Michael McBroom

I like Serum a lot so I decided to take advantage of the rent-to-own deal that Splice is offering on Serum right now. Dowloaded it and set it up yesterday. Tried it out on the melody track of a fairly simple tune I wrote, and it sounds horrible. But just the melody track. Breakups, distortion, even audio drop outs. But it's only the track in which I have Serum loaded. All the others are playing back fine. It seems obvious to me that there's something about the relationship between CbB and this plugin that one of the two doesn't like the current settings. But it's only affecting that one track. I honestly don't know where to begin. The tune I tried it on has all midi tracks and one audio track (drums), but none of the other tracks are exhibiting any problems at all. One thing I noticed after setting it up is that only the 32-bit version is showing up. I'm running CbB on a 64-bit Win7 machine and there are 64 bit drivers that were installed, and afterwards I rescanned the plugins, but they're not showing up in the Plug-in Manager. Is it possible for a 32-bit driver to cause this sort of corruption?

Yeah, I read that yesterday. Really steams my cabbage. Idiot bean counters should never be permitted to make decisions about anything related to music. To pay extra for -- as a possible rewire device, perhaps, or?

Wait -- wasn't Overture a product that Cakewalk bought -- and then did nothing with it, eventually letting it just die off? That was some years ago. I wonder if it can even be revived. I think Presonus Notion can be brought into Cakewalk as a rewire device . . . but then I really don't care all that much for Notion. Its interface is clumsy and non-intuitive and you have to jump through all sorts of unnecessary hoops just to set up a track. Oops, belay my above Overture comment. I'm at the Sonic Score website right now, checking it out. A bit pricey though.

Yep, that's a setting that's often overlooked.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I had to stumble around a bit before I found the aud.ini file, but sure enough, getting rid of it cured my problem. Thanks for that tip, Jim! Regarding the rest of your info, I've been pretty much following the method of making sure all the bit rates are in agreement. I've always just figured that made for good practice. Only time I've run into issues has been when I've loaded up an old file from stuff I'd written years ago where the bit rate might not have been in agreement. But as I recall, it wasn't an issue once I had the bit rates set to the same value. Slartabartfast, thanks for the link to r8brain. As I dimly recall, the CD burning utility I use contains a conversion routine that worked for me in the past. But I reckon it won't hurt any having that utility. I recognize your name from somewhere -- kind of a hard one to forget. It would have been some forum from some years back. Do you build guitars? Maybe from a luthier forum? No wait -- were you on the old XS650 mailing list?

I've been working on a project -- a 100% MIDI project, although I realize the synths have audio outs -- that started life set to 16 bits at 44.1k. Just a short while ago I decided that I'd like to bump up these settings, so I did -- to 24 bits at 48k. Well that made a hash of things. Totally distorted playback. So I went back in and looked around, found Utilities/Change Audio Format, and changed it to 24 bits. Checked my sound card, made sure it was reset to 48k. It was. Still a heavily distorted playback. I've been using ASIO, not ASIO4ALL, by the way. I looked all over, through the Preferences settings and the drop down commands, couldn't find anything that might solve this problem. So I resigned myself to putting things back the way they were. Went back into Preferences and switched things back to 16/44.1k and then went to Utilities/Change Audio Format back to 16 bits. And I'm still getting the heavily distorted playback. I tried changing audio drivers. Tried all of them, didn't make any difference. So I shut down CbB, the rebooted and reloaded an earlier saved version of the file, where I'd been using it at 16/44.1k, and still I'm getting the distorted playback. So I decided to try another file that I'd worked on with the 16/44.1k setting and it too is playing back all distorted. Oh, and I double checked my sound card, made sure it was reset to 44.1k -- it was. So obviously I have something set wonky somewhere, but I don't know where. Anybody want to tell me what I've over looked? Also, for future reference -- I'm thinking there has to be a way to change the audio format to a piece of music without going through what I'm going through right now. What's the secret? How do I change a file's audio format from 16/44.1k to, say, 24/48k, without encountering the mess that I have? I can see how it might be more problematic if it were an audio file, but this is MIDI. Conversely, when it comes time to record to CD, can I reverse this procedure to get back to 16/44.1k? Oh and by the way, I loaded the file up in SPlat and it plays back just fine at 16/44.1k. So at least I can continue to work on this and other pieces until I can fix the mess I made of CbB.

