Clunky?

[Larioso]

55 minutes ago, Lord Tim said:

ProRes 4:2:2 MOV file from a production house to score the soundtrack, with specific SMTPE timing points, etc. this whole workaround falls over pretty fast. This is definitely on my list of must-fix things for this particular area.

I'm trying to learn something here

- is it other file formats directly you need to be played back in Sonar/Cakewalk?

- or will a mp4 preview keep frames the same to work with that SMTPE codes, if an NLE render a preview?

- do you then deliver entire audio for that or entire video ready so video features must have many more formats?

[Lord Tim]

3 hours ago, Larioso said:

I'm trying to learn something here

- is it other file formats directly you need to be played back in Sonar/Cakewalk?

- or will a mp4 preview keep frames the same to work with that SMTPE codes, if an NLE render a preview?

- do you then deliver entire audio for that or entire video ready so video features must have many more formats?

I don't do a massive amount of work with production houses myself (more of my scoring to picture work is internal or for my own video production company) so take what I say as a general bit of information. There's others on here who have WAY more experience with this than me (check out the Production Tips forum for a few people for a start), but from my knowledge of it all, you're going to basically get what you get from the studio - you work to their specs.

Most likely it'll be some flavour of ProRes, likely also with timecode baked in. You'll also get standard SMPTE offset timings and all of that kind of thing, so you need to set your DAW up to cater for that, so whatever you give back, that just slots into their workflow, or if they have any suggestions of alterations they have done, there's no misunderstanding about what part they mean. For example, they can reference 00:02:25:51 to 00:02:26:07 as the area that needs replacing, so having your DAW timeline sync with any timecode offsets is super important.

CbB as it stands can't shift video in the timeline unless you change to the older rendering engine, and that then prevents you from using modern video CODECS without needing to fiddle around with transcoding, etc.  I may be missing something here (someone educate me if I am, please) but I also think that you're not able to set timecode offsets for the video either.

CbB can export video, but typically you'd just be sending out a mix and stems as audio, but all with the same timing as the video for ease of sync.

If you're just scoring to your own thing, it works pretty well. I've done this a lot myself with no real issues at all. I do all of the video grunt work in my NLE and if any big changes need to be made, I'm able to switch back and forth between each app to do the necessary adjustments. No production house will be giving you this kind of leeway when they just expect their clients to work the same way each time. They have enough to worry about besides trying to work out where to drop in the audio they commissioned you to do!

We're probably getting a little off-topic for the theme of this thread, but it'd be good to open up a new thread and get a bunch of people who work in this world extensively to chime in and see what's missing.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Lord Tim

[iNate]

On 6/14/2023 at 5:17 PM, Andres Medina said:

Yes, Reaper seemed poorly designed to me too. Specially the menus and the audio configuration - very odd.

Studio One has a slightly different approach by separating certain tasks into modules (recording - playing live - mastering- etc). Not what I need, but very user oriented. So far, would be my second choice of DAW right now.

Regarding video, I consider moving a video clip a very basic feature, and currently is not implemented.

It's less that it's poorly designed and more that I don't personally like its design, and putting in free work to change what are actually the less-offending areas I find isn't worth it. 

Other products at the same price point do not have those requirements, and I need to be able to stand looking at the software I spend 6-9 hours a day using. 

[chris.r]

On 6/13/2023 at 10:27 PM, msmcleod said:

@iNate - most clip automation operations can be done with the mouse, without having to revert to context menus.  It's a matter of knowing when to use SHIFT or CTRL, and the hit-spots within the clip - i.e. bottom half, top half, and header.

For example:

Thanks for the video. Because you have maximized waveforms on, like I have, this video helped me to spot a missing detail where you grab clip from it's bottom to move the clip gain. It's easy to forget that someone who have maximized waveforms set to off, and I believe that's the default setting, can grab clip anywhere except the header to make it work.

Dragging shelves from the top, in clip gain focus, I knew already. That's why I was also trying the Ctrl+drag trick from the top and not bottom, so it didn't work no matter how many times I try.

Glad to be able to edit clip gain directly from focus to clips, it still needs a modifier key but that's always better than changing focus .

[chris.r]

On 6/13/2023 at 6:40 PM, Lord Tim said:

New users do get tripped up by some of the non-standard Windows conventions used for things, eg: lasso selection in one view with the Right Click Drag rather than Left Click Drag like in Windows to select items, or adding or deleting notes in the Piano Roll View with the Right Mouse Button rather than bringing up context menus. There's a very good reason these things were introduced, and they actually *do* speed up workflow substantially when you understand them, but if you come in expecting it to work like traditional conventions, it becomes what feels like unnecessary clunk.

One can call it a feature or flaw  personally I would welcome an option to switch back to left mouse select operation.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

I feel like there needs to be a place where we can list all the perceived clunkiness , like a big Google Sheet or something , list everything properly for consideration by the Devs rather having to wade through forum posts to find stuff.

This would prevent a lot of reptition and good ideas being lost. 

