John Vere

Yes weird things can happen to Cakewalk for me too, and yes the quick fix seems to be SAVE/CLOSE/OPEN. Another option that works is that I'll realize I'm using a different Workspace and change back to the correct one for the task at hand.

I have often opened projects created on the main DAW on my Office computer and in 20 years or swapping files around never had an issue other than missing plug ins but Cakewalk always opened. Not today. First I was getting the message posted below. Everything would freeze up and had to use Task Manager. I had just installed Bitwig ( waste of time) so I uninstalled thinking it might be the "Other Program" I rebooted etc. Still same message. It seemed to hang up right at Addictive drums so I started thinking that was out of date. I couldn't open the online installer so I downloaded it and tried to run it?? no go. A quick flash and nothing. Re booted, computer totally freaks out and I end up in the Bios?? A virus? From Plug in Boutique? I did the correct thing Unplugged the computer and went and poured a glass of wine and enjoyed my dinner. After dinner computer booted very slowly but it worked. Tried Cakewalk and it opened no problem but any of my new projects from the main DAW resulted in Cakewalk crashing with no toast. I tried a project created locally and it worked fine> It also had Addictive drums and piano. Note- all my projects have AD. Mystery. Everything but the projects from my main DAW worked just fine. I retried XLN installer and it worked this time and updated. Now those projects open fine?? I guess Addictive drums and Pianos updated on the main DAW but were not updated on this one. Just goes to show you how fussy Cakewalk is about plug ins. my goodness. It's been a long time since I've seen Cakewalk crash and often you have people posting here about crashes. I'm 100% convinced if Cakewalk crashes....it's something wrong with a plug in. Oh by the way, I tried Safe mode and Cakewalk did open but the audio engine gave me Error #9 = Midi buffer settings?? Same project opens fine now and I've been working on it for 30 minutes no problem. I wished XLN would warn about updates.

I was just thinking that after I posted. They would lose control if they didn't Otherwise if like me I keep all my old Cakewalk installers backed up and I was thinking a person could install M4 with those but I guess not. No problem for me but it's now really not a feature for many. I must have 5 or more tutorials that demonstrate Audio to midi and Tempo exctraction. Melodyne is only $99 for the Essential version. Then there's upgrades offered on Black Friday every year.

This is interesting. I wonder if Cakewalk updates will overwrite version 4 if installed? Sort of doubt it. I have a licensed v5 on 2 computers but my laptop is strictly all free software including Cakewalk. Not that I do much other than live recordings but it’s nice to have the audio to midi. I guess some in of my tutorials I mention that this feature is included. Now that info is wrong. This keeps happening to me.

To be clear, you are taking Midi signal not audio signal, right ?

Cakewalk will take anything you throw at it including movie clips. Never had problems with flac. Cakewalk converts any audio format into Wave at your projects Sample rate. It seems to maintain the bit depth however, so if you rip a CD ( 44.1hz) and drop it in a 48hz project the audio will be 48/16.

100 thanks for that Mark. Right under my nose?

I’m exporting a lot right now as I’m not only converting projects from 44.1 to 48 I’m working with 20 songs I’m in the process of proofing mixes. I’ll agree that the new export function is a bit buggy. Well it might not be a bug, just not set up right to begin with. I’m finding I have to do as said and save the project immediately before exporting as well as use CTRL/Shift/A to select none. Otherwise I might get an empty song with no audio. The other thing that is working better for me is I saved my settings as a preset instead of using the default presets. There’s also a bug with the Range function. First, It never saves your settings. And then it randomly picks the time based option which is set at starting half way through the song. This is 20 projects not just one. This has become a time waster for me as I proof the 20 songs, open each project, make a tiny change and then export it again. I have just learned to be very careful to follow my steps and the results have become 100% successful 1. Select none 2. Save 3. Choose my export pre set 4. Scan all dialogue boxes

Here's something not mentioned yet. In the far left of the Control bar is the Export widget that will tell you exactly were Cakewalk "thinks" the end of your project is. It is displayed as H-M-S-F. This same value will appear in the Export dialogues Range dialogue if you change the format using the button show below to H-M-S-F. This is a good way to detemine that something is not right. And it's a PITA to have exports that have a bunch of silence after the song ends too. So hold the now time at the point "you" think the song should end and now compare that with what Cakewalk thinks it is. I have a song I was just exporting and" my " end time was 3:04. Cakewalk showed 3:25. There was absolutly nothing at 3:25. I even tried the Ripple edit trick. There were 3 evelopes all showing inf. But then I remembered that I had sped this song up by about that amount exactly! So this was the true ending I guess.

This one has me scratching my head. First there’s effects that belong in the bin and effects that should be on a bus dedicated to them. This goes back to analog console days. The tracks pro channel and the effects bin are the equivalent of insert patch points. This was where we would insert a compressor or EQ using the mixers insert jacks. Then you had auxiliary sends and returns which is where you connected your reverb and delays. You have to always keep that signal flow in mind. Anything that goes in the bin or pro channel the single is going to pass though 100%. Even if an effect has a wet/dry option you pristine audio is being processed 100% by that plug in. It’s all numbers being crunched. Do you want your pristine audio crunched any more than was necessary? So bottom line is only use insert type effects in the bin and pro channel. Those are effects that should be 100% wet anyway. Like guitar sims and effects , EQ and compressors. If an effect doesn’t have any control over it’s applied amount, wet/dry, then it was not designed as an insert effect and belongs on an auxiliary send. Then your pristine audio will make it to the master bus unscathed and the effects are added as a side chain to taste. One of the reasons some peoples mixes sound better that others is having a clear understanding of signal flow.

