tonemangler

An alternative is to duplicate the track with events ticked and then delete the appropriate take lanes. You can now work on both takes on separate tracks. After editing, if you want to revert to both takes on the same track, insert a take lane on one track and then Shift move the the midi clip (clips) from the other track.

Man this track is awesome! The recording reminds me of the 70's (best decade for music!) very dry and punchy. The beginning of the video references 1978 so I guess this is what you were going for. I really like the variety of parts and tempos. The bass tone is great! The only thing I did notice was that the intro sounded big and wide played at half speed with stereo guitars and lead in the middle, but once the verse started at full speed the stereo width collapsed a bit. It sounds like the stereo guitars are brought in tighter or something. Later in the song the half speed part comes again and again it sounds wide. I think I would have preferred the wide guitars during the song as well. Some people might prefer more reverb and depth but for me personally I like the dry raw sound of this. Great tune! Great job on the mix!

Hi Mike, I'm sorry to hear you couldn't get CbB to work on your system. I was thinking that maybe after you installed the new drivers if you had uninstalled CbB and then reinstalled it maybe things would have worked out. I think maybe when you launched CbB and your system crashed it was because Cakewalk was looking for different drivers? Or may it was corrupted for some reason? Anyways, for what you want to do any DAW would be good, I hope you're able to make music soon. Good luck!

Actually I just realized, for the second example, you can just keep the solo engaged all the time on the master bus, or whatever is the last bus in your project, and then you don't even have to mute the reference tracks, as long as their o/p's are set to the hardware outs of your interface. Just solo them whenever you want to hear them. Also to clarify my original post, if you only have one reference track you don't need to engage "solo exclusive" but if you have more than one then this needs to be engaged. Glad to help 🙂

Hi Giovanni, I'm not sure if you can change mute/solo priority, but an easy way to check mixes with reference tracks is to create a "Reference" Bus and direct all reference tracks to it. Set the output to this bus directly to your main hardware o/p's and not your mix bus. Now select exclusive solo and you can toggle between your "Reference" buss and your "Mix" bus. Another easier workaround is to set the outputs of your reference tracks to your hardware outs (you don't want reference tracks to be processed by any mix bus fx anyways), then solo your mix bus. Now when you solo the reference track that's what you hear, when you un-solo it you hear your mix. This way if you have several reference tracks you simply solo the one you want to hear. When you are finished comparing just mute all your reference tracks. If you have all your mix elements going to the mix bus you can leave this in solo although I always un-solo the mix bus. I hope that helps. Paul

You wrote this as I was writing mine so much of what I said you already know 🙂

If your Interface doesn't have an on/off switch simply connect it to a small power bar and use that to turn it on and off. I have my interface( Clarett 4Pre), my monitors and monitor controller plugged into the same power bar so when I'm working on music I can turn them all on at once. If you want to use your computer speakers while surfing don't turn on the power bar. However, if you want to check your mixes within your CbB project using your computer speakers or perhaps mix through them then that's something I have never tried. I imagine in Preferences you would choose the Realtek with the WASAPI drivers, and when you want to go back to the Scarlett switch back to the ASIO drivers. Personally I check my mixes on computer speakers by bouncing the project and playing it through the Windows Player. Alternatively you can connect a grot box to your Scarlett or monitor controller, if you have one, and check your mixes without having to leave your CbB project. Anyways good luck, I hope you find a way that works for you. Cheers Paul

Hi Matthew, yes I ended up getting the same discount, but I stupidly thought I would get the upgrade price which was on sale for 79 Euros which is approx. $120 CDN (I live in Canada). However, even though the discount is very generous by Overloud, it would cost over $300 CDN (I don't remember the exact figure) to upgrade so I think I will hold off for now. I already have Guitar Rig and Amplitube so this would have been something to compliment those two. I used TH3 cakewalk edition on my last project and really liked the sound and interface so was willing to upgrade for a good price. I think I'll wait for now. Cheers Paul

Hi Brandon, I'm not sure why you would prefer to listen through the Realtek i/o rather than the Scarlett. I would imagine the Scarlett would have better fidelity especially if you are watching music related videos. In any case you should be using the ASIO driver for CbB, and you don't have to disconnect the USB cable if you want to listen through the Realtek. Go to Windows Settings - System - Sounds - you can set the audio device here, this is what windows will use when you are surfing. If you want to use the Realtek choose that. However I would guess that 99.99% of the people here don't do that. IMO the preferred way is to set the best audio interface, in your case the Scarlett, as the audio device in Windows Settings. Then you can listen to quality audio on headphones or monitors (not sure what you have) and if by some chance you still want to listen through the Realtek just don't turn the Scarlett on and Windows will use the Realtek instead. Plug your interface in, launch CbB, choose the ASIO driver, select Scarlett for your audio devices and you should be good to go. Also, if you haven't already, download and install the latest drivers for the Scarlett. Good luck!

