Michael McBroom

I did a search on this topic (i.e., "swing feel") here first thing, and I got only a couple of peripheral hits. So, I'm guessing it's not something that's widely discussed. I'm working on a piece in "swing 8ths" right now. I imported a MIDI melody track that was already written with a swing feel, and I found it interesting in the way it wound up looking in the staff view. A lot of dotted 8th-16th groups, some triplets with the second note not voiced. The dotted 8th-16th rhythms sounded rather stilted, whereas the triplet ones sounded better. So I tried quantizing the track. I've never quantized anything before, so I just guessed at the values I plugged in. They seem to work okay, though, so I guess I just got lucky? In the Quantize dialog, I entered 1/8 as the note value and just guessed at 70% for the swing value. I didn't adjust any of the other parameters. So, I'm curious what your preferred methods are when you're writing (or importing) swing parts. What works best for you?

This is a slow blues instrumental I recorded some 18 years ago. It's still one of my favorites. Guitar is a Fender Stratocaster, played through a small Marshall practice amp. Final production and mix-down was done in Cakewalk Pro Audio 9. https://soundcloud.com/michaelmcbroom/michaels-blues?in=michaelmcbroom/sets/tears-of-the-healer-cd

!!! ??? Unbelievable. That's a really, really nice piece. I'd feel fortunate if I could put something like that together in a week!

Very nice! Sounds like a big jazz box to me, but I could be way off. Depends on the amp and eq to a large extent. To me, the guitar sounds like it was recorded a bit too hot. I'm getting some light breakup in my 'phones. But I do like the tone you're getting out of that guitar. Got a question for you -- what did you use for your horns track(s)? They sound really nice, and realistic.

Well, I'm coming to this thread rather late, having found it from a search I was doing, but I just had to comment. I really, really like this piece. It should be longer! I just visited your SoundCloud page and found that this is the only piece of yours up there. You need to write more stuff, Dan. I haven't used any of the instrumentation that you used, but you've wakened me to it, so now I'm gonna have to go check it out because I like the sounds you were getting. Probably my only critique is it could use some post-production punch, like what BT Brickwall can add, without bumping the mix into the red.

I'm using the staff view as I'm editing a piece I'm working on. I have one track of half-note chords that I want to change to whole note chords. Well, most of the chords, at any rate. Currently, I've found two ways to accomplish this. First, I go through each chord, right click on each individual note, and manually change its time value to 4:000. This is the slow way. A slightly faster way is just to write the new chord in whole notes next to the old chord, then delete the old chord and drag the new one into the old chord's position. Haven't figured out yet how to drag the whole chord, so I'm still dragging individual notes. It ends up being noticeably faster than method one, though. Perhaps an even faster way that I just now thought of would be to insert a new MIDI track next to the existing one, write the new chords in it, then delete the old track. Yeah, I'm gonna give that a try. If I were a keyboardist with decent sight-reading skills, I could just sit down at my MIDI keyboard and knock this out in a couple of minutes, but sadly my keyboarding skills are rudimentary. Still, it would be nice if I could just click on a command somewhere and state the change I would like to perform to a group of notes. It would be even nicer if I could perform this command on the entire track, with the ability to exclude any of the chords on the track that I want from this command. I have used the audio "Fit to Time" command for just this sort of thing, but it appears that there is no MIDI equivalent.

Some Guy, I think I'll take your advice and just buy the patches. Cheap enough. The way I've done it, which was essentially carving out "U" shaped dips in the volume profile, works, but it sounds artificial. Rather abrupt. Maybe if I treat the curve more sinusoidal, as Kurre suggests, this might help some, but it's harder than hell trying to draw a sine curve with a mouse or a mouse pad. I'm coming around to the idea of the patches, though. I could use some good sounding ensemble patches for brass and woodwinds anyway.

Ben, thanks for the tip. I had my laptop set to "Larger," but I decided to try "Medium" just to see if it would make a difference. Well, I was surprised. It did make a difference, and CW is back and working normally. All the text is smaller now, but I guess I can deal with that. Dunno why it didn't want to work at the "Larger" setting -- may just be a peculiarity of this laptop's NVidia display adapter, who knows. Anyway, I'm glad it's back, and thanks again!

I've noticed something else with my installation of both Cakewalk and Sonar. It's like a case of the creeping crud. Now, not only will the Transport buttons not work, but now I can't activate the Smart tool, and I can activate the others only by maneuvering the cursor to a certain position where I can see the tool's background change from black to gray; then I know that I can click on the tool. Also, now certain other clickable features are no longer responding, such as controls for the Console and Inspector. Actually, it's not just the Console, but also the Staff view and Piano Roll view. None of them will activate when I click on their tabs. So, frustrated, I uninstalled Cakewalk. I left Sonar alone. After uninstalling CW, I went to Bandlab and made sure that I was downloading the latest version. Installed it -- everything went smoothly. Fired it up, and the same exact problem persists. Well, I'm stumped. I'm glad I don't really need to run CW or Sonar on my laptop, cuz I'm totally out of ideas.

