msmcleod

How about importing by dragging in from the browser?

Does it not just import at the current Now time? Maybe just press "W" before you do the import.

Click on this button at the top of the plugin dialog to give the plugin control of keystrokes:

Ah - I didn't know that! - thanks

It's actually a lot easier to play than it sounds. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned it. Such is the genius of Steve Hackett. Here's a vid I found on YouTube... this guy plays it only very slightly differently than I do, but only very slightly. But if you notice, most of the times he's either only playing two notes at once or playing a chord.

On my system, the RapidComposer VST is showing as here: c:\program files\rapidcomposer v3 (x64)\RapidComposer_x64.dll So you'll have to add "c:\program files\rapidcomposer v3 (x64)" to your VST paths, and re-scan. Yes - you absolutely need MIDI echo on for all the tracks being controlled by RC, as otherwise you won't hear them play. This catches me out EVERY time. No problem at all - I'm happy to help

I don't use it often inside Cakewalk, but when I do I normally just insert it as a simple instrument. You then insert the other instruments of your choice into Cakewalk, setting their MIDI inputs to "Rapid Composer "->MIDI Ch. 1 (for first track), "Rapid Composer "->MIDI Ch. 2 (for second track) etc. You also want input echo on for all the tracks being controlled by Rapid Composer.

Try changing Play to stream from memory rather than disk. This has come up before on the old forum: http://forum.cakewalk.com/East-West-Play-in-Sonar-fine-shuts-off-in-mix-or-bounce-m3778004.aspx

No. Re-installing win 7 over the existing one would wipe the existing win 7 install, including all of your programs.

I'd been using my Win 7 for several years. I suspect it was some driver that was the issue, but in any case, the upgrade failed with some crazy Microsoft error code followed by a blue screen. At that point I could no longer boot. So no Win 7 left, and no Win 10 either. No - don't re-install win 7 over it. Upgrade your existing "cloned" win 7 to windows 10. My point is, if you clone your drive and do the upgrade on that you've got something to go back to. You've no idea whether the upgrade will succeed or not, and you've also no idea whether it'll trash your existing system or not. If you're happy to reinstall from scratch, then go that route. But I did have other systems that upgraded without issue, with all their programs intact. Given that it takes me 2-3 days to get everything installed from scratch, it's a big time saver if the upgrade succeeds.... but if it fails, well that's the risk.

I've just tried it at 150% - it looks fine to me. There's not a lot of space to do much, as this effectively puts it way below the recommended screen resolution, but everything looks ok.

Going back to the original topic, there are a bunch of pretty standard arrangements for pop songs. If you took all the Beatles songs and wrote down their arrangements as far as intro/verse/chorus/bridge etc, you'll see a pattern that matches a lot of songs today. Likewise with chord progressions. One fun exercise for writers block is to restrict yourself to one of these arrangements and/or a particular chord progression. Then see what comes out.

Interesting topic. I had one of the devs at work come up to me asking about a project at home he was working on, to try to write music based on AI. Resisting the temptation to laugh and tell him how mad he was, I gave him a few pointers and outlined the scale of the problem, but also recommended some reading on theory and code libraries (e.g. Juce). However one thing I did say, is if he restricted his compositions to doing say Bach chorales (which are based on a pretty strict set of harmony rules), then *maybe* he'd get some usable results. But in general trying to quantify musical arrangements, or come up with a set of rules on something so subjective is more or less impossible.

Same here - On one machine I had to re-install Windows 7 completely and do the upgrade from the clean install. I highly recommend getting a new drive, cloning your existing on onto it, removing your old drive and doing the upgrade on the new one. It it fails, at least you've got your old drive intact.

I quite often swap projects between different machines, and in some cases different ASIO profiles on the same machine (i.e. I may be using my mLAN system for tracking, then want to continue using my Focusrite 18i20). What would be nice, would be the ability to setup some mapping profiles for known setups that aren't currently active. In other words, you'd say whenever I get a project with "XYZ Audio Dev 1" then ALWAYS map to "ABC Audio Dev 1", and so on for all the audio devices. This could be done via a pop-up dialog when you first open the project, so if the audio devices in the project are different from the current audio devices, you'd get to choose the mapping & save it as a "mapping profile", or pick the mapping profile to use from a drop down.

