3rd Party Book for Cakewalk?

[Joe Dun]

I purchased Cakewalk, perhaps two decades ago, but never could get to the point where I could use it much.  I would lay it aside, and then in a few years would try again, only to get stuck again. The help file just wasn't very helpful.  I had big hopes when Bandlab took it over, and had hoped they would rewrite the manual. But, it is the same as before.

Is there perhaps a 3rd party book that I could purchase?  My search only turned up "The Power in Cakewalk SONAR" by William Edstrom Jr.  Which doesn't seem to be the same edition of Cakewalk.  Any other suggestions?

-Joe

[Jacques Boileau]

And don't forget Craig Anderton's The Huge Book of Cakewalk by BandLab Tips

[Canopus]

Printed books covering fast evolving software is definitely a thing of the past. As for BandLab, the best you would find is most likely SONAR X3 Power! by Scott R. Garrigus, but it was released back in 2014 and of course does not contain any of the enhancements made to SONAR Platinum and Cakewalk by BandLab. The book you mentioned is even older.

Like it or not, but there is most likely too little demand for printed books nowadays to make such a project economically viable. I had SONAR X2 Power! myself in the bookshelf until I realized it was time to put it in the recycling bin.

If you need more up to date material on paper, one option would be to load up your laser printer with three reams of paper and print out the Cakewalk Reference Guide PDF manual. It was last updated in January 2022 so it’s not as up to date as the online documentation, but it’s more current and thorough than all printed books available on the subject.

But unless you’ve got unlimited time and patience at your disposal, trying to delve through 1,042 pages of reference material, I would say that video tutorials are currently your best option if you ever want to get into making music with Cakewalk. They are of course free on YouTube and most that are available are referenced in the Tutorials sub-forum. There are also some third-party tutorials that you can purchase and download from sites such as Groove3 or Udemy, but the last one I’m aware on Groove3 is only covering Cakewalk SONAR Platinum ($15) and the one on Udemy Cakewalk : A Complete Guide was last updated in 2021 ($35, not downloadable).

And, of course, if you still got questions after all your reading and/or watching, post your additional conundrums in this forum.

[michheld]

Afford yourself a personal Cakewalk trainer. Watch Youtube Tutorials of "Creative Sauce".

 

[Byron Dickens]

 

[John Vere]

Yes printed books are no longer an item as they would also cost money. Even as an e book.  
You tubes seem to be what the public wants.
There are now hundreds of free tutorials about Cakewalk by Bandlab. That actually makes using You Tubes as difficult as reading a 3,000 page owners manual. 

The documentation is kept updated and you can easily search topics. I use them a lot for my research to make my tutorials. 

 in researching I also watch tutorials. There’s the professionally made ones produced by Cakewalk and they are  still possibly worth watching but they are also very outdated now. But I like the fact that this series is accurate and actually teaches properly. No BS or self promotion. 

The rest  are amateurs creating the content. These will run the scale from boring to entertaining as well as not helpful to very educational. There are many containing errors and wrong information. And lots of outdated stuff.  

My complaint when searching topics is many video presentations take way to long to show you the answer to your question. They are trying to entertain and not actually teach . I think these are the most popular because people like being entertained.  

There was a thread a few years ago with the OP complaining about this. They where looking for a Course about Cakewalk. Like going to school. Step by step instructions with out the BS and self promotion. This was the birth of my series.
The first 12 videos on the playlist are designed to take you step by step to understand Cakewalk and all the options and features. 

As a music teacher of 30 years or more as well as having a professional teacher as a daughter who specialized in learning disabilities.  I understand that not everyone can learn from a video.  

Next’s winters project is to take my narrative and with the aid of screen shots put together a text based tutorial to place on my website. Gigs are being booked already so time to get out of the house. 

[scook]

Probably not going to find anything more recent than @Craig Anderton's book of tips..

I suspect @Scott R. Garrigus or @Craig Anderton will tell you there is no money in Cakewalk books. If there were, they and others would be papering the world (if only virtually) with offerings.

This along with the software development/release model adopted in the mid 2010's, killed off the for-profit Cakewalk educational publishing business.

My guess is videos are not much better at generating revenue and have similar problems with the development model.

[Byron Dickens]

People complain about not having the time to read "an 857,263 page manual" but reference material is not a novel to be read cover-to-cover. You just read the part that you need right now.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Byron Dickens

[John Vere]

On 3/4/2023 at 9:27 AM, Byron Dickens said:

People complain about not having the time to read "an 857,263 page manual" but reference material is not a novel to be read cover-to-cover. You just read the part that you need right now.

True but what most people need is something to get started. The documentation is not really a user manual because it makes no effort to teach step by step. It is  a reference guide and more or less has too much information for a new user. New users need to be instructed step by step. And how many of them are we aware of that never even get going because the don't have their audio working yet? 

My Movie maker software has a built in tutorial that gets you set up and explains the basic layout and features. It sure helped me a lot to get going,  and it seemed like something that any software could have built in. Take the tour. 

On 3/4/2023 at 8:36 AM, scook said:

My guess is videos are not much better at generating revenue and have similar problems with the development model.

You Tube rules for monetization program. After 3 years I'm only half way there. I most certainly never started this with making money in mind. And then once you make that goal, you might not even get very good offers from advertisers. Videos about recording hopefully will get offers from Music Gear and software companies as the whole idea is targeting markets. I pay for You Tube so I never see the ads. 

I think very successful creators can do pretty good,  I'm not sure, It's most certainly a full time job to do a good job of producing quality content. 

I'll probably never see any money because the new rules are stacked against me now.  I don't make those stupid shorts that are a big fad right now. Don't ever try and turn a hobby into something that makes money. It will take all the joy out of it. 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by JohnnyV
Removed dead link

[57Gregy]

On 3/4/2023 at 12:27 PM, Byron Dickens said:

People complain about not having the time to read "an 857,263 page manual" but reference material is not a novel to be read cover-to-cover. You just read the part that you need right now.

Way back in 2000, I got my first computer and knew nothing about them (a dummy). So, I bought the Windows for Dummies book and one of the first things it says is to close the book and don't open it again until you have a problem.

[Starship Krupa]

12 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

Way back in 2000, I got my first computer and knew nothing about them (a dummy). So, I bought the Windows for Dummies book and one of the first things it says is to close the book and don't open it again until you have a problem.

Yeah, but in 2000, problems with Windows were much more common!

[John Vere]

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Yeah, but in 2000, problems with Windows were much more common!

I had bought the Windows 98 for Dummy's in that year. When XP came out I found a copy of XP for dummies in a thrift store for $1. It was exactly the same book with a bit of editing done to update a few obvious features. I later found a copy of Windows 7 for dummies and it was also still the W98 book with yet more editing. The one I liked best was "Window Vista for Fools" 

I find the mention of this book interesting because I pondered using that for my series. Cakewalk for Dummies. I ruled it out because that's not true. Just because you are a beginner doesn't imply you are a dummy. You are actually smart because you are using Cakewalk and didn't get hoodwinked into paying $500 for a top notch DAW.  

[Bass Guitar]

Edit , Whoops, I replied in the old thread this dude started in March. You'll see the new thread in the Cakewalk main forum, sorry. 

 

Looks like you were have complained a few times about this in other threads of which you did not bother to reply. Those threads had the same answers you will get again. Did you follow through and read the other books or watch the millions of tutorial videos that are available. Your complaint is about something that is very basic and easy to learn. Cakewalk is by no means a Cakewalk as you said back in March, It take some effort. 

I found these were super easy to follow and the most up to date. I also like they are short and jump right in with no boring introductions. Even though I've used Cakewalk for a long time now I still learn new things every time I watch a few videos. And reading this forum is good too. 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Bass Guitar

[msmcleod]

For really in-depth tutorials, personally I found the Groove 3 SONAR Platinum tutorials very useful.  Up until that point, I was mostly only using features available in CWPA 9.  

The other set of tutorials that is very good is the Streamworks Audio series on SONAR X2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR1DLE2UIfM&list=PLKRYWdEpbc5PgUgvrNuSvVyfv5qkll0qj .  They also do a series on the features added in SONAR X3.

Both these tutorials go through every feature in depth.  Over 99% of the material is still applicable to Cakewalk by BandLab, as although new features have been added to CbB, the existing features are mostly the same (the new Bounce/Export dialog being a notable exception).

Obviously new features like the Arranger and Articulation Maps aren't covered.  Both Creative Sauce and X.L.Ohh have good videos on those features.

One other thing that has changed in Cakewalk by BandLab is the way snap works in the Staff View.  The Staff View now follows the global snap, however durations are set within the Staff View itself.  With snap off, the staff view snap is essentially set to 1/32.
 

[Canopus]

As an update to my post above, Groove3 actually added a two hour long 26 video Cakewalk by BandLab tutorial in May 2023.

I just noticed that it’s currently available to purchase and download for just $10. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I guess the price soon will go back to ordinary price ($25), so anyone interested probably shouldn't wait too long.

[John Vere]

You realize the OP never replied and now has reposted in the general forum same sort of question! Bass Guitar mentioned that he/she/they accidentally bumped this thread. I’ll fix my dead link there must be a hundred of these in old posts after I deleted all the first videos.  

[Joe Dun]

I am the OP.  Thanks to all who replied.  I guess at some point, as I was ready to give up again, the need to use Cakewalk had passed, along with my motivation.  And other things were drawing my spare time.

I recall starting to use AutoCAD in the late 80's.  It came with a 6" stack of printed manuals.  They had a small amount of tutorials, but really were reference manuals.  And I did actually go through every page, even if I just skimmed them.  As Byron Dickens pointed out, you can look things up in a reference manual much faster than you can check for an answer in a video.  And even if the printed book is a tutorial, it is easy to skip over pages that cover things you already know.

I will also add, that the quality of software manuals rapidly declined as built-in, or on-line manuals took over.  I realize that people don't buy software based on the manual, so it tends to get less attention.

The advent of good voice to text transcripts on Youtube videos may have changed some of the issues with using videos as your manual.  They are now searchable, and you can jump to just the part of the video you are most interested in.

Edited February 17 by Joe Dun