Alan Tubbs

I always hated typing all caps for SONAR so Sonar is already ahead.

Chris, Maybe if one can’t scrounge up a little cash for 5 years worth of free updates to what was a free program you can find a better deal somewhere else. BandLab doesn’t owe anybody a free DAW forever and I’m grateful they’ve kept cakewalk going. That being said, BandLab should have a cheap, clean version for the benefit of future customers or those that have plenty of fx and synths. Maybe for the destitute they can provide a crippled-up version with only a dozen audio tracks or so. The first DAW I bought was Plasma, an early cakewalk looper Daw. I got a crippled copy out of one of the European mags. I upgraded from that version until CbB today. Quite frankly, I’m not too interested in paying for someone else’s software. However, don’t mind helping BandLab expand their paying base which helps everybody who uses the software. But the more I think about it the more I figure you are right. CbB needs to end at some point because far too many would be customers will stick with a free version rather than paying to upgrade. Of course bandlab should give a long lead time before they close CbB and plenty of warning so any one could save up for Sonar or find a cheaper DAW.Another reason to keep the basic Sonar cheap. Mark, I said a stripped down version. My interpretation of stripped down means none of the more expensive software add ons like synths and melodyne and such. I thought that was clear. Did it not read that way to you?

The whole point of having it free was to create new users. Bandlab never said they were going to provide the a world class DAW for free for ever. Yet cakewalk by Bandlab will remain free even after another update. It should be good to go for as long as the OS updates work with it. And Next seems a next logical step for any new users. I’m actually stoked to see it and hope it is somewhat like P5. I loved that software. And the reason I use Sonar here at home is it works for me naturally. In the early aughts I tried out the various DAWS and liked Cakewalks look and flow. It needed to pc back then for home - couldn’t afford a Mac. I’ve stuck with it since and thru the change to Sonar (that was a major change in look and flow). The only DAW I liked better was P5. it sounds like the new Bandlab’s DAWs will have most people covered.

One also has to figure in how much time and cuss jar fees are involved in learning a new DAW. If you get older such becomes a real time suck. I can barely find time here at home to work on music. I certainly don’t want to spend that time re-wiring my brain when I could be creating. And at this stage of my life I can afford money over time and whatever Cake charges doesn’t touch the hardware here at home. Just got a new mk5 ultilight to use with last years summing mixer. And that doesn’t include other software like pigments and and the new crop of granular reverbs which all run les than $100. But for most of my career such was real money and a much bigger investment, so I am sensitive, but also cakewalk or whatever we decide to call the company and software needs to live too - otherwise I’ll spend all my time learning software instead of using it when they go the way of the dodo Gibson. for giggles I’ll put out a spec sheet: Next - I’m not sure what it is. A step up from the free Bandlab software? Maybe pay. Hopefully you can use it on the Mac so cakewalk can have an in there. And the new Sonar, stripped down or for owners of previous or paid versions maybe $100. Maybe $200 for new users if it includes some starter native effects. The pc eq is great, the 1176 is usable and the ssl buss is great and as good as you are going to find natively. then as stated above you could bundle the synths and other fxs. Comes with rapture super pro for another $100. A whole synth bundle with Zeta2 and some new libraries another $50. The la2a comp (another very good emulation) and some special stuff like the aforementioned granular synth, as well as a good, naive and natural reverb. Even tho I’ve spent plenty of money on those a good bundle would be hard to skip. plenty of other ways to skin the DAW. But if you bought Sonar years ago you can’t really think 6 years of upgrades don’t need paying for, well, you get what got (I’m assuming cakewalk by Bandlab will still work for a while). a sensible price will keep most users and cakewalk can continue to add features and toys that most of us will eagerly lap up. what do you think will work?

Have you ever tried to put a pizza on a motorcycle? Don’t. It is like what I used to tell my kids when they were doing something stupid, “Exactly what good is going to come out of this”.

Businesses that ***** customers don’t keep them. They don’t have to your best buddy, just treat you decently. Rupert Neve had a story about how the first console they sold in the US back in the 60shad some bad woodwork. Mr. Neve sent his carpenter to NYC for a couple of weeks to get it sorted and that cost him more than the profit he made on a $100K console. Still, once word got around of what he’d done helped facilitate the next dozen consoles in the US in as many months.The good guys do win. I had an Indian motorcycle dealer treat me right like that, too, and guess who gets my business now. it is amazing that if you aren’t a hole about things how much people will work with you. I think the new cakewalk will do right for most customers. It sounds like cakewalk by Bandlab will be available for a long while for those that dont want to pay so you won’t lose all the money you spent on it w/Bandlab. There will be Next, and who knows what exactly it is. And there will be a new pay version of Sonar. Take your pick, partner.

