John Vere

Best practices is open a new project and right away Save it with the copy audio checked. This creates a new project folder with an empty audio folder in side. I usually name this “ Joes Party” after the gig. Now drag and drop the audio from your transfer drive into the project and the audio will be put in the blank audio folder. If it is a live recording with say 20 songs you can then split them out and use save as with the copy audio unchecked to create a individual project for each song but they will reference the audio in the one folder. When you open the Joes Party project folder there will be a CWP icon for each song as well as the original whole show.

It’s like everyone round here bashes Pro Tools? I have a basic version I got free a few years ago and I found it very easy to use. I like it. Can’t say that about Cubase and Studio 1 which I also had installed back when things went sideways with Sonar. Bandlab saved me from having to switch. I just installed Home Studio on my rebuild older computer. There’s nothing else on it but Next. Clean as a whistle. I opened a CbB project with no problem other than a long list of missing plug ins. I quickly replaced with SI stuff and it sounds great. I think I’ll make a video about it with the title “This is what Sonar looks like. “.

Yes that’s about it. I guess I’m not cut out for testing as it is. I actually started by reading the manual and poking around and then mostly fell in love with the one feature it had that Cakewalk doesn’t, the Separation tool. I still have Next on my testing computer just to use that feature. But I found it is only using 44.1 / 16 so I don’t want to flip clock rates on my main computer. I will probably even purchase Next if it is priced at what I think it’s worth and I will be willing to make tutorials about it then. I was hoping to get a head start but it’s just too frustrating trying to demonstrate on broken software.

I’m not a Sonar tester but Next has both the Arranger and a lyrics track. You can copy paste your lyrics to a scratch pad then copy paste those to assemble the lyrics track. The lyrics track is like a second Arranger track with out the colours. So possibly your wish will be granted if Sonar also has this new feature.

And obviously the same with Next. I just pulled the plug on the testing and even logged out of Discord. It’s is so far from ready and it’s a mystery as to what is going on. They have put it in the hands of 1,000’s of people, mostly new comers. So it’s being tested buy people who wouldn’t know a bug if it bit them. Example is nobody on this forum is interested in it but we would be the best resource for testing. I Think saw one or 2 handles I recognized. The rest are Bandlab app folks. All I can think of is that it isn’t even 1/4 of what Home Studio was. I paid $35 for Home Studio. With inflation let’s make that now $50. So what is 1/4 of $50 ? It is scary to think of why Sonar would take so long. Im going to install Home Studio on my second testing computer and finish the song I started in Next that all fell apart due to midi editing bugs. I have 2 reasons to see what Home Studio was like.

Yep knew right away who it would be. If you watched his video he put out in June after the announcement he was jumping ship right then. He probably predicted how it would go down. And this whole loooonnnggg waiting since June doesn’t help. Free = huge user base and a million newbies. Great potential for tutorials. $$$= Same as every other DAW on the market so not very many newbies.

Good point. It took a lot of digging but there does seem to be a W10 driver updated in 2021. It doesn’t say ASIO but it really can’t be anything else. It’s definitely the least expensive. You might want to download and read the manual first. It’s only 16 bit. Watch the video for details

Midi file have tempo as part of the file. So opening a file preserves that information. Existing projects have a tempo so then we import or drag and drop the midi data into the project and the midi data follows the projects tempo. What you seem to be asking is for a third option to have a midi files tempo take over a project tempo. Nope. Doesn’t exist, at least not in any DAW I’ve used. Only thing I can think of is you would have to open the midi file and now drag and drop the data from the original. But that’s not going to work with audio.

You never said you tried connecting directly to your sound modules. If you want help you should read and try what we suggest or you will not actually be troubleshooting just saying something is broken. Troubleshooting is a process of elimination to determine “what “is not working.

All the people who are testing Sonar Beta are not allowed to comment in any way. They have signed a None Disclosure Agreement. The rest of us know exactly what you know. Nothing.

I got the None Disclosure a last Tuesday with a thank you for submitting but still waiting for the next step. How long did this normally take?

I guess I’m lazy in my old age. I have 2 Workspaces. 1 monitor and 2 monitors. My workaround is make them all narrow and then widen the few I need. It just doesn’t stick. Im going bonkers with NEXT because everything keeps changing as you work. Open the event inspector ( PRV) and it’s zoomed way out so notes are a big blob. Zoom in and get it just right do a little editing. Open another midi track and it’s a big blob again, now return to the one you fixed and it’s a big blob again. No smart tool, the list is a block long, So please don’t complain about Cakewalk/ Sonar it’s actually unbelievable compared to Next.

Actually a better idea might be more customized sizing of the channel strips. Most strips I can use the narrow view but there’s important ones I need full size. Right now I’ve never figured out an easy way to have both mixed in and retain this when re open a project. It seems to be a workspace thing.

