Michael McBroom

I checked a little further. According to this site, v9 was the last free version of Nero: https://nero-9-free.en.lo4d.com/windows So, no stolen software. You should double-check before you make such assumptions. Turns out it's v9.4.12.3.

I found a free version of Nero that I d/l'd but haven't yet installed. It's v9.4.1.2.3 Hrm, I wonder if that version number is bogus.

I bought a copy of Nero back in my Win 98 days. I still have the CD around here somewhere, but I have my doubts it would still work, or even be worth pursuing. I might look up the new version, though. Heinz, thanks for the link. I'll give burnaware a try. I'm mostly after inputting data about the stuff that's on my CDs. CDBXP is light in this regard -- composer's name, name of the album and name of the track, that's it.

After I posted that note, I did some poking around on the web, and found a lot of sites that were offering free copies of v5.2 that had been cracked. I d/l'd a few of these cracks and none of them worked. Heh. I suspect that's an old page on Amazon and they haven't gotten around to 86ing it yet. Well, as it turns out, I have a bit of good news, at least. I went to the CDBXP website and d/l'd their latest version, installed it, and now its recognizing my CD/DVD drive again. That's a relief. It might not be the greatest, but it gets the job done.

Well, apparently CD Architect lives on -- and is being marketed by Sony, no less. A bit too pricey for my tastes. Here's a link to v5.2 at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sony-CD-Architect-5-2-Download/dp/B00DQG89XU

I've been using CDBurnerXP for years -- until it decided to screw around with my computer's new CD/DVD drive. When I insert a new blank CD into the drive, CDBurnerXP sez the drive is empty. I've tried reinserting the disk, going though its settings menu, whatever limited means it has to offer, but it still sees my CDs as blank (I've tried 2 disks so far). So, I decided to try something else. I started with the Windows Media Player, but I couldn't figure out how to get it set up to burn what I wanted. Then I tried my iTunes player. Same sort of thing with it. I'm having lots of trouble just getting my tunes recognized and organized. At least they both saw the empty CD drive though, so I know there's nothing wrong with the drive -- I hope. -- Oh, full disclosure -- the music I'm trying to record is a group of my own compositions which I've already converted to .wav format using the 44.1/16 redbook standard. I know Cakewalk has the capability to burn CDs, but I heard from a user here, probably a few years back now, that Cakewalk's CD burning ability was rudimentary, so I've never tried it. One thing I like about CDBurnerXP is I can input my name as the composer and the album's name for each song. I dunno yet if I can do this with iTunes or WMP -- or Cakewalk, far as that goes. Whatever I end up with, assuming I can't get CDBXP to work again, I still want this ability. So, what do you use, and why do you like it? Is it a free application you found or does it cost money, and if so, how much? Or do you find that Cakewalk does what you need? I'm in the process of building a set of filenames for a burn in Cakewalk, so I'll know shortly.

That's pretty much my attitude as well. I mix for the best stuff I got, which right now are my reference monitors and some good phones. Oh, and I have a update for y'all. My new AKG K240 Studio phones arrived today. So far, I've had the opportunity to listen to two of my compositions, to which I ended up making some fairly substantial changes in the mix. I was hearing rather glaring things with these phones that my old closed-backs had missed entirely. This is good news and bad news. I'm glad I can hear so clearly now, but I was just about to put to bed three albums worth of material, but now it looks like I'm going to have to make at least one more pass through every piece of music before I'll be 100% satisfied -- if that's ever even a possibility. You know, if I had to describe what these phones feel like -- because of their open back design -- it's like I don't have any phones on at all, but that I'm just leaning in real close to my speakers to catch all the subtle nuances. In other words, they sound very natural with no coloration that I can detect -- so far. They're also very light and comfortable, and I think my wife will appreciate the open back designs, cuz now when she calls out my name from across the house, I can hear her. Used to be with my old phones, she'd have to poke me for me to know she wanted something.

Years ago, a recording engineer told me that he mixed his music down for the 6x9 speaker found in the dash of most cars (this was the early 70s). I can recall being somewhat horrified at this, but you know what, he was being realistic. Fortunately, I won't be doing any live mixing. Just me and my gear in my man cave. Heh, I found this out with an old set of AKGs I have. The pleather coating flaked off years ago, leaving behind comfortable foam padding. Surprisingly, the foam hasn't rotted yet, and I bought those phones -- must be 18 years ago now.