Well, being the dinosaur that I am, I for one am glad the staff view still exists. When Gibson announced it was abandoning Cakewalk, like lots of others, I began looking around. And I found that several well-known products don't support a staff view. The one DAW I liked the best, Presonus Studio One, supports Presonus Notion 6 as a rewire device. But I just don't care for Notion. Anyway, I don't see how adding the readout of 64th notes at least would be all that hard to institute. I mean, the program is already picking up the correct time values -- it just isn't displaying them. Tobias, you'll find 64th notes not at all uncommon in slow pieces of music that have fast scale passages. And in these sorts of situations you will occasionally run into 128th notes as well. Now, as for doing a total revamp of staff view, well I'd be all for it. I mean it's as big of a dinosaur as I am, practically. And I think of relatively cheap products out there, like Reaper, that has a really nice staff view. So if Reaper can do it, why can't Cakewalk -- or BandLab in this case?

Except the staff view's support of "quavers" only goes up the 32nd notes. (Would that be demisemiquavers?) More's the pity.

I realize I'm probably something of a dinosaur here. I actually compose music using the staff view. And while Cakewalk's staff view is hardly feature rich, it usually gets the job done. Now, even though I've run into a situation where I need 64th notes to be displayed in one of my compositions, I've also run into situations where I have imported MIDI files of other composers' work -- such as JS Bach -- where this limitation is felt. To Cakewalk's credit, even though 64th notes aren't displayed, they are at least played properly. That's something at least. But when it comes time to print out the work, I'm looking at doubled up notes on note stems when this ceiling is hit. So, would it be too much trouble to ask that the Staff View's readout of notation be expanded to include 64th and 128th notes? Please? Right now, I'm running into a situation where I'm trying to print out one of my compositions, but the 64th notes are being shown as doubled-up 32nd notes. I've tried exporting my composition as a MIDI file to other programs, but they've made a complete hash out of this MIDI file. I'd be inclined to blame Cakewalk, except each of these programs makes a hash out of the file in its own unique way -- no two being alike, in other words. So, it sure would make life easier for me if I didn't have to try and export this file at all, where I could just keep it within Cakewalk, and print it out from within Cakewalk. What do you say, guys?

I'll be dinged -- you're right. Dunno how I could have missed that. My eyes are keyed onto that orangish-yellow color. Only thing I can think of is that I may have been looking at a different track's event list. I just now noticed that it doesn't change tracks when I click on another track. I'll bet that's what I did, just assuming it changed tracks when I did. Once I manually shut down the different track and then called up Track 4 in the Event List, there it was, big as day. Okay, well that was a relief. CbB has gone back to being predictable again. Just me who isn't. 🙄

Probably. The file has 8 tracks, all MIDI. I'm using TTS-1 for most of the MIDI voices, but two of them are using Roland's Groove Synth. I'd have to see if I can configure it for all TTS-1 and see how that will work. Oh, I forgot -- I'm using Cakewalk SSI Strings on one track also. Okay, everything is configured for Cakewalk synths now. One of the voices I had set using the Roland sounds like crap now, but oh well. By the way, I neglected to mention above that I checked the event list for both voices and found no instances of patch changes. And, interestingly enough, one of the voices -- the one that I had originally assigned to the Roland -- has stopped misbehaving. And it continues not to misbehave after being reassigned to TTS-1. But the other voice, which happens to be the melody voice for this tune, continues to switch voices without permission. It's switching from synvox to accordion F. Okay, here goes. apllonia_cakwalk_synths.cwp

Okay after poking around some, I found the problem, but I really don't understand this one. I just tried my sound card's 3-4 outs and all of a sudden I have sound. My sound card comes with a lightweight piece of mixer software that only lets you do so much. My choices for 3-4 out were 1-2 ins (which is correct, that's what the Behringer is physically set for; its mains are plugged into the Omni I/O's 1-2 ins) and 3-4 ins. But neither of these settings worked. I tried the next setting, which was "sw rtn" -- software return, whatever that means -- I'll have to look in the manual. And this setting works. It produces sound. So now that I got 3-4 working, I turned to 1-2 to see if I could get anything out of them. Well, 1-2 ins and 3-4 ins didn't work with it either, and neither did sw rtn -- wtf? Why does it work with 3-4 out and not 1-2out? But fortunately 1-2 out has an additional setting: "mixer." And it works. Again, why, I'm wondering, do 1-2out get a "mixer" selection and 3-4out don't? So now I'm getting sound output from both 1-2 and 3-4. Just kinda weird how I had to do it. And because I'm using a mic for this first test, only one track works with each pair. I don't understand why my mixer is configuring things this way and I may never. Just as long as I know what it's up to, I reckon that's good enough for me.

