Bass Guitar

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.

Seems like you computer keyboard is the problem. If you’re serious about creating midi music you should invest in a keyboard controller. They are not very expensive until you get a good one. But there’s a lot of good second hand stuff cheap.

Only Sonar has this problem with oddball drivers. It’s just the weird way they designed the audio engine. I say this because I now use a bunch of different Daw’s. One of them is Cubase which yes installed the generic audio driver. So does any Magix software like Sound Forge or Vegas. So I have those lurking in the background and for about 4 months Im using about 5 different Daw’s and they all had no problems recognizing either my SS1, Zoom L8 or my Motu M4 once set up. One day I needed to open the new Sonar to export a project and the data and it said I had no Audio device. ??. I had to go into preferences and set up ASIO and Choose my interface. It had defaulted to my on board system. But the project was silent. Ok I know that one and yes the Master bus was set to None. I finally got everything done and closed. A few days later I get the same bull——t Being a savvy Sonar operator I checked Sync and Caching and there it was ! the generic driver. So my conclusion is only Sonar barfs on these otherwise harmless drivers the other Daw’s ignored them.

It’s also $800 for the full version. I own Elements 14 and have been using Cubase since the Atari version. But Elements is what would have been Sonar Artist or Home Studio. So it’s missing features and a lot of add on plugins. I always liked software that has price points for the different tiers. And not to mention the good old LE or Lite versions of software that comes with hardware like many Audio interfaces do. Example you can get a free license to S1 when you buy a Presonus interface or controller. My very first version of Sonar Guitar Studio was free with a Roland Keyboard as they owned it back then. Later I got X1 LE free with a Tascam interface. Back around the release of Sonar there was a brief mention about releasing the tiered versions and so I was dreaming of the return of Home Studio, Artist, Professional and Platinum. That is a good system for software as it makes it accessible to people with different needs and budgets. Sonar Home Studio was $40 and Platinum was about $450 and Artist and Professional were somewhere in between. I Never could afford the full version so I had X3 Studio and the Sonar Professional. I scored Platinum cheap when I took the bait for the infamous Lifetime Upgrade deal. I guess we sort of got 2 versions that are equal to Professional and Platinum but not for a price point as expected and hoped for. Hopefully Bandlab will sell off Cakewalk once again and the new owners will look after it better.

It wasn’t me who made this up. Get out there on the internet and see what all the people who once were here are saying. This forum has become heavily censored so if this is your only information about Bandlab you need to think outside the box. I love Sonar and Im super happy that Platinum is actually way better than I remember it being. Hopefully over time things will change and this bad faze will be behind us and we can laugh about it and say “ do you remember back when?”

You can still use the Software you paid . It’s called Sonar Platinum. Cakewalk is based on Platinum but it is a totally different company than Gibson the people that sold you Platinum. It was given away free for a while as bait and switch. So to answer your question you do have 3 options. 1. Pay rent on Sonar full version 2. Use the Free version 3. Use Sonar Platinum ( my favourite option)

I’ve noticed that too. I have them checked and I’ve never seen any emails ever and I always check my junk folder. But I do always get the notifications at the top right corner on this forum.

Delete

Platinum I guess.

Ya I forgot. My iPhone has garage band which is a daw and even has a little virtual keyboard. And doesn’t Bandlab have an daw app too that you can theoretically import into Next? Then Next can transfer the project to Sonar using the CXP .

Still not sure why some are looking to see them updated? They seem just fine the way they are to me. I have been using Rapture pro mostly and in other Daw’s as well. Always worked and seems way easier on the CPU than Kontact which I find will even crash Sonar. They have their own installers and only a fool would not have saved them along with the serial and registration numbers a long time ago ( 2017) Bandlab still controls access to the server where those are stored and this is of no benefit to them. They have every right to discontinue this service.

Is this possibly the new track manager hiding tracks? That is one change that has happened.

For a free video converter my go to is Handbrake. And I agree with @Bristol_Jonesey said. We are told once you import a video it is locked. And trying to even view video in a Daw is painful. Most of us do what you’re trying to do in our video editing software. Export your audio and drop it in your editor and you can drag to your hearts content. With Vegas if I update the audio file I simply replace the original file in the folder and it will automatically update in the editor. As long as you don’t muck around with the tempo map it should always sync up. Daws are for music, video editing is done in software that is built for it. Vegas being partially Sony Sound Forge is almost a Daw. It is a multi track audio recording system that you can fully record, edit automate, and add all your vst and DX effects to. I have never worked that way but You can. But Magix seems to be in financial trouble so its future is on shaky ground. You will also want a good quality video card.