Thanks for the responses,guys! Rsinger, I try to split my time between my ears and my phones when I'm mixing. I like the overall level my monitors provide, but there are situations where the finer points are best listened to with phones. I mean I could crank my monitors, no problem, to hear the finer details, but best to keep peace in the house and all, so I use phones too. My existing phones, being closed back, almost totally seal me off from the outside environment, so I will continue to use them, but they'll be restricted to recording mostly, I suspect. John and Old Joad, thanks very much for that tip. I went over to Amazon and read up on the AKG K240 Studio cans and decided that this was definitely the way to go. So I bought 'em. Should be here in a couple days. I'll let y'all know what I think of 'em and just how much remixing I'm gonna have to do.

Okay, first off, I hope this topic hasn't been done to death, but I did some searches here on "best" headphones for recording and mixing and got several hits. Quite a few different headphones were mentioned, but when I started checking into them -- that is, seeing how much they cost -- I was in for some sticker shock. People actually spend $500 or more on a set of headphones? >gulp< So, fearing the worst, that I wouldn't be able to find a decent set of phones in my pauper's price range, I decided to do some searches on the net. Came across one site that rated like 9 pairs I think it was. Prices were all over the place, but there were three sets that were all around that magical $100 price point that seemed to be worth a closer look. These three are: AKG K 240 MK II Sony MDR7506 Sennheiser HD 558 So I did what I usually do when I'm trying to figure out what to spend my meager funds on -- I went to Amazon and started reading through reviews. Each of these headphone sets has thousands of reviews, the vast majority of which are five stars. But I was after specific information, so I dug deeper, looking for reviews from audiophiles and/or professionals who do recording and mixing for a living -- or at least a dedicated pastime. I found lots of reviews that fit my needs, but the problem after reading many of them is -- I can't decide! I mostly need a set for mixing, and from what I understand, open-back phones are best for this. I've been using a set of decent quality closed back phones for my mixing chores, so I'm wondering if I may have some remixes in my future, should I go with some open backs. The AKG and Sennheiser models are open-back, and while the Sony are closed-back, there were many reviews extolling these phones flat response, so I was thinking, well, maybe . . . but honestly, if I were to pull the trigger right now, it would be for the most expensive of the three, the AKGs, which are selling on Amazon right now for $140, so not too far outside my price range. Mostly, I'm leaning in their direction because of the many reviews that rave about how clear and natural sounding they are -- which is what I want. But those Sennheisers seem to be the bees knees, reading through the description and the many positive reviews, so . . . I dunno. I guess I'd like your feedback if you're familiar with these phones, or comparable products. Like I mentioned, I'm leaning toward open-backs because I need a good set for mixing. So I'd enjoy reading what you have to say about this? And even though the topic title says $100, for the right phones, I'd probably do $150.

Thanks for the info. I don't use the Piano Roll for much -- just adding tweaks to MIDI files, mostly volume adjustments. That Snap icon on the top right is one of the things I tried, and it didn't make any difference. Tried it again just now, first it wasn't working then, bam! There it was. Fine resolution. Dunno why it wasn't working at first, although I'll probably be able to figure it out. I also tried -- oh, I just realized what I was doing wrong with 'N' cuz I couldn't get it to work. I was holding it down while trying to draw. You did write just to hit it so that's my bad. Good to know, though. So thanks!

Okay, I did a search here on this topic and got no satisfactory hits. This is a simple question. How do I change the resolution by which I can draw curves and wedges, etc., for a controller like Volume, in the Piano Roll? I've had it set to finer resolutions in the past, but I don't know how it happened and now when I need finer resolutions I can't figure out how to get it to do it. Right now, I have one MIDI track that I want to fade out gradually at the end of the tune. Tied whole notes across a few measures, and I'd like a smooth taper, but the Piano Roll is defaulting to quarter notes, which make nice stair-steps, but a lousy taper. There is a selection of note values at the top of the piano roll -- I assumed that I needed to select one of them -- I selected 1/32 -- but it didn't make any difference when I did. Right clicking gives me zilch. Ditto with View>Grid Resolution, where I also selected 1/32. So where is the command for this buried?