I just bought a Behringer XR12 digital mixer and am still getting used to everything after running a Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro for many years. So I finally get it hooked up where I'm getting audio to register on the VUs at Cakewalk at least. Arm the track and record, and I get bumps in the playback track as the meters bounce around somewhat. But then when I go to playback, I'm getting nothing. I checked to make sure my audio outs were set correctly. They were; they are and they work just fine when I play my Cakewalk projects or audio files. And, no, I haven't muted the track by accident. So I'm overlooking something somewhere and I just don't know what it is. Can you point me to what I might have overlooked? Thanks.

I've had this problem with earlier versions of Sonar, where I will specify a voice or instrument or patch -- whatever you want to call it -- and during playback the voice will suddenly change to something else. I can click on the voice in the track bar and it comes back -- for a while at least. In the past, I was usually able to determine that the cause for this problem was I had inadvertently assigned two tracks to the same channel. But this hasn't always been the case. In these other instances, the tune often fixed itself for some unknown reason. Well, it's doing it again. I double checked, making sure each MIDI voice had its own channel. In this instance, I actually have two tracks that are misbehaving, and each one is from a different synth. I saved the file and brought it back up; still doing the same thing. As I mentioned I've run into this before where Sonar just fixed itself and the problem disappeared. I wasn't aware that I'd done anything specific to correct the problem. Although I might have, I suppose. I'm running the current version of CbB. It you have any ideas or suggestions, let me know, ok? Thanks.

Solved.

Well, I dunno what changed, but when I restarted BandLab just now, it came up with an "Update" button showing. That wasn't there just a little while ago. Oh well, no worries, I'm updating CbB right now.

Thanks, Mark. Turns out at least one reason why I wasn't finding it is because CbB has been lying to me. When I click on Help/Check for Updates, it shows v24.11.0.31 and it states "You are up to date!" Hm. Not. I just found out that apparently the current version is 25.01.0. So my next big quest has been trying to find the update. So far, no joy. So, what, are we just supposed to install the software again on top of itself? The whole package? If there's a link to an update somewhere at BandLab or the old Cakewalk site, it appears to be hidden fairly well, because I sure can't find it.

I just discovered that I've apparently been laboring under the mistaken impression that I have the latest version of CbB installed. When I hit Help/Check for update, it reports I have v24.11.0.31 installed and it states, "You are up to date!" But just now, I hit Help/Documentation, which takes me over to Cakewalk's old site, and at the bottom right of the banner, right next to "Cakewalk by BandLab" in muted gray tones is 25.01.0. I check into things a bit further and I find, indeed that 2019.01 exists and has some new features. So I launch the BandLab app, in search of a link to the latest update, but I can't find any. Even when I do a search about on Cakewalk's old site, I can't find any. What I do find are links to download Cakewalk -- all over the place. So, now I'm wondering -- is this how one installs the updates now, by downloading the entire program and installing it over itself? If there is indeed a link to an update, I'd sure appreciate it if you would tell me where it's hiding. Cuz I couldn't find one after a good ten minutes of looking for it. And what's up with Cakewalk -- not SPlat, but CbB -- what's up with it telling me "You are up to date!" anyway? Especially when I'm not.

Well, I guess I need a good whack with a hammer because I am running the latest version and I can't find it either! So, yes, screenshot please?

I have about 15 or 16 .bun files that I created using Pro Audo 9 back in about 2001. I have tried loading them into SPlat and what I've found is that they unbundle fine, but I was using instruments then in several of the files that I'm no longer configured for. External MIDI instruments. Attached audio files of the mixdown are missing, however. Dunno really why that is, but when I load the files into SPlat, the audio tracks just show flat lines. Three of the files have audio instrumentation, and fortunately these tracks have stayed with the bundles. I found that the best way to unpack them was to use the Media tab that shows up when a new file is selected, and keep clicking on it until I get a drive directory, then just maneuver through them until I get the .bun I'm after, and open it from there. I still have the external MIDI instruments: Roland JV1010 Synth and Roland GR-33 Guitar Synth. I'm having problems getting them recognized in SPlat (or CbB), though. Not sure why. Their instrument definition files show up and I can access the instrumentation from each track, I just haven't been able to get them to make any noise yet. But that's a different problem from unbundling the .bun files anyway.