[CLOSED] Cakewalk 2021.09 Early Access [Updated to build 114]

[Keni]

8 minutes ago, Milton Sica said:

In fact, it's more than I could see.
In the same project I created another task already in version 112.

While the previous ones are correctly executed, the new task generates an empty file.

Something in the path of passing info into the task. So the old tasks contain valid instructions, but the new ones are not picking up the data while managing to output... nothing but a filename.

 

Might be a helpful pointer for them?

 

[Panu Pentikäinen]

19 hours ago, msmcleod said:

A higher buffer size will be faster at exporting, but at the expense of using more memory.

Setting it to zero will default it to the playback buffer size.

Is the memory consumption that big deal? Today it should not be an issue except in older laptops.

I would like to see Cakewalk optimizing buffer size automatically behind the scenes. Now there are a dozen buffer size combobox items available but nobody knows which setting is the best and why.  From end user's point of view buffer size is too technical and does not fit in Cakewalk's modern UI design principles which clearly tries to target Cakewalk for beginners and home studios. Those folks do not need understand why some buffer setting is faster and other is slower. Audio Export module could test the best buffer setting while user is setting filename and other options. On a laptop: less memory usage, on high-end PC: use as much RAM as needed.

 

 

[Panu Pentikäinen]

Export Audio Toast message is on the top of other programs and it won't disappear automatically.
Suggestion: make it disappear automatically and at least keep it on the top of other Cakewalk windows but not on the top of other programs.

 

[Noel Borthwick]

1 hour ago, Panu Pentikäinen said:

Is the memory consumption that big deal? Today it should not be an issue except in older laptops.

I would like to see Cakewalk optimizing buffer size automatically behind the scenes. Now there are a dozen buffer size combobox items available but nobody knows which setting is the best and why.  From end user's point of view buffer size is too technical and does not fit in Cakewalk's modern UI design principles which clearly tries to target Cakewalk for beginners and home studios. Those folks do not need understand why some buffer setting is faster and other is slower. Audio Export module could test the best buffer setting while user is setting filename and other options. On a laptop: less memory usage, on high-end PC: use as much RAM as needed.

 

 

The reason why we don't do this behind the scenes is because like audio latency, there are cases where it can affect sound so we don't want to second guess the user. Some plugins will render differently and then users will complain that their bounce sounds different. 

 The higher buffer size doesn't play such a big role in memory consumption, but it plays a huge role in speed and CPU load. While it may not be very noticeable in small projects,  with 400 or 500 tracks and lots of clips for example, it can be the difference of whether you can export in real-time or not. 

>>Those folks do not need understand why some buffer setting is faster and other is slower.
Shall I rename the field to something esoteric like export acceleration? :)

Re memory consumption the main change in 09 is that when you export the entire mix with all tracks it no longer duplicates the project in memory which uses a lot of memory and setup time.  In large projects this will make a big difference because it now exports directly from the main project loaded in memory.

[Will.]

59 minutes ago, Panu Pentikäinen said:

Those folks do not need understand why some buffer setting is faster and other is slower.

And why would you think they do not need to know? You do realize that 70% of the music on radio are made in home studios, right? There are dedicated home studios that runs exactly like any high profile studio out there with the same hardware as any big studio. So having the buffersize available is a great attachment. 

The only difference between them is be a business location and the comfortability of ones home. 

[Keni]

1 hour ago, Panu Pentikäinen said:

Export Audio Toast message is on the top of other programs and it won't disappear automatically.
Suggestion: make it disappear automatically and at least keep it on the top of other Cakewalk windows but not on the top of other programs.

 

Please!

[Noel Borthwick]

14 hours ago, Keni said:

Verified again...

 

Rollback /forward to 099 and all works well...

111 & 112 Broken. Tasks Not Working Correctly.. No audio in output files....

 

Yes there is a regression with export tasks caused by some of the selection changes. We’ll post an updated build so that you can resume testing.

[Keni]

1 minute ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Yes there is a regression with export tasks caused by some of the selection changes. We’ll post an updated build so that you can resume testing.