Hi Mike, I understand your frustration, technology can be very overwhelming at times! I'm not sure where you got the advice to install ASIOALL driver but that was not what was needed. Like Bapu says uninstall them and use the ASIO drivers of the M-Audio. I'm not sure if you already downloaded the drivers for the M-Audio M-Track Plus, but if not you can download and install them from here: https://m-audio.com/support/download/drivers/m-track-1.0.6 These drivers are for the M-Audio M-Track Plus from 2013 (not MKII) and should work fine with CbB (Cakewalk by BandLab). Once you get the M-Audio recognized by CbB select them as your input/output audio devices and select ASIO as the driver, just as you did previously. You should be fine from there. I would recommend you follow advice from this forum, the experts for CbB live here. Once you are up and running again come back and we will try to get you sorted out with hearing drums, guitar, voice and everything. It's important that you get the years of your artistic creativeness recorded!! Good luck 🙂

Hi Mike, don't give up. Several posts ago you had a screenshot showing you had ASIO drivers so I'm sure your interface will eventually work fine. From what I can see, scook is one of the more knowledgeable people on this forum so I would carefully follow his advice step by step and you should come out ok. Good luck!

Hi Richard, you can definitely use your Juno for sounds. All you have to do is connect a midi cable from the midi out of your Steinberg into the midi in of your Juno. You need to set the Juno to a midi channel and then on the midi track in Cakewalk set it to the same midi channel. Next you have to connect two (or one if you prefer mono) audio cables from your Juno's audio outputs to two (stereo) audio input channels on the Steinburg. With this setup you can play the Juno and record in midi. When you play back the recording it will trigger the Juno. If you want to commit your performance to audio just create an audio track, set it's input to the Steinberg's stereo outputs, if there are other tracks in your project then solo the midi track of your Juno performance, engage the audio track for recording press play (spacebar) and adjust the levels on your interface (between-12dB and -6dB should be fine). Finally press R for record and watch the pretty audio waveform appear before your eyes! Good luck 🙂

Hi EJ! Are you using the latest version of Cakewalk by BandLab? The latest version seems to have fixed that issue. I haven't tested it thoroughly yet but others say it works fine.

Interesting topic. I use AD2 and when I'm happy with the programming and am ready to start mixing I bounce all elements into individual audio tracks. If individual cymbal hits are needed just solo them in AD2 and record. Personally, I just adjust the cymbal levels within AD2 and then bounce all cymbals and ride onto a stereo audio track. This approach works for me because I prefer to have all my virtual instrument tracks bounced to audio before I start mixing in earnest. I keep all midi tracks with notes referring to instruments and patches and delete all VI's. Cheers. Paul

Very cool track, I just kept wishing it was wider, but that's just me, I like elements coming in and out from the extremes. However maybe you had no control over this, seeing how you serendipitously created the soundscape. Other than that I thought it was really cool!

This doesn't sound like a demo to me, it sounds like a record, and a well mixed one at that! If I could get my mixes close to this I would be a happy camper. Fantastic voice! Everything excellent!

Hi Paul, I think you have a good song here, and your voice is great! I don't want to critique this mix much because 1) I don't consider myself a top notch mixer 2) I really didn't like the sound of the '80s. The only thing I will say is that the vocal sound was great however some elements of the instrumentation were indistinct, which is probably due to the overuse of reverb in the 80's. Just gave it another listen, maybe some of those cymbal crashes are a little too harsh? Other than that a really good song! 👍

Wow I really like this song! I think the mix is excellent and my comments are purely based on personal preference rather than what is wrong or right. To my ears the bass tone is really nice, only it sits a little too forward in the mix. There is one synth that comes in and out which, to my old ears, sounds very shrilly in the highs and competes with the lead guitar tone. I would probably use reverb to sit it a little farther back or simply use a low pass. Maybe I would also use some automation or ducking so nothing distracts from the vocals. I love the overall dark tone of your recording and your vocal tone is awesome. I also loved the ending. Fantastic tune!

Hi Richard, in Preferences your Juno doesn't show up in the midi input and output devices because it is not connected directly to your computer via a usb cable. Midi devices is merely the midi ports Cakewalk sees connected to your computer. With your setup all you have to do is select the Steinberg input and output devices in Preferences, and then on the midi track of whatever you are controlling click on the input icon to show the midi ports available. From the drop down list you can choose "omni" which receives midi from all ports, or you can choose the Steinberg port. The output port should be set to the soft synth you are controlling, or if you are controlling an external hardware synth set the output to the Steinberg midi port. Cheers.

@scook Thanks for the help, hopefully I can get it to work without any problems. Funny how I didn't see the images or your comment on the "Time/Pitch Shift" plugin from your first response. I never used that particular plugin so maybe I'll just do an advanced install of just the Pitch Shifter. I think I will make an image before I attempt anything though, just in case. Thanks again, Cheers!

Thanks scook. I'm sure I have the original installation CD for Sonar 8.5 somewhere. Does advanced install mean I can choose to install just that particular plugin or do I have to install the complete SONAR 8.5 application? I guess I can't simply copy the file from my old laptop and paste it into the CbB plugin folder, can I?

Hello all, I remember, in the earlier Sonar days, using a simple pitch shifter plugin that came with Sonar. I tracked it down on an old laptop which has Sonar 8.5 installed. In the Shared Plugins folders is the file "Pitch.Ax". Does anyone know what the Ax extension means and is it compatible with CbB? I'm thinking it's probably 32 bit only and not compatible, but I thought I would ask. Sometimes a simple pitch shifter is handy to have. Thanks.

Sometimes when a track behaves strangely I insert a new audio track and then shift drag the audio to it. That usually cures the weirdness.

Thanks John, I just received an email this morning from Overloud explaining exactly what you said. I just sent the screen shot of my serial. Cheers

As far as I know you cannot name input and output drivers separately, this is just one of the quirks of Cakewalk. I changed the naming scheme to "input 1-2, input 3-4, input 5-6 etc, just to make it easier for my little brain. 🙂