norfolkmastering

Thanks for your input and support. I have a whole bank of 500 series gear (including a rack of Wes Audio EQ units which are VST controlled) and I use very little digital processing during mixdown, so external inserts are a big deal for me. I know the development team is super busy getting Sonar ready but I hope they take a moment to feedback into this thread. External inserts have been neglected for far too long!

Some of us have been campaigning for years to get the issues with Cakewalk/Sonar's external inserts sorted, since way back into the Gibson ownership days. I tried raising this with the help centre again recently but was told it was probably on a to-do list but with no timescale. This is the reply we have always received for many years. So the help centre suggested I try posting again on the issues, in this forum. Of course I realise that most Cakewalk users are probably working 100% in the box but for those of us with hybrid set ups, it continues to be a real pain. Let me summarise the issues again: 1. CbB does not offer true mono external insert sends. So if you allocate e.g. the left leg of a stereo pair, then the right leg is no longer available for use by another send. CbB is the only major DAW with this very out of date limitation. It is also inconsistent with the external insert returns which can be configured for true mono use. 2. CbB appears to offer the facility to configure a external send only. The configuration is allowed and the meter shows the audio activity BUT no audio actually appears at the port. If this was fixed we would have access to pre FX sends which is incredibly useful. Again, there is inconsistency in that external insert returns only (i.e. with no corresponding send port allocation) are supported and I use these extensively as effect returns. 3. CbB has issues with external inserts which are part of FX Chain Presets. When such a preset is recalled and is in use, the audio engine often halts . The only workaround is to extract the plugins from the FX Chain. After all these years of asking for the external inserts to be overhauled, and with the new Sonar release in sight, it would be nice to get some level of commitment from the Bakers to get these issues on to a timetabled release. If you are one of the design team reading this post, PLEASE reply.

Thanks Mark, that worked. However I found my MIDI note timing was not accurate enough so I ended up using the manual method of marking the start of each bar against the original audio waveform peaks. It took 90mins but it's done and pretty tight.

Thanks for the link. That method looks to be entirely manual and would take me hours to do the song tempo. I was looking for an automatic method which timed off the t edge of each midi note.

I want to create a tempo map which matches a song which has been imported as a file into a new Cakewalk project. I tried audio to tempo conversion but it doesn't work well with this particular song. So instead I want to record a MIDI track (maybe using the virtual keyboard) and simply tap out the tempo using my mouse. Is there a way to then take this MIDI track and derive a tempo map from it? Or is there a simpler way to tap directly into the tempo map using a mouse whilst listening to the audio track? I do not want to adjust the timing of the original audio track.

No comms from Cakewalk/Bandlab after applying for beta access. Has anyone heard back after applying or can Bandlab comment?

I did take up the suggestion and signed for beta testing. I'll let you know if I hear anything back from them.

Can anyone at BandLab give us a rough idea when the first release of the new Sonar will happen? I understand there is Beta testing to be done first. Are you planning to open a section in the Forum so folks can feedback on bugs etc once the first version is released? Is there going to be a free trial period with maybe the save function disabled?

I found out that my MOTU audio interfaces are ordered by serial number, so basically oldest first. No way to change that in the MOTU audio console.

Ah, I live in hope that more folks will embrace the hybrid digital/analogue mixing world!

Many of you are aware that the External Inserts system is long overdue for a major overhaul. Here is my feature/bug fix wish list: 1. Support mono sends (so that both legs of a nominal stereo pair can be assigned separately) 2. Allow an insert send port to be assigned with no return port allocation. This would allow a pre FX send to be achieved. (At the moment it can be assigned and the send meter shows audio activity but the actual audio port doesn’t get fed with audio). 3. Continue support for an external insert returns to be assigned without the need for a corresponding send. I use these as effect returns. 4. Fully support external inserts within FX Chains and FX Chain presets. You have to use a workaround at the moment which is a pain to use. 5. Fix the bug which causes external insert port allocations sometimes to be set back to ‘None’ when a previously saved project is loaded. This happens even when the required audio ports are shown as available. Same problem with FX Chain presets which sometimes load with their previous port allocations lost. And when a port is not available then the system should allow alternative ports to be selected just like it does for sends. 6. Bring external inserts fully into the Cakewalk API. 7. Fix the API bug which incorrectly reports mono sends as stereo send names (yes that’s not an external insert send problem yet, but will be when mono sends are supported). The new Sonar should be a lot more user friendly for use folks using hybrid in/out of the box mixing.

