slartabartfast

First you should decide if you want a synth or a rompler/sampler or some combination of the two. The "space inferno" issue is related to the presets or samples that the "synth" ships with. You can generally create a wide range of sounds from a true synthesizer even just using basic oscillators or waveforms and filters, and if you are getting sounds you do not like from the synths you own, then I expect it is because you have not learned to program them to your taste. Of course if you are using a rompler, you will usually just get what someone else thought would make an impressive demo for the people the designer believes will buy the most copies, or easily recognizable (clichéd) patches sampled from "vintage" synths. If you are trying to make music using sampled wood and wire instruments, that sound passably genuine, then Kontakt has the advantage that it ships with a fairly large library, and that the full version (as opposed to the player) will often play libraries offered for free by others. The new version includes the ability to use wavetable instruments as well, but rather than buy that (especially if you have to pay list) I would recommend an investment of time and study in how to program the stuff you already own. Something like Syntorial might be a better investment.

How exactly is an upgrade from Magix versions of Spectralayers Pro going to work? Has anyone tried? Does it ask for the Magix serial number, or check for previous installed versions on the target machine or somehow interact with the Magix or Spectralayers customer database or what?

I would not be surprised if NI has a way to disable earlier versions if you are installing an NI "upgrade" from an earlier Magix version.

Not real clear on what you want to do. If it is to bring an older version of Win 10 up to the current version look at this page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 If it is to load any updates for your current version that have not been applied to your installation: settings>update and security>windows update If you want to know what your current version/build is type system information into the search box then system information My system information shows that I am up to date at Version 10.0.17763 Build 17763, but the May 2019 update is 1903 for which you may have to reach out:https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028685/windows-10-get-the-update

External hard drives. There is no need for anything fast either to read or write an archived file as you can run backups and copies while you sleep. Generally less expensive than a NAS, and easier to move to a safe place.

The term "bundled with" is ambiguous. It suggests that the malware is not actually inserted into the code of the VST, but rather installed by the same installer that installs the audio software, similar to the notorious bundling of adware with a lot of otherwise legitimate freeware utilities. Many antivirus applications will not pick up this type of installation as malware, unless they have samples of the actual code in their signature database. Of course many purely antivirus apps will not flag adware, since they consider it to be a legitimate business activity. MalwareBytes is one notable exception, but it uses the designation PUP (potentially unwanted program) to distinguish it from a "virus." In any case, it is not too surprising that the malware purveyors have realized that the audio community is a rich target for their wares. Most casual and business computer users have only a couple of dozen downloaded applications on their machines, but audio users often have hundreds. Musicians are also not usually the most sophisticated computer users. Another thing to think about when offered another free loop, sample or plugin. If you avoid the clearly illegal cracked software market, you may still get caught in a honey pot offering a freebie that is not so obviously stolen property.

I got a coupon for an early version of the Twelve Tone Systems Cakewalk sequencer with my first (and last) SoundBlaster card.

The usual reason that enabling effects causes a large increase in latency is that one of the effects uses a "look-ahead" buffer. The effect requires so much processing time that it needs to begin to work before the timeline would normally reach the data. Since the effect cannot actually get data from the future, it needs to slow down the rest of the processing and move all of the tracks into the past relative to the look-ahead time. If all of the tracks continued in real time while the effected track was taking the time it needed, then the effected track would go out of sync and fall behind the rest of the project. Hence a "compensation delay" has to be introduced into the progress of the timeline so that new data is going to be added later--that is the delay that keeps new input lagging behind real time. Generally speaking, the plugins that use substantial buffers for this purpose are marketed as "mastering plugins," which indicates that they are unsuitable for use in real time tracking. Best advice is to use a less calculation intensive effect (or none at all) until you have finished inputting real time data. You can substitute the slower effect when mixing/mastering, in which case the delay is generally tolerable.

Try to navigate to the folder using file explorer that is indicated as holding cakewalk.exe and see if you can open it and view, copy etc. the files inside. If not, then likely it is an access issue somewhere along the folder hierarchy. At some point you will probably be given the option to get access or take possession.

Either that was a flash sale or a misprint.

