John Vere

Someone mentioned this I think in the freeware thread but I'm kind of stoked about what I found I could do with it. I just finished making 40 videos that are my backing tracks for upcoming gigs. I try and make the Cakewalk exports very close to the same by using the same Bass and drums etc. But, when dealing with this many songs it's easy to miss a setting and as a result some songs are NOT the same. Like the bass being too quiet. I always drop them into the You lean loudness meter but that isn't telling you the whole story. You can also use a spectograph like Span but still it's peaks and not actual loudness. ( LUFS ) In my screen shot you can see that I dragged all the videos into a blank project. Note that they could be your finished Masters but in my case they are videos. Bet you didn't know Cakewalk did that. There is just the audio which is all I wanted. So in this case I'm using the dpMeter5 and the ISOL8 which are both free. Here is my overall LUFS which is very near my target of 13.5 LUFS. The ISOL8 is off. Now I engage the LF solo LUFS reading of 15.7 which I determind was the average reading which seemed to be 16LUFS for the low end. Most of the songs were correct and close to this target. But then there were songs that were 12LUFS and 20 LUFS. I made notes. Next I engage the LMF solo and this seemed to average around 24 LUFS for most songs Then the MF Solo and that seemed to average around 30 LUFS for most songs. But then a few were like 22 LUFS so once again I make notes. I also did the HMF but it was never worth worrying about but I would have if this was an important song. In the end I had about 12 songs that were not up to snuff and thanks to this test I now new why. I just opened the original projects in Cakewalk and almost immediately I would find out what went wrong. Like a hi pass filter on the bass that didn't belong. Before I re exported I used the same 2 tools on the Master bus and then using the LP multi band and a bit of re mixing of keyboards I managed to get all 40 of my tracks almost perfectly the same as far as frequency balance and loudness go. I'm just about to release about 35 of my originals and I'm stoked about applying this little trick to those as well. Another thing the ISOL8 revealed was distortion in the low end sometimes. I have limiters to control peaking but this is another rabbit hole I will need to re visit for my originals.

My first comment was in retrospect of how Carlo solved his issue. Possibly you are not using a good audio driver. The rest of us use ASIO or sometimes WASAPI if using a different computer that doesn't have a Audio interface. But as David Baay said the driver shouldn't matter but it did seem to solve Carlo's problem. So you never know. Anyhow you most certainly can import any type of Audio files to Cakewalk and it will convert them to WAV at the sample rate of your project. I just dragged 30 Videos that are my backing tracks I just finished into Cakewalk so I could use some audio analyzing tools to make sure they are all the same. I think the Movies use a MP4 audio file. There's no actual Video when you do this, just the audio tracks.

No I removed all 60.

Well there’s sort of always been a problem with running multiple apps that use the ASIO audio driver. I do not have that issue now with the MotuM4 which has Loopback. I can capture audio from Cakewalk and stream it into OBS as well as I often have Wave Lab, Windows media player and Movie Studio all running. The best move I made was to use 48kHz sample rate globally.

To be clear a mono track is outputting in stereo to the stereo bus or even if direct to the audio output. It wouldn’t have a pan controller if it was outputting mono. This is the way mixing boards have been since stereo was introduced to recording. So any effects added to the pro channel or the effects bin are outputting in stereo.

What I read into this is why most audio interfaces now have a loop back feature that eliminates the need for a virtual cable. That way we can stay in ASIO mode and still use programs like OBS.

In my world ISRC codes are handled by your distributor. But you can choose to become your own record label as well some say even though it is not nessassary to embed your own codes it still does no harm. Each country has their own management of ISRC codes in Canada its these guys. https://www.soproq.org/en/ I'm not sure that it's the job of the Lame encoder. It would be Cakewalk that had the option, but Cakewalk is not a real Mastering software. Example Wavelab has the option to import ISRC codes. " To import ISRC codes, select Functions > Import ISRC Codes from Text File in the CD window, select the text file that you want to import, and click Open." If you don't own a proper wave editor then you can use many free programs to edit tags for all music formats. https://www.mp3tag.de/en/dodownload64.html If you are acting as your own record label there's a lot to understand. And ISRC is very important if you want to be paid. MP3 format is most certainly becoming obsolete as bandwidth is no longer an issue. I can certainly see why they changed the 128 up to 256 as a default. 128 is a terrible bit rate. 256 is about where most people can't tell much difference.

I won't make a difference as a simple instrument track is identical to a plain instrument track. It combines the Midi and Audio into one track. You can separate them and use the Audio/Midi tab found at the bottom of the Track inspector to view the different info. It uses the normally blank and useless track pane to store the midi data so it keeps track count down. You treat it exactly like a plain instrument track. The one situation people still prefer the plain instrument / midi track set up is to insert a bunch of different synths and try them out by changing the output of the midi track on the fly. I just use the replace synth option for that. But back to the OP- Anything like this is best to submit the crash dump to Cakewalk as they need to be aware when VST instruments are crashing and sort it out with the developer.

