Michael Vogel

There was a time we were limited by the length of tape available so judicious use of overdubs, mixing and remixing had to be applied. At some time before that a composer had to assemble an orchestra to realise their musical creation. Today we can keep it all, every single note played in a recording session and put off decisions about what to keep or delete or record again. Cakewalk is at its very core a non-destructive DAW and new users would be better served learning to use that feature to the full than turn on overwrite mode and not take advantage of these exceptional features. It took a lot of coding chops to create such a rich depth of features. People expect that sitting at the helm of a complex recording facility is child’s play where in fact it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to manipulate the knobs and buttons (virtual though they may be). It takes experience and application to learn not only the software but the art of the mix engineer, producer, composer, orchestrator, musician just to mention a few of the hats people wear and then expect it should all be intuitive and come naturally. As if.

Try using the app to access the Bandlab user forum. This is the Cakewalk forum which is specifically for the PC only DAW program Cakewalk by Bandlab.

If I could do it over - I would defy my father’s wishes and follow the path to music that had been laid out for me by some of my teachers. Sadly my dad didn’t see music as a valid career choice.

Mediocrity is a female dog, that I wear proudly. * not sure if the ‘b’ word is acceptable.

CbB is free to purchase however there is a license to which you agreed when you downloaded and installed it on your computer. That together with numerous updates clearly outline your obligations to maintain that license. Activation is a very small “price” for the considerable value contained in Cakewalk and the considerable cost to the company to not only maintain the software but its ongoing development. Just because there’s been no recent release doesn’t mean the developers aren’t still working on the next version and being paid for that work. We know that’s the case because we’ve been told that’s the case. With their track record to date, there’s no need to doubt it.

I use an iPad Pro using Splashtop (free version) as a remote control for my PC. About 5 years now PC is connected to my network via Ethernet but the iPad connects via WiFi. No noticeable effect on latency or other issues but then I use Waves DIGIGRID audio hardware which also allows me to offload plug-in processing. All my pc <-> sound card audio is transmitted via gigabit Ethernet.

I know of several bands that use Cakewalk to automate their whole show from backing tracks, keyboards to running the whole lighting rig. If it can be controlled by MIDI CbB can do it. The real question is should you as you’re placing a lot of faith in the venue’s electrical system, your computer’s reliability and opening yourself up to Murphy’s law. Of course there are ways to mitigate the risks but it’s not for the faint hearted. One group in particular, Kicksville, have used Sonar extensively to do the above. Here are some links. www.kicksville.com www.kicksville.bandcamp.com www.youtube.com/kicksvillevideo The Kicksville Story.pdf

It’s really well explained in the manual. It’s such a fabulous resource, I wish more people would study it as they’d get a far deeper appreciation of all that CbB can do. Despite all the great features that have been added over the years I never tire of highlighting how big a feature Mix Recall is. The Reference guide is like a feature and there’s a reason it’s so large.

Thanks for sharing. A nostalgic trip through my earliest digital music making history.

Thanks Francois.

They’ve gone back to the old model and added subs as an option.

I have the whole lot (not the very specialised ones for broadcast applications ) and really cracked it with their recent announcement. Fortunately reason prevailed after a user base revolt and they’ve recanted there earlier decision to go subs only and now offer it as an option. I only do a WUP about every 2 to 3 years and find it’s been pretty good value when compared to other brand offerings. To be honest I’ve never had any serious issues and the few minor ones I have had , were dealt with promptly. Always found their customer support to be excellent.

You could do worse than contact Notes_Norton, a local member who creates files for Band in a Box which is a reasonably priced way of getting high quality arrangements of popular tunes’l. He’s a pro muso who uses them in his own shows.

Epic fail then. Is there an update coming?- he says in a surprised tone.

Yes I went from Cakewalk Audio Pro 9 to Sonar 3 Producer which supported ASIO.

All pdf files are searchable.

With all the updates to CbB since Jan 22, I hope the Reference Guide will soon be updated.

The spreadsheet referred to is one I compiled many years ago. As previously stated, the only time the actual Sonar program needs to be installed is with V-Vocal. Fir all other plugins, it is only necessary to select the Advanced installation option and choose the plugins you want. If you own multiple Sonar versions, then install the latest one for any particular plug-in thereby getting the most up to date plug-in version. Your access to the latest version of any plug-in will depend solely on having the latest version of Sonar where that specific plug-in was included. If you only have Sonar 8.5 for example, you obviously won’t be able to access plugins that were updated in Sonar Platinum etc. Having said all that in various ways, sometimes an updated plug-in version was released to accomodate an updated installer with no real improvement or functionality of the plug-in.

Your question has been answered in your other thread. Waking up a 4 year old thread won’t get any favourable responses for you.

People have been using MIDI to control all sorts of device switching since it’s implementation in the 1980s. https://www.lightjams.com/midiDMX.html This link will take you to a jump off place for you to undertake more research for your specific need. You can create the necessary controls in a dedicated MIDI track or tracks but you will need the hardware to read the commands, interpret or translate them for whichever device/s you want to control.

Didn’t we just have one in November? Only a week into February and someone’s concerned about the future of Cakewalk by B. Sheesh! Fair crack o’ the whip sport. Give the blokes a chance. She’ll be baked when she’s baked.

I updated my laptop to Win 11 when it first came out. When I didn’t experience any problems I recently updated my Studio PC to Win 11. Again no problems so far.

I’d say rendering audio to an external usb drive that’s more than 90% full is your bottle neck. Try rendering the file to your C:\ drive and see if there’s a difference.

Cakewalk’s community members have contributed numerous tools that extend it’s scope and function. It’s a measure of the depth of talent and commitment of this community. It’s the same commitment and dedication shown by the developers who are involved so much with the community through the forum. All this for a piece of software that once was a retail product and is now available for no cost under licence to everyone.

I for one am glad that Cakewalk can allow background programs like networking to run as I use the Waves SoundGrid system which relies on offloading plug-in processing to a network attached audio device and server which is connected over a 1 gig Ethernet connection.