John Vere

Interesting topic as this is something I just recently pondered. My wife has used hearing-aides for around 6 years now. She’s always bugging me I need them too! So to keep the peace I booked a test with her audiologist. Turned out he’s a Musician and Audiophile. My test came back with my EQ curve dropping off on a steep slope after around 1,200hz. . My low end is 100 % intact. kinda weird for a bass player? But this would imply that when mixing I would crank up everything over 1,200 hz! But the exact opposite seems to happen and I have found myself not having enough high end in my mixes when “ looking” at a spectrograph . He explained that our brain learns to compensate over time and this is why even though our input device is broken, our processor makes up for it. So we can maintain an educated judgment of what a songs balance should be even with a hearing impairment. He advised that I not ever change my monitors! He also advised that hearing-aides would be beneficial for conversation listening but useless for my music because of the low fidelity of the system. So this is good news as I don’t need to spend $3,000 just to hear people. I’d rather listen to music anyway.

What I’ve found avoids interruptions is to at least once a month run Windows updates as well as updated everything I have that might need this. Im always surprised at how many apps need updating. Most I’ve disabled auto updates for this very reason.

Had to laugh because you used the word Grok. I think that’s a word not many people will have a clue what it means but I sure do! What was that dang book though? You got me thinking about it Edit. Ok now I see it’s like a classic SI Fi term coined buy Robert Heinlein. Actually a Martian term.

The odd thing about you tube and where your most hits come from is it’s generally just Google search. My second most hits come from Facebook which has at least 6 different Cakewalk/Sonar pages. My lowest hit count actually comes from this forum because it’s really becoming a thing from the past. I think this is sad in a way because people get way better help here than on Facebook. I totally hate trying to follow threads on Facebook. It’s pretty rare someone will get bad advice from here, but it’s totally opposite on Facebook. I had a lot of fun making the tutorials but I’m at the end of having any spare time for that stuff. Finally there are live shows to play again so time to change my strings and dust off the old PA system.

Tutorials # 28 and # 29 are details of using the new Export feature. Use the pre set "tracks " and Range should be Entire project.

Yes it’s very easy to manage. You transfer projects by making a back up copy to a portable storage device. Open the project on the old computer and use: Save As Copy all audio with project Browse to the storage device That version will be identical to the original and this cleans out unused audio files as well. I have transferred hundreds of Cakewalk projects for a long long time now and the only time I ever got that message was from very old projects that I might have saved before I understood the system. In the old day per project folders were optional, now it’s the default.

Peak level is only half the issue. It’s loudness that really matters so your tool for the job is using a loudness meter on the master buss. It’s very simple. You will put a brick wall limiter first In the bin and set it to ( popular choice) -1.0db. For this I use the free Loudmax limiter . Boost 11 is also good for this. Do not apply any gain. Just the limiter. Then a loudness meter after this. I like the You Lean meter it seems the most sensitive to fast peaking. So then pick a target of say -14 luffs and set every song to this target by either turning it up or turning it down. The peak limiter will compress any signal over -1.0 db. I rarely have to turn anything up but if you do simply use the master bus gain . Videos #22 and 24 have details

Lots of good info in Tim’s post. I definitely use analytics to “look “ at my mixes. Span is a huge asset for this. And they also make a free multi band correlation meter which shows me when I’ve got phasing issues. I’ll also open the Pro channel EQ fly out which also has a great spectrum meter.

Forget it.

Guess they didn't like your answer. I was going to say to not use Vinyl Guitar strings. They tend to scratch and pop and click.

We can only guess what your issues is because you havn't really supplied much to go on. But my first "guess" is you have a punch in active elswhere in the song.

@msmcleod Yes I did mean to say Ripple edit selection, I was using my phone and early morning coffee so no time to check what the heck it was called. I don't think I actually noticed at what point the sections get messed up. And we are talking possibly a couple of random projects. The song still plays fine. Noticably there are spaces between where there wasn't before as well as they just don't line up correctly. Only time I ever have used global Ripple is to move an entire project forward or backwards which of course the Arranger will follow too. But of course that might not be it. I'll see if I can find a project where it went haywire. It's always user error and this will probably be the same with this issue. I have often given up on new features only to fall in love with them later when the light bulb goes on after reading the instructions. By the way, thanks for the tip on using the Tasks in Export to set Time range and save it. I was doing it wrong. Once again a great feature that is only usefull if you take the time to learn how it works.

The default settings for input is stereo. You have to select either right or left in the input menu to record mono. I gets a lot of newbies.

