Mark Morgon-Shaw

Some Kontakt Libraries have CC controllers for expression / volume which are being reset by Cakewalk when playback stops. If you go into Edit - Preferences - Midi - Other Options and untick the box that says ' Zero Controllers When Playback Stop' This should resolve your first issue. IIRC this is a per project setting so if you start a new project you'll need to do it again. Hoe that helps

Got mine up and running now. My Ryzen system is much more 'budget' than @MediaGary ! 😀 So my system is:- Ryzen 3900x 16gb DDR4 3600 512 Samsung Polaris NVME 1TB Samsung Evo SSD 2 x 2 TB Spinning Rust 7200 Maxtor HDD's Gigabyte B450M H Mobo Nvidia Gforce 710 2gb Windows 10 Home Update : 1909 Audio Interface : Audient ID4 Other : StreamDeck : Intuos Tablet : MAudio Oxygen 61 : Sonarworks Reference 4 ; Adam A7's : Avantone Mixcube The PC itself was £800 without an OS from a system builder not far away that sells online a lot. Mainly gaming PCs. I upgraded from a 10yr old £600 unbranded PC off Amazon. Intel i5 2500 - 16gb DDR 2100 - 240gb SSD - Old Radeon passive GPU -Plus the same Maxtor Drives that had mostly ran Sonar 8.5 for the majority of it's life until this past year. I write for Music Libraries in my spare time and I do get royalties off stuff that's been used in TV shows, mostly reality. So it will get used in a semi-pro capacity but I'm not running huge orchestral set ups or anything. My music is mostly EDM - Future Bass - plus some trailer like stuff that gets used in certain TV shows, hybrid electronic/orchestral. I mostly use stuff like Massive - Serum - Dune2 - AD2 - Plus a bunch of Kontakt Libraries like most of Output's stuff , Albion One, Damage ..that sort of thing. A typical track for me would be approx 10 x Kontakt instruments, 5 x synths, some Drums and 10-15 audio tracks containing any live instruments or samples. I use maybe 40-50 FX Plugins for mixing a project of that size. I don't master in CBB. So the track I was working on when I swapped machines was fairly typical, I was able to run it at 128 samples on the Audient's ASIO driver setting. I've not quite finished it but the CPU usage is hovering around the 35-40% on the CBB meters. It would have been impossible to run barely anything at 128 on my old machine , I was halfway through when I switched and I'd already had to set the old machine at 1024 samples but it was stuttering even at that so all projects used to end up at 2048 samples and lots of track freezing. It's great for me to still have a responsive system at 128 samples that can cope with a complete session with all the mix plugins. I can quite happily work at 256 samples and still play all my VSTi's in a way that feels responsive. So to answer the million dollar question is yes it's way more powerful than my old machine. I can't compare it to another modern PC as I don't have one. It's snappy to boot up , my old system was no slouch with it's SSD but this is just a few seconds instead 15-20 I am surprised how much I can do at 128 ASIO sample buffer size as that was identified as a weak point Vs the Intel chips in the Dawbench test I saw over at Scan, so I am looking forward to having the option to drop to 256 and have more horsepower to play with on bigger projects I haven't spent a lot of money but it far exceeds my current needs. No doubt over the years I will double the ram, add more storage etc. I doubt I'll change the motherboard though. DPC latency performance has been fine as well, much better than my old PC which according to the tests was not suitable for audio ! I ran the test for 5hrs a mix of general use and several hours working on my latest track, as you can see from the attached image it passed the tests with no issues. Actually it's the first time I've bought a PC that ran Sonar / Cakewalk properly straight outta the box. Last time i.e. 10 yrs ago I had to disable a temperature alarm in the Bios that was causing spikes and crackles. Overall super happy with it, I have left everything at the settings it came with - It looks like they have set the XMP profile in the BIOS already. It's running with the stock cooler BTW which I plan to leave as it's running at 40-50 degrees in use and I've no plans to overclock it. The ambient temperature in the room is 19-20 degrees usually. I will say it's not as quiet as my old machine , it's not loud at all and I can't hear it whilst mixing and I'm pretty sure it won't be loud enough to affect recordings which I make 6ft away but if you want something quieter you may have to go to a more specialized DAW bulder and not just off the shelf. Hope that helps anyone thinking of getting a Ryzen based machine for CBB

I've set mine up with a few basic commands for now...can't get it to work for midi though at the moment ?

The reason you are only one asking is because you are asking developers to add a feature to fix a problem caused by you not knowing how to use the software properly i.e. gain staging This article from SOS may help https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/gain-staging-your-daw-software It's entirely relevant as the principles are the same , those who cut their teeth on analogue equipment probably have a better fundamental understanding of how gain staging works. You soon learn when a digital over can potentially fry your tweeters or when you're FOH mixing at a gig and the singers mic is feeding back because there's too much level ( gain before feedback as we call it ) Lots of mixes are still done on analogue consoles as well even if the multi tracks are on the DAW now and also working live you especially need to know this stuff.

I don't know what your level of music production is but you misunderstand my point The magic comes in playing sounds that due to the process of stacking and layering of different instruments and FX are more harmonically rich , complex and therefore sonically interesting than any discrete single VSTi patch. The ability to easily stack them in one of the hosts mentioned above makes a huge difference not only to how easy it is in terms of routing, but also how we play them. Most musicians will naturally play sympathetically to the sounds being created in a way they would not were the multi patch created after the fact. That's why these multi VST host plugins are on the market and have been for many years.

