Keith Wilby

That's a really nice piece but for me personally, it's dominated by the lead guitar. I think there needs to be gaps for a vocalist to get a word in edgeways 🙂 YMMV of course.

That's very kind of you, thank you. Having listened again I think the celli are swamping, well, everything, particularly after the middle 8. Either way I'll fix it 👍

Thank for your comments Michael. Sometimes I feel it's a little slow, and my wife says the arrangement is "flat", so rather than speeding it up and having to sing it all again I'm going to try punctuating the arrangement a bit first, maybe an organ or something. Failing that then I'll try a faster tempo.

There's a little old man who on some mornings shuffles into the shop where my wife works. She says he's such a lovely old fella but incredibly lonely, especially since his wife passed away. I've never met him but this song is based on her description of him. The recording needs a few fixes here and there, particularly the lead guitar which I always struggle with, but comments welcome as always. https://www.bandlab.com/post/52f68489-715f-ed11-819a-000d3a3eefd0

Very very nice indeed, I wish I could write a ballad like that. As Bajan Blue has noted (do you you see what I did there? 😁) one or two harmony issues to sort but it's a track to be proud of for sure, well done.

Shameless bubble gum pop time, complete with throw-away lyrics and a bassline knicked from Macca's "My Brave Face" 🙂 https://www.bandlab.com/post/dd79ae77-d860-ed11-819a-000d3a3eefd0

That was the reason for my question because that method will only change note events and not control events, which David has now commented might be a bug.

Hi all, If I import some MIDI from a Yamaha file it very often has a channel number other than 1. I can do a global change to the channel number using the "Events" toolbar item, but it only affects the notes. Sustain (for example) won't change. Is there a way to do this? There are often many "sustain" events as I'm sure you can imagine 🙂 Thank you.

Fantastic, thank you so much.

I've just "discovered" that this is free so I thought I'd take a look. The instruments sound great but can someone tell me please, how do you get CbB to show all of the available instruments as tracks? If I use the "All synth audio outputs: stereo" option then I get 16 audio tracks plus a MIDI track. All of the audio tracks are silent except the first one which sounds whatever instrument I've selected. Is is a question of including an instance of the VST for each instrument you want to use? I hope that makes sense. Many thanks.

I can only guess that what you're suggesting is that I take the output from my Penta into a new box (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for example) and then use the USB connection from it. It that right?

Many thanks Mark. I was about to post the time but you beat me to it (I've been on holiday with no internet access).

I appreciate all of the suggestions but what worries me is that, if I get another box to plug my mic into, then I can no longer use my Penta compressor, and that's a vital piece of kit for me. If Focusrite made a USB version of it then that would be great, but they seem to have abandoned compression.

Hi Mark, thanks for your response, good to hear from you as always. I'd like to focus, if I may, on the input interface for now. Given that I have a "line in" from the Penta, what would you suggest to get the sound from that onto Cakewalk? I know Focusrite now do interface units so would you recommend one of those? Also, what pedigree of sound card are we looking at? I'm guessing a full on gaming sound card would be a bit over the top but I don't know really.

Some interesting replies, thanks everyone. I've posted lots of songs on here and no one has ever commented on inferior sound quality, and I have to say, if it sounded inferior then I'd be the first to notice 🤭 but there is certainly a slight latency issue. That said, I'm always keen to learn from the experiences of more qualified people, and I wondered what an "ideal" setup might comprise. One caveat: I have a Focusrite Platinum Penta compressor that I use for my vocal mic (has phantom voltage), and that has a simple mono line output. Many thanks.

My setup is pretty straightforward. I have a self-built desktop PC with onboard graphics and sound. I use a pair of Samson speakers via USB which also have inputs for my vocal microphone. Everything works fine but I was wondering if the onboard sound processing is used by Cakewalk for anything other than playback, ie is it used for rendering/exporting, and if so, would a dedicated sound card be of any significant benefit? Many thanks.

From my local BBC radio station: Hello Keith Wilby, Good news! We're going to play one of your tracks on BBC Radio. Your track, Supply and Demand, will feature on BBC Music Introducing in Cumbria, on Saturday 27 Aug 2022 (on BBC Radio Cumbria). If you miss the show, you can listen again on BBC Sounds for up to thirty days at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0crt3sq Got more tracks you think are good enough to get played? Sign in and upload them now at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader Thanks again for sharing your music with us. And keep those tracks coming. BBC Music Introducing http://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/

That did the trick, but I won't pretend to understand why. Many thanks indeed 👍

Hi Lord Tim, here it is. I have to stress that all of my other projects have exported just fine which is why I think it might be a corrupt file. Many thanks.

Hi John, thanks for your response. It's not clipping, it's just a noise when you play it, none of the musical content is there for the first 35 seconds or so. Sonically, the track is fairly "even". On some attempts to export it, I get no sound at all, but if I use the option in the attached screen grab, the export works without fail. I'm wondering if I have a corrupt file that I need to import into a new and pristine one.

Hi all, I've been using CbB for quite a few years now and never encountered this problem with exporting before. It only seems to be doing this on my "Supply and Demand" song, but the export partly fails. Please see screen grab of my WAV file in Sound Forge. I'm using all default settings but changing the bit depth (for example) makes no difference. Any clues? Many thanks. EDIT: if I use the export drop-down that bypasses the settings dialog box, the export works.

Many thank Mark, I'm a jack of many trades and master of none 🤭 I'm on with the drums now 👍

Hi Nigel, I use Addictive Drums 2. I've already corrected the rhythm, which I thought was near but not quite right, but I'll certainly have another listen to where they are in the mix 👍

Thank Tom. I imagined a solo similar to Paul Kossoff's on Free's "Goin' Down Slow" - friend of mine is more than capable of doing that, it's just a question of getting him here and recording him, which might not be quite so easy. I'll revisit the horns/brass now 🙂

It needs a proper lead guitarist on it, which rules me out. https://www.bandlab.com/post/fbc588f7-7e1c-ed11-9441-000d3a3f83b4 EDIT 1: Drums now hopefully behaving themselves, plus a few tweaks to the lead guitar and the organ solo. I decided to leave the brass/horn swell over the vocal as-is, I think it builds the moment nicely. EDIT 2: Drums backed off a tad and lead guitar improved.