Both the DS2416 and the SW1000XG share the same set of drivers, so they will actually work right the way through to (and including) Windows 7 32 bit. The issue is that in Yamaha's infinite wisdom, they designed the cards so they require both the 3.3v and 5v inputs on a PCI 1.0 slot. The vast majority of motherboards dropped the 5v, so choosing the right motherboard became paramount if you wanted to keep using them. There was also as you say, chipset issues with PCI 1.0 emulation. That's the main reason I still use a 3rd gen i5 - my Asus motherboard has the last chipset that doesn't emulate PCI 1.0 (it's native), and also supports 5v in the PCI slots.

Yeah, I use it. It's a bit fiddly to use because it runs as a separate app, so you have to route the MIDI through loopback devices, but the results are great. More often that not, I export the MIDI and use the app standalone. It's really useful for getting alternative chords / melodies for existing material. @Noel Borthwick - if Cakewalk ever offers a something similar to a chord track, then THIS is what it should be like... it would blow the competition away.

I came from Music-X on the Amiga. I first saw Cakewalk for DOS on my one of my dad's friend's setup. Out of all of the DOS sequencers it was the one that looked the most similar to Music-X for me. The next time I saw my dad's friend, he'd upgraded to Cakewalk Pro Audio 5 and it really impressed me. I got Cakewalk Express with some bit of gear (can't remember which one), so started using that. But when I got my Yamaha DS2416 DSP Factory card, Pro Audio 7 was one of the few that were offering early support for it... so I went for it. I've never looked back.

From the docs: In Cakewalk 4.0.2 and earlier, opening the property page of a VST plug-in during playback could result in a slight disruption in playback. The cause for this problem has its roots in the little Cancel button that sits in the top right corner of the plug-in's property page. The purpose of this button is to allow the user to cancel out of any changes they might have made to the plug-in, restoring back to whatever state the plug-in was in before they opened the GUI window. To make this work, Cakewalk would need to take an initial snapshot of the plug-in's state, and some plug-ins with large amounts of preset data could cause an audio hiccup if the data was captured for the Cancel button. To address this issue, Cakewalk 4.0.3 (and later) does not take a snapshot of the plug-in's state by default, and the Cancel button is not available. http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=INI_Files.4.html Given that PC's are much faster than they were in CW 4.02, I doubt if this is still an issue having this option set.

I got it as part of the AIR Complete bundle. It pales in comparison to Kontakt to be honest, and I hardly use it. It's not the easiest to use, and pretty long winded, but it does do the job as a sampler. If you're looking for something as just another sound source, then don't bother. Most of the sounds are exactly the same as Xpand! 2. I would however highly recommend spending the extra to get the upgrade to the complete bundle ($76). Everything except Structure is really usable, in particular MiniGrand, Hybrid 2 & Strike 2 (I normally use AD 2 for drums, but Strike 2 is great for jamming to and demos). Velvet 2 & DB33 are also very good.

Well, if we're including them then.... ...which was only EVER any use with the battery pack, because of a constant mains hum with the PSU. Followed by: Then finally.... +

Exactly my thoughts when I listened to it ! Really good song @batsbrew - my only comment would be to make the vocals a bit more "present". They sound fantastic, but on headphones sound a bit boxed in - maybe because they're in mono. Level wise they're spot on, but I feel they should be more "in your face". But to be honest, I feel like I'm being picky. It's really excellent as it is.

Not counting the soundblaster clones, mine was the Yamaha DS2416 DSP Factory: Cost me half a months wages at the time, but ran like a dream in my Cirrus P-166 with 64MB RAM. As soon as they started appearing on the 2nd hand market, I bought another and had them linked together along with 4 x AX44 (the breakout box in the drive bay). I also had the AX16-AT ADAT card interface for them, which had fed by a Behringer ADA8000. The two cards gave me a 48 track mixer with dynamics & 4 band parametric EQ on every channel, and 4 x effects units (each the equivalent of an FX500). I got nearly 20 years use out of these babies.... and they're still working on the Win 7 32bit boot on my studio PC with SONAR Platinum. This is the reason I hardly touched a plugin until about 5 years ago.

Good song & production. Personally I'd lose the auto-tune effect, but if you do leave it in, maybe just limit it to the notes running down and leave it off the notes running up to it. Also consider only doing it in only one chorus, rather than in every chorus. The video looks fine to me and fits well with the genre of the song.

Yeah, there seems to be a general misconception about balanced cables. Balanced cables will only prevent noise that is introduced into the cable AFTER the signal has left your audio output. As most people have a fairly short cable between their audio interface and monitors, is unlikely (but not impossible) that this is your issue. If the noise is down to a ground loop, or introduced before it leaves your audio interface, then a balanced cable is not going to help.