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BandLab Questions/Experiences


Starise

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I have been around Cakewalk products for a long time and mostly used SoundCloud and YouTube as my main online exposure /storage mediums.

I am posting this thread as a way to bring us new players in Bandlab up to speed. Also please send me links to the Cakewalk crowd on BL.

I recently uploaded my first tune to Bandlab here-  A Man I Cannot Be  though I was involved with a stem kind of thing a few months back. Since then I've never really figured it all out completely. Almost seems too simple on the surface, but when you get into the stems it then gets a bit confusing. 

One thing you might want to know that I have found out is BL only allows 12 individual tracks to be uploaded. My song was 15 tracks so no go. My intention was to  export the individual tracks and see where it went. A few annoyances I encountered while using BandLab,  Within 5 minutes of my upload I had a post from someone who wanted to sell me loops. It was the only post I had. 

Secondly- When I launch the BL app it ALWAYS tells me there is an update for the app. I have clicked my win 10 setup to download. Launched again and get the same message. Same thing is happening with CbB in the BL app. I am up to date, however I get a reminder to try the latest version of CbB.

Are you using BL for finished tunes or as a way to collaborate? BL seems to be both things, however my initial hunch is it's more about open uncontrolled collaboration which leads to the next question. Can I control who collaborates with me? When I was involved in the my BL experiments a few months back I didn't know what it was and I unknowingly put a tune up. That tune came back with someone's ideas ion it which frankly were horrible. I mean, I don't expect perfection from a work in progress. I get  there will be rough tracks and all of that. This was really bad, like someone took a child's tape recorder and sang off key into it, then added it to my track.  This didn't give me a very favorable impression of the BL experience overall.

What have your experiences been? Is there anything you could share which would make the BL experience better for those who are at least intermediate at mixing and playing?

Edited by Starise
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Welcome Starrise.  I think you are asking questions with a title that is saying it is a Q&A. That implies you have answers. Or it could be you are asking about the forum. 

I take it you want to know how people are using Bandlab with Cakewalk? I am not sure exactly what is being asked.  

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Sorry for the confusion.

I intended to have this thread to address experiences. Q&A might not have been the best title, though it is a Q&A of sorts.

The motive mainly came from the overall reluctance of some Cakewalk users, including myself to use the BL app. I finally decided to jump in and give it a shot.

I wanted to know who might have more experience and possibly offer any advice on the best ways to use it. The "Q" was me asking some questions above. The "A"- I have a few answers so far. Not many yet. I had hoped there were others who might have advice.

 I hate to be painfully honest because I like what Meng has done with Cakewalk. Is it really worth the effort to use the BL app for you ? If so why and how have you been using it?  I'm not completely sold on the concept because I'm not sure I totally understand it yet. If the idea is to upload stems for the fun of it, that might be fun occasionally. If that's the primary use or purpose of the app I'm likely not a full time user unless there's some kind of a return for my efforts.

 

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I use the DAW, but not the sharing capabilities of Bandlab. I might in the future though, as of now I haven't. Always wanted a way to easily collaborate with friends though so there is interest on my end but I haven't gotten to it yet.  My utopian dream is to be able to collaborate and PLAY, in real time, over the internet using "something". I know there have been solutions tried but afaik nothing successfully implemented just yet. Latency issues etc might make this impossible of course, unless corrected for in code in some mysterious way :)

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Thanks for your opinions. I think many here are easing into BL gently. I'm one of those. 

This brings up yet another question. Is there a benefit to using Cakewalk other than a way to upload tracks? IOW  couldn't we do that with any DAW. Or are the tracks identified as Cakewalk tracks that maybe hold the CbB DAW settings?  This doesn't appear to be the case. It looks like CbB uploads simple wave files. 

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I can't see myself sharing my music via Bandlab or even on this forum, as BL's primary mission is to facilitate collaborative musical interaction. They're coming from a culture which is inherently collectivist. Whereas Western culture in individualistic. No value judgment here; cultures do differ markedly in many ways. But I am thoroughly Western, and that's not going to change. I can see it perhaps for folks who are more comfortable with a collaborative model, for example people who have played in bands, where the members all contribute to some extent to the finished product. For someone like myself, a hobbyist working in a classical vein (not to be confused with "the classics" - oldies - as happens on the "classical" subforum of Bandlab), it makes no sense. I create the melodies, form, orchestration etc. I don't want any help with that! The engineering part, Oh man I need help there, but that's a different thing.

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@mdiemer, I never looked at it that way. 

I guess if someone took a track of mine from BL and marketed it for profit I would not be a happy camper, unless I had artistic rights to it. If OTOH I put something up on BL for fun and people were creative with it, maybe came up with something totally different, that might be interesting to a point.  I see it more like a fun pastime instead of serious project recording.

Another thought I can't help having, what if we spend large amounts of time making something that someone else who put no effort into grabs and plays with it adding something else they found to it. IOW people who don't really create, only grab audio and mix it.  This seems a bit unbalanced to me. Of course, I can also grab someone else's hard earned work and use it on BL. At least I think I can. I'm not familiar with it  to that extent yet.    I could be selective in what I choose to upload . I wouldn't upload anything I cared about concerning having it modified or changed.  Couldn't be too personally attached to the music. It might go in sounding like pop and come out sounding like country.

Classical music, yes I understand. I don't see much in BL that supports this genre. Maybe it does and I haven't seen it.

To be fair, I didn't originate this thread to try and find fault with BL. On the contrary I'm trying to find the best way to utilize it. It also seems like a display of music medium like SC.

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Although I haven't yet done so, I would use BL to collaborate privately with known people. It does allow projects to be private to your own "band". 

Specifically I'm thinking of my nieces and nephews who although musical do not yet have experience of recording and live too far away for me to demonstrate. But they can use their smartphones and I'm sure will learn BL a lot quicker than learning CbB. 

Btw the phone app appears to have a 5 minutes recording limit. 

 

Wei Liang 

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I was testing it out and found out that there is a some people taking your track and "rap" swearwords all over the track. I guess you can block them, but then it gets a job on its own, just to block and restrict  who to collaborate with. But if you find people you trust, and they are musically aligned to you, then I think it’s a great idea to work there.

Edited by ØSkald
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@Wei Liang, I will familiarize myself more with this selective kind of approach. I didn't know you could do this. How about audio quality? Is the audio the same as an exported 16/44.1 .wav file? I think this would work best for me. Thanks!

@ØSkald , This was my experience as well. I put up a slow acoustic track and someone added a rap vocal track to it lol.

 

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Just make a new band and invite band members. You could test and make something with me if you like. I haven't tried downloading BL stems to work with CbB so i have no idea of quality. I would guess that it is good enough even if not lossless format. Particularly i don't expect a mobile phone microphone to give particularly high quality recordings. But i have incorporated a mobile phone recordings of singing into a mix and it sounds fine. 

Wei Liang 

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I am still trying to figure out how Band Lab is going to benefit the way I work.  I am already collaborating with my band, so I don't really see the need for the collaboration features.  I uploaded a couple of songs a while back, but really didn't get any feedback or reaction to them; nor that many views.  

I am hoping there are benefits that I have just not discovered yet.  I am awfully grateful they saved Cakewalk, though.  

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We're also trying to figure that out Michael. 

For me, my "band" cannot easily meet up physically. If i can discover a good method for distance collaboration with non-technical musicians that would suit me. For example I'd rather not spend ages trying to sync an imported track. If BL works as i hope it will then my "band" members can play or sing to  a click track using their mobile phones and it is all synced correctly.

Of course in my case none of us are particularly fantastic musicians. So it is not worth having super high quality equipment to record the fine details of our mistakes. 

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Well it's interesting but it's not for me.  I suspect it's not for many of the ol' Sonar crowd either, I probably would have loved it 30yrs ago when I was messing around with a 4 track, a couple of synths and my PZM mic but at this stage I'm spending my time making music to be used more professionally on TV and stuff.  

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1 hour ago, yapweiliang said:

We're also trying to figure that out Michael. 

For me, my "band" cannot easily meet up physically. If i can discover a good method for distance collaboration with non-technical musicians that would suit me. For example I'd rather not spend ages trying to sync an imported track. If BL works as i hope it will then my "band" members can play or sing to  a click track using their mobile phones and it is all synced correctly.

Of course in my case none of us are particularly fantastic musicians. So it is not worth having super high quality equipment to record the fine details of our mistakes. 

Our band, Scandalous Grace, is virtual, we don't live near each other.  Well, at least one of us is on the other side of the country, in California.  Reece lives in Ft. Worth and I in east Dallas.  Reece and I play live together 3-4 time a year, but Sean is not capable of that, obviously.

We have established standards for working together and exchange wav. Tracks through either Drop Box or Google Drive.  Pretty simple and works well for us.

Edited by michaelhanson
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21 hours ago, yapweiliang said:

Just make a new band and invite band members. You could test and make something with me if you like. I haven't tried downloading BL stems to work with CbB so i have no idea of quality. I would guess that it is good enough even if not lossless format. Particularly i don't expect a mobile phone microphone to give particularly high quality recordings. But i have incorporated a mobile phone recordings of singing into a mix and it sounds fine. 

Wei Liang 

I was actually thinking of doing something like this. I appreciate your willingness to try BL out with me. I have a few obstacles in my way. I believe I somehow managed to get two accounts accidentally. This all happened when Cakewalk users were being moved over. I remember signing on and requesting a change. I know this account is different because I had other material up on the other account. I will likely use the account you mentioned. 

Also I am not my my main computer most of the time, so I can't really do anything at present. I will look to see if you are there and follow you. I'll see about starting a band. I'll offer an open invitation to Micheal too, if he wants to look me up and join. If too busy with the other guys I understand too.

I think that eventually it would be a good idea to put up tracks in the songs section expressly made for  BL venture. No one put me up to this. I just think it's a natural progression to better unify the idea of BL. I do have a certain standard of quality though. I have used cell phone recordings which were quite good. 

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On 1/1/2019 at 1:36 PM, Starise said:

I have been around Cakewalk products for a long time and mostly used SoundCloud and YouTube as my main online exposure /storage mediums.

I am posting this thread as a way to bring us new players in Bandlab up to speed. Also please send me links to the Cakewalk crowd on BL.

I recently uploaded my first tune to Bandlab here-  A Man I Cannot Be  though I was involved with a stem kind of thing a few months back. Since then I've never really figured it all out completely. Almost seems too simple on the surface, but when you get into the stems it then gets a bit confusing. 

One thing you might want to know that I have found out is BL only allows 12 individual tracks to be uploaded. My song was 15 tracks so no go. My intention was to  export the individual tracks and see where it went. A few annoyances I encountered while using BandLab,  Within 5 minutes of my upload I had a post from someone who wanted to sell me loops. It was the only post I had. 

Secondly- When I launch the BL app it ALWAYS tells me there is an update for the app. I have clicked my win 10 setup to download. Launched again and get the same message. Same thing is happening with CbB in the BL app. I am up to date, however I get a reminder to try the latest version of CbB.

Are you using BL for finished tunes or as a way to collaborate? BL seems to be both things, however my initial hunch is it's more about open uncontrolled collaboration which leads to the next question. Can I control who collaborates with me? When I was involved in the my BL experiments a few months back I didn't know what it was and I unknowingly put a tune up. That tune came back with someone's ideas ion it which frankly were horrible. I mean, I don't expect perfection from a work in progress. I get  there will be rough tracks and all of that. This was really bad, like someone took a child's tape recorder and sang off key into it, then added it to my track.  This didn't give me a very favorable impression of the BL experience overall.

What have your experiences been? Is there anything you could share which would make the BL experience better for those who are at least intermediate at mixing and playing?

BL is a work in progress social network... Nowadays it is full of wrongly catalogued songs and people trying to sell things or trying to spam you with their songs. Nevertheless, it has some unique and promising features: integrated mastering, online DAW, unlimited storage, "Patreon" like capability, "forkable" songs and, of course, a full featured premium DAW for free. 

Edited by Alex H.
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