John Vere

Thanks everyone for your kind feedback. I actually now have a remix where I fixed so very very small things that bugged me. First was the very first tick was not loud enough because it was on zero of the time line. I was apprehensive of turning on Ripple edit and dragging the whole song 1 measure but it worked. The other was in the 2 measure of the organ solo I was hearing something wrong. Looking at the midi data I couldn’t see anything out of place. So I thought I’d just re draw the glitch note and after I deleted the note there was a hidden note underneath! That’s what caused the cut off. This is why it takes me 20 years to finish songs. Take Note that I updated the link to on Sept 16 2023 to fix these few mistakes.

I made a complete tutorial about this but I deleted all those last winter. I was re posting but now I'm waiting for the new releases as this version will soon be obsolete. But the main thing to understand about the interface of a digital kit is the VST you use should have a drum map for your kit. You see in my screen shot it is not listed in Addictive drums. Possibly the TD 15 might be OK. But this is important to have to do this. There are custom Drum maps available. The reason is especially things like Hi Hat use special controller events to emulate a real Hi Hats variables. Otherwise your only getting note on and velocity. Hopefully those videos explain that. But the good news is all you really need to do is record your kit to an plain Midi track. Edit any blunders and send it back to the kit and record the stereo output from the kit. The playback will be identical to live sound of the kit with all the special articulations and whatnot. Bummer I see the Drum Modul doesn't have separate outputs for the kit pieces, only stereo. That rules that out, therefore only Midi and using a VST instrument would take you to the next level of having multi track kit pieces. So the workaround for that is as mentioned soloing each kit piece in turn and recording it.

@Colin Nicholls when you posted her name I went- Hey I know her, she's that amazing keyboard player from You Tube. The ones I saw she was playing in a public area and another one I think she was featured at a trade show. Amazing talent for sure. Annabelle, of course you don't probably use You Tube but it has totally replaced television in the modern world so people like Rachel are modern day celebrities. Have you ever submitted a feature request? I guess they broke it with the advent of the Skylight interface in Sonar X1. I myself stayed with good old Sonar 8.5 right up until X 3 and even then I took a year to totally switch over.

I might have about the same but I only use 20 of them! My excluded list is 4x bigger than non excluded.

This is why I recommend the paid version of the You Lean meter. It is the only meter that allows instant results by drag and drop of audio (and video) files to the GUI. There is a free version that works in real time as well but the upgrade is only $50 Can. If your time is worth anything to you this is a very good investment. https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/ I think I already explained clearly my workflow so I won't elaborate. Key point is that if each track has been optimized and adjusted then there would be no need for buses or a separate export per track. It would all be done in way less time. Good workflows are ones that might take more prep work but save time in the long run. That prep work includes a proper recoding environment and set up and the right mike and equipment. If you tried a SM7B you might not need to do any editing. I used to own an AT 2020. It does not work at all for me for the reasons you just mentioned. Noisy.

In my experience with using both drivers a lot, playback of music in Cakewalk would not be any different. It's only recording where ASIO is most important so that new audio tracks will sync properly to the already recorded material. An live recording where there is no syncing involved will also be just fine, But that said if a device comes with ASIO then you would normally want to use it. There might be a situation where an ASIO driver is very poorly written and the WASAPI driver seemed more stable. But that seems like a rare off chance. You're lucky the Soundcraft works with WASAPI, mine doesn't. I've often connected it to other computers and couldn't get it to be recognized by windows until I installed the ASIO driver. A few people have pointed out that my video is W10 and that W11 is a little different. None of my computers will support W11 so I never upgraded. As far as I understand all the setting are still there and the same but it looks different and possibly pathways to settings have changed.

Exactly. It would sort of work if you don’t mind listening to everything late by 30 ms or more. It makes it impossible to properly edit midi and audio with any accuracy. Your better off with a set of normal headphones which is pretty important gear for music. I’ve even bought those $10 one from dollar store that are half way decent.

My question is, does this happen if you only use the one laptop? I now see that deleting the whole of the Aud. in would be a mistake for this one reason. It would trash all the ASIO input/output assignments. I haven't done my old laptop I use just for playback on Win Amp. It has an up to date version of Cakewalk installed that I used 2 years ago to record a live band. So I have a multi input template still available that should open and be ready to record 14 tracks. I will need to get my Tascam interface back from a friend I leant it to a while ago. But when I do I'll test and see what happens. First I'll clean out the obvious garbage and test. Then I'll delete everything and test again. I will also test with the newer laptop I will be using at the end of September for a live recording session I have booked. If this is true then my new quote for using ASIO devices live will be; Always have all devices connected, powered up and recognized as the device by Windows,( Check the system tray ) before opening Cakewalk. Do not delete the driver information in the Aud,in file or you will loose channel assignments.