Yes, that's an interesting take, and I can see how this would work with a reasonably full-featured synth. Unfortunately, the only synth I'm using in this project is TTS-1 and I don't think it has this level of down-on-the-bare-metal programming that one would need. That is a really good idea, though. Actually, it's worth checking out the various soft synths I have available that might have this ability and see if they have any decent instrument presets that might work for what I need. Guess I get to do some exploring. On the other hand, the way I'm doing it now -- just carving out "U" shaped dips in the volume profile for the "vibrato" effect -- is working well enough. I'm getting the sound effect I'm after and, while CC7 may be occupied with this task momentarily, as soon as the vibrato sections are finished, it's back to its original task. Original, in that I use CC7 in almost all of my soft synth work. A musician who plays a non-electronic instrument rarely plays at a steady volume, so it really helps with the realism to add volume tweaks to the track throughout.

I'm working on a piece that has clarinets and flutes, and I would like to reproduce the type of "vibrato" that wind instrument players produce, namely a sort of pulsation of breath that causes changes in volume, rather than pitch. What I'm doing right now is I'm going into the Piano Roll, specifying a volume controller and then creating volume changes by drawing in "U" shaped dips in volume. This actually works pretty well, but I'm wondering if there might be an easier way to go about this. I don't know of any. How would you go about producing this effect?

Just a quick follow-up. Promidi, you spotted my oversight. I had Cakewalk set to the Select mode. Duh. Oh well, now I know, eh?

Well, a couple weeks have gone by since my last post on this problem. I've been doing all my CW work on my DAW but I just happened to be at my laptop and read through this thread. One thing I hadn't thought to try was Noel's suggestion about using the spacebar. So I tried it just now. It works. When I press the spacebar, a file I've chosen plays and the Play transport buttons highlights in the orange color. But when I try to control the transport with the mousepad, I still don't get a reaction. I did check that the Playback Timing Master was selected -- it is. And I tried setting up a new piece -- same problem. So, it's still a problem on the laptop. Wish I knew what was causing this.

Colin, I don't think I've ever done "snap" anything, so I'll need to study up on what you're doing. Promidi, I'm away from my DAW right now, but I'll bet you've hit on it. I think you're right. I probably had the Select tool enabled. When I get back down to my DAW, I'll check it out and report back. Thanks.

I make frequent use of the Controllers in the Piano Roll, so that I can fine tune my MIDI instruments, and one of the controllers I often use is Volume. I also use Velocity, but they're different, or at least they behave differently the way I see it, which is why I make the distinction. So earlier today, I set up the Piano Roll so that I can edit the volume for one track and I do this for a couple of short segments, about 4 bars each. So I'm listening to the playback and I realize I made an error. With my first segment, after it concluded, I brought the volume down to zero for a quick fade, but I left it there. The second segment, I also established a volume for it, and it plays fine. But the area between these two segments now has no volume -- because I brought it down to zero after the first one. So, no problem, I thought, I'll just go back and raise the volume back up after the first segment and then everything will be fine. But nope. Now, when I try to change the volume, nothing happens. I'm trying to "paint" a line and it won't paint it, the way I'm used to seeing it do this. Instead as I drag my mouse, it generates a green rectangle, which does nothing --- or at least nothing I care about. As far as I can figure out, I didn't change anything. The only thing that changed between when I used the Piano Roll this morning and now is time. Time has passed, and that's it. So, got any ideas what happened? I've tried everything I know to do, which I'll admit isn't all that much. Let's see if I can anticipate a few of your questions: Yes, I made sure that I indicated the correct channel when I set up the Controller. Yes, I made sure this is a problem with the Volume and not Velocity. Velocity is different. Near as I can figure, Velocity controls the volume at the mixing console whereas Volume controls the volume of the instrument itself. As a matter of fact, I checked with the other instruments for which I've configured the Volume controller and they're all doing the same thing -- no control, that is. I also tried setting up a new Controller for a track that hasn't had one yet, and it set up just fine, but like the others, it won't let me control the Volume. I suspect I've forgotten a rather obvious point to the way Cakewalk handles Controllers, but it must be a point I've never been aware of, because I have no idea what I'm doing wrong if indeed I've done something wrong to cause this. Help! I'm stuck until I can solve this.

I'm not at my laptop right now, but when I get back to it, I'll try your suggestions. As for your last question, I haven't tried loading a new project. But I did try loading several old ones that used to work just fine with both Cakewalk and Splat and where now neither of them will play these old projects. I'll try loading a new project, but I'll lay a wager right now that the same thing will happen with a new one.