Thanks Noel!

Nice work!

[Panu Pentikäinen]

1 hour ago, Will_Kaydo said:

And why would you think they do not need to know? You do realize that 70% of the music on radio are made in home studios, right? There are dedicated home studios that runs exactly like any high profile studio out there with the same hardware as any big studio. So having the buffersize available is a great attachment. 

The only difference between them is be a business location and the comfortability of ones home. 

 

I was not comparing hobbyists and home studio guys to big studios but rather tried to point out that nowadays users should not be required to learn things like how buffer size affects performance: it's complicated subject and most musicians are not interested in that kind of things. Programmers are but musicians without coding experience may feel setting buffer size difficult. Same applies to any big studio, too. Ability to modify buffer size is great but I was wondering if it was possible to do this automatically. Noel already explained why it may now work that great.

[Panu Pentikäinen]

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

>Those folks do not need understand why some buffer setting is faster and other is slower.

Shall I rename the field to something esoteric like export acceleration? :)

That would work!

The setting "0" (Use playback buffer size) is another not so obvious thing to understand. I bet most people think 0 = No buffer. It could be stated more clearly in the Export Audio window.

[Will.]

3 minutes ago, Panu Pentikäinen said:

Noel already explained why it may now work that great.

Yes he did, It was spot on. What was forgotten in that was: that certain plugins and VSTi works this in reverse with their own buffer size settings hidden away in their settings menus. Where they work with the smaller the buffer size, the more CPU consumption - so there's that to consider too, when exporting with buffer size where this might vary between projects. 

[Noel Borthwick]

1 hour ago, Panu Pentikäinen said:

That would work!

The setting "0" (Use playback buffer size) is another not so obvious thing to understand. I bet most people think 0 = No buffer. It could be stated more clearly in the Export Audio window.

Yeah that's not great. It is explained in the tooltip however. We'll try and set the text to show something descriptive other than zero.

[Noel Borthwick]

Build 114 has been uploaded 

Bug fixes

Fixed a regression with exporting task queues when the task was created with no selection made, leading to an empty exported file.
Export toast notification now respects the setting in Preferences | Customization | Display | Show Toast Notification

[Andres Medina]

41 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Build 114 has been uploaded 

Bug fixes

Fixed a regression with exporting task queues when the task was created with no selection made, leading to an empty exported file.
Export toast notification now respects the setting in Preferences | Customization | Display | Show Toast Notification

"Export toast notification now respects the setting in Preferences | Customization | Display | Show Toast Notification" 

Not working, at least in my system. It is not following the selection in Preferences | Customization | Display | Show Toast Notification. Keeps locked in view, over every window,  until clicking to close.

[Andres Medina]

I wonder if the size of the Export Audio categories is fixed?

The "What to Export" category is very small, blocking the items available to make a selection. See pic.

[Noel Borthwick]

19 minutes ago, Andres Medina said:

"Export toast notification now respects the setting in Preferences | Customization | Display | Show Toast Notification" 

Not working, at least in my system. It is not following the selection in Preferences | Customization | Display | Show Toast Notification. Keeps locked in view, over every window,  until clicking to close.

Im not sure what you are expecting. It works exactly like all toast notifications in Cakewalk.
If you turn off show toast notifications in preferences you won't see a toast notification on export. That is the only change. This is in build 114 and I've tested it works.

[Andres Medina]

Noel, If I understand correctly, the toast notifications are either on or off, and not follows the Timeout (seconds) configuration?

 

[Noel Borthwick]

 

It is a sticky notification by design so it will not follow timeout.
All you can do is disable notification is you don't want them. Note: This will disable ALL toast notifications (including update notifications) except for important warnings.

[Andres Medina]

Ok, got it. Thanks!

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

11 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

It is a sticky notification by design so it will not follow timeout.
All you can do is disable notification is you don't want them. This will disable ALL toast notifications except for important warnings.

I meant to mention this before, very minor thing ☺️

If you upload your own text file into the toast notifications  ( i.e Oblique Strategies ) then some of them get truncated as they contain too many characters