Bass Guitar

I do believe that this is a feature of a wave editor like Wave Lab. Not sure if Audacity can. Sound Forge? Gold Wave?

I’ve always considered that one of the more critical parts of keeping tabs on your signal path. Especially on buses. Individual tracks should have been recorded at a correct level but a bus being fed from multiple tracks can easily be overloaded. If you see that on wth an audio track then you have recorded it too hot. So it is most useful for buses especially for the Master. It seems people rely on the bus fader meters and when they see red might adjust the fader. Wrong! The pro channel idiot light is there to warn you that your input to the bus strip is being overpowered. It’s something like the same input red light found on analog or digital mixers. This then should be dealt with by turning the Gain down or adjusting at the tracks. Because the audio is rendered at 32 FP you might not hear the distortion but better to be safe because little digital errors suck. Sonar definitely has the best metering system of all the Daw’s I tried over the last few years. Many require you to use plug ins just to see the peak readings.

https://sonobus.net/ Sonobus can be used for real time audio over the network. There's no video but remote listeners can comment on your mix and you can make changes in real time for them. For Video/ Audio I would try OBS studio. https://obsproject.com/ It allows me to have Sonar running in ASIO mode. I've used it to shoot tutorials and never had an issue or had to use WASAPI. Your interface needs to have the Loopback feature for it to work like this. I've never tried streaming but it would seem it's no different than screen capture.

On my latest build I went with 64 because it was inexpensive. I can get by on 16.

Somehow I think the continuing saga of Cakewalk / Sonar/ 12 Tones is not over. Don’t underestimate the power of users who have voted against the membership. Im patiently waiting for next June and the announcement of “Cakewalk II”. Introductory pricing for $199 US. And I don’t rule out new owners as being part of its future. It’s a great Daw. To me it’s a repeat of what happened with the release of X1. Nobody liked the way it looked either.

+1. You are probably fine with 32. But depending on how old the RAM you have is you might see an improvements in performance if you can upgrade to newer faster RAM.

I’ll just add that Melodyne, especially the full version, can be used for a whole lot more than just vocal pitch correction. It’s an audio editor on steroids. A simple way of thinking about it is it turns audio tracks into a type of midi track. Most of the things that you can edit in midi can be edited in a similar manner. Pitch. Timing and Amplitude among them. I think the mistake new users make is not watching the most excellent video tutorials produced by Celemony. I almost never even use it to pitch correct my lead vocals. Im not a fan of that. But boy do I lay it on the harmonies. I think creating outstanding harmonies is where Melodyne shines. I do my best to sing them correctly but the ability to then edit the pitch. Timing and levels is amazing. The other huge lifesaver is tweaking guitar chords. I have arthritis and my playing is becoming sloppy with unwanted notes happening. No prob, seek and destroy. I just recorded a live band and the bass player had made a few boners. When I sent them the mix down he was wondering what happened to them because he most certainly remembers screwing up! Anyways to me Melodyne was the best investment in recording software I have ever made. I got it for about half price by upgrading it every Black Friday over a few years.

To use Melodyne it has to be registered with Your Celemony account. Just like Addictive drums and most plugins that you buy. Melodyne 4 is now really old and a basic version was included with Cakewalk. But it still had to be activated with a Celemony account. When Melodyne 5 came out they discontinued handing out free licenses to Cakewalk and a bunch of other Daw’s that use Ara. The installer was there but it became a 30 day demo. Coming up this fall is the Black Friday sales and Thats the best time to purchase an upgrade. Your old version 4 should get you a discount on upgrades.

When CbB didn’t have any official abbreviations my favourite was “Bonar”. Roland versions were a normal software numbering system but then they changed the graphics and released the X series and started over. But was pretty easy to distinguish between Sonar 3 and X3. Gibson took over I think with X2 but totally scrapped the numbers with the release of Platinum series. This has created confusion over which version a user is talking about ever since then. The version numbers are long and I personally have never managed to remember what the version I was using was. At least changing the name from Platinum to Cakewalk was easy but then people always had to be asked what version they were referring to. Deciding to return to calling it Sonar now has created even more confusion because there are still people using Gibson versions as well as even if someone is using the new Sonar they still seem to call it Cakewalk or very often Bandlab. I like dates so I’ve been calling it Sonar 2025. I like that- $onar! That might catch on.

It is recommended by Cakewalk to avoid the Realtech ASIO driver. That is what is causing this issue. Best to disable that driver and perhaps remove it from the register.

Kinda of obvious but you did disable USB power saving mode? That would explain why the Motu would shut down.

You simply play in the correct octave on your keyboard. The notes will be recorded in the same pitch you are hearing if you are monitoring the instrument.

Focusrite provides very good quality instructions with their interfaces. And not sure if the solo comes with the software mixer, it didn’t in the past. One way or the other the instructions will explain how to open either the mixer or the control panel. That is where you can choose the correct buffer settings and sample rate. Then you should also set up Windows sound settings to use the same sample rate as well. Then lastly you go into preferences of all your audio and video apps and also set default sample rate. You should not have to set the buffer settings in each app. That setting is only there for when you are not using a proper interface and driver.

All I can say is that computer systems suck. There are days when I get tempted to dust of my 8 track!

What I have done with safe mode is as it shows the plugin I always say yes to the ones I totally trust. This can narrow it down very quickly. But that said I tend to be only using stuff from Melda, Overloud. Air and a lot of the included plugins that have been part of Sonar for a zillion years. I have a lot of 3rd party freebies for those weird things like a Zither. So those are the ones always under scrutiny. I have been slowly weaning myself of all the DX stuff. The TTS-1 has definitely been a problem for me lately. So I now use Coyote.