[Starship Krupa]

On 6/16/2023 at 8:58 PM, chris.r said:

personally I would welcome an option to switch back to left mouse select operation.

Hit your F6 key. I used Cakewalk for an embarrassingly long time before I even knew about RMB select, so if the Smart Tool wasn't doing what I wanted, I'd switch tools. Imagine how much faster things started to go after I figured out RMB select.

And for extra convenience, let's say you're using the Smart Tool and want to quickly select with the LMB then switch back to the Smart Tool. Hold F6 down while you do your thing with the mouse, then release it, and the tool will switch back to the Smart Tool or whatever tool you had been using.

[Starship Krupa]

27 minutes ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

I feel like there needs to be a place where we can list all the perceived clunkiness , like a big Google Sheet or something

That's a great idea, but I think it would have to be curated by one person.

Once something like that's opened to all, you quickly start getting unrelated feature requests. "A chord track would make my workflow less clunky" and such.

To me, "clunky" means features that exist, but function in a needlessly clumsy way.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

2 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

That's a great idea, but I think it would have to be curated by one person.

Once something like that's opened to all, you quickly start getting unrelated feature requests. "A chord track would make my workflow less clunky" and such.

To me, "clunky" means features that exist, but function in a needlessly clumsy way.

Yes it would be  a bit of a free for all if it wasn't controlled somehow. 

Maybe there should be a Jedi Council for Cakewalk Users made up of power users that would look after this sort of thing. 

[Lord Tim]

It's tough. I agree in principle to a curator but I can say my needs would be different to, say, Erik's when it comes to what I consider clunky being a long-timer, and Erik coming from Mixcraft and looking at this with fresh eyes. But I do absolutely agree that "clunky" should basically mean "existing tools that aren't as intuitive as they could be, or poorly documented so people aren't seeing the benefit of the current implementation."

I think that's really the crux of the thread right there. We already have a good fair whack of stuff (and often even more) than in other DAWs, but A: you gotta know about it to use it, and B: sometimes there's so much legacy baggage involved (for better or worse) that it might be worth revisiting how these tools work.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Lord Tim

[chris.r]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Hit your F6 key. I used Cakewalk for an embarrassingly long time before I even knew about RMB select, so if the Smart Tool wasn't doing what I wanted, I'd switch tools. Imagine how much faster things started to go after I figured out RMB select.

Nice one, thanks. It could be great if it didn't switch off smart tools completely  besides lasso is still under right button so that's all opposite in effect to what I'm talking about. I see Pro Tools and supposedly a couple other DAWs have smart tools, whether it's marketed as smart tools or in a different way, and AFAIK they still use left mouse button for selecting just like doctor ordered so for them nothing wrong with it. If, say, 9 out of 10 apps do it the common way, should we be surprised users are calling the one being different... clunky? I'd like to be clear, I only asked for an option (in preferences?), wouldn't want a change of the whole part of the app for everyone, just add an option for a small change back in smart tools, probably compromising something but it should work 99% of the rest the same.

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

And for extra convenience, let's say you're using the Smart Tool and want to quickly select with the LMB then switch back to the Smart Tool. Hold F6 down while you do your thing with the mouse, then release it, and the tool will switch back to the Smart Tool or whatever tool you had been using.

Doesn't help much if I need to make quick pick of notes to add them to the selection in PRV while holding down CTRL. And assuming it did work correctly, CTRL+F6 wouldn't be any convenience, just extra clunkiness. I appreciate you have tried but I realize there's nothing else that could make it better at the moment so I just have to use the right mouse button for lasso, which is always bit slower than the usual left.

[Craig Reeves]

I'm currently working on the most comprehensive and complete video on Cakewalk by Bandlab's workflow issues. Still editing everything but it's coming along.

[VidPlayVST]

You may like to have a look at VidDancer - video sampler, morpher ,editor - recently released: https://viddancervst.com

[Matthew Carr]

Something that always felt clunky to me was midi routing - especially if opening  a project on a different PC.  It always seems like cakewalk just assigns a number to each midi device in the list of devices, and stores routings based on that number.  If that list is different when you open a project,  devices get a different number, then the routing in the project gets corrupted... maybe that's a simplification, but it fits with the observed behaviour.

I've just adopted a load of workarounds and learned to deal with it these days - but it drove me mad when first using cakewalk.

It's probably a hangover from how Windows handles USB devices, but I'm sure this could be improved. Best approach is probably something like studio one (or GigPerformer), where virtual external devices are defined and used in the project, and then mapped to physical devices. If the project is opened on a PC with different midi hardware (or the midi devices connected has changed), the midi routing stays the same in the project as it's all defined using the virtual devices - if needed the mapping between a physical and virtual device can then be updated in one place.  Far better than having to trawl through tracks to try and find/fix routings that have been corrupted...

+1 For being able to route midi to multiple locations

Dare we mention staff view??.... 😅 I know it's now a comedy statement these days, but I use it extensively and if we're talking about 'Clunky'....

