DallasSteve

Mark I think I understand now. You are probably correct. I put the compressor on the final Master bus that has all of the tracks in it. Would that cause what you describe? How could I set it up differently to give it a try the other way?

Mark Thanks for the input. Can you please clarify what it means to "not duck the main mix with the vocal track"? I don't understand what "duck" means in particular.

Gary I posted one. We'll see what the members say.

I've created a new album that I'm going to publish with CD Baby. I wrote about 20 albums when I was younger but I never published any. Now I'm retired and we have these great software programs where I can do everything in my laptop. 40 years ago I had a 4-track Fostex Cassette recorder that I used to make a few demos. What a mess, but it was fun and it helped me to learn the principles of music production. I like the way my new songs turned out, but I know the vocals are weak. I used Melodyne to pitch correct them and did everything else I know, but they are still weak. I could hire someone to replace my vocals, but it may not be worth spending more money on this. If they are only for my enjoyment, they are good enough. If you think it would be worth it to hire a singer, let me know. My main question is: Does this sound like I have infringed anything? I used an old Beatles/Zeppelin trick and based my new songs on old rock classics and then re-wrote them. Do you recognize the song or maybe you recognize some other melody that I copied unintentionally? I was careful to change the melody completely to something different than the base song. As for the lyrics, maybe you saw a news story on the Internet a few years ago about a young woman who was partying with an American couple and fell to her death from their hotel balcony - naked. I give you "Don't Kill The Unicorn".

Great songs. I like them better than most of what I hear on the radio today. And they are very professional sounding productions from the guitars to the vocals. I was thinking about posting one of mine here, but not now. Mine are amateur hour by comparison. If you guys aren't rich what chance do the rest of us have?

I checked out the VocalSync tool. It's a neat idea, but what I need is something that would sync my Audio track to a Midi track as the guide to keep my vocals better in time with the music. Is there an effect for that? That would require a lot of magic.

Lord Tim Thanks for all that work. I just tried doing it with a Region FX and it's not too complicated, but there is one thing it makes more difficult in the way I work. I have a Midi vocal guide track that I create while I'm writing the song. That's how I roll. I compare that to the Melodyne blobs and I fix my bad singing. Even after doing the Correct Pitch macro, I'm sometimes off by 1 or more semitones. Doing it the Region FX way I don't see how to display the piano roll side by side with the Melodyne editor. Maybe if I undock them? On the plus sound, it looks like the Region FX method may actually produce a better pitch correction than what I was getting the other way, so it's worth the extra effort. Bonus question: Under Region FX there is a choice for Vocal Sync. Can you tell me if I have that and what it's for? If not, I can look it up.

Lord Tim I have been doing Melodyne in the Effects rack and it seems to work. I'd rather not add a whole 'nother layer of complexity to this. A - What will be the problem using it in the Effects rack? B - If I go the Regional Effects route I'm still unsure of the sequence of steps: 1 - Apply other effects to the audio track (or does Freeze track do that) 2 - Freeze the track 3 - Make a duplicate of the track (with events) 4 - Freeze that backup track (necessary?) 5 - Archive that backup track 6 - Unfreeze the original track 7 - Create a Melodyne region 8 - Do the Melodyne steps 9 - Freeze that track

John Vere I had seen that Regional Effect before, but I don't know how to work that way. I understand the Effect rack and I found it easier to go with that. Will it be easier if I treat Melodyne as a Regional Effect? Melodyne seems to work correctly in the Effect rack.

Lord Tim That may be my problem I recorded the new vocals while the track was frozen. I still don't understand the mono/stereo situation. When I add an audio track it doesn't ask me if I want stereo or mono. When I look at the new audio track it looks like mono because it has only one squiggly line in the track icon. But in my screenshot the track has two squiggly lines like stereo. I just tested Freeze and that seems to be when it happens. If I have a Pan dial I don't see how that would work unless it is stereo. Can you explain the stereo/mono on an audio track? I can try to find it in the documentation, if necessary.

In the screenshot below I have a section (Pre-Chorus) recorded in stereo and another (Chorus) recorded in mono (I think). I recorded the Pre-Chorus last week and I went in today to redo the Chorus. I did not intend to change from stereo to mono. Actually, I thought it was a mono track. I may know the cause and the solution, but I'll post this anyway to see what the experts say. I added 3 Audio FX to the track last week (Melodyne, Modulator, and Reverb). Then I froze the tracks. Does one of those effects cause the mono track to become stereo when you freeze it? The stereo sounds much better. My voice almost sounds decent. I want to get that effect again in the Chorus. I'm going to proceed with applying the effects and freezing the track again after I finish cleaning up the vocals.

I found the answer. Do you see it? The Vocoder effect is shaded in my screenshot. I had the Effect Rack in Bypass mode. I didn't even know that was a "thing" or that I had that turned on. I turned off the Bypass and now the vocoder works. Mystery solved.

I'm trying to do this today, and I'm not getting a sound when I press Play. I added the Tal Vocoder VST in the Audio track (image below). I clicked Enable Midi Input. I put notes into a Midi track and selected the Tal Vocoder as the Midi output. I press play and I hear nothing. I can hear the Audio track, but not the Midi track. Do you know what I am missing to get this to work?