What. Greg just said. I have a laptop that is just set up under a different account so it only has free stuff. I often leave it at my Band mates house so he can record his parts. First I freeze things like Dim pro which the laptop doesn’t have. When he has his tracks down I export his new tracks as stems and drag them to the original project. As long as nobody changes the tempo all is good.

I’m thinking the OP might be saying “ Can I install a Plug in without using the installer?” Answer to that is No. It seems half the plug ins out there use an installer. Especially ones that will need to be registered. This is by design and just copying the .dll from the installer folder won’t work.

I'm am an admited Tremolo Snob! The OP's question is sort of where my answer comes from. Fender Tremolo. That's different. I've owned Fender amps with Tremolo since 1965. My 74 Princeton has it I also have a 63 Gibson Skylark. You only get 2 knobs, Speed and Intesity. Both these amps are too dear to take to gigs now, so I bought a Blackstar ID 30 TVP. Amazing tube tone, but- The Tremolo sucks. I went on a quest for a stomp box version. Took a lot of digging and driving a guy in a musici store nuts for 2 hours, but the Mooer Trelicopter http://www.mooeraudio.com/product/Trelicopter--138.html one the contest! I found out about that on the Telecaster forum I belong to. Just like I just found out about the Pecheneg above. I think I have about 15 Tremolo VST emulators now in my quest and not one of them did what I needed correctly. So end of quest thanks a bunch @Starship Krupa a person who has a good nose for freebies! . I will give a very honourable mention to this one as well posted by @Kurre. https://adammonroemusic.com/free-tremolo-vst/tremolo-vst-free.html Also very good and authentic. And best of all Free!

I know that feeling all to well when I always want to pan my 2 rythym guitars hard left and right! I'm going to be different on the next song and see I I can only have 1 rythym guitar part! I don't think YOU would ever be accused of overduing the Wha padal.

I tries all the ones posted here and the winner is the http://pechenegfx.org/plugins/pecheneg-tremolo/ Absolute control and simple to understand. And it has that Tube tremolo vibe to it as well.

Sorry I have to disagree with part of this. First unless you’re scoring a movie sound track, normal projects on a computer with lots of RAM should not be using HD space. You open the project and it is stored in RAM not the HD. I refurbished a older laptop for remote recording. All I had at the time was a 120GB SSD. After I had installed W10 home and CbB and all my free plug in’s it was sitting at about 50%. Mostly some of the sample libraries. It now has over 300 CWP files on it and sitting at about 75 %. It’s definitely slower than my main DAW and it only has 8 GB of RAM. But it runs smoothly with out issues.

FYI, the name Sonar was dropped when Bandlab took over. They chose to use the name Cakewalk so the DAW would be easily identified as the same Software. We call it Cakewalk by Bandlab or CbB for short. Bandlab also has a App which is totally different than Cakewalk. But there's no reason not to always update when offered. I skip the early access versions unless I'm in the mood to be testing the software to add my 2 cents to it's improvments. We have an excelent system happening here because the developers are working closly with the users to make improvments.. Every new release I install I always read the release notes to see if anything will change my workflow. In the last few years I've seen a lot of user requests fullfilled within weeks of asking. I'll guarantee there's no other DAW or software that offers that level of involvment. As a result Cakewalk is quickly becoming one of the more inovative DAW's for Windows, and it's free. The user base is growing at a fast rate and I think at some point Cakewalk will become one of the most widly used DAW's for Windows.

You really need to watch this. I guarantee it will work if you do.

I like @57Gregy idea. It seems the secret is to bounce the tracks. I don’t know why this is but the only time it works is when then the audio has been bounced or exported which is the same as bouncing I guess. But the other 2 ideas from @msmcleod and @sjoens might work too. Those ideas are not easily undone and so you would want to do this to a copy of the track. Greg’s idea keeps the original audio untouched , that appeals to me

I switched to using Simple instrument tracks over a year ago. I often will also add a midi track that is pointed at it. There should be absolutly no difference between this and the old split instrument method. Both are identical with a very small differences. The only difference to me that's of note, is I can reduce my track count by using Simple Instrument tracks because the midi data shares the track. A good example would be insert TTS-1 as a Simple instrument track and place channel 1 midi track there. Then add 15 more midi tracks each on a different channel from CH 2 to CH 16. No problems. The OP has certainly discovered a weird one. I'm not sure if this was asked but if you insert another instrument, like SI bass, what happens?

Thats better to me I can now understand the lyrics better. Sounds like you added delay with tempo sync? And I agree with Mark about back off the delay just a bit. The idea is, you turn it up untill its obvious( like you now have it) and then back it off just so...

As always I look forward to your tunes. Weirdly enough a lot of the chord progresion is exactly like a song I never finished years ago. Same tempo too. I just listened to it yesterday digging through my projects for ideas to work on. I used this big fat analog synth probably a P Floyd influence. Typing as I listen here.. You are the master of the Wha. Mines gathering dust and I cheat and use a Mutron.. Loved that ending...

The snare the best part, the drummer knows his Punk sounds. This brings back memories of the 90's when I had the studio. ALL the bands sounded like this. You get a 10 out of 10 for capturing the essence of Punkizm.

You might benifit from watching the very first video in this tutorial series here.

I think @Promidi has nialed it. There seems to be some issues with that interface reported in other threads here due to the drivers. That set up is more than capable of handling large projects. 256 buffer is all I've ever used for years now.