Yet another wavetable synth. The specs look a bit underwhelming but the price is attractive. I expect that they do not expect anyone to actually play the freestanding version, but just to use it to create patches--so response time/latency is irrelevant. If I had enough time to learn every synth I can afford, I would be interested. As it is I doubt I would ever get around to it.

My understanding of the 64 bit audio processing is that it just uses larger numbers to represent data. I fail to see how it can make more memory available, if anything it is going to require more memory to do the same operations as using smaller numbers would, and that might result in slower processing with big numbers as well. The only argument for using larger digital representations is that the cumulative errors due to truncation or rounding at the least significant digit with each calculation/operation will be less likely to show up in the final result. As fogle622 points out, the numbers that can be represented are enormous, but remember you are only concerned with errors in either the 32nd bit or the 64th bit depending on the base, but you are likely to be saving your audio at 16 bit--so errors below that level are not going to make it through to the final result. It is conceivable that your audio calculation could encounter a very large number of calculations each using the previous result as input, and that every error is systematic i. e. each rounding error is in the same direction. In practice, errors tend to be more random and cancel each other out, so it is pretty unlikely that you are going to use up all the room you have to drop/hide them by processing with 32 bits. But if your computer has the resources to crunch the bigger numbers, and you want to cover for very unlikely computational events, it is there. There may be some confusion between using Windows 64-bit as the operating system and using Cakewalk's setting to use its internal 64-bit calculations/audio engine, which are not at all the same. Windows 64 does indeed give access to a larger amount of memory than Windows 32-bit, and depending on how the applications are coded may result in faster processing.

Be careful with the effects in your softsynths. Many of the presets are designed to sell the product to someone who is soloing it in a well spaced listening environment, and often the reverb etc. is designed to make that particular instrument sound huge. If you play a few of these scary monster sounds at the same time, you often get a result that is totally confusing as to the placement of the source. You will probably do better by pretty much recording each instrument dry (disable the effects in the synth patch) to its own track, and then trying to put it in space within the mix. Otherwise you end up with the effect of a bunch of waves of different sizes crashing into each other and creating a chaotic choppy mess, when what you want is a spaced series of distinct breakers rolling ashore so you can see the direction they come from. The issue with vocals is similar, in that modern recording technique tends to see reverb/delay as a method to improve the sound of the voice, or a substitute for vocal technique. If you are using a space-defining effect as a way to fatten up the voice, especially if you are doing it while tracking, then you are potentially bringing in a false cue to the location.