I noticed that as well. It seems odd but there's no way to open the GUI without the SI drums being in the synth rack?? My guess is the original wrong driver might have not assigned the Master bus correctly. But checking the dialogue they were presented with usually fixes that. In my Audio set up video I show how to test that audio is working by simply activating the Metronome during playback and hit the spacebar, that's if you first load a basic project. Starting Cakewalk without using default templates can cause audio routing issues as there will be no Master bus etc. Like opening a midi file does this.

The most important thing to understand is input levels are set by the audio device being used and Cakewalk has no control over recording levels. The question I have is what audio interface did you use? As what I see is that Line USB A was the input to the track. As I said Recording level is set by your audio interface input level controls but line levels often do not have input adjustments as they are designed to be used with a sub mixer or hardware devices that have volume controls built in. If this is a Hardware synth with USB audio then you will need to read the manual to understand how you set USB levels. If the bass riff was recorded using a real bass. Then Interfaces usually have a choice of inputs and line is often on the back and on the front there’s Combination jacks and a toggle for Mike or an instrument. Make sure to choose instrument if it truly was a bass guitar. If it was a bass line played on a hardware synth into the interface then turn it up. Then use the meter in the track to get a good reading of no higher than -6 db. If it’s a hardware synth up full and the reading is still low you need to use the instrument or combination jacks or get a small mixer to act as an impedance boost. If the bass riff was an audio clip then it’s from a bad source and was recorded wrong.

It’s super fast to use Alt scroll wheel.

This thread is very very old and the original posters might have passed away since. But thanks for trying to help.

No. each view is a window. So like all software they behave as separate entities.

@Starship Krupa Just the other day I was mixing a song and with headphones on I kept hearing this sub bass note? Weird because Ample p bass lite is only a 4 string so ends at E. i started soloing tracks and as it turned out a copy paste I remember doing got plunked on a poly synth track which played an octave lower. It’s now a subtle part of the bass line that you only notice with good playback gear. I love those little details like that in music. We used to call them ear candy.

@User 905133the notes are saved with templates not workspaces. They are project specific. Workspaces only save ?? I guess your workspace but not any project info. So I have my name and my studio name stored in the notes as part of my song writing template. I always put a picture in there as it makes finding songs on the start screen easy. For cover tunes I often have the pictures of the band or the 45 label. I used to leave myself notes about the recording set up but I always forgot about them. Just like the notes in tracks you forget you did it. I even used to put the lyrics in there but that was another waist of time too.

You can post full size songs on Sound cloud and make them private. Only people with the link can listen. It’s pretty straight forward and you can even drag multiple files into the upload widget. I think most of the free music upload sites work about the same. I also use Sound click and Reverbnation. The notes is found in the browser and example you can select a picture and it will now show on the start screen and there’s a place for song titles artist and album. Those will populate the boxes in the lower part of that mp3 dialogue you posted above. Saves repetition

I run the latest version on Cakewalk on a W 7 laptop I use for live keyboards as a VST host. It also has no problems at all playing projects. Only if there’s a missing VST as I have not really loaded it up with much other than what I require for live playing and backing tracks. The laptop is 2008 4 gigs of ram. I only turn on the internet to update Cakewalk a few times a year. My plan was to use it with Cakewalks playlist for live performance but I am now using videos for my songs and that rules out Cakewalk.

Seems not, one of my pet peeves. I think it's because the Mp3 encoder is actually not part of the export feature. It just opens automatically when prompted by the export. So in my thinking it's the MP3 encoder that is not retaining settings, not the export feature. It's odd because all my Wave editors seems to retain my preferences. I have actually stop exporting as MP3 once I found out that Sound Cloud doesn't care anymore. I can upload 48/32 wave files and it doesn't limit me. It goes by the time, not the file size. Only time I make MP3 is to put on a stick to play in the car. But I use Gold Wave for that as it does batch conversion and it remembers my settings! I don't get the meta data but that doesn't matter. Are you aware that you can enter some of the meta data in the Notes tab found in the Browser view?

Back in the days of tape it was critical to make sure the syncing was aligned properly. In those day you used your ears not your eyes. So that little tattletale garbage can slap back was something you learned to listen for. Otherwise the overdubs where out of sync to the bed tracks. Put your hand up if you remember this and weird things happening like print through. We were advised to store tapes on a take up reel so the print through would be after and not before on the tapes. The word Pre Delay comes to mind. For those who don't know what print through means, it's the magnetic property of tape can be so strong it transfers through to the next layer on the reel. Any how, those days and things I learned have made me hyper sensitive to hearing delay when it's not supposed to be there. Why do you think engineers had nearfield monitors as close as possible to the listening position. The Big Soffit speakers which might be a good 12 feet away were for playback listening but detailed work has always been done with nearfields. 3ms is not noticeable to any humans I am aware of. It's easy to see if your screwing up your audio overdubs. Just zoom way in on the transients. If it was played to a midi drum kit those transients should be very close to the grid. Bass is especially noticeable when it's off time by even a little bit. Not that any or all of this is going to make for Bad music, totally not. It's just we need to be aware and keep it under our control. It's part of the professional approach to engineering. And being an ADHD nerd.

