Trensharo

I feel like Studio One Artist is the real winner of this upgrade cycle, with the VST/AU/ReWire support coming for free in the base product, esp. when you can get it [for free] when you buy an Audio Interface.

Going to make it harder for me to recommend Cakewalk by BandLab to newbies/upstarts.  That was usually an easy way to get them to try Cakewalk, even when they had access to SO Artist (from buying a PreSonus AudioBox, etc.).

Personally, I do too much orchestral to bother.  When I tried Studio One Pro (4.x), the performance was really not up to par with a large template.  It bogged down quite a bit, and stability took a hit.  Projects and Templates that Cubase would load in 5 seconds took [comparatively] forever in Studio One.  It didn't like the large track counts...

On 7/8/2020 at 4:07 AM, Starship Krupa said:

I stand corrected! Thank you.

For some of the reasons both you and I have stated: in many categories there are plenty of free and cheap alternatives, so why not when they get the job done? Someone downloads Cakewalk and wants to start right in working with it, they have some very good tools to work with that may look a little dowdy. If they or their clients are discerning enough to care about the UI, they are discerning enough to download other plug-ins to use in their place. Nobody forces anyone to use the stock plug-ins with the UI's open while paying clients watch.

My point is that Cakewalk had a lot of plugins - many of which can basically replace Sonitus, so they could have easily delivered better stock plugins with CbB.

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Also, some of the functions they perform are still not so common, such as the surround compressor and surround panner/encoder. Feature-wise, W.A. recently put out something called the Sphere Compressor that has a very similar feature set to the Sonitus Compressor.

Since you are so adamant that many better free and cheap alternatives exist, and I love free and cheap plug-ins, please turn me on to some of your favorite freeware 5-band multiband compressors, surround compressors, surround panner/encoders, and 6-band versatile EQ's. Even a "far superior" delay would be welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My point is that Cakewalk had a lot of plugins - many of which can basically replace Sonitus, so they could have easily delivered better stock plugins with CbB.

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Although I think AIR's keyboards and synths are good bargains when I can get them for under $20, I am much less impressed with their FX. Last week I tried a trial of their Vocalizer Pro, which attempts to emulate a classic vocoder but is lacking in a couple of crucial features. First, it can't do the basic vocoder task of accepting an external carrier (you can only use its internal synth), second, despite appearing quite feature-packed and complex, it has no manual. Whatsoever. I am now patiently waiting for the trial to expire so that I can hide its existence from my iLok control panel. The UI was pretty, though, it looked better than a Las Vegas casino at night.

I'm also quite interested to read or watch some of those consistently mediocre "particularly in more recent times" reviews of the Sonitus fx suite because I'm relatively new to the Cakewalk scene and apparently didn't get those memos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

AIR didn't develop Vocalizer Pro, which I have never used or seen (outside of in an eStore front).  That is a SONiVOX product, not AIR's.  They are owned by the same parent company, but they do not develop and own each other's products.

Additionally, the Modulation and Creative Effects in AIR Creative FX Collection easily supercede what is in Sonitus:FX.  The Delays and Reverbs actually do sound pretty good.  They also deliver things that simply aren't covered by Sonitus:FX - which are really basic and more comparable to ReaPlugs.  The point of adding them is to fill in the gaps, and give better algorithms for things that exist - where possible.  However, I'd veer towards AIR in areas where there are overlap, because those are generally better.

In addition to that, there is a ton of stuff you can get for free that is of higher quality.  Melda, TAL, Valhalla, Tritik, TDR, Blue Cat, Plugin Alliance, U-he, Voxengo, Xfer, etc.  There are too many to list... Including a vocoders.  This has been the case for several years, it's just that SONAR Platinum users largely never had to supplement basic plugins because the DAW came with more than enough, and then some (comparable to DAWs like Cubase Pro and Studio One Professional, etc.).

How new is new.  You're been here quite a while, AFAICS.  Go to YouTube and look them up, and go read reviews of Sonar.  That's what I did.

https://www.admiralbumblebee.com/music/2018/12/22/Cakewalk-Part-1-Almost-Everything.html#effects

That's a good review of things.

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I'll direct you to a couple of articles written about them just a year ago in Sound on Sound by Craig Anderton:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-effects

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cakewalk-sonitus-plug-suite

And a video by Scott of Chernobyl Studios, who is well-known for pulling no punches when he has something critical to say about Cakewalk:

 

I don't really consider Craig Anderton an unbiased source of opinion on this.  I don't think anyone would have to explain why that is the case.

