Bass Guitar

A few years ago I made a tutorial on this very topic that shows how you can have all sorts of different views and that most are all independently floating and then there’s different docking options as shown in @Glenn Stanton example. Then the shortcuts make all this work very easily. My understanding of how to use all the various view features makes it easier to use only one monitor. The blue highlighted docking options are important as you float the view. Some things that are in the Browser can be put in the multi dock. That way all you need are the tabs at the bottom to get at just about everything. And did you know that the track pane is the only view that you can’t hide or float. You can only shrink it by dragging the dividers. Any how that video only got under 100 views so I removed it Seems learning about views in Cakewalk was not a hot topic. Bottom line is it was all very customizable in Cakewalk. If you are using the free version I am finding that this sort of stuff doesn’t work like it used to. It’s the ghost living in the new graphics.

Yep First thing I do. I don’t like the new version at all. Im using Platinum now and it has a wonderful start screen that works as it should. And it doesn’t interfere with using the file menu or even opening from the browser. It just politely closes if you click anything else.

This! I have always had the 2 monitors so my default was the Multi Dock floated to second monitor. But sometimes when working with Melodyne I wanted the Multi Dock view of Melodyne editor open below the track I was working on. That’s why I loved it when they introduced Workspaces. I could now set that up and save it. Over time I have abandoned using the second monitor for the Multi Dock in favour of using the one screen and toggling using D to open the multi dock 3/4 screen. I need my second monitor more for doing other things. The Browser and Inspector are mostly hidden. You get very used to using the shortcuts I - D and B. I know a lot of people don’t use Workspaces but I sure did. I said did because I don’t have them anymore due to using Platinum. And I guess they are also missing from the free version. Im back to putting up with the stupid mindless screen-sets. I hate them.

That’s the multi dock open full screen. it will be hidden behind that view. Float it. Now as you drag it down the bottom will turn blue to show you where it is legal to dock. As you move it up and down you will see that in the upper area the inspector and the browser are not blocked off but if you move it down the blue bar will go full screen and you won’t see the inspector. I thought you were not seeing it in the track view.

Good to know. But Studio one, Mixcraft and a few others I have demoed don’t. Yes custom keybindings are very important but I have yet to use a Daw that doesn’t have that. I immediately change the rewind button to W! I found it interesting that Vegas used that same keyboard shortcut. The other one is the R shortcut. It’s muscle memory. That great that you are immersing yourself in music no matter what style. Keeps the old brain going.

When you try other Daw’s you will see that Cakewalk and Cubase have been around since day one in using midi. They seem to me to have the very best capabilities for all these different use cases for midi hardware and software. And there are more than you can imagine. Go see if you can do something easy like assign a different patch and bank in all those other Daw’s. It’s not there! Nobody else has an event list. I have never used it but I would hope Ableton live has strong mid routing capabilities as it seems popular with hardware enthusiasts. It seems most daw’s now are focusing on drag and drop creators. Cakewalks Next is a good example. A lot of midi hardware that was designed for routing midi seems to have disappeared from the market. Like my Roland A880 midi patch bay. That was a lifesaver in my days of live midi performance. I set it to channel 16. It could reroute 8 inputs and 8 outputs. A lot of my old midi files still have the channel 16 patches in them. I should have never sold it. I see some on EBay and Reverb. Tempted. And if you owned it then your problem would be solved. Oh, I forgot, it’s not USB.

There have been several graphic related glitches in the new Sonar Ive both seen reported here as well as I have a few myself. So possibly this is yet another example. Take screenshots and open a ticket with support. Post the screenshot here too as we might spot something. One thing I can think of is if at some point the project was saved when floating. I have the free version myself and due to the lack of workspace s it’s a royal pain. Every project opens weird and I have to manually move stuff around. My latest graphic glitch is If I open the Browser in existing projects the instrument tab is highlighted but it’s showing the list of effects. It doesn’t do this with new projects. I wrote it off as happening just because I probably saved my workspace in Cakewalk and the instrument tab was my default. I think the effects tab is the default. The other one was in the export dialogue but they fixed it after being reported. So that is why I recommend reporting directly to support and not just here.