Thanks so much for this. I thought it might be that popup panel. First Synth... got switched to All Synth... And thanks much for your additional explanations.

Another Cakewalk mystery has happened to me. I like to use cars and driving them as an analogy. Unlike a lot of you folks, I don't know much or understand much about what goes on "under the hood" of Cakewalk. I can probably identify the spark plugs and various filters, but beyond that, I'm pretty much lost. Nope, I'm a driver. I know how to drive Cakewalk reasonably well, I can even make some basic adjustments -- just don't ask me to troubleshoot anything when things go sideways. The tune in question is a rather simple Jazz Bossa with six MIDI instruments. This is an older tune I wrote a couple years ago, and I decided to take another look at it and possibly improve the mix because I know more about the subject than I did back then. This is one of the peculiar files where, when I loaded TTS-1, only the audio track loaded. The TTS-1 MIDI track never made it. But the tune worked fine without it back then so I didn't worry about it. But this time around, I figured I'd try to clean things up some, so I reassigned the instruments to another synth, then deleted the TTS-1 track -- from the Synth Rack window. Then I loaded TTS-1 back in again, but this time four TTS-1 audio tracks loaded -- and the one MIDI track. They're labeled CkwlkTTS11Otp1, ...Otp2, ...Opt3, and ...Otp4. I'm assuming "Otp" stands for Output. I'm totally confused -- why did these suddenly appear and what are they for? As it so happens, I do need multiple instances of TTS-1 in this tune but I don't know how to access the different "Otp" tracks. I tried loading TTS-1 again -- because I need another one at a minimum -- and five more tracks got loaded. Great. There are labeled ...TTS12Otp1, etc. So the second instance of four more tracks. Another curious thing about these extra tracks is they followed a reduced module count I specified that was supposedly for busses. But these aren't busses -- are they? Anyway, you know the "Insert Soft Synth Options" popup window you get when you're loading a new synth? I never change any of the parameters on this page, so I don't think there's anything going on there that might be causing this, unless I hit something by mistake and now it's remembering it. So anyway if you could tell me how I can get back to one instance (two tracks, that is) of TTS-1 loading when I ask for it, I'd sure appreciate it. And I wouldn't mind learning what this OTP1,2,3,4 business is all about. Maybe I can use it in the future if I know how to use it.

Oh, by the way, I should have mentioned it above, but John's suggestion was on target. Problem solved.

I should have been more specific. I'm using a laptop with its touchpad. If I touch it once, that just highlights the track. I have to touch twice to move anything around.

Okay, well that's good to know. I did notice a subtle change in the sound of the clip. I guess that might be why.

This is strange. I use the Write function often with audio clips to control a clip's volume -- most often if I want a fade-out to occur. Just now I tried doing this with a short audio clip. Same as always, I clicked on the "W" and it turned red and then I hit "Play". When I wanted the W function to work, I doubleclicked with my mouse over the volume slider and slid it down where I wanted it to wind up. No problem there. The "W" track glowed that bright yellow-green color it always glows. But when I hit "Stop," the line turned from a bright yellow-green to a muted dull green and there is nothing I've tried so far that will allow me to move any of the nodes that were created when I moved the volume slider. I've used this function many times and this is the first time I've run into this. I'm guessing I must have inadvertently hit something I shouldn't have. But I haven't a clue what. This recording is nothing fancy. It's a short clip of a guitar recording, has a track all by itself. After playing around with things a bit more, I discovered that if I indicated "Gain" from the Clip Automation drop down selection that this brings up a red line that does much the same thing. I've never used this before, but I gave it a shot and it did what I needed. So I got there, but I'm still curious why the old method didn't work.