What works for me is not eq or compressors or nothing. Just the right bass sound to begin with. First I’m a bass player so I have a few good basses and amps, pre amp etc. i spent my life searching for good bass tone that works in a live band situation. That sound is never quite right for recording. I must have spent more time working on trying to get my bass tracks sounding right than anything else. So don’t laugh at this, I finally found the closest I’ve ever had to my goal and it goes like this. Grab my bass and plug it directly to the interface! (Really?) Record the part clean and with a solid groove and note placement. Drag it to AmpleP bass lite track. Edit the midi to taste. All velocities at 106 ( important) Now using the Gain set the output at -8.0 db. That’s it. No eq ,no compressor just the raw bass sample . The Ample bass on its own sounds sort of growly and awful but it sure works in my songs. So ultimately the solution is to find the right bass. If you have to process the sounds then it was garbage so keep looking. I can also get a great audio bass sound as well but it takes way longer to both play and edit audio than it does to use midi. I doubt if the punters can tell the difference. Here’s my latest song list https://www.soundclick.com/artist/default.cfm?bandID=1420844

Might not be a bug but the way it’s supposed to work. I always made the arranger sections right away after I laid down the scratch vocals and guitar tracks. As I said I’ve never used it for it’s intended purpose I’ve only used it for nice colourful markers instead of the original very small ones. possibly cause might be using single track ripple editing? I’m not sure but often by the time I’m finished with a song the sections are a mess. It seems they are tied to the material in the track and not the timeline. In other words if you move a part in a track somewhere else the arranger gets mixed up. And I often change the tempo of projects? I do all sorts of stuff but I don’t use the arranger to move things around so maybe it doesn’t like that Im certainly not bashing it it’s a very cool feature and I’m sure it would work flawlessly if I only applied it to a finished song but i need it at the beginning of the process not the end

It’s not in sync but myself I can clearly see where the now time is in relationship to the song. I actually gave up on the Arranger finding it very buggy. I still use good old fashioned markers. I would never re arrange a song anyhow. I’m not that indecisive. But it does have a fan club for those who need it. It was a very cool feature that was added, just not something I found useful.

Glad that my info helped. Understanding Cakewalks signal flow is paramount to good mixing skills. It’s simply top to bottom more or less. So the Gain is very critical as it sets the level for the whole track channel strip. This includes pro channel, the effects bin. So keeping the faders at unity is the only way to see what is really going on.

I have also noticed that when for the very first time you open Melodyne as a regional effect on a project that you get a blank screen. All I do is click in the middle of the clip I have opened in track view and it will now show in the editor. After that all clips will open in focus. @Olaf Melodyne opens its editing view in the multi dock. When you render and close it you will still be in the multi dock. So the default is the console view. Just hit D to close if you are single screen.

I have developed a workflow that involves using the gain on the tracks to set a target of around—8.0db to -12db depending on my mixing goal for that track. I leave all faders at unity. The vocals are the exception where I will go a bit higher -6.0 db to no higher than-4.0db. like you I will combine lead and harmony to a sub bus. I also treat the gain of all sub buses like tracks. Faders at unity. If adding effects pushed the level past my target I will turn down the gain. Using the faders won’t solve the issue. The gain is before the effects and the faders after. So if an effect is being over driven you need to use the gain. I will only use the bus faders a little bit in the final mixing stage. If you’re interested in my workflow watch #22 Oh and reading this again, most De-essers have a preview where you can listen to what it's actually removing. I know the Izotope Nectar has this and when I listen I usually hear nothing so I remove it.

Yes it’s easy. This will apply to using one screen not a second monitor. From track view with Arranger showing open the multi dock and drag the top edge either down a little or up.

It’s been a while but I lowered the pitch of a song by a whole step ( E down to D). and I’m pretty sure I just used the same transpose I use for Midi short cut N. it was 2 Acoustic guitars and an electric lead. Worked just fine. But as Bitflipper has said the tracks need to be clean. It one reason I try and start with as much midi as possible until I do the vocals. I always record the final guitar parts after the vocals so I don’t walk all over them.

No , you can bounce to clip but the recommended method is to render it. After you are finished editing you re click on the Regional Effect/ Melodyne/ And then Render. This totally removes Melodyne from the clip and CPU/ Memory etc. The people who can get away with not doing this are most likely running much more powerful computers than people like me. The other reason to do this as was recently reported is,if you save a project with Melodyne still active and then update Melodyne to a newer version, that project might not open. After you render a Melodyne clip it reverts back to being a regualr audio file just like any other clip. That's what the word Render means. It's a destructive process as the original audio is now changed and cannot be undone which is why we always have back ups if this bothers you. If it was a client for sure I'd have 20 backups, but for myself it's not a big deal to just re sing something I didn't like and on the ocation that Melodyne made it worse and not better. It does only take 2 seconds to press CTRL/shift and drag the original to a new track before editing.

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And just add. I worked at 128 for years with my Focusrite interface but I bought a Motu more than a year ago and it crackles at 128. I had to bump up to 258. Same system, same projects. So it’s complicated, the person who ever 100% understands PC audio will rule the world.

The following tutorials will help you # 104. Changing Sample rates # 1 Audio Set up #20 Audio Interface set up