They will always tell older folks that they need hearing aids. I took the test at the request of my wife when she was being fitted for her 3rd pair. This is a very expensive handicap! They give you a print out that shows your EQ curve which for us audio engineers we can fully understand what that is. My results look almost exactly like my wife's! A drop off beyond 800hz that falls off the scale. But- my wife is very hard of hearing. I will agree my hearing is fading but not any where as bad as hers. If she is not wearing them somebody can be ringing the doorbell and she won't hear it. Lot's of examples of how my hearing is possibly still at 85% but hers is probably as bad as 50%. I can hear a high pitched whine from dimmed lighting! So why the same results and advice to purchase a pair. I play in a duo with long time music partner Curt. He's still a smoking Banjo player as well as he plays bass in a 12 piece R&B band. He is like my wife and has used hearing aids for over 10 year now too. He is the guy who asks for the floor wedges to be on the edge of killing you. He insists on using vocal mikes in the front room for rehearsals. His newest aids have a special EQ setting for music which he say's is working a bit better, in the past he couldn't wear them as it sounded awful. We can't convince him he needs in ear monitors! At least bass is an instrument that is usually easy to hear on stage, but he always wants his amp louder than the sound man and band mates do. And Banjo's are REAL LOUD. but he still struggles in coffee house acoustic gigs. With his aid in! We also have a close friend Michael from Arizona who spends the summer here who finally bought new hearing aids. Last year we noticed he wasn't understanding other sides of conversations and had a bad habit of always going " Hmm, and uh Hau" you talked. He was a social outcast. He had cheap hearing aids that obviously were not working. He is like a different person now. What I learned from these 3 people is that you need GOOD hearing aids. Some brands just don't work as well. The good ones are well over $3 grand in Canada. Michael and my wife are now using Oticon aids. Curt bought his from Costco as were my wife's last pair, and seems they are not really working to me. A hearing aid is an overpriced In Ear monitor ( headphone ear bud) with a built in mike and pre amp. The good ones have processing which is very basic EQ. Which brings me to my other experience with hearing loss. I worked in a Care Facility for 6 years. Hearing aid don't go well with dementia. They will take them out and loose them in a short time. For our events we bought what are known as "Pocket talkers." A set of cheap airplane style, foam headphones paired with a body pack with a mike and a amp built in. The price range of these goes from $30 to $1,000. We found a brand for $150 that were outstanding sound quality. I highly recommend these for people who would still need a boost for things like church services. Better sound quality at a fraction of the cost. Sorry for the long story but I sort of needed to qualify my answer which is "no" Your brain adjusts to deficiencies as we age. Our studio monitors have been with us for a long time and we learn to know what a good mix sounds like on those even as our hearing declines. And any set of good studio headphone will have way better sound quality than even the highest priced hearing aids.

Normally over a 5 year period Sonar updates and whatever we probably saved well over $500 or more. Isort of remember reading this back then but key points I now understand are the implications that now have come forth And the PS. About baking something special

All covered in my videos. The one about the multi dock shows you the tricks. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7YqVth30eGsURWrKGeu-fFyg3ETjF-Ox&si=qyN03b6MOWh18Ns3

Zoom in

I have 3 laptops and 3 computers and most of them I run Cakewalk using the on board audio with out issues. That is because I set it up properly in Windows settings. And as well I know the limitations of what a computer sound system is capable of. As well as laptops have junk built in that cause DPC latency so run this test https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon All this is covered in the videos which is up to you to ignore or choose to learn about.

Turn off Snap .

Here we go again. Watch this first. https://youtu.be/opDwsC4_llg Then you might want to watch them all to answer other issues. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7YqVth30eGsURWrKGeu-fFyg3ETjF-Ox

Same here. What I see is what you normally get in dialogue boxes. If you hover the mouse it opens a pop up dialogue that will show the whole thing. But possibly this is a Cakewalk by Bandlab and Windows 10 thing. I don't remember if these things work on windows 7 and Sonar 8. Example screen capture on Windows 10 is fast. Hold the Windows key and print screen and the screen shot is saved in a screenshot folder that is found in the pictures folder. I have a shortcut for it on my desktop. You double click on it and you can edit the pictures in the Photos app. Takes less that a minute to post a screen shot. I still use Paint to add text to pictures. It's an old friend I've used a million times. I hate the new 3 D version.

This! There is no reason to use Asio4all on a W10 or 11 computer. The WASAPI driver mode has changed all that. Asio4all was useful back in the dark ages of computer audio but is now obsolete. It has one tiny use these days and that is for badly made audio devices that not only don't have an ASIO driver, but that don't support WASAPI either. Toss that POS in the garbage and move on. This is explained clearly in the Audio set up video. When properly set up your computers sound chip can work smoothly with Cakewalk using WASAPI shared or even exclusive. I prefer shared so I can use my computer for other audio applications like You Tube and using Media Player.

This! lot of us use these same plug ins in other software. Like I can use them in Wave Lab, Gold Wave, Cubase and even my Video editing apps. They all have different systems but you can generally access the plug ins you want and create a short list just like Cakewalk. Some of Cakewalks plug ins cannot be used outside of Cakewalk.

Narrative for audio books is not like music and the voice is all that is heard. There’s no music to mask imperfections. Its definitely a talent not to be underestimated. My son in laws Dad has been going into a studio in Scottsdale AZ for years and doing this. He said they only let him record for an hour because your voice gets tired quickly. The big secret to doing this is a treated room, the right mike and mike technique. You certainly don’t want noticeable compression and limiting on the tracks. I do have the Loud max and the SL63x on the master but my goal is they are not working, they are just watchdogs. Cakewalks Boost 11 is often overlooked but I find if you use it lightly is a very good expander limiter. I set my peak at -4 db and if a track needs a little boost I use no more that 2 or 3 db. But that’s the lazy man’s method. I usually manually edit but I mentioned it because manual editing of a 1 hour track would be very time consuming and I’m not sure Audio Book pays good enough for that. I have my set up with a SM7 and I point it at a 45 degree angle towards my left of my face so I’m talking across its windscreen. I keep my right cheek almost touching the wind screen. This needs to never change in a session. I find this totally eliminates Plosives. After a lot of trial and error I have an exact setting on my interface for a level that never peaks. Note that this a bit hotter than the setting I would use for singing. The tracks should never peak past -4 db. If they do I will find the error and I apply clip gain to the peak. I don’t, but you can also use Process Normalize to set all tracks the same peak levels. But peaks don’t tell you about actual RMS or LUFS level. For that I use the paid version of You Lean Loudness meter. You can drag and drop the track into its GUI and it analyzes the level and LUFS. I would highly recommend it for this reason alone. LUFS are way more important than peaks as far as perceived levels go. I put it in the Master bus bin as part of the template. I can open the GUI from there and drag any track to quickly analyze. This is a screen shot of my Template. Notice the setting of the Loud Max Limiter which is what I use to achieve my goal of -1db for You Tube videos. You could use the Boost 11 or the Loud Max on a track. I put it in the screenshot to demonstrate how I would use it but it is not part of the template. The SL63x is just there for the odd time I feel a need for a little compression. The Boost 11 and Loud Max are interchangeable. I tested about a dozen free limiters and those 2 where the keepers. The Loud max is the winner for actually keeping within 0.03 db of it's settings. The You Lean is also the most accurate analyzer I tested meter for peak readings.

Few days ago I set up my studio in serious listening mode to listen and re mix all 35 of the songs I’ve been working on for 25 years. Last mixes were noted as being done in March. Here is another tool I found useful for proofing my mixes. Muting buses. I needed backing tracks for the Summer gigs. I mute the guitar and vocal bus and export a custom mix. This leaves Bass,Drums and keyboards. I found flaws and errors as I was listening and playing along to practice for upcoming gigs. Point is, soloing and muting busses will reveal issues with your mixes. As well as using as many playback systems as you can. Anyways I had to take notes and fix stuff as I progressed which is all that happened since last March. I use Mix Recall to save different mixes. Gigs are almost over and I had some time to apply these changes to the full songs. I sat and listened to them all last night, this time using my headphones. I only made a few notes. It’s usually 2 pages. I think tonight is the night! All I can say is every time I sit down to re mix I have a totally new workflow. You never stop learning and improving your mixing skills.

Yes you could definitely just hide finished tracks. It would be a choice between that and the folders, which ever seems easier. And yes, the export Tracks Trough entire mix feature will do all tracks. It shows a confirmation list before you hit ok so you can make sure the correct tracks are selected. The Export dialogue is very powerful and there’s a lot of options like in how the track are named and if you want automation and track or bus effects added. I use the entire mix selection because it includes the master bus.

To make my tutorials I first record all the narration so as to not babble. I suck at live recording of narration so I write a script and I read it from my second monitor. I would think my workflow would be exactly how I would do what you are doing. The only difference I can see is your tracks would be much longer. Mine are never more than 30 seconds. I have a template with 30 Audio tracks. It is easy to add or subtract these. I don't bother, but you can name each track. After I record a track I listen and fix and edit mistakes. I then turn off record and Mute the track. I move to the next track and set in record. And so on. I'm very careful to stay same distance from my mike and I always record at a safe level. After I'm done I might top and tail the tracks with fade ins and fade outs to remove unwanted noises like breathing. The master bus has a few compressors, limiters etc. to make sure the voice stays at the same level with a target peak level of -1.0 db. That's it, no folders nothing complicated at all. Then I export as "Tracks through entire mix" at 48/24. This creates a stem ( track) for each of the " Chapters"

Yes in preferences under VST you can check the box In plug in manager if you open the VST 2 lists you can choose to exclude plug ins. That’s what I do. Then it’s easy to bring it back if you need it again