We discussed this topic -- a problem I'm having with my system -- at some length back in April. Here's a link to the thread: I'm revisiting the topic because things have gotten even worse. Before I mentioned that the problem was confined to MIDI playback but that audio was still fine. Well, now that's no longer the case. Both MIDI and audio playback are now highly distorted. I confirmed this just now by loading up a file that contains audio tracks only, and I even tried all driver formats (ASIO, MME, etc.) -- didn't make a bit of difference. I mentioned in the above thread that I also use Band in a Box with my compositions and that I was having the opposite results with it -- MIDI playback was fine, but audio was distorted. Now, BiaB shares with CW the same problems. Both audio and MIDI playback are distorted. So, whatever's going on with my system, it's gotten worse. I've run out of things to try. I tried everything that you guys suggested in the above thread, and there were some excellent suggestions -- it's just that none of them are working on my machine. This particular machine is still running Win7 on a 3.4 GHz AMD quad-core processor and it has 16 gigs of RAM. It's worth noting that "regular" audio playback, such as Netflix, etc., is unaffected. Playback using the various streaming services is just fine. I'm tempted to blame Win7, except for two reasons -- it's gotten worse since MS stopped sending auto updates and I'm still running Win7 on my old laptop and both CW and BiaB work perfectly on it. The laptop has a 2.8 GHz Intel dual-core processor and 8 gigs of RAM. I'll be upgrading to Win10 soon. I have to replace the machine's DVD drive -- it's not seeing disks anymore -- and I just got a new one in, just haven't installed it yet. Once it's in place I plan to upgrade to Win10 and I'm hopeful that this will fix things, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it doesn't. Anyway, if any of you have any further thoughts on the matter, I'll pay attention. You might want to scan through the responses in the above thread first, though, so we don't repeat things.

Thanks again for all the valuable info. It looks like, once one knows what one is doing, trying to accomplish what I want shouldn't be all that difficult. Great news!

Thanks for the responses, guys. I'm still digesting what y'all have written, but it sounds like a plan. Tonemangler, I won't be dragging the clip into Cakewalk. I plan on recording the guitar in Cakewalk. Then I'll do what I need to do to fit an orchestral arrangement. Gswitz, I'm not concerned about using CW for sheet music generation, if that's what you're getting at, although I could. I was planning on just writing the score out by hand once I'd finished the project, but you know, I have the sheet music for the original tune, so I don't see why I can't fit the orchestration into the score. I just need it to sound free and not confined by a tight meter is all.

I'm working on a piece for classical guitar in which meter is more of a suggestion than a rule, and I want to keep this open, free sort of expression in an arrangement i'm interested in writing. Classical players call this sort of thing 'tempo rubato.' What I want to do is record the piece using this free meter and then add orchestration to it, using MIDI instruments. I've never used it before, but it seems to me that the View|Tempo control might work well for this. I don't know if "well" is the best word here, but at least it appears that it will get the job done, unless there's another way to go about this -- hence my reason for posting this note. So, if you were to attempt an arrangement in which the tune's meter was just a suggestion, how would you go about achieving your goals?

You've got quite a bit more horsepower than my old laptop, which is handling my workload fine, so i think you should be good.

Thanks for the additional info, guys. This gives me a lot of room for thought. Headroom is something I try to keep in mind at all times. I try not to let my audio channels' volumes go above 0 dB. The fine tune control at the top of the strip is where I adjust things, and I try to start there at -18 dB. To increase a signal's volume, usually I use the Pro Channel's EQ, but I will boost this fine-tune control some too if needed. Using the EQ for volume boost has a two-fold advantage, I've found. Not only does it allow for volume adjustment, but it allows for the volume of specific frequencies to be adjusted. And speaking of EQ, I also sometimes use one of the Nomad BT EQ utilities for specific, narrow instances -- most often drums. Using EQ to carve out spaces for each instrument that may occupy the same frequency range is still something I need to work on more. I suspect the Pro Channel EQ has more capabilities than I'm currently exploiting -- and I'm exploiting all that I know, including the high and low boost and cut, bandwidth adjustment, and use of one of the four frequency controls as a cut throughout the instrument's frequency range. I'm not as concerned about a MIDI instrument's volume -- I'm concerned more about the volume from its audio channel (such as TTS-1's audio channel). Also, that fine-tune volume control at the top of the MIDI strip I've found is more than a volume control. It also determines -- uhm, for lack of a better term, the "attack" of an instrument's sound. Using a nylon string guitar as an example, if the volume is kept at 12 o'clock or less, the guitar has a mellow sound. But if the control is turned up much past 12 o"clock, there's an increased brilliance to the guitar's sound that is determined to an extent by the velocity of any given note. So I have direct control over an instrument's "attack," or "brilliance" via this single control. Quite useful. It has been one way that I've been able to keep MIDI instruments from falling into a mix's mud. I think that perhaps a large portion of any sort of blurry or muddy mix I've been experiencing I managed to correct yesterday. I've been using an old stereo receiver to power my monitors and one of the channels has been failing. It still works, it's just its output has become somewhat distorted. I've compensated for this by using my headphones more, but recently they've developed a problem themselves -- lows causing a faint buzz -- just loud enough to be annoying. Anyway, given that my playback was becoming more and more compromised, I decided it was time to replace that receiver with a better one. Still a stereo receiver, but this new (well, used) one works WAY better. Both channels are crystal clear at all volumes. At any rate, as I listen to these same tunes that seem to have a muddy mix, it is much clearer now, and I'm thinking I might not need to do as much tweaking as I'd originally thought. Conversely, I've also discovered instances where I've found instruments that were buried in the mix and I was able to successfully extricate them from it and boost their clarity substantially. So this new receiver has been very helpful in that respect as well. Anyway, onward and upward. I still have a stack of tunes to remix, hopefully with improved results now thanks to the perspective I've gained from this forum.