https://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/niche-is-the-new-mainstream/ If you read between the lines in the above, it is a pitch for a new type of service that would attempt to deliver targeted promotion over social media to replace the old model of mass promotion by the big record companies. So a solution to the nobody-can-find-me-on-SoundCloud problem. The claim is that the new music business will be based on the cultivation of niche markets giving artists with limited appeal the position that the big label superstars used to occupy. Capital intensive dredging of big data on worldwide streaming behavior will enable the service to target specific interest groups tastes to connect them to the artists who are working in that musical canton. Result: artists who would be overlooked will be found and raised to godhood. This will certainly be the inevitable next step, but how much better will it be for most performers than the old system? The first issue to consider is that big data costs big money. If these services are to provide anything more than general mailing lists, they are going to have to find big revenue somewhere. Revenue for small audience artists' promotion is now largely coming from the artists themselves in the form of public relations firms. I doubt that most of the money going into this form of promotion is being returned in increased sales to most of the artists involved. Clearly that is not of great concern to the firms involved if they are just billing for services rendered. I audited an online course about the music business a couple of years ago, and I was struck by the number of students who planned to become social media specialists corralling a stable of artists that they could make a living from. A bright young thing with access to Instragram working out of her bedroom seems an unlikely road to serious financial success. A massively capitalized company using AI to sieve the world community of listeners is a more credible vehicle, but at some point it is going to need to produce real revenue, or the private capital it has duped will drop it. Can such a monster feed on the nickels and quarters that a herd of starving musicians can provide? The second issue follows from the first--it is the inescapable problem of dilution. If the new promotional services provide promotion for enough small scale artists that those unsuccessful performers contributions (in the form of payment for services or some type of percentage of sales) will pay the bills, then there will just too many clients to promote. It is difficult to imagine a niche so small that every artist working in it will be a major star, unless the number of interested listeners is too small to produce significant revenue. In audience sectors where there is real money for the winners, unless the service is selective in who it represents, they will need to flood the social media accounts of those interested listeners with a massive volume of mostly ineffective communication in order to represent all of the artists in that niche who need promotion. This is the reason that services that currently charge artists a small fee for just making their recordings accessible to a large number of listeners or on a large number of sites make enough money to keep going, while most of their clients do not. It is the issue that had to be solved before the major record companies could make money, and their solution was to contract with and promote a very limited number of carefully (although not always successfully) selected artists. Of the two systems it is easy to see which created more millionaire performers. Of course neither the big labels nor the mass distributors have done much for the vast majority of the artists hoping to make it big. So the answer to the revenue problem is going to be how these services select the limited number of artists they will promote. The majors did it largely by "spotting talent" using employees who had a record of being able to find the next big star/band, who were expected to have a critical knowledge of music and musicianship. Later they largely farmed out this cost to agents, whose reputation hinged on being able to screen out the crap, and whose income depended on their clients' success. Either of those methods produced what was basically a curated collection of contracted artists who for the most part could be profitably exploited. Now they seem to be turning towards the natural selection of the internet to swoop in and scoop up the few survivors who rise to the top on YouTube and the like--the signed artist is expected to bring his own audience. This latter strategy is likely to be the method used by the new promoters, although perhaps with computers instead of educated ears. Artificial intelligence is capable of finding trends within the data even when no human being understands the principle behind the trend. But is that so different from the mass-market-mind of the audience that is coughing up the few internet superstars that seem to come out of nowhere? Likely a potential superstar will receive a boost in his rise from the swamp if he has effective targeted promotion, but that does not mean that there will necessarily be more superstars discovered (fewer commercial failures left to struggle), or more money for the lesser stars that this system envisions making its profits from. Will the tiny group of unknown artists who can become big money makers be a better group if they are chosen by a self-learning algorithm? The cost savings to having the search largely computerized and the messaging distribution almost free mean that this type of service will have every chance to prosper. The method of extracting profit from the artist's work will likely look pretty much like the system used by the record companies. At some point between the finding of the next megastar-to-be and the service beginning to send the good news out to his potential adoring fans, he most likely will have to agree to some type of revenue sharing. At that point the new service will have a strong position over the artist. Either he must give them a big piece of the action or take his chances with the fickle audience. In that case he will be much weaker in negotiation than someone who already is a viral star. So although the potential market may be smaller in the niche, the ticket to success may not be any cheaper as a proportion of income for the artist. A promotional service that aggregates hundreds of niche-audience performers may do as well for itself as a record company contracting with several dozen mass-market stars, but this structure will not make most of the artists as wealthy. At best it may make it possible for substantial numbers of the most popular niche artists to quit their day jobs. And of course once this type of service shows its worth to artists, it will engender a hoarde of ineffective, nonselective services that will flood social media with the music-promotion equivalent of p1n!s enlargement advertising, while offering to take cash from gullible artists.

Sorry if this has already been covered in the 30th Anniversary thread, but I gave up after reading several dozen posts there. Early on in this sale, there was no lower price to upgrade from earlier versions--only new purchases and competitive upgrades/crossgrades. Today I see the upgrade for Cubase Pro 10 from 9.5 is $50.00 instead of $99.00. at the Steinberg Store. It may be cheaper at distributors too but I do not know about that. https://www.steinberg.net/en/shop/buy_product/product/cubase-pro-10.html

Wow! I never knew you could get a computer keyboard that was that expensive. Granted the keyboard is the most likely thing to fail (close second is the mouse), but I have only had to replace a half dozen over the last forty years or so due to failure at a total cost of less than $100. Typically I pick one up when NewEgg has it on sale for under $20 and just keep it until needed. My experience with sort of expensive "gamer" keyboards that cost more unless they are on sale has been the worst. I paid $24.99- $15 rebate = $9.99 for a Coolermaster Devastator II that was almost unusable due to too weak a backlight rendering it an exercise in touch typing training. Luckily a key went dead while it was still on warranty, and they sent me a new Devastator III (much better keyboard) for the cost of one way shipping. The trick with this kind of component is to not wait until it fails before you decide to buy a spare. The downside is that an expensive component may go off warranty while sitting on the shelf, so this is not recommended for anything worth much more than the cost of shipping.

