John Vere

Agree with Jack can’t understand one words at all . The music sound good. But without be able to follow the lyrics it quickly became boring.

Awesome it’s a keeper! Refreshing to hear real instruments

Definitely need to clean up the timing issues. There seems to be a lot of the instruments that hit notes out of the groove. Even the snare. It’s like it got Quantized and put notes 1/16 out of place. If it done with midi this is easy to fix.

Nicely done. My only criticism is the choice of the horns? It sounds very wavetable synth to me. Do you have Xpand or Something that uses real samples? It sort of takes away from the quality as the other instruments sound fine.

Take note that this is what I really sound like. I sang it at 10 in the morning and only had to do a few punch ins to get the phrasing right. No Melodyne was involved. I love this style of country music because it sounds better if you can sing that well!

It’s Ok I would have felt guilty. I don’t mind spotting developers $15 or even $30. But it has to be incredibly awesome to get much more than that out of me. This is a hobby. Sort of, I do make backing tracks that I use at gigs I’m paid for. In the end I’m not overly impressed with the steel drum from Soundpaint and have returned to using the Marimba in Xpand. Looks like TTS-1 is still a good bet but I don’t like to keep it in projects. I was back and forth with Cakewalk support re the crash dumps. But so far all they keep saying is open the project in safe mode, ?? The projects open just fine. I have no clue why they crashed and it appears either do they. They haven’t crashed for a week. You start to think you’re taking to an AI after a while.

This was an experiment. I bought Band in a Box because my 14 year old Grandson has taken up playing guitar and has written 30 songs already. His songs are actually good as country music goes. He writes about Pick up trucks and his favorite hat, etc. He has a good sense of song structure but is not really there yet with his playing. I proceeded to learn how to use Band in a Box. The idea was he could learn to pick a style and play around with different chords and arrangements on his own. Then export it as midi and we would finish it in Cakewalk. I then found out how limiting Band in a Box is. The midi it exports apparently is for the notation display. It's bare bones. Example a steel guitar will have mod wheel pitch bends that sound cool in Band in a Box but they do not export. Apparently band in a Box doesn't really use Midi or Midi instruments it uses Real Tracks. I imagine they are sample loops that kinda drift around the chord changes. Anyhow for a laugh I entered the chords for this old song of mine and as exported the midi to create a TTS-1 project in Cakewalk. I then exported the Steel guitar as an audio track because as I said the midi sucked. I had to fix a bunch of spots that sounded terrible using Melodyne. Then I've totally replaced all but the midi drum part. The rest sounded like,,, well, Band in a Box.

The short answer is to use a proper audio interface with direct monitoring and ASIO driver. Your stuff is made for Podcasting. If that was your goal and not to record music then Cakewalk is not the best choice for assembling podcasts. If your goal was to record music and not do podcasts then get you money back and put it towards the gear that will work. We can help you with that.

Actually if you watch my videos I do not put down using on board audio. I just explain it’s limitations and that people need to be aware of them. There’s a whole new giant share of the “music”creating community that have zero musical ability and would be to lazy to learn. They are just fine with using the on board audio because they won’t be recording anything as audio. ( Thank goodness) Welcome to the future of AI produced ( music??) But Cakewalk was originally designed with real musicians in mind, not “producers” . Other software like Abelton is designed for that use. Cakewalk has now introduced Next which is obviously designed from the ground up for non musicians. It’s dead simple to use too. Takes about 2 hours to figure it out and the manual is only 256 pages instead of Sonars 1,958 pages. As a musician I found it very lacking and even old Sonar Home Studio will blow it out of the water. So we Musicians will have Sonar. And the Producers will have Next.

This gives you a quick overview of how the views in Cakewalk. It’s the first video in the series that if you watch the fist half dozen you will be an expert at navigating Cakewalk.

Why not just transfer it as a midi file? This way you will open it in Cakewalk and if you have no midi outputs chosen TTS-1 will play the song if it was using GM format Heres how to transfer to a USB stick:? https://yamahamusicians.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13760 Heres how to use a midi file in Cakewalk https://youtu.be/TEJ3IfBymXc?si=k3RLe25-2Wx0aaLv

I think it might be possible to keep some stuff but generally Cakewalk goodies that came with some older versions were tied to the license for that version. Somewhere there’s a list of what came with what. Scook would know but he seems to have disappeared back in September. I hope he’s OK. So the general consensus is to install the older versions using custom install and only check off what you need. The software itself takes up very little room especially when we now have 1 TB drives. I just installed Sonar Home Studio a while ago to compare it to Cakewalk Next. It’s 10 x the Software Next is. And it sold for $50 back then. If it was all I had I’d be fine except it doesn’t do regional effects. You have to run Melodyne in the bin. And no pro channel but it has the EQ. And it is good for lifetime of use with out authorization.

This is a great idea but I think the problem is not totally under Cakewalk control. Cakewalk has never liked consumer audio devices. . Cakewalk will have no way to know until you set your devices in windows and then choose it in preferences. This seems to always work for ASIO devices and Realtek sound cards. It doesn’t always work with consumer devices like USB podcast mikes and Bluetooth. Just my own observation that’s all.