Wasn't me. I did actually put lyrics in the arranger view once just for kicks. It's excellent with only limitation is the sections have a limit on how many characters are allowed. But it seems like a easy way to have the words scrolling with the timeline. I just copy pasted one line at a time, goes pretty quick too. The Focusrite Red Compressor has been one of my favorites for a long time. I always encouraged people to grab those Focusrite freebies it if they own a Focusrite product. At he time they had a value of well over $300. Not bad if all you bought was a Solo for $150. In my testing it came out at the top of the pile for clean. It also seemed to test good using Plug in Doctor. The Scarlett Compressor is different and adds more harmonics so is a good one for coloring a vocal or ? When I was making the compressor video I couldn't find them anymore on the Focusrite site so I emailed and they got right back to me to confirm they were both not for sale anymore but were still included when you purchase any Focusrite products. But this Midnight series is then again seemingly different. Seems promising. If I get a chance later I test it but kinda busy. Little strange when you first load it it is in demo mode, but I quickly figured out you just click the activate tab and then browse to the downloaded activation code and it is good to go.

Interesting about the Behringer mixer as that is similar to my sons set up which is a Behringer xair 18. Then he has a fancy line 6 pedal board he runs synths through too. I am aware of the fact that sound has latency it’s mentioned in my video but when you wear headphones any system latency is very annoying and 10 ms is very noticeable to me. I have to stay at 256 or I get static so I’m at around 12 ms RTL. I use Melda MTuner on guitar and bass so I have to turn on input echo and the slap back is pretty obvious. I guess if I turned down direct monitoring and only listen to the computer output I wouldn’t hear the slap back but then what I am hearing is the notes I play delayed buy 12 ms. Add a guitar sim and that increase to more like 16ms. Sound latency is 3 ms per meter. So that’s like standing 5meters away from your amp. I’m never more than 1 or 2 meter away from my amp. And this is why in ear monitors are a game changer for live music on big stages. It not only helps with pitch it can help with timing. But the systems are all digital now and guess what! they can have audio latency too. One just needs to be aware of latency issues and how to minimize and avoid any problems they might cause. If ignored it can lead to sloppy tracks. Or a sloppy live performance. Midi is easy to fix with quantization but audio tracks often go unnoticed which is not always desired in certain types of music. Here’s a good test of how latency can effect our playing. Outside event and your bass or guitar is wireless. Start walking away from the stage and see how far you get before you start struggling to play in time with the band. Your still hearing everything at the in time , just like the audience will but your playing late and your brain will loose it’s ability to compensate for it. This example is identical to what happens when you use input echo and RTL gets above 10 ms. Myself I noticed it at even less. When I play bass I stand as close to the drums as possible and I put my amp right next to them.

It’s true and no doubt about it ITB and all the toys is basically almost free. As your finding out hardware is still a lot more fun but it can grow and grow into a monster. I tried using VST guitar effects live and the latency sucks. it’s like that trash can slap back. I guess it can be lessened down to under 6 ms with top of the line laptops but that’s going to cost me $2,000. That will buy me some very good hardware. Like one of those Kemplers. I have done 2 gigs now playing keyboards live using Cakewalk and a bunch of VST instruments and that works brilliantly. My son has a bunch of crazy hardware stuff including some sort of moog looking one and it’s all hardware no computer it seems to be linked together through a controller/ drum machine gizmo that sync everything up. It pretty amazing what happens when you move knobs and sliders and hit different pads. Play a little riff on the keyboard and go off into space. Too much fun.

As said 99% of the time it’s actually audio latency. As in my video actual midi latency was around 3 ms. The worst was the 1986 Roland controller and even that was only 9 ms. But play a 6 note chord and add a wheel event and that could jump to much more. Midi 2 will eliminate that completely as it will allow for multiple data streams. Midi 1 each event has to wait it’s turn at around 1 ms per data package .

The thing is asking a basic question on a forum is a flag that the person might not be aware of better methods of getting an answer to a question. And that is as simple as entering the question in Google or any search engine. If the term Cakewalk is in the question you will be presented with the answer in different formats. First will be the documentation next will be old posts from this forum and the legacy forum and then the appropriate videos. This forum still serves as a good place to ask advanced questions or report issues you are experiencing. But basic information is available instantly to everyone who asks in the correct location. That includes the built in documentation found in the software itself. Search engines are how the world gets answers now, not forums. You pick up your cellphone and ask it “ How do I use VST instruments in Cakewalk “. Simple. I just tried this and there it was. A million answers and most at the top were what I needed. The cool thing is everyone is different in how they learn. Some prefer reading other like the videos so there you go.

Are you using this for live performance? As in playing a hardware synth live and just wanting to use VST effects to morph sounds?