13 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

The thing with this is statement is . . . If it gives you a better feel of a 80's chorus effect and depth on drums, vocals or guitars with a second reverb, chorus and delay within your chain - why wouldn't you want to use them? I mean, mixing goes both ways. What sounds "ugly and degraded" can sound pleasing to the listeners ears, and what sounds "clean and beautiful not so pleasing." There's no right or wrong way in sound creation - only taste. We all have different taste in food, clothing, and cars. 

Because it doesn't?

Third party Delay Plugins available for Free or Very Cheap are just better, so I'm not sure what Cars, Food, and Clothing has to do with this.

You may like cheese, but I'm pretty sure you will choose gourmet over commodity if both were offered to you.

Sonitus are commodity plugins, and you don't have to spend much (or anything) to get something of better quality.

The resources are better spent on other parts of the DAW, IMHO.

On 6/13/2020 at 6:21 PM, Starship Krupa said:

As you point out, it's little different from editing any other Cakewalk MIDI. Setting it up is what's like playing Zork in 1986.

It could be much simpler, and when the time comes, I have some ideas. It looks like others have some ideas about making them more versatile as well.

This.  It's setting up the Drum Maps that's a PITA.

Using them can also be improved, as well.  Drum Maps should be per-track, not per project.  Maybe you want to try out two different Drum Instruments while producing.  The way the Drum Map system works in Cakewalk makes this inefficient.  In other DAWs (almost everyone I've used - Cubase, Samplitude, ACID Pro, etc.) this is easy to navigate because Drum Maps are track-based.

Track 4 can use a Map for VD-PHAT and Track 8 can use a Map for Battery.  I don't need to change anything in my Project Settings, and the tracks will list the correct drums/notes when I select them in the drum editor.

On 6/14/2020 at 8:46 AM, chuckebaby said:

The other method is using the Drum pane. Which for me anyway, is a bit difficult, you are grabbing those little triangles which i can not always grab in one click unless my Zoom is maxed in. Using 1/4 or 1/16 notes are easier to grab and lets you work in a wider field.

 

For some styles of music 1/4th or even 1/16th notes are simply not small enough.  It's hard to work that way if you're producing Trap or some forms of Hip-Hop, for example.  It simply doesn't work, because often you want 3-4 closed hats to trigger in the length of a 1/4 Note (depends on tempo, ofc).

This looks like this in the drum editor:

On 6/23/2020 at 10:56 AM, scook said:

In this case look at TX16wx

It's almost as if they DON'T want to sell licenses to the Professional version, cause I can't seem to find a link to check pricing.

Also, aren't DirectWave and SliceX available for purchase for use in other DAWs from Image-Line?

On 6/23/2020 at 5:25 AM, Prod.Lostboy Neverlands said:

And if we just find people here in the community to make a sampler vst?

 

 

 

 

 

https://serato.com/sample

Just use a third party sampler.

If the type of Sampler people are looking for is something more like Kontakt, then just wait for Structure 2 to go on sale for $30 and install it without the content (if you don't need that) /shrugs

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The reason why the Hip-Hop and EDM markets aren't using Cakewalk [more, at least] is because Ableton is basically the Pro Tools of EDM and FL Studio is basically the Pro Tools of Hip-Hop.

The resources being produced for Cakewalk is not geared to that type of production, and mostly for Singer/Songwriter types.  It's also hurt by the fact that it ships with almost nothing relevant for those genres, and it's missing a few niceties that actual professionals don't want to lose by moving over from other DAWs to Cakewalk.  "Stuff" is appealing to getting people on board.  They want to be up and running quickly.

Lack of stuff makes producing tutorial content harder, because you cannot expect the end user to have the stuff that you have - while other DAWs give you basically everything you need out of the box.  FL Studio, Live, Cubase, Logic Pro X, etc. <- none of those DAWs require third party Plugins or even Synths to create tutorial content for producing that type of music.

I've suggested Cakewalk numerous time on Reddit (/r/edmproduction and /r/musicproduction) and people routinely shoot it down for FL or Ableton (or even REAPER, ironically) because there are no decent resources available for it that are geared to those genres of music.

If you use a lot of other DAWs you can go subscribe to Groove3 for a month and watch dozens of hours of Tutorials that are well-produced and paced.  There is almost nothing there for Cakewalk/SONAR, and certainly nothing there that pertains to EDM/Hip-Hop music production.

Those markets are bringing in a lot of production newbies, so they aren't booting up a DAW and using it with years of experience on another.  That content ecosystem is a competitive advantage.  Adding a few features isn't going to close that gap.

Lastly:  Music production market is full of bandwagoners.  People have FOMO if they don't bandwagon the industry standards, and people who use the industry standards have a huge influence on impressionable newbies when they make them feel like their choice of DAW is inoptimal.