The screen sometimes doesn’t scroll if you clicked on something. Just hit the spacebar again 2x

Absolutely. When I first tried Cakewalk I was 100% midi editing in DrT KCS event list. As we know Cakewalks event list is limited and the PRV is for the details. I think it took me a few years before I finally gave in and started using it. My event list workflow was over 15 year old. So it’s probably a good thing Cakewalks event list sucks as it forced me to learn to use a much better tool. And my overdub preferences are directly descended from the days of analog recording gear. Bad take! Record over it! Why would I want to keep a bad take? Workflow habit that is 40 years old.

My observation is that if the device is an ASIO interfaces Cakewalk will automatically set it to 1-2 outputs. You can open a project over the years and change interfaces dozens of times and Cakewalk will always connect with 1-2 on the master. Then if there’s no buses it connects directly to 1-2 from the tracks. The “none” situation is rare and it only happens to people who are not using ASIO. So there’s no need for any changes to Cakewalk. People who choose not to use an ASIO interface need to be aware of the limitations and complications that will arise and learn how to manually set things up.

That’s what I was saying. It’s what happens when you change to certain devices. Your master goes no where. I apologize if that wasn’t in the video. I thought it was.

Believe it or not the Sonitus multi band is excellent for this It’s very easy to figure out too. If you own Sonar you might have one of the LP ones or the Adaptive Limiter.

And the question was never answered correctly and that is “ Drum Maps”. Most kits can use GM maps but that has to be set in the brain of the kit. SI Drums doesn’t support maps but most VST kits do. But ya, you might as well stand on your back porch and ask the OP a question.

When you read these ideas you realize how we all have such totally different workflows. I hate it when I start working on what started as a pure midi file and find out the default setting of comping is turned on. All my templates are Overdub mode. Just now that happened to me and when I opened PRV to edit my 10 th and final take only to find PRV a total mess of notes! All 10 takes were there stacked up. It was easy to open the lanes and delete all but take 10. But it super annoying to me that the default is this instead of Overdub like most DAWs. Funny Cakewalk Next default is Overdub.

When ever my wife complains that I spent too much time in the studio I point out that she could have married someone who plays golf in summer and snowmobiles in winter and then when at home watches sports on TV. Then she listens to the songs and sends me back to fix everything she doesn’t like! The nerve !

We use YouTube music and the sad truth is as someone who has music on all the digital deliveries I think they pay the least. Our family has some deal that is $16 per month for 5 of us. So there’s the root of the problem. That’s like $3 a month to listen to 100’s of songs and watch YouTube with out the adds. Nobody is getting much money from me, which is fine as a consumer but not as an artist

That number might be the clue. Myself I just submit to support as they get back pretty quickly during business hours This is my bookmark for the form you fill in. Send the screenshot as an attachment at the bottom. https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

I have a folder named “Tascam “ from transferring my Tascam DR40 recordings. I get a song idea and I grab the recorder and a guitar and capture the idea before it’s long gone. On a rainy day 3 months later I’ll listen to these and I always find at least one good idea that actually becomes a song. I always finish my songs right away. (Then I redo them for 30 years. !) The DR 40 is a great tool for song writing. It’s certainly nothing new. Just put up your hand if your first recording device was a Sony portable Cassette with built in mikes. But the problem back then was what you got was the worst possible recording quality and no way to take it further. My 14 year old grandson has started playing guitar and he has written out lyrics to about 20 songs already. He asked for help because he has no clue what chords will work with the lyrics and he totally can’t sing at all yet. I got him to try and sing a melody to the words and see if I could find at least a starting key. Gave up and faked it and told him he’s singing in C. His songs are cowboy songs and this one’s about a truck that is costing the dude money. I played a few country style progressions and before you know it I had chords and a good arrangement for the song. So a collaboration effort. He’s totally hooked now. I was going to put it in Cakewalk but I didn’t think he’s ready for that yet. So I got this idea and I bought Band in aBox and I’m just downloading the content right now. I’m hoping it will be an easy tool for him until he learns more about music and get better at the guitar and singing. His lyrics are actually really good. So now let’s see how hard it is to learn Band in a box l. I see it’s now using samples instead of the terrible GM synth it used last time I tried it.

Yes you can change devices with a project open. Issues like the OP is having are a good example of what can go wrong if you're not savvy to audio set up in preferences and driver modes. And Blue tooth doesn't always support both WASAPI modes. We will assume the OP doesn't have an Audio interface and is using a WASAPI shared mode with Cakewalk, this is why I posted the Video so if they watch that and do a proper Windows audio set up it rules out a lot of possible issues. I have a Bluetooth speaker I use for proofing mixes which I do by exporting the song first and using Media player. I also have Bluetooth headphones for this as well. I could play directly from Cakewalk by simply changing to WASAPI shared mode as you see in the screen shot. The critical difference is what Cakewalk decides is the timing master. If it gets confused then you won't have sound. In the Bluetooth set up below I had no problem with playback but I was unable to get a recording signal from the Zoom interface. With Bluetooth speakers I get 80 MS more latency. This makes it impossible to do any editing. It's only use is to play projects for comparing a mix in something different than using proper monitors. That 80 ms does not include the transmission latency of Bluetooth. This is from the Bluetooth Wiki info Bluetooth codecs have higher latency than wired headphones, ranging from 34-200 milliseconds, which may be experienced as a noticeable lag between the action occurring and the corresponding audio. In contrast, wired headphones experience an average latency between 5-10 milliseconds.