This video will help you troubleshoot audio issues. https://youtu.be/opDwsC4_llg?si=suXUxrfx267sJWJU There’s a bunch of others in my series that will also help you set up using midi and VST instruments. Including setting up midi controllers. The flickering lights might be a controller sending unwanted data like from a sticky mod wheel.

Someday when I’m rich I’m gunna buy a huge touch screen monitor and lay it flat on the desk just for the console. I guess I could buy a controller. Apparently my Yamaha o1v can be used as a controller because it has midi ports. I’ve never tried it and I even have an old software app that was made for X1 I got from the Yahoo user group long ago. I used to automate it from my Atari.

This video explains how I set up buses

Two monitors for sure and definitely console view for everything once tracking is finished. So much easier to see everything because track view is stacked horizontally you can only see so many channels. Console view shows more channels plus the all important bus pane. You can also quickly see what effects are being used and if the pro channel is on. Anyone who is used to a real mixer will feel more at home.

That’s to funny. The SM7 comes with an extra outside windsock. It fits perfectly on the Beta

I know this thread is old but I’ll toss in my experience with the SM7b for future information. I bought the SM7 to do the tutorials because It does work perfectly for narration recording. And I like that I can mount it on the swing arm. It failed me as a vocal mike. I am back to using my Beta 58. I have always had best results with the Beta. I have no luck with LDC mikes with my voice. Im noisy. And I was told the SM7b has the same element as the Beta. Possibly so but because I it doesn’t have an internal pre amp you have to crank you interfaces pre amp to almost max. This of course introduced more noise floor. So save yourself $300 and by a Beta 58 if you want a good Dynamic mike. It actually sounds better than the 7b. It just doesn’t look as cool.

As both very very qualified computer and audio techs have just said. You need to optimize your computer. If working on a computer is Greek to you then you can expect issues with using one for audio. It comes with the territory. There are musicians and there are nerds. You have to be both to play the game. Or I do believe Jim can be hired as a consultant as this is his day job. He is one of the best too.

I actually never look at the meter. I look at the numerical reading because it is more visible to me and it stays there until you restart. It would be cool if the numbers changed colours!

I agree with that. You can only speed up certain tracks under certain conditions no matter which method you use. Important tracks like vocals will suffer. At least midi is no problem. For me that takes care of all but Guitar and Vocals. Then I just re do vocals and main guitars. If your song is important to you don’t compromise on quality when it’s available to you. But just today I was working on a old song. And the process was that I was using Next to extract the stems for the Bass and Drums. I put it in a Cakewalk project and dragged the drums ( real drums) to the timeline and got a tempo map that was from about 132 to 135.5 BPM With ripple edit on I dragged the music so it started on 2. I The converted the bass to midi and edit and quantized. Then I opened the drums in Drum replacer and extracted the Kick/ Snare and a ride ( don't ask) I dragged that to Addictive drums and edited and quantized. I then put down a scratch vocal and a guitar. Then I added a Electric piano. This is all following the crazy tempo map. I then tried top play this choppy piano part and needed the tempo slowed down to do this. So I deleted the tempo map and set the tempo at 120. This is what I did. See screen shot. I opened the clips dialog and checked that box " stretch to tempo" and the guitar and vocal actually followed the change. Simple. I recorded the piano and then put it back at 135. The vocal and guitar sounds perfect, the sound not the singing or playing. I'll be redoing them anyhow, But I was surprised at how easy this was to do! I think the tracks have to be selected as you change the tempo. Sorry I didn;t pay too close attention.

Personal experience with USB mikes. Friend of mine bought a ? Sampson? I think it was and couldn’t get it working. So he brought it over and I gave it a go. First on the website I determined it didn’t have a driver. This seems true of 90 % of these things. So you plug it in and it seemed to show up in Windows sound settings as a device . So I turned off my interface and Windows switched to my Speakers on board audio. The mike showed it was creating audio. Great. Open Cakewalk and change to WASAPI shared mode. Hmm no mike in devices list. Tried WASAPI exclusive mode and it said my device doesn’t support it? Tried WDM and the mike was now available. So my conclusion was the mike doesn’t support the modern Windows drivers. So open a project with a few tracks to play a song and set a new track to record and kinda works but playback was obviously a half a measure late= WDM driver. My personal opinion is they are just fine for anything but recording music. No ASIO driver = Not suitable for serious music production.

FYI. @Milton Sica All versions of Cakewalk and Sonar since the beginning of time are completely different core programs that install separately from any other versions you have installed. Many of us have 3 or more versions of Sonar and Cakewalk installed so as to benefit from past add on goodies. In the past there was always dialogue during install that asked if you wanted to use the settings from already installed older core versions. I don’t have Sonar beta but my guess is that these traditions will not change. Cakewalk by Bandlab was always just one core program and we received updates to that version that obliterated the last one, so that is entirely different from installing a brand new Core program which Sonar is. Updates are changes to core programs. Installing the beta of Sonar is no different than installing the Beta of Next or even Pro Tools for that matter.