Zeta 2 is pretty good but sure, a new zeta would be great.

Come on people, bandlab gave us 5 years of free updates on a free DAW. That should earn some brownie points after the Gibson fiasco. Before that Cakewalk treated customer pretty good, even with having to pay. it will be interesting to see how having to pay will affect the customer base. We already have a lot of squealing and the new old Sonar company has already addressed some of this. Personally, I could give a monkey’s fornication about customizing the colors or transcription. Bug fixes and features are worth paying for - to me. You might have other ideas but bandlab has to take it all into consideration. Sonar’s Achilles heel for mass adaption is no Mac version. Most music producers are on Mac, so that Gibson had to include 2 light DAWs with their hardware. But for the home producer Windows was great since many already had the computer and PCs are still cheaper. Hopefully they’ll get something going with the Apple world, even if it isn’t Sonar. what I’m looking for is Sonar as a professional DAW and hopefully refurbished synths & Effects. I’d love me a slick Rapture Pro redux and all my old Cake effects bundled and refurbished. Many of those are superb. they just need to bring in a good reverb. As far as company’s integrity, at the beginning of digital age I got a presonus fire station, which was on FireWire but with Yamahas mlan protocol. An update bricked it. Yamaha sent me an i88 to try but couldn’t run the new software on my old computer. Do you think they paid for my presonus? overall, I think Cakewalk has been about upfront about what is going on. Or at least as much as possible.

Sound forge used to have that function - capture a sample of steady state noise and strip it out. Don’t know if the latest Magic iterations kept that function.

Paragraph breaks these days are important. Not a big deal on the net but if I see a big block of text it better be interesting or my eyes will just slide down to the next break. If you are asking for help make it easy for us. and yea, Byron doesn’t have a bedside manner but is knowledgeable. some notes. I had an hp all in one with a 24 inch screen that would go thru 90 degrees to flat and pitch to any angle and hold the position. Only an i5 but I used it to work on songs. Didn’t mix on it since there was no feedback on the faders. It worked fine but died after a few years. I need to see if they can fix it but it might be the screen a d that would junk the thing. heat is a great killer, but as above if you freeze synths and processing you can make laps and tablets work alright.

Sound Forge used to be the audio editor. Cakewalk can work, too.

That too. I have a dual stereo transformer coupled outputs on my RND orbit mixer (the only diff between the two signals is one is wound for -6 dB so one can drive it harder). I’ll often send one or more tracks thru it, and not necessarily with extra hardware on the “mix” buss, but only for the sweetest transformer blooming one can get. So yea, any buss created to add fx is a mix buss, whether it is folded back into the master buss or is the master buss itself. Or the mix buss is the master.

I think mix buss became popularized with all the effects that got latched onto the master out to differentiate it. It is your master buss but you are hearing it with effects so you are mixing thru it. So a mix buss is your master buss. Also, many pro projects were recorded on Neve desks, but mixed on SSLs using their built-in buss compressor, again changing it from a virginal master buss to a mix buss. Most masters beforehand were shipped off to a mastering engineer but now the mix engineer could get the master nice and hot before shipping it off.

Right. And thosefader panels are hard to separate at times.

There is also a chance that phantom power can ruin older ribbons mics. And I don’t know if it has been mentioned but many if not most ribbons t need a lot of gain. If all you have is a 55 dB gain preamp your vocals may be low in vol.

Run away from asio4all. if you are stuck with it upgrade to an interface with real drivers, not a generic wrapper.

A mono track will come out as stereo- once you mix, esp. with FX.

Freeze some of your midi tracks and convolution reverbs.

Glad you found a solution.

ASIO drivers organize the outs in stereo. Just the way it is.

Yes. Change your piano track to track one and recorded in mono. Track two (mono) should be the vocals. Now you can treat the two instruments separately with eq, vol automation, panning etc. OF Course there will be bleed as the piano will overpower the vox at times. Same with your vox over the music. but unless your room is treated your are likely not recording a great signal, which muddies the soundstage. there is a lot to recording, esp acoustic instruments. As said above, it is like learning a new instrument. Keep at it and you will get better. as to the recoding, the vox seems to have much more reverb, while the piano doesn’t. That sounds unnatural. But not bad for an early recording. Stevie Nicks only had to worry about singing in a million dollar room with a million dollar’s worth of equipment and a million dollars with recording talent. Think about it that way.

IKEA used to have a desk that worked for studio desk. You might give them a look and add some floor racks.

Why stereo recording of mono tracks? you should have two tracks of mono WAV files that you MIX together in real-time to a stereo wav file. Then render that mix to whatever spec you need, wav, mp3 etc. you can then append that to video. FYI I don’t work with video in sonar.

Good find.

Never let complexity overwhelm production. Still this next release should be exciting.