Someone over at VI Control did a load of tests with Kontakt and whether it performed better on an NVME drive or not. TLDR: It didn't - so I chose a Samsung Evo SSD for my Libs and the NVME is for programs and OS CBB loads in a few seconds. Kontakt Instruments I've tried so far are pretty snappy as long as you batch re-save.

If they are all Kontakt instruments then you can stack them and play them simultaneously. Or there are some plugins that can host multiple VSTi's inside a wrapper and you can play them all at once ( as well as add effects ) Chainer by Xlutop is one , I think Bluecats make something similar and I use Akai's VIP which I got free with my M-Audio Keyboard but that can stack 8 instruments and also FX with send/return

Layering sounds is a must if you want your productions to sound any good.

I think you are asking for a feature to solve a problem that you created yourself and everyone else deals with using the normal tools/methods mentioned above. The only real solution once you get down to it is learn to mix and use gainstaging properly. What did you do in the days when we all had analogue mixers and things like ADATs that would clip digitally if pushed to far ?

Is anyone using the Stream Deck with Cakewalk ? I just got the 15 button version, not set it up yet as I have a new DAW rig to set up and it won't work on my old Win7 machine anway, but I think it will be a really good workflow tool so just wondered how others were using theirs ? I see it can now transmit midi messages so that could well be handy for certain Kontakt Libraries for me if I can set up the keyswitches

What Audio Interface are you using ?

No idea about the other DAWs...I'm not a Cubase user. If I do collabs these days we just send Wavs back and forth ( in Dropbox ) but back in the day before broadband and fibre we used WMA and it works just fine ( unless you are collabing with a Mac user ) Yes you can change the MP codec I believe. I've never actually done it and I wouldn't honestly know if the others will cure your issue as I've always avoided having other people track to MP3's for this very reason. All I know is it's well known among everyone on my old collab board so we always used WMA. And those that didn't had tracks all slightly outta time !

I have a Ryzen 3900x PC but I haven't set it up yet. Need to finish the current project then I can get into it.

It's not a bug it's part of the MP3 codec specification that there are 'padding bits' See here for more detailed info : https://lame.sourceforge.io/tech-FAQ.txt Use WMA instead..they are smaller and don't have the issue.

I dunno can't say I've ever really used them..I record it..if I don't like it I hit CTR-Z ..& record again ! Do another pass until it's right. Now I have to keep changing the project settings back to Sound On Sound which is annoying as it used to be the default...but I treat it like tape machine I don't think I ever used the Quad Curve Eq. The Track Channel EQ was based on the Sonitus EQ plugin but it put all the controls right where you'd expect 'em. On the console view ! I don't understand why they are hidden away under a pop out window now. The console view is supposed to be a virtual mixer. A mixer has the EQ controls right there on the channel strip - not hidden under somethign that pops up at the push of a button. Makes no sense to me, and now we have a ton of empty space instead ??? It was perfect before....Now you can't even use the mouse wheel to alter the values of your filters. I use a lot of Kontakt Libraries , there's too many to buy them all though. I just finished this track for MTV's ' The Challenge ' https://soundcloud.com/user-45178330/dancing-with-death-mix-3-mastered

Slightly useless in that scenario I think

You still have to press record though right ? I think they mean without even hitting record, like just auditioning/practising a new part

No I was an 8.5.3 user for about 10 years ! I only came into contact with the Pro Channel when CBB was released and I made the jump. ( primarily to get ARA support ) So all I ever had was the Per Channel EQ. Which I actually thought was better than the way the Pro Channel EQ is implemented. I only really used it for high / low pass filters and you could do them without opening the full plugin interface ...much quicker than opening the Pro Channel now. The space is actually there for them to reinstate the EQ controls in the channel strip. I wish they would. I already have Massive , Sylenth , Serum etc. so I've never used any of the bundled instruments for my TV music that I've licensed.

I dunno..if I can play it once I can play it again ...it's not some one off performance I'll never be able to duplicate

Probably some sort of routing, howl round/feedback type thing..routing on other DAW is different by default so not happening

You mean audio from another project ? You can do that just by using per project audio folders ( which is now the default iirc ) and then browsing to the other projects audio folder and drag- dropping what you need right into your current project. I do it quite often as I have to make tracks in the same genre and it's easier to find certain sounds like a kick drum or a riser that worked well in a previous track for example. Way quicker than trawling through multiple folders in my sample drive.

Midi enhancements are part of the core functionality of CBB that's why people want them. Pro Channel Modules whilst built in are essentially just FX plugins and there's hundreds of 3rd party offerings around for those seeking more variety so why spend dev time on stuff that can easily be added by the user.

Yeah I see what you mean although I can't remember the last time I stuck to the old GM standard of Ch.10 being drums reserved for drums. But imagine a 4x4 grid or a row of buttons numbered 1-16 so you could enable/disable the global transpose on a per channel basis quite easily

Depends how it's implemented. In FL studio you can resize the whole interface i.e. 100% -150% - 200% and it scales itself to suit. Very flexible and lightweight..no artifacts like you get when scaling bitmaps. It could make for a very flexible console view with channels that can be resized to suit what you are working on

This is why I also asked for a vector based GUI