[Starship Krupa]

21 hours ago, Craig Reeves said:

I'm currently working on the most comprehensive and complete video on Cakewalk by Bandlab's workflow issues. Still editing everything but it's coming along.

Craig, what’s the name of your YouTube channel?

 I’ll add it to the YouTube Channels topic if it’s not already there.

And great idea. YouTube videos seem to carry extra weight with the devs. When they see someone else’s workflow and where they get hung up.

[jackson white]

Automation Lanes

• using more than one quickly eats up screen space, making it difficult to edit across multiple tracks
  • perhaps something like a "radio button" mode to set focus might help?
  • with options to
    • link enable multiple envelopes for editing?
    • show/hide envelopes in an overlay mode?
      • either as a dedicated take lane display or over the track itself? 
• the resizing link with take lanes is understandable from a coding perspective, but would be more productive if independent
• presets would be a nice enhancement (similar to crossfade options)
• selecting an entire lane is a bit wonky at times, sometimes requires selecting all, then reselecting the lane
• global settings for envelope colors (believe this already exists...?)

Drum map / PRV

The last MIDI overhaul was a good one, well thought out and very useful here. a few focused enhancements for drums would make it even more so.

• disable (please?) 2x mouse left click to display Note/Map Properties dialog
  • it should be a right click event at the least, never a left click
  • triggering kit pieces in the note name panel is helpful, but in reality it is -far- more likely to click more than once to hear a sound which throws up the display which disrupts workflow to close it.  AAF.
  • same issue when clicking on an event in the PRV.
• maintain left panel display width (for drums)
  • PITA when switching from keyboard mode (typically minimized to optimize event real estate) to drum map mode and having to drag out the panel again to see kit piece names
• implement swipe? selection for Mute Solo
• remove/relocate MIDI note I/O in the left panel
  • ime, makes more sense as a drum map manager feature, having never used it in the PRV 
  • but acknowledge there might be MIDI wizards out there that make use of this level of access
• implement color coding for each key
  • could get a bit messy, but currently using separate midi tracks to color coding events to good effect
• disconnect Track View display state from PRV.
  • current implementation hobbles PRV display of MIDI events if MIDI tracks are hidden in a folder

Drum map manager

• could use a rebuild from the ground up, useful, but just painful

Enable user access to -all- global keybindings.

• or at a minimum, provide a default to disable them 
  • e.g. "F" is too close to "D" for tracking purposes, evokes a a mnemonic response every time i hit it,
  • there's one in take lanes I still haven't sorted out which requires opening up the Track Manager to recover 
  • there are others...

Sends

There is some hope given the enhancements to FX dialogs.  a few changes would help with basic mixing use cases (adding/deleting/changing sends for a track).

• Pin Delete Send to top of list
  • get rid of "---None---" and replace with "Delete All..."
  • same as FX bin?
• or Pin Insert/New to top of list 
• Pinning Busses next would be fine
• Then Aux tracks?
• Group (bury) any VST options as a flyout per VST driver options would be last on my list, -never- first

Audio Engine responsiveness

Not quite sure what to say about this as there are so many dependencies, but noting  a rather sluggish response for the following actions.

• Enable/Disable Record for a track
• Enable/Disable PDC
• Enable/Disable global FX
• Resetting A/I buffers (tracking mode to listening/mixing? mode)

Understood there is a lot to this, but ime this is an area which will crash CW to the desktop, most likely triggered by a mouse click before the current op is completed. I do not have the same experience with other DAWs. 

...

fwiw, have only recently been using CW on a regular basis with a limited subset of possible use cases, the forum has been quite helpful but could have easily missed a simple solution to any of the above suggestions.

it would be nice to see Next become the platform with a focus on best in class/best practices for each core feature rather than trying to be everything to anybody.  jmho

Edited July 9, 2023 by jackson white
fix rogue formatting...

[Jimbob Blues]

On 6/10/2023 at 2:52 PM, Lord Tim said:

See, this is my reasoning for a lot of the complaints too. REAPER is a great example for me - it's a fantastic DAW but man, do I ever plod in it because it just doesn't agree with me at all as far as workflow goes. I do marginally better in Studio One, but I keep returning to Cakewalk because I'm super fast in it and nothing (for me at least) gets between my brain and recording the idea (questionable talent notwithstanding 😒).

There's definitely areas where CbB can be improved, of course, and I have a few thoughts about that also, but it really seemed like there was suddenly a bunch of people who have been biting their tongue about them because of the free thing, and now it's a problem.  Are those things more than preferences? What am I missing?  That's the question!

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Jimbob Blues

[Will.]

On 6/11/2023 at 11:38 AM, msmcleod said:

What we're really looking for here is examples of where it's easier (or perhaps more intuitive) to do a particular task in another DAW compared to doing the same task in CbB. 

So we're talking about workflow features that CbB already has, and how the workflow could improve.  One example per post would help, describing how it's done in a particular DAW vs the same operation in CbB.

In that case: VARISPEED. Cakewalk already has the feature. It only need some Automation added to it.  This can be done on two places. 

I can sent you a video . . .