I went with the Tascam DR40 because back then it was sort of a brand I had really liked. I have owned a few Porta studios., 2 track Reel to reels and my US1641 is still going strong when I need to record a live band. (W10 only) in the end the Zoom you have was probably the better option especially since Zoom seems to write first class ASIO drivers. I can’t use my Tascams built in mikes via USB. My L8 is the only interface that I can run at 64 buffer setting. My SSL2 is 128 and my Motu M4 was 256. The Motu has been acting up so I switched to the SSL2 and it has half the headphone level so it sucks. This was a mistake to purchase. Highly recommended my arss. I bought the Zoom L8 for a mixer. Not an interface but it’s actually the best one for the job. Only bummer is no midi ports so I’ll just keep the Motu around for the odd time I need my hardware synths. But the L6 has midi!!

https://zoomcorp.com/en/ca/digital-mixer-multi-track-recorders/digital-mixer-recorder/livetrak-l6-final/ The L6 is a Swiss army knife device that is a first class 12x4 32bit audio interface, a digital recorder and a digital mixer. And it has some Midi capabilities and built in effects. I bought the L8 2 years ago and it has been by far the overall best audio interface and mixer I have every owned. I'm tempted to also get an L6 just because of the Midi, it has control software and it's also smaller. Only thing I'd miss is the L8 can do 4 headphone mixes. I also have a Tascam DR 40 portable handheld recorder that I have used a lot to quickly put down song ideas. I find I don't use it much anymore. Now with the digital recorder built in to the L8 I get an Idea and I don't need to even turn on my computer. Just arm the tracks and go. I always have my mike connected as well as a mike on my guitar amp, My Bass amp's DI and a cable hanging on my guitar stand for my acoustics. And they run on batteries. So you can take it anywhere. There's a video of a guy recording a song sitting out in a field under a tree. The possibilities are endless for recording in different spaces. Then it's my mixer for live shows which I also can easily record to the SD card. Perfect companion for making on location music videos. Phantom power will kill the AA batteries quickly but what people do is use a USB power bank. You really don't need a Daw unless your ideas are Midi based. But that said 2 of my Keyboards have built in recorders.

Well it’s running on W11 just fine so in my estimation I’ll be almost 80 before much changes. I will just make sure and keep this computer in good condition. Clone the C drive every once in a while. I still have my W10 computer fully loaded with 8.5, X3 , Platinum and I would guess a 2023 version of CbB. It has a bunch of other Daw’s and music and video apps. Plus all my plugins and then some. I just fired it up the other day looking for a lost file. Boots right up no problem. I would imagine it would continue to boot up for a long time yet. Just because W10 is now due to be unsupported doesn’t mean it will stop working. How long has W7 been unsupported and my 2 machines that use it still work fine. Only issue is the internet. It’s disconnected.

I gave up waisting my time submitting the dump files. Just as you are finding out it was a huge time suck. And no body ever got back to me after the first few replies which seemed automated to me. I don’t blame them as I think they are very short handed. For now I’m very pleased with Sonar Platinum. It wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be. At least it can open all my projects now with out crashing.

I’ve owned a few, TC electronics, Radial, Boss etc. Hard to recommend because each has a different sound. Definitely go to a store and try them all. Mostly I use my collection of Guitar amps with a SM 57. Definitely get the best sound that way. They are all small amps. Fender Princeton, Gibson Skylark and Blackstar. But I always record 2 tracks at a time. The amp and a DI. I’ve never actually had any issues with the gain. You just need to try all the switches and the pad if it has one until the level is correct. Put the gain at 12 o’clock and try the different switches. The setting that puts the level in the ballpark is probably the correct impedance. But the DI sounds lifeless to me compared to the amp. I will then add the THu to the DI track and blend it together. I avoid recording with the Guitar sim on because of the latency. I prefer to add it later.

Dim pro is on a lot of my projects as I depend on the Acoustic Bass in a lot of my music. I don’t think it needs updating as it and Rapture Prob are still very good quality samples. They are easy on the CPU. Between them and Air’s Xpand2 Im covered for a lot of sounds. And because they are separate installers from Sonar they are totally available in all my other Daw’s.