RexRed

I just emailed Celemony with a few questions. I have a question for people here, can Cakewalk record with 24 bit variable bitrates? The problem I have is at the beginning of notes. I don't know if this is a latency issue or not, but it seems the beginning of notes are (I don't know how else to describe it) paper thin, meaning, it gets recorded okay but if you try and edit the pitch, the tone disintegrates. It is as if not enough bits were used to listen to these crucial moments of the recording. This reminds me of video editing where a noisy part of a scene will occur, like an explosion or a foggy scene and it will require A LOT more bits to reproduce or copy that section of the scene. Well, this is the way music is as well. Vocal recordings do not respond well to a one size fits all strategy. Certain parts of the music need more bits. In practice, Cakewalk should throw more bits at the transients of a signal. I have a certain singing style where I throw my voice at the beginning of notes. It creates a weird pitch acceleration at the forefront of a syllable. This pitch part needs more resolution and something, I don't know if it is Melodyne or Cakewalk, but it is treating everything uniformly and not paying special mind that these parts of the sound require a much higher resolution so they are more manipulatable and refined compared to other parts of the sound that are not as complex a wave quality. I have been struggling with this issue for many years and gone through dozens of audio interfaces looking for one that would reproduce my sound more robustly. This is just another attempt to figure out what I might be able to do to get more bits into Melodyne. Is this part of the ARA 2 standard to treat all sound uniformly when converting it?

I just ordered this interface. I need to find out how well this works. I will let you know what I find out.

Every professional singer in the industry uses Melodyne or they sing the same line over and over 50 times like they did in the 50s and 60s till they get it right. The wonky syllables are the nature of how pitch correction works, it only works on certain syllables and does not work on others.

I wish it was a singing issue.

I am thinking of purchasing this audio interface. Zoom UAC-232 USB 2.0 Audio Interface https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UAC232--zoom-uac-232-usb-3.0-audio-interface It says it is the first 32-bit audio interface even though a lot of them lie about it being able to actually "record" in 32 bit. I hate every audio interface I have ever owned. I love my RME Fireface UCX 2 but I hate the audio quality even though I like it much better than all of the brands I have owned previously. It gives me the ins and outs I need in a modular way. Everyone says that the only difference with 32-bit recording is headroom. It is hard to believe that recording something with tons more bits would not produce a better-quality recording as well. Or let's say, a "more stable" recording. Question 1. Will Melodyne work with 32-bit files? 2. Will my effects work with them? 3. Will my VST instruments work with this interface? I can record my voice and it sounds perfectly realistic but the moment you move some syllables in Melodyne the tone gets all wonky and formant does not come close to fixing it. With more bits you would think you would get a more stable representation of the sound and be able to modulate it without the syllables disintegrating. Any thoughts? I have gone up to 96 khz and this did not fix the wonky syllables in Melodyne problem any better than 44 khz. Going up in khz there was zero improvement in syllable stability. My thought is throwing a billion more bits at the problem would fix it. I would like to hear how this sounds and so I get bigger files and not being able to distort my input that is definitely a plus as well. The advertisement for this states that not only do you get better headroom but also better "quality". Quality is the thing... And about Cakewalk, would these 32 files bog down Cakewalk playback? I have 18 Intel extreme cores, will a 32-bit song limit me to like 4 tracks with only a few effects or something? Would things like vocal rider still work? Thanks in advance for any input on this. I would like to try this, maybe if it does not work well I can return it.

I was once told by a sound engineer that 70% of all room acoustics come from the border between the ceiling and the walls. Put your treatments there. A couple years later this same sound engineer introduced me to Cakewalk for MSDOS. I know you are all going to cringe, but I use earbuds to do 70% of my mixing, not headphones. I like the direct connection to my ears they provide. 90% of my listeners use earbuds. Headphones to me sound sort of dull and I have had some good ones. If I use headphones, I like Philips brand, and they will run you anywhere from 20 to 40 bucks. Sonarworks has my headphones tested for the frequency curve Philips SHP9500. But, I still prefer earbuds. You MUST use headphones/earbuds and monitors to create a mix. I consider headphones and earbuds to be pretty much the same thing even though I have my preference . There are things you can't hear or judge in headphones and things you can't hear from monitors. These are the things you listen for when using them. Earbuds will reveal if my bass is just loud enough to rattle the bones in my ears where studio monitors will mask that. In earbuds, my vocal I can crank way above the music and the song will still sound fine (they lie), but when I use my monitors, I can precisely set the ratio of vocal to accompaniment. I will put it this way, it is impossible to set the ratio of the voice to music in earbuds. Where, monitors tell you immediately if the voice is too loud. I use M-Audio Studiophile BX5 monitors. I have big PA speakers too, but I don't use them anymore except for live gigs. Earbuds are like a microscope, you can zoom way in with perception and fidelity and detect even the slightest noise where monitors you zoom out and you can perceive the scope of the music. Many times I have mixed a song in earbuds and convinced myself that the vocal was nestled perfectly into the music only to be horrified to find out the vocal was way too loud, or out front. This can happen after a song has been published, and it can become a source of embarrassment. So you use each for different perspectives on your mix. You eventually learn what to listen for with each. It is an uncomfortable feeling having to switch listening sources when you have become intently attuned to one for hours while mixing a song. Never release a song without listing to your song in both. Reverb sounds different in each, so you have to add up the pros and cons of this phenomenon. I use earbuds mostly because I can hear many minute and subtle things that are masked by monitors. Once I set all of the minute things right, usually by that time, I think the song is done. Only to find the monitors say, not so fast... I use cheap Panasonic earbuds, I think I paid 6 buck for them on Amazon (buy several pairs). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J4WHNFC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title notice there are over 100,000 ratings. That means millions have been sold. I believe this product may be the largest selling product in the history of Amazon. I use them when tracking as well. I can wear them all day (and into the night) with zero fatigue. 😄 Hope this is some help. And, you need to cut some bass out of everything (prochannel works great for that). Oh, and shut the doors, an echoey hallway can ruin a recording.