Yes it seems something happened at some point and it was narrowed down to the TTS-1 Ghost and all the pro channel modules. The biggest mystery was that all these projects opened with out issue up until the fall of 2023. Nothing was changed in the way I work . I am very simple in my workflow. Safe mode was what points to the Pro Channel as you might remember. I worked on this for over 3 months with lots of crash dumps submitted etc. I even went as far as completely reinstalling W11. I simply gave up as this problem was easily solved by switching Daw’s. And now as I find by reverting to Splat. I realize this issue is very unique to me. I don’t think Sonar itself crashes, but seems the new version is more sensitive to nasty plugins and in this case it’s Sonars own stuff! And now I have Platinum working smoothly so I might not even fully switch to that other Daw because it is inferior to Sonar in many ways. So as I stand I love Sonar. Im not leaving and will simply bide my time waiting for something to change Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Why do you keep saying Splat? Or Platinum? That was the Gibson version from 2017. As people are saying the new version is simply Called Sonar. To define the versions if you have the Membership it is referred to as Sonar Premium. The other version is called Sonar Free Tier. And why are you not using ASIO? Did you install the Focusrite driver?

I had to put my Motu M4 off to the side as starting about a month ago it was bonking out all the time. Random stuff like distorted audio. I wonder if a W11 update is to blame? I have 2 other interfaces but I prefer the monitor set of the M4. Im using the SSL2 right now and it sucks with the headphone level. I have to max it out. And same with the Main output. It also creates 4 versions of itself in all my audio apps. Not impressed with it at all.

@Abrunet Exactly what @Glenn Stanton just said. I tried installing Platinum using just the installer but it was in demo mode. This is because there is no way to authorize it. More or less what will happen with Cakewalk after it runs out. You can install it. But it will be in demo mode. You have to Use the Command centre to authorize most of the products from 2017. Make sure to use version 1.1.8.1 as the old version won’t work. Platinum has been working perfectly fine for me for 2 months now. And don’t forget that you have to run as administrator to authorize some of the legacy plugins like Dim Pro. As far as opening any projects new or old I have actually never had any issues ever up until recently with the new version. This is one reason I had to revert to Platinum. In the 2 months since I started using Splat it has never crashed. But sadly the new Sonar won’t open most of my Cakewalk files. Sonar has always been backwards compatible since day one.

Depending on the VST but most have the option of midi output. That becomes an option for the input choice for midi and instrument tracks. But the vst GUI doesn’t generate midi data it is only for previewing or the sound. For myself I have never used the virtual mouse keyboard but often use the QWERTY keyboard on my laptop. If you practiced for a month or so you could get pretty good results.

This is the only view of the keyboard I've ever had since day one! That screenshot must be yet another wonderful graphic issue with new Sonar.

Good points @Glenn Stanton. I’ve was never tempted to go with Pro Tools due mostly that it must be the highest price Daw on the market. I’ve always liked the Free version which I need to collaborate with 2 other local studios. Ya but they have changed that now so you need to log in every day. At least Sonar free is only occasionally. Sonar was used in my studio since around 2004. I am sort of retired now but old clients still come around and so I find myself digging up projects produced on Platinum or even older versions. Thank goodness it’s still available and solid. Sadly those projects mostly crash the new Sonar. It was more about that than the membership that has me now using Platinum again. I ever prefer it over my other 3 Daw’s. Today I went to record a midi part in one of the other Daw’s which is owned by a company that makes Controllers. It would not recognize my Roland A49? I simply carried on in Platinum because the song was still in the midi stage of production.

The bottom line is that each individual uses their Daw in an infinite number of ways. A casual non professional user has the patience to be interrupted and re sign in ad fuss with a membership. As just mentioned above by @GIM Productions a person who is using the Daw professionally does not have the time or patience to deal with interruptions. Being a professional means you always have your equipment in top condition and ready to go on a moment’s notice. Another part is having backup equipment available and even if that hasn’t been fired up in 2 months or even a year, it still is ready to go. That requires software that is perpetually fully licensed and never expires. So please don’t be angry and lock threads just because not everyone agrees with the handful of people who find this sad situation works fine for them. It’s obviously not working for everyone else.

First step is plug in your headphones to the interface and listen for your signal from the Mike. If there’s no sound there then you need to troubleshoot your cable. as well as that 48 volt power is on. Hopefully you have followed the instructions provided in the user guide to use the mix control to balance your mikes input with your Daw playback. Get that set up first and then move on to your computer.

Do you mean Project? You are using the word Program? The options are : Workspaces will save your screen layout ( views) between all projects. It doesn’t save any of the data , automation or plugins used in any given project. Screensets are the same concept as Workspaces so they don’t save project data only the layout of views. Mix Recall will take a snapshot of your project which will include what the automation was, the vst instruments used as well as all the plug ins and their settings. What Workspaces , screensets or Mix recall do not do is replace audio or midi. That would be different versions of the project. You can overlay a mix recall scene on a different version of a project as long as the tracks remain in the same locations. So to use mix recall to compare different mixes that involve tracks that have a variation on say a melody the project would have to have all the different tracks available. Then they would be muted etc. Ive never tried changing tempos? I mostly have used it for recordings of live bands. Those are always exactly the same project layout. Mix recall saves having to redo most of the work song to song. Once you get one song right you save that as a mix scene and then drag and drop the mix recall from the mix recall folder to the next song.