I just thought of one other solution, for those like me who have Melodyne. Melodyne has Note Leveling which allows you to adjust the volume of notes up or down. I will try that, too, the next time I have soft vocals.

I've been creating MP3s from my finished songs in Cakewalk using File > Export > Audio. That seems to be the intended method. That seems odd to me. I have to go in and select audio tracks to export or it says I haven't selected any audio to export. It seems to me that the whole point of using the Console to set up the output (Master) bus is to use that mix for the final product. Isn't there some way to save/export from the Master bus to an MP3? What if I don't pick the correct audio to export? What should I select to export, if that is the only option?

I found the answer to this question. I processed those clips with Melodyne and I forgot to turn it off. So it was still playing the Melodyne version that did not get transposed.

I was working on some vocals today and some of the notes were too high for me to sing. So I transposed the tracks down 5 half steps. I went ahead and transposed the audio tracks to see what they would sound like, although I expected I would need to re-record them. I was blown away. My rather thin vocals sounded beefy when I transposed them down. It reminded me a bit of an Ovox commercial I saw. I was trying to get a ZZ Top feel to this song so the gravelly vocals are perfect. I'm going to do this some more when the song is right. The problem is the two clips highlighted in the screenshot below did not transpose. I tried a second time to transpose just those tracks and the same thing happened. Do you know why some audio clips might not transpose?

Thanks for those tips. I'll give them a try next time I'm faced with soft vocals.

I did some reading in the on volume envelopes in the Cakewalk manual. It appears that volume envelopes are something you can create in an Automation Lane. I tried to do this for the clip in question (see screenshot below). I tried to do this so that that Volume is increased to its maximum during this clip. It looks like 6 db is the maximum that you can increase the volume. That doesn't seem like much of an increase, but it is noticeable when I replay the clip now. Am I on the right track? Is that the most that I can increase the volume for this clip? I guess an alternative would be to decrease the volume on all tracks and then pump up the quiet sections to 6 db, if necessary.

I have an vocal in an audio clip that is too soft. I have been using a Compressor effect on my Master bus to handle any vocal or other sounds that get too loud. But I also have some vocal parts that are too soft. I know the best solution is to re-record them and sing at a better level in the mic. I try to do that as a general practice, and some clips are at a good level, but sometimes I just get it too soft. I'd prefer not to keep re-doing it until I get it right for time reasons. So I studied this a little and I even looked at the Cakewalk manual. It looks like I have at least the 4 options listed below and I'm wondering what methods the experts favor for doing this. - Add the Boost FX effect to a clip (I tried that and I didn't notice much difference even when I cranked it up, also that is more work if I have to do it to each clip) - Create a volume envelope on a clip (I haven't found instructions for how to do that) - Apply the Gain effect in the Process menu to a clip - Apply the Normalize effect in the Process menu to a clip

I did not know that. That is the best/easiest solution. They took away the Split tool in Essentials so I thought it wasn't possible, but after seeing your reply I checked the manual and it says you can. I tried it and it worked. Thanks. This is the method for others who might search for this topic. To split a note in two: – Position the tool at the intended split point – not on but slightly above the blob; the appearance of the mouse pointer will then change, and you will be able to split the note with a double click. This can give you greater flexibility when correcting or reshaping notes. – The note separation that is created can be removed with a double click to reunite the two segments.

I want to know if I can play only a short piece of a song in Cakewalk. I bought the cheap version of Melodyne and it doesn't let me split a "blob". So I have the idea that I can set Cakewalk to play just one note (half of the blob) and set Melodyne to Transfer and then go back and do it again with the second half of the blob. If there's a better way to do that without upgrading Melodyne, please let me know. I know there is a Loop function in Cakewalk, but I don't know if it can be set to only play one time and then stop, or is there some way to play only a Selection?

I want to create a MIDI groove clip (looping) that starts with a small silence at the beginning. I recorded some notes in real time and my first note was at 1:01:026. I want to leave the 026 gap at the start and have a length of 8:00:000. When I edited the clip to start at 1:01:000 Cakewalk moved all the notes forward 026 so the first note started at 1:01:000. That's not what I want. I tried reading the documentation about editing MIDI clips and I don't see this covered. So I thought of a scheme to get what I want. I created an extra note and I moved it to 1:01:000. Then I bounced the clip and set it to loop. Then I deleted the extra note and I checked the start time and lengths. They are 1:01:000 and 8:00:000. I checked and the first note starts at 1:01:026. It looks like my scheme worked. Is there a easier/better way to do what I wanted to do?

Thanks for that explanation. Are there some typical actions that people like to use for that CC01 or is there a list of the possible uses? I searched the Cakewalk documentation PDF and the text CC01 doesn't appear in my search.

I have a small USB keyboard that I use with Cakewalk. I also have a full size Yamaha keyboard I can connect, but it's easier to work with the small one. I guess that falls into the category of Too Much Information. That's a good song title. So that USB keyboard has 2 wheels on it, Pitch and Modulation. The Pitch wheel springs back to the middle while the Modulation wheel doesn't. I know how to use the Pitch wheel, but I don't know what the Modulation wheel does. I tried it while I was connected to Cakewalk and the keyboard went crazy with a sound something like a tremolo, but the sound wouldn't go away. I had to reset the Audio Engine to get it back to normal. Now I'm afraid to Modulate. I have Modulaphobia. Can someone explain what I can modulate and how?