I started with Pro Audio 8 that came with for-real paper manuals, and I studied them. Then Pro Audio 9 came along and I made the transition pretty easily. I wasn't a power user by any means back then, but I knew my way around the software pretty well, I guess. I didn't get into many of its intricacies though, mostly because I never felt I needed to. And then I had a long break in composition -- finally got back into it with Sonar Platinum shortly before CW was shut down. I've been fairly active with it ever since. But I'm still not a power user. Since I started using Sonar, I've been pretty much self taught because honestly I remember not very much from back in the old Pro Audio days. When I get stuck on something I try and find an answer online and if I don't have any luck, then I ask here because this forum is such a tremendous resource. As fortune would have it -- or maybe not -- after starting this thread, I was browsing through others here and came across "Help needed/clarification on TTS-1 usage" which piqued my interest. Well, I didn't get past the first response, by Jim Fogle, where he mentioned a couple of articles written by Craig Anderton on TTS-1 for SOS Magazine. I found these articles to be full of information, a lot of which I was either only peripherally aware, or not aware of at all. So I read both articles. So now I have a little better understanding of TTS-1 at least, such that I think I know how to address your first couple of statements. It would not be correct to assume that 4 instances of TTS-1 implies 16 available stereo pairs. First of all, whenever I've loaded TTS-1, I've never checked "All Synth Audio Outputs: Stereo." the way Anderton recommends. I've always checked "First Synth Audio Output." However, when it comes time to record my MIDI tracks to audio (using the bounce to tracks feature), they always record in stereo, so is it really necessary to check that box? Secondly, often when I select multiple instances of TTS-1, it's so I can access its audio capabilities to be used on a MIDI track, which aren't available for the MIDI instruments. Things like EQ and all sorts of other effects and stuff. I also have much greater control over a channel's volume if I use TTS-1's audio controls, and it is for this latter capability that I will most often set up a new TTS-1 track. In the above example's case, I have three instances of TTS-1 using two tracks each, and the other 9 tracks are routed to the last instance. I'm doing this mostly for EQ and volume control. It's worth noting, perhaps, that the drum track that's getting buried is in one of the two-track instances of TTS-1. I don't know if each MIDI track is assigned its own stereo pair. I spent some time looking for any instances of stereo anything associated with the MIDI tracks and couldn't find anything, except for the "All Synth Audio . . ." stuff when preparing to insert an instance of TTS-1. But this has to do with audio so I don't see how it applies to MIDI anyway. I have been routing all of my tracks, both MIDI and audio, through a single Master bus, which I'm beginning to think, after reading your comments, might not be the wisest course of action. The drums are peaking with the snare strikes. I'll try and follow your advice regarding the drums and see if I can tame their output -- or at least that of the snare. I'm not familiar with the term "masking," but yes, I'd have to say that there are instruments playing in the same frequency space. I guess it will be figuring out how to achieve separation in this case that may end up providing me with the best results. I don't know if it's a goal that I can ever achieve, but I would like to be able to put together mixes that sound like a live event. I'm thinking about how, when listening to a symphony orchestra, for example, the human ear is able to separate easily the strings from the woodwinds and the brass. And I ask myself, why does it have to be so dadblamed difficult to get a recording to sound just as good?