A video? Okay, picture this: I move my mouse cursor over the Play Transport Icon. It doesn't turn white. I try clicking on it anyway. Nothing happens. I mean no disrespect, but this has become quite frustrating. The only thing left I can think of is to uninstall and reinstall Cakewalk. I just had a thought -- I don't believe I mentioned that I'm still running Win7. Are any of you still running Win7? I'm just wondering now if it is at all likely that a recent update to the OS may have broken both Cakewalk and SPlat. I know, not very likely, but I've run out of everything else.

I've tried both of those and all the others, including ASIO. I've also hooked up an audio interface and configured it for Cakewalk. Sadly, it didn't make a difference.

I'll give it a try next time I'm up there, but I know for a fact that sticky keys are not enabled on that machine. I do CTLs and ALTs a lot on that machine, and I'm very used to having to hold those keys down as I type other keys. I'll also take an interface up there and give it a try, just in case.

I'm just using the sound chip on my laptop's motherboard. According to the laptop's Device Manager, the sound chip is a NVidia GeForce 9800M GTS. It's been doing a decent job handling both Cakewalk (and Sonar previously) and PG Music's Band in a Box. Oh, and I tried a few things since my last update. First, I tried Sonar Platinum. I was surprised to encounter the same problem. I tried a couple of different files. Same difference, just the Transport is frozen; nothing else. Same situation as CW with the Transport buttons staying a light gray color and not turning white as I pass the cursor over them. It has the same audio ins and outs as CWbBL listed in the Preferences. I don't have any other audio ins and outs to select. With this onboard chip, I'm given a choice of the built-in speakers or the headphone jack. I do have a couple of audio interfaces. I suppose I could try one, see if it makes a difference. I doubt it will, but I guess I should, just for the sake of completeness. They're downstairs and I'm upstairs on my laptop at the moment. So next time I plan on doing a round trip, I'll try to remember to bring along an interface. So now, because SPlat isn't working, I decided to try Band in a Box. It's still working just fine. I also gave MuseScore 3 a try, since I haven't used it on the laptop in a while. It works fine too. So getting back to both CWbBL and SPlat, I just don't understand what it is that is now affecting both pieces of software. Could I have inadvertently set something in CWbBL that would somehow get carried over to SPlat when I booted it? When I booted it just now -- that's the first time I've done so in months. I'm really glad I haven't had the occasion to use CWbBL much recently on my laptop, else this would be a really big deal. The way things sit now, it's an inconvenience. But I'd still like to get to the bottom of it.

Well, no, I was using the pad. I've never used a mouse on this machine. I don't think I even own one that would work -- a USB mouse, I presume, since none of the other ports on this laptop would work for other types of mice. So, to validate your point, this means I'll have to buy a USB mouse. Really, why should I have to do this when previous versions of Sonar and CWBBL have worked just fine? Reminds me -- I still have Sonar installed on that machine. I haven't tried it yet. Guess I should. How much you wanna bet it will work. I'm downstairs right now (the laptop is upstairs) but when I get back up there, I'll give it a try.

The only other piece of software I have loaded with Cakewalk is TTS-1. I've used it successfully on my laptop with Cakewalk before. Kinda obviously. No the transport buttons aren't grayed out. They're just non-responsive. I'd have noticed right off if they were grayed out. I just noticed something, though -- one of those things you see all the time but don't really think about. Down here on my desktop machine, when I pass the mouse cursor over the transport buttons, they turn from a light gray to white. Then of course, once the button is pressed, it turns to a light orange color as the track is played (citing the Play button here obviously). None of these color changes happen with my laptop.

A few days ago, I installed the latest version of CWBBL on my laptop -- which had been running the previous version without issues. I didn't use CW right away, instead I waited until last night. I loaded up a new tune I've been working on with my desktop, which also has the latest version installed, and it came up just fine, but the transport was locked. Everything else about the tune, I could adjust. But none of the transport buttons or the slider would work. I tried loading older tunes I've been working with on this computer, wondering if it might have been something funny with this particular tune I was working on, but nope, all the earlier tunes I tried showed the same symptoms. Frozen transport while everything else was not. I tried changing the audio driver -- no luck. Tried changing the Hz and bit rate. Nope. Tried changing the audio format. Nope again. I don't think the latest version of CWBBL is causing this problem, mostly since it's working just fine on my desktop. Rather, I suspect that I inadvertently did something I shouldn't have to cause this problem. Nonetheless, I'm just about out of things I know to try. Got any ideas how I can unlock things?

Yeah this sounds like a good idea. My various plug in folders need some housekeeping. I probably have five or six different folders of plugins. I guess that, at the very least, I should locate my 32 bit plugins in one folder and my 64 bit plugins in another, then try to limit things to just these two folders. But on the other hand, I do have some 32 bit plugins that I use with CbB (64 bit). So . . . I'll have to give this some thought.

Hi John, sorry it took so long to reply. I'll have to boot CbB to see precisely when it states that it's loaded the 32 bit version. Maybe I should just delete or rename the 32 bit VSTi's and rescan?