Agreed. I am pretty USA-centric, and probably should have been more cosmopolitan in my comments. So there is just the activation issue. I think that to do this transfer in the past, you needed to contact Cakewalk support to make the arrangements to set up a new account for the new user. I doubt that is still an option.

Not permitted under the terms of the licensing agreement. You can certainly install and run software without a valid license. Will anyone stop you or investigate you or punish you? Probably not. With SONAR there is the issue with activation, so you would need to transfer or share sufficient access to your account to let someone else get it activated. So it is certainly possible to let someone else use your copy of the software, but in any case you are not transferring your license, since that is not permitted, and the new user will not have a licensed copy even if he has a usable copy.

The $29 is something of a bargain, but the $105 index price is probably a fantasy. Ignite is not the full Voltage Modular (oddly called Voltage Core) but a subset with fewer modules in the package. It has been selling for about $50 off and on for some time. So maybe a $20 savings with the coupon vs the price at Cherry. The full Voltage is typically in the $100 (currently $99 from the Cherry) range with a list/index price of $200. These prices are still in the range of a single Eurorack hardware module, so if you want to get into beating your head against modular synthesis, this is the way to go. I bought Softube Modular some time ago for $39, and if this had been around then at this price I would have bought it instead. If you can afford $29 and 500 hours of noodling go for it. Incidentally Cherry is selling the rest of the standard full Voltage modules as an upgrade for $49, so you could buy Ignite with the coupon and the upgrade from Cherry and get essentially the full Voltage for $78, a savings of $21 over buying Voltage Core at Cherry. https://cherryaudio.com/voltage-modular/support/module-comparison

I thought the OP was actually talking about a closing of Cakewalk. If Cakewalk has just lost focus and not closed as the OP reports, it should still be present in Task Manager. If it has just fallen behind some other window, then pressing and holding ALT and pressing TAB should reveal it and let him return to it again.

You do realize that a settlement without findings or admission of guilt is the standard way for any business that has broken the law to get out of jeopardy when dealing with US federal or state agencies. It is the rare exception when a company actually admits guilt or responsibility as part of a settlement, since that admission can be introduced in civil cases against the company by aggrieved individuals, or even support criminal charges against the responsible company officers. In general companies faced with admission of wrongdoing will choose to go to trial instead. Trials are expensive for the government, and give no certainty of result. Banks and other companies that have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties to avoid fraud trials have generally been given settlements without admission of guilt, even in cases where many well informed experts agree that actual responsibility is certain. A consent decree is basically a promise to stop doing the crime or not do it again, and may involve a requirement for further court or agency supervision, so it does not always even cost the defendant any penalty. I do not know the facts in this particular case--which is pretty much the purpose of this type of settlement. In this case, at least from the report cited, at least some of the monetary settlement of 3.2 million dollars will go to some of the aggrieved employees. That is not always the case. Often enough the money goes to the government and the injured individuals are on their own.

This behavior has been reported with some security software. Constant Guard Security Suite is one. Apparently these security programs constantly monitor running programs and may just shut them down without warning if their behavior is not what the security software expects.

The standard recommendation is to use the same model RAM for upgrades, or at least match the latency settings. That said, many motherboards are capable of integrating different RAM speeds so long as they are not on the same channel. In some cases that would give you RAM on one channel that is operating at a different speed, in others it will throttle all the RAM to the lowest speed. I would suggest you ask Dell, but in my experience the only help they are willing to give is to help you buy the overpriced RAM that they sell. If you want to mess with it, you can always try a mixture (again not on the same channel) and see what happens, but if you do not want to spend hours analyzing and bench-marking it is probably better to just go all new. Typically, by the time you are ready to add more RAM, the cost of buying all new has dropped to the point where you do not save much by reusing. https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/mixing-ram/

No. SONAR and most other Cakewalk products were licensed only to the original owner, and sale, gift or other transfer is not permitted.

Networking, especially the wireless variety, is notorious for creating DPC latency issues. You can try running LatencyMon to see if this or another driver is causing the problem, or try disabling the network in BIOS/UEFI. https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon