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2 Questions for my smarter than me forum friends


John Vere

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1- How in heck can you make an inserted picture smaller? Especially when I insert my You Tube links. I find it way too big and would prefer if they were only thumbnail sized. Same with screenshots which are way bigger than needed most times. 

2-Are the SI instrument only available via the dreaded Bandlab assistant? I'm just working on a tutorial and realized new people might not have those installed so would be nice to show them how to get them. I thought they were available as a dedicated installer but I can't find one. 

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1. You really need to resize the picture first and then upload it (either to here or somewhere like Imgur). For YouTube, the forum software will embed it by default and you're stuck with that size - pretty much all modern forum software does that now. If you like, though, you can insert it as a link by highlighting some works (eg: LINK TO VIDEO HERE) and then clicking the little chain looking link icon in the reply toolbar above and pasting the video link to that. It won't embed, but it'll be less obtrusive than a big inline video - which I don't mind, I might add, and it works well to resize for diferent screen sizes and devices.

2. AFAIK it's only available as one of the add-ons, but you don't need to use Bandlab Assistant, you can also get it via the Cakewalk Installer.

Edited by Lord Tim
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@Lord Tim   1. I sort of thought so but someone the other day said something about re sizing and that's why I asked. I guess  they were refering to the method I often use but I'm sort of lazy and I just tend to shoot a screenshot and I only crop them. I guess it's not hard to re size using the photos editing tools. And the You Tubes I'm aware of the link option and I often use that as well I put my Channel Playlist in my signature but many people use cell phones and signatures don't show.  But a thought will be to have little thumbnails on hand I just insert as unlinked pictures. 

2037884568_cactusstudiosthumbnail.png.11ab8e5cf272e6c17f09e88d737d72df.png

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7YqVth30eGt7K5L5fUIUF_UjCsdAVCbd

 

2 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

you can also get it via the Cakewalk Installer.

2. The problem with that is I cannot confirm what happens as I already have Cakewalk installed. So I will have to assume it is very obvious to people that they can install the SI suite. But many people are using the Bandlab assistant still because it's an option on the web page. And all the tutorials tell people to use it because they are outdated now. 

 

I have totally avoided mentioning anything about how to install Cakewalk in my tutorials because it kept changing and I'm still not dead sure how it works. My only choice would be to totally uninstall it from one of my computers and start over I guess.  Thanks as that does clear it up. But I was hoping there was a direct link. 

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2 hours ago, John Vere said:

2-Are the SI instrument only available via the dreaded Bandlab assistant?

I don't know about "dreaded" - for me it was easier than going back to find an old Sonar, or the full Cakewalk installer, -when I installed them a few months back. -But I understand your trepidation. And from what I recall, you have to find the steps to the additional component installation tool of the assistant app, I had to research the current method!  After that, I also recall having the SI installers saved for a while, though I kinda cleaned up & let them go not much longer afterwards...

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Yeah, I think Bandlab Assistant is still on that download page partly for legacy (and 'cos Meng kind of owns the company) reasons, but also there's still a couple of good reasons to have that as well:

1. Offline Activation. AFAIK you can only do that through BA. (Calling that Smarter Than Me person to correct me if I'm wrong!)

2. The loop library. I'd expect one day that'll be integrated into the Cakewalk Browser in the app itself.

But if you don't need either of those things, the Cakewalk Installer is the way to go. Bandlab Assistant is developed by a completely different team in Singapore and there's a few things out of the control of the Cakewalk dev team that people are finding frustrating (like it not showing progress bars on the initial downloads just for one - I've never gotten that to work)

As far as SI goes, I'm sure if you just fire up either BA or Cakewalk Installer and choose just the Add Ons, you'd be able to get them without anything you have already being overwritten. It's been a while since I've put that on a machine though, and I don't think I've even opened BA for ages since we have in-app updates now. Again, Smarter Person always welcome to give better info than me :) 

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No I seriously think I still know a lot less that many people here and come to think about it, scook has been missing in action for a while. He always has the correct answer to these sort of questions too. Hope he's OK.  

37 minutes ago, JnTuneTech said:

I don't know about "dreaded"

I said that because the "smarter " people here will remember the early days of terror at having to use it all the time to keep updated and logged in.  I actually had to download and install it  just earlier before I posted as I guess I un installed it a few months ago. Obviously it's not needed so that's why I was reluctant to direct people to install it. 

I think I will just say    " Make sure to download and install the SI Instrument suite which you will find in the Cakewalk installer or the Bandlab assistant"   There done! 

 

14 minutes ago, Lord Tim said:

Yeah, I think Bandlab Assistant is still on that download page partly for legacy (and 'cos Meng kind of owns the company) reasons, but also there's still a couple of good reasons to have that as well:

 

I think they keep the Bandlab assistant because it might be the only way to install Bandlab?  

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1 hour ago, John Vere said:

I have totally avoided mentioning anything about how to install Cakewalk in my tutorials because it kept changing and I'm still not dead sure how it works.

You can (sorta) future proof videos by simply saying this is how you did it, but the installer may change in the future (for things you can predict). Users can always search for the product name online at that point, and there is no guarantee they will remain available either. In 50 years, if someone happens across it, they may just see it as a quaint history lesson 😀

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20 minutes ago, John Vere said:

I think they keep the Bandlab assistant because it might be the only way to install Bandlab?  

Yeah, that's what I was getting at - Cakewalk was kind of bolted onto their existing installer app and I'm sure Meng would still like to see that up so people can get hold of the Bandlab Editor directly, but if you don't want that and don't need to do those other things I mentioned, the Cakewalk Installer is definitely the way I'd go.

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3 minutes ago, mettelus said:

You can (sorta) future proof videos by simply saying this is how you did it, but the installer may change in the future

Good advice, it's too bad you never see this. I just was cruising with the search title of Download the SI instruments for Cakewalk. First was a ancient web page where I could buy it. You have to realize how much things like this such. Google is to blame. They put the web page with the most hits at the top. This results in useless information which is outdated.

Then there were 4 videos all right away using the Bandlab assistant with abandon. 

I'm not a fan of obsolete info and this is one of the reasons I'm totally redo all my videos. In the 2 years since I first made the first few things have changed. Not much but enough. And if they change again the my videos that are outdate will get nuked and replaced again. 

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Google makes money from people that pay them to promote products or by pointing you to videos laden with ads. If Google is not making money, they don't care much otherwise unfortunately.

At least they mark paid promotions (today), but I did a simple search the other day that had 4 pages of them before legitimate hits! You have to be creative on keywords to get an accurate list more and more as time goes by.

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@John Vere One thing I realized - for myself anyway - is that giving tech instructions can be tough for people who worry about all the differing opinions and methods. So, sort of as @mettelus suggested, maybe just make sure to point out that this is what you find works - at the time you made these instructions. Then cut to the chase, as they say.

But wow - isn't searching for anything seemingly innocuous - on the Web, absolutely bonkers?  And now we will get AI suggestions in the mix... Yikes!

Edited by JnTuneTech
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