@Byron Dickens I was just in the process of redoing my back up Laptop so I did fresh installation of Band in a Box and Sonar Platinum. The VST SynthFont did not show up in Sonar just as expected. And ya the plug in is most certainly hidden deep in the bowels of the BB folder. I had to use Search to find it. So I copied and then pasted it into the Steinberg VST folder. So there’s still the original where BB wants it to be. Sonar found it and it opens and yes it is showing a Trial 15 day period.But then I found out I had not authorized BiaB. So I registered BiaB and now the VST synthfont is not in demo mode.

I explained how to prevent this by using midi channels. As I said I used Sonar Live and had no problem playing the synth I needed. I see no issue with using 2 controllers either. You just choose the channel you want to use. To here the sound input Echo has to be on and you can set it to be Globally on for all instruments. I don't know how many people have explained what input echo is for but somehow your not understanding that. Its a simple matter of not desiring how you think it should work it's a matter of understanding how it does work and learn that so you can take control.

Actually I have Steinberg Wave Lab 12 set up in the tools. But honestly over time I rarely use it because I use Melodyne for surgery on my audio tracks. Clicks and pops are pretty obvious.

And this is the simple solution to your request. If it was of importance possibly one could create a keyboard shortcut that ran one of those macros that opened the dialogue. Otherwise what you want is that that dialogue was accessible from the main work area, example if I click on the metronome icon it opens the settings. So that would be a feature request. I personally would vote for this as I often need to access the midi outputs. But it really takes a few seconds to get there and it stays on that tab each time I open preferences during that days sessions. If we request a midi devices icon they will make it so small we would not find it anyhow 😐

@Byron Dickens I’ll contact Kenneth the developer and ask about this. They might have recently locked it to BiaB. In the past it just showed up in Cakewalk. Coyote definitely is working but it is free. I have the 14.90 Euro version of VST SynthFont because I wanted the VST 3 version. I also like supporting these small developers. Kenneth has been working with me to sort out a few issues I had with the Midi Sound Synth. Midi files saved from Sonar are not working properly.

I haven’t heard of this happening for years. What OS are you using and what are you using for your audio playback? If you don’t have an audio interface it’s common to have different audio issues using any Daw. And then make sure you go into Windows sound settings and choose a default sample rate that matches what you use in Sonar. If you watch a lot of videos then 48 is probably best. Also if you don’t have any interface set Sonar to use WASAPI shared mode and use your computers sound card not HDMI or any other 3rd party driver. Do not try and use ASIO unless you do have an interface.

Exactly. The mute and input echo only involve the audio generated by the Soft Synth. Midi data is not stopped. And if you have selected midi output in the VST as well as a hardware output in midi preferences devices then your controller will pass through to the hardware. You need to disable midi output in the soft synth or preferences. input echo , or often called Track Monitor, is used during recording or live performance so you can hear the audio from the soft synth. It is not needed for playback. The mute button is obvious to it’s function but it is used to mute the audio output of the synth. It doesn’t mute midi. You’ll still see activity on the midi meters. To stop midi from going to a track you need to select an unused input source. Selecting None normally means that everything is available. You can also assign midi channels. I used Sonar as my keyboard rig at a few gigs. I had 7 different VST instruments each assigned a different input channel. I turned on Global input Echo. My Roland A49 only has 2 control knobs. I used midi learn to control the volume as well as chorus or ? I just changed output channels to change instruments. Was very dependable system but I had to make sure I connected the keyboard before I started Sonar. Otherwise it would revert back to None and everything played at once. I’d have to reassign the channels again.

I had a free app called STeem that was an Atari emulator but it only works on Windows XP. All the software I used for almost 15 years was now available for free on Tim’s Atari world website. I guess that all the developers were long gone. But one was the same version of Cubase I had previously purchased for I think $300 back when. It had a note saying Steinberg approved of the free version as a historical artifact.