On 6/25/2020 at 6:53 PM, jsg said:

I've produced 10 symphonies, many short works, songs and 14 albums using the CW staff view.  It works for composition if you are composing in and for the electronic medium. I've used Sibelius for my scores for 15 years or so and will continue to.  The staff view is for MIDI input and editing, and of course, composition. It's not for publishing, preparing final scores or parts or for presenting written music to players for rehearsal, recording or performance.  Once you understand the difference, it's not hard to exploit the staff view for composing.  You can hear numerous recordings I've made in the "Songs" section of this forum and I think you'll agree that for complex arrangements and orchestration the staff view works quite well.  It just needs a few tweaks and bug fixes as we discussed above.

Jerry

The Staff View has lots of issues, and I could never use it for composition.  It's one of the main reasons why I started looking into other DAWs.  It's barely usable, AFAIC.

The issue is not people misunderstanding what the Staff View is for. It's the fact that it's actually quite bad.  Issues with the Staff View, and people asking for improvements, date back a decade or more.

The fact that someone was able to trudge along in it to produce a lot of music doesn't alter the reality of the situation.  That's great to hear, but it's not going to make me want to use it.  I've already been there, and I'm not revisiting any time soon.

Cakewalk's Staff View makes REAPER's Notation Editor look like Sibelius | Ultimate.  It's that bad in comparison, and the gulf was that wide the second REAPER added this feature, when SONAR had it for like 10+ years.

It needs improvement, IMHO.

On 6/25/2020 at 5:12 PM, User 905133 said:

As I understand (as a user since the MS-DOS versions), when the Staff View was introduced, it was never intended to compete with $500+ full-featured staff editing software.

Literally no one is asking for this.  People are seeing what's in other DAWs and comparing to that.

1. Cubase
2. Digital Performer
3. Logic Pro X
4. Pro Tools
5. Samplitude Pro
6. REAPER

etc. all have better Staff View/Notation Editors than Cakewalk.  Even MixCraft has better notation editing than Cakewalk.

This isn't a situation of misguided expectations.  This component is just not that good, and it's been this way for a long time.

I am not sure what they're going to do to improve it, or if they even care to improve it, because that market is already dominated by Cubase Pro and Logic Pro X, anyways.  How much do they stand to gain from investing in improving Staff View?

On 7/5/2020 at 11:21 AM, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Seem like a waste of time and resources to me. Those that want to use them can ....I think I tried them like once or twice 20 yrs and they are long consigned to the FX bin of forgetfulness. 

There are way better plugins out there nowadays for those who need them so giving them a makeover seems a bit redundant   

This.  I don't understand why these were allowed to remain the default set of plugins in the DAW.  It's not a great endorsement for the product.

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If they got a UI update and were included in VST64 form (which we know already exists, because they used to sell the package separately for $19.99), then that's another incentive to download and try CbB. It would come with a dozen or so FX and instruments that could be used in any DAW (and would have Cakewalk branding).

I never used Sonitus:FX in Cakewalk - particularly the Creative FX (like Modulation, Reverb), which are quite second rate, even compared to lots of Free/Cheap effects on the market.

The UI is not a problem.  The Algorithms are.  As time passes, the problem gets solved in better ways - particularly in the creative realm - so, using plugins this old and out of date/development is a red flag to paying clients who are expecting you to do what you can to deliver the best possible product.  Using Sonitus Delay in a project, when [for example] an AIR Delay is superior for little cost to the producer (routinely on super sale), rubs them the wrong way.

On 7/3/2020 at 9:02 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Funny, isn't it? The same clients would probably think it's totally awesome if you had a 50-year-old hardware compressor racked up, or a similar vintage guitar or drum kit in the studio. But software processors with a 20-year-old UI are yucky.

The UI is a signal, and yes, this is abused by companies who develop low end plugins.  This is why all of SoundSpot's stuff looks decent from a UI perspective.  Lots of people associate look and feel with quality.

On the other hand, Exponential Audio's plugins have amazing algorithms behind those knobs and sliders, yet their UIs still look a decade old.  No one will question you for using those, once you name drop them.  Sonitus:FX doesn't create the same feeling of confidence, because they have consistently been reviewed as mediocre - particularly in more recent times.

Again, things like the Compressor and EQ in Sonitus are largely fine, but I would never touch the Creative Stuff in those plugins.  I would not use Sonitus Delay, when you can get free Delays that are far superior for literally nothing.  I consider that decreasing the quality of my work for no good reason.

Is BandLab just going to let those other plugins whither on a vine and never see the light of day, again?  They hide some of the good ones that already come with the DAW, Lol.

You can add an Audio Editor using the Registry.  Cakewalk doesn't automatically detect newer versions of Audio Editors like Sound Forge Pro, WaveLab Pro, etc.  You have to do it manually, but it takes literally 2 minutes.