I’m hoping that the Sonar will split routing to buses and to external ports into two separate lists. I realise it’s an extra mouse click for many users but for those of us with a large audio port count it would be a great feature.

Good advice!

Thanks for the information. The 'Cakewalk_by_BandLab_Setup_29.09.0.075.exe' installer worked fine. I still had to activate the install via my Bandlab account but no doubt Cakewalk/Bandlab will be considering how to deal with that when CbB is semi retired.

I understand the issue around authorization but I would still appreciate an answer to my question if anyone can help with that.

I wanted to get a set of CbB files stored in case I ever have to reinstall it on my Studio PC at a time when it is no longer available to download. So I did an install on to a spare PC which didn't previously have CbB installed and I wanted to check if the downloaded files I now have will allow installation at a later date in such a scenario. I've attached two screen shots of the downloaded files. One screenshot shows an executable 'CakewalkSetup' which when run downloaded all the files in the 'Cakewalk' folder. The other screenshot shows all the files in the 'Cakewalk' folder. Can anyone help with how I might go about doing an install from these files and which app file I should run to do the install?

Thanks for clarifying Mark. It would be great if there was an option to have friendly names list in alphabetical order. That way I could have my frequently used sources and destinations at the top of their respective drop down lists. It would also be great if mouse wheel was supported for the track input, output and send lists.

I tried Option 2 first but Cakewalk puts all the drivers back in the same order so I think it must be attempting to match the reinstalled drivers to what is stored in aud.ini. So it seems that the aud.ini file is not cleaned up when drivers are removed? So I moved on to Option 1. I have a total of seven MOTU interfaces and it looks impossible to figure out which device is which in the listing. If you have experience of this could you tell me how best to identify which is which or whether there is a way to clean up the aud.ini file without having to do a new install of CbB?

I have in excess of 60 physical audio output ports in my set up. When I'm doing track to Cakewalk bus routing, I have to scroll down past all of these external ports to get to my buses. It wouldn't be so bad if you could use the mouse scroll wheel but you can't, so I have to click and hold down the little down arrow button on the output selection dropdown. It takes forever! Same issue with track sends. Is there any way to split the track output routing selection into external and internal destinations?

As I have a large number of audio interfaces (seven MOTU units), I want to rearrange the order in which they appear in the Devices list. Why? Because I want the interfaces I use most to appear at the top when I do track output and track input selection. Is there anyway to do this within Cakewalk?

Thanks for the advice. I had a look at the file and can see the parts you are referring to. Yes I'll make a back up before editing!

I'm doing a major reorganise of my Cakewalk set up and I want to set all the ASIO port friendly names back to their default port names. Is there any way to do this?

Has anyone experience of running a MOTU Ultralite M3 hybrid and a MOTU 828x in the same system? I've tried connecting them both via USB and both units are recognised by Cakewalk. However projects are very slow to load and even more reluctant to play audio. I have no problems running multiple Ultralites in the same system. It is only when I introduce the 828x that the problems start. Both types of interface run from the same MOTU driver so I am not trying to run multiple drivers in Windows (which I know is not possible). Suggestions for a fix would be welcomed.

I'm beginning to use quite large numbers of physical audio ports with Cakewalk and I'm having issues above 32 ins and outs. Of course it might be an interface driver issue but I wanted to find out what the Cakewalk limit is?

It has to do with an external controller I am using. Quite difficult to explain but if there is a way to change the default state of a track or bus 'Bypass Rack' button to not active when a new track or bus is added, it would be useful to know how.