All awesome suggestions FreeEarCandy, I just spent the last 5 hours working on this song. After finishing my changes I came here and noticed your post. I hope the changes I made are in concert with your ideas. I did close to a thousand changes or more. I put the guitars in phase... It was so all over the place that I could not get the song to mix. I think it is better now. I did try and make subtle changes and shifts so the only thing that plays throughout are the rhythm guitar parts which I try and mask a bit here and there. The harmonies are subdued, I added new pads and took out the brash brass and replaced it with some wet warm strings. And an Omnisphere pad and other pads. There are several pads that take turns. Added the Oos at the end as well. I added a guitar solo here and there. Re-sung a line. Added a ton of effects to everything. Did a lot of lead vocal editing. It is not as acoustic as I wanted it, it is more new age with a synthy feel. I call this genre, "folk rock". Quite a stone's throw away from the urban hardcore punk rock that I usually do. lol 😁

This is an older song I made, I spent a couple days revamping it to get better sound. Any suggestions? Anything that sticks out? Comments and critiques are welcome. Thanks for any input! Best! RexRed

During the verse there are "dubs" where I sing certain lines in unison. They are a bit strong. I will look into toning them down a bit.

I agree, the strings are not right and I need something else instead. Luckily I have not published this song yet and I can still work to get a better, more subtle sound for the strings.

Yet another new song, I wrote this song about 10 hours ago. Some of the guitar part is "out of phase" but it sounded good so I left it. I am unsure what to do with out of phase tracks sometimes. I know in mono they will cancel but in the brain sometimes they cause nice effects. Unsure. Let me know what you think awesome Cakewalk peeps, thanks! RexRed

I have had some people purchase this song and I just wanted to let them (whoever it was) know that there is a new version of this song now and you can redownload it. Sometimes vocal rider can totally wreck a vocal track and sometimes it can be the only thing in the world that can fix a vocal. That is the case with this song I kept leaning into the vocals when I sang them in this song and it kept pushing my limiter in a really off way. Vocal rider fixed a total headache I was having trying to get this song right. Ya live and learn... 😁

Wow! Thanks for all of the great comments Cakewalk peeps! I felt like I was stepping way outside my comfort zone making this song. When I took out the Barry White "adlibs" I call them, I still heard them in my head in those parts, so I went back with using them. What next? lol

New tune Cakewalk peeps! Trying my hand at some R&B for a change. Hope you like and critiques always welcome! Best to you! Rex

I never use any instrument as multi instrument. i.e. Kontakt, AD... Especially AD, I always break each drum sound (kit/midi) up i.e. bass drum, snare, cymbals, each tom... and give them their own instance of AD and a separate Cakewalk track, prochannel, effects bin etc. I may route them to a drum bus after that. I personally like your treatment of the drums but I can see why others may consider them a bit too up front. Something has to star in a song. 😊 I might also add, the reason why I use ReverbNation as a springboard for my music is because I can always "replace" a song with a new version. BTW, Bandlab also owns ReverbNation.

Yes, the new Nectar Pro update is version 3.90

Awesome narrative with a great space experience soundtrack! 👍😊

This song triggers flashbacks... (in a good way) 😊👍

Reminds me of Jethro Tull, and Blue Oyster Cult, a really nice and enjoyable listen! Awesome fidelity, the drums are really great! 👍

Truly awesome montage of yesteryear (days) 👍 Your high register vocal reminds me a lot of Rodger Waters and the guitar solo is really nice! A beautiful song indeed!

I installed and it has not crashed Cakewalk, yet. I think it is fixed. It seems to work very well now. Time will tell.

Today, I noticed a new update for Nectar Pro in the Izotope Product Portal!

I did some work on this song and replaced the previous song with the one with new changes. 😊👍