an older machine maintained.

What I'd recommend is go ahead and replace the power supply AND get a new machine. Then you can migrate files, .dlls, and the like over time. You will run into issues, but you'll still have the older computer available to get work done. 

Back when removable drives were common, I'd create a new system drive and work with the new drive/OS for a while to re-build the system, and then go back to the old drive when I needed to get work done. Eventually, the new drive took over. In my most recent switch to a new computer, I networked them with an ethernet cable, and that make transferring files easy. 

I HIGHLY recommend that when you set up your new computer, you maintain files with key codes, site passwords, note about installation, zip files you downloaded with executables, etc. Keep all these on their own hard drive. Then if you ever need to re-build your system, you can do it in hours, instead of weeks.

Good luck! You'll be blown away by how fast and wonderful new computers can be

The Export enhancements are of immediate practical use to me, very much apprecicated!

I use it with Cakewalk, so I know it works. For some reason, Cakewalk isn't seeing it. Does it show up in the Cakewalk Plug-in Manager? Also, in the Browser, make sure you're looking under Synth, not Bass. Yes, I know, that's not logical...once you get it working, you'll love it. Hang in there.

The main reason to leave X3 installed is because the accessory programs that came with it may not be included in BandLab, but BandLab will "see" them.

While not specifically about what the OP experienced, it's related: I often have to re-install things after a Windows update. Yesterday, right after a Windows update, my eLicenser said I didn't own any products. Re-installing the eLicenser control center, then unplugging/plugging the dongle, solved the problem. Also, I sold my Roland Octa-Capture interface years ago so I don't know if this is still an issue, but it often needed to have its drivers re-installed after a Windows update.

And sometimes, Windows tries to be "helpful" and go back to defaults that were changed. Bottom line is it's not always an issue with the program.

1 hour ago, winkpain said:

I am impressed by the level of patience and restraint witnessed in this post (and others of similar nature) in regard to responding to the OP's stated "issue" . Obviously the discussion has evolved into having some valuable points being made, something that, unfortunately, cannot be said of the opening post.

Kudos to your wiser, calmer heads!

And we've had fun with the car thing!

2 hours ago, John Bradley said:

Wish there was a way to disable some of them (nVidia High Def Audio) in Cakewalk as well, so it stops asking me "hey, a new audio device, wanna use it?" whenver my monitors wake up, but that's another matter entirely.

Maybe this forum thread will help. I was shocked at how much disabling the "high-definition" (yeah, right...) audio drivers installed by graphics cards degraded performance. Doesn't happen with all graphics cards or all drivers, but it's well worth checking out.

46 minutes ago, John Ritter said:

I have used it at 96 previously with no issues but who knows. 

Don't forget that it could be a CPU-hungry plug-in pushing things over the edge.

If your devices support WDM/KS, Windows aggregates those devices automatically. Unlike the Mac, you don't need to go into a separate function to aggregate interfaces. Although native Windows audio has a reputation of being slow, I'm able to get 2 ms @88 samples with WDM/KS using a PreSonus 1824c interface, aggregated with the Line 6 Helix USB audio interface. The performance is comparable to ASIO.

Can you do what you want by layout management?

21 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Oh God no, the cookie is only used to remember the users identity so that it doesn't have to prompt you to log in everytime we want to access something from Bandlab. 

The mystery of the overloud plugins activation is most likely because we install the original overloud TH3 installer which may be resetting the activation to what it used with SONAR. So this is probably why you see the custom code getting clobbered. Why it worked this time is when  you updated you got our "thin installer" which only installed the program and anything that changed. This is another reason to update frequently since the updater will only get the differences rather than the full program installer

No legal issues with Gibson, but your original FX chains referenced a lot of SONAR exclusive plugins which we don't ship with BL. So it did not make sense to include those chains out of the box since they would reference missing plugins for most users.

More good info, thanks! But you can still use the collections of FX Chains for Sonitus plug-ins. I did quite a few of those to accommodate users who didn't have Platinum. They might help people appreciate the Sonitus plug-ins more.

**Cool!** I just updated Cakewalk, and for whatever reason, the Overloud issue no longer happens - even when calling up old projects in other programs. I realize this may seem trivial, but I used the Cakewalk Breverb in a ton of video projects. Although I always appreciated Cakewalk's frequent updates, I'm doing a lot of video work these days, and it was a hassle to have to deal with the Overloud stuff. I'm glad it's working properly now. Now I can update Cakewalk without trepidation.

BTW Noel, as you know I also had problems calling up Cakewalk projects whose FX Chains used TH2, because they ended up not sounding anything like they were supposed to. I've now converted them all to TH3, and will eventually convert them to TH-U as well, so that's another solved issue.

I would certainly have no problem if BandLab wanted to make all my Sonar FX Chains available to users. I don't know if they fall in any legal gray area involving Gibson, but if not...feel free to include them with the program. Even if someone didn't have Sonar before and doesn't have access to what came with it, there were some sets of FX chains built exclusively around the Sonitus plug-ins, so they'd still be useful to new users. 

As always, thanks for all your efforts in keeping Cakewalk alive, and especially for the emphasis on making the program ever-more stable. These days I can call up older projects, and they pretty much load without any issues. 

13 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Being "logged into BandLab" from Cakewalk simply means we save a cookie that allow you to reach user specific BandLab services such as the BandLab library view to download from BandLab, and of course activation itself. Cakewalk doesn't actually send any data to BandLab based on being logged in, so there is really zero need to log out unless multiple people use the system and you don't want them looking at your songs

I've never heard of overloud plugins losing activation as a result of updating Cakewalk. There is no correlation. Maybe you are confusing it with command center.

Thanks for the info about what "logging in" actually means in this context, that it's a one-way street of having a cookie, not something where the program has to constantly communicate. I've been told by someone who (I assume) knows more than I do that programs make frequent calls to hardware copy protection dongles...I thought maybe it was something like that.

As to the Overloud plug-ins, it's only the ones that were exclusive to Cakewalk, and then when Gibson folded, Overloud generously gave activation codes so that the plug-ins could be used in any program. After updating Cakewalk, the plug-ins go back to being exclusive to Cakewalk, and they no longer work in projects in other programs (e.g., Vegas). Calling up a project that uses them gives that program's "missing plug-in" error message, so I have to re-activate them. Maybe I'm missing something, but it happens every time I update. I'll update to 2021.06 #3 (been meaning to anyway), see what happens, and report back. Maybe the changes you've made have influenced that aspect as well. 

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

If you have logged into your BandLab account from within Cakewalk (and stay logged in), you should never need to manually reactivate even if you go past 6 months. As long as the PC is online it will automatically restore its activation whenever needed. Additionally if you ever install a new CbB update within a 6 month window it automatically restores activation. People complaining about this have been using an old version of CbB that didn't have these improvements. This was done back in April. Current CbB users will never see this message.

The bottom line is issues like this is why we want people to keep up to date. Otherwise they complain about things that have been fixed ages ago.

I was being humorous based on past experience, but...I never thought to log into BandLab from within Cakewalk, and I make it a practice not to stay logged in to web sites anyway. Do I need to be logged in to BandLab  whenever Cakewalk is open for this to happen, or is it just about logging into BandLab every now and then? Also, FWIW, it's not a Cakewalk problem but I tend to hold off on updating Cakewalk because then I have to reactivate all the Overloud stuff that was given codes for use in other programs when Gibson died. Back then I tried to use as much Sonar-related stuff as much as humanly possible, regardless of the host program, so I could come up with tips and such for Cakewalk and the writing I did around Sonar. I've pretty much avoided using those programs since then, because I felt if I wanted to use them, I should buy them...and I have enough plug-ins for now. But, when I pull up almost any older project, I get that "plug-in missing" message and have to go find my passwords, codes, re-activate the products on the Overloud website, etc. etc.

Also I have several computers, including some I don't update, specifically so I can test products with older operating systems and the like.  And, the computers I used for seminars and workshops have been doorstops since covid put an end to travel. Now every time I fire them up just to make sure the hard drive still spins, I have to go through a zillion updates for Windows, browsers, etc. etc. Cakewalk then becomes just One More Thing to Worry About, that I won't be able to use for workshops anyway. Again, not your fault, and I realize I'm not the typical user.

But based on what you've said, I guess it's time to go update/activate Cakewalk on all the different Windows machines, and grumble for a while so I won't have to grumble ever again  . At least I won't have to update the Mac Sonar version that's still sitting on my 2012 MacBook Pro (which can no longer go past Catalina, so I think it's not going anywhere for a while!).

7 hours ago, John Vere said:

Sounds like the hard way to do it to me. 

If you're referring to my post and using loopMIDI, a lot depends on whether you need to do pitch bending. Dragging a file analyzed by Melodyne into a MIDI track is pretty efficient, but there's no pitch bending or slides, so it's best for chords. MG2 can handle pitch bending quite well, so it's a better choice for single note solos. 

When I need to re-activate Cakewalk, I grumble for about 10 seconds, and then get on with my life

18 hours ago, pbognar said:

Got it.  What I was suggesting was a little unorthadox i.e. to "play" the recorded audio with the MG2 vst on the track and capture the MIDI - but that is assuming MG2 would do a better conversion than Melodyne (unlikely).  But as I mentioned above, you might want to EQ and compress to really make the note fundamentals pop, so audio pitch analysis has an easier time.

MIDI guitar is always a YMMV kind of thing,  but I've found MG2 to be quite effective at converting audio to MIDI - once you use some global de-glitching, which Cakewalk does well (e.g., eliminate notes below a certain velocity or duration). So yes, it requires a lot of editing, but doing global edits makes the process much less painful, because it gets rid of the most egregious problems.

You can download a free trial of MG2, so there's no harm in checking it out. However, I do think it's more of a Mac-centric program. I had a hard time getting it to work well with Studio One. Running MG2 stand-alone, and using loopMIDI to create virtual MIDI ports, improved performance dramatically. Cakewalk is more MG2-friendly than Studio One, but still benefits from the approach I wrote about in the PreSonus blog entry, Make MIDI Guitar 2 Work with Windows.

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It seems like all Bandlab do to promote Cakewalk is give the bakers rein to keep making it a better program, which is AWESOME for people who are already hip to it, but not so great for getting the word out. 

Based on this forum, though, it seems more people are getting hip to it. I used to come to the forum and look for threads with 0 or only a few replies to see if I could help out, but those are few and far between these days. I assume that increased forum activity means an increasing user base. Eventually Cakewalk will be free from the Gibson stigma, people won't expect it to blow up and go away, and then there will be new users to whom Cakewalk is a "new" program. 

As to the "bring it back" movement...Rapture Pro! I live in fear that one day, it won't load anymore. I ported the Gibson Bass collection (which I use on almost every project) over to the TX16W free software sampler, but I have a lot of presets that I haven't ported yet. Some are impossible to port, because nothing has the same capabilities as Rapture Pro. Despite its flaws, it remains my favorite software synth.

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Finally belatedly pulled the trigger on the book, and within 5 minutes, mind blown.

This is from someone who has been using Cakewalk almost daily for 3 1/2 years.

I'd love to see an update or addendum with the Arranger Track and Articulation Maps.

First of all, I'm glad you enjoy the book! As to the status of an update, unfortunately that won't happen unless BandLab gets behind it in some way (putting it in a Cakewalk Store, advertising it in the magazines they own, or whatever). Books take a lot of effort, and if they don't sell at least several hundred copies a year, they're not worth doing. Although it sold very well back in the day when Cakewalk put it in their newsletters and such, it's only sold about 8 copies in the last year. But you never know - I hope that someday, BandLab will open a Cakewalk Store so people can get their hands on all the cool stuff that used to come with Platinum. A revised version of the book could find a home there. 

6 hours ago, Clovis Ramsay said:

I'm sorry to say that I write music outside of Cakewalk but when it comes to mixing and mastering, I wouldn't succeed without Cakewalk.

I don't think you need to be sorry to say that at all, I know more and more people who use more than one DAWs. It's not just a Cakewalk thing, I have a friend who is a technical wizard and knows his way around Pro Tools like the back of his hand, because of all the video work he does. But, he writes his songs in Studio One, and then transitions over to Pro Tools. 

Cakewalk really does provide a superb environment for mixing. I'm very disappointed that Propellerhead decided to ditch ReWire, it was key to using programs like Live and FL Studio with a "mothership" DAW like Cakewalk. 

The analogy I use is cars. A lot of people own more than one car, like a sedan for driving around town, and a pickup truck or van for other uses. Cakewalk being free is a huge incentive for people to add it to their toolset.

25 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

I personally think there is some degree of snake oil in all this analog emulation stuff but I'm no expert on analog consoles

I think a lot of that depends on whether the transformers were modeled, they were part of the secret to "that sound." The waveforms in the article I referenced look suspiciously like what output transformers do to sine waves. And no matter how hard they tried, they did have non-linearities.

I visited Wendy Carlos many years ago when she was using the pre-ADAT Akai digital recorder (I think it was called the DR1200). I couldn't understand why it sounded so much better than other DR1200s, and it wasn't a subtle difference...better low end. warmer, didn't have that brittle digital sound, etc. She said it was due to her adding transformers at the inputs and outputs. She knows her stuff, so I wasn't going to doubt her!

On 9/5/2021 at 12:53 PM, Guerilla Genus said:

Got the book ! Thankyou sir

Thanks! I hope you find it useful.

On 9/5/2021 at 4:39 AM, chimkin2 said:

Good Tip thanks Craig ☺️

I tried it but unfortunately I got a Load Failure error! Not sure why that would be  ? 

I just tried it, and it worked. However, make sure you that you select all the channels into which you want to insert it before loading the Console Emulator.

I did run into quite a issues with old projects and Console Emulator weirdnesses when loading older (and I mean older!) projects into Cakewalk by BandLab. There were other regression problems involving FX Chains as well, but it seems to have been sorted out now.