msmcleod

I always thought Patrick Stewart stood out as the great actor in Star Trek TNG, but after watching re-runs for me it's Brent Spiner. The humour he shows as Data is subtle but ingenious.

Ah, that explains it - thanks.

Yes, for soft synths you need to select the MIDI tab at the bottom of the track inspector:

It's here (note for Instrument Tracks, select the Midi tab at the bottom):

I seem to have an equivalent wav file for each flac file in my multisamples folder. I'm assuming this was done by the RapturePro installer when it migrated all my sounds from DimensionPro (as RapturePro doesn't support flac) ?

The line above: (-= Note.Key 12) is the one that changes the note, in this case by -12 semitones. Change it to: (-= Note.Key 1) to move down one semitone or (+= Note.Key 1) to move up one semitone I've found this guide useful: http://members.ziggo.nl/t.valkenburgh/Cakewalk Application Language Programming Guide.pdf

Not sure if this would do the trick, but you could try using Groove Quantize using a straight groove, but with the Time set to off, and the Duration set to 100%. So basically it's quantising the duration, but not the note start. Edit: You may find that the scoring program will also be confused if the note start is slightly out, so it might be better just using Quantize, with the Note Duration checked.

You can also use Key+ in the Track Inspector. This is what I normally use.

The version of Melodyne that comes with CbB is just a trial/demo. You'll need to purchase a license from Melodyne to use its full features. "Essentials" is the cheapest one (which is what came with SONAR Platinum). You'll need a minimum of "Editor" for polyphonic detection.

The shortcuts have evolved over time. Some of them have been around since Cakewalk 1.0 in 1987, and as users have upgraded over the years they've expected them to largely remain constant so as not to confuse their workflow. I found the jump from Sonar 8.5 to Sonar X1 a huge challenge as so much had changed, but the keyboard shortcuts at least were largely the the same. The ones that did change did confuse me though! Having gone through the various Cakewalk/SONAR versions, the categories and mapping seem logical enough to me, but I can appreciate it may seem odd to a new user.

Unfortunately it's nothing like XML. It's more like a complete file system within a file, with various object types stored inside. The specs for the container system is here: https://www.amwa.tv/downloads/specifications/aafcontainerspec-v1.0.1.pdf All the other specs are here: https://www.amwa.tv/projects/amwa_projects.shtml Given its complexity, I'm not surprised that not many DAWs support it.

If I've decided to give myself some studio time and my inspiration is totally dried up, I'll resort to recording a cover. There's definitely a satisfaction in getting a song finished, and a cover is an easy way to do this. It gives me a chance to keep my DAW skills current, experiment with any new plugins I'm not yet familiar with, and improve on my mixing skills. More recently I've been messing around with various pre-amps so I'm familiar with their differences.

That's what I would have suggested. Remember to set the MIDI channel in the inspector to none though, if your track contains multiple MIDI channels that you want to preserve.

You could try creating a send to an Aux track, then inserting the VSTi in the Aux track's FX bin.

And testing a webshop for every combination of transactions from each pay provider is even more tedious. I only support PayPal, and that was a massive amount of testing.

That's actually what I use dropbox for..., but yes it's definitely worth storing the installers. I've got them on a portable HDD as well for convenience.

It came up as an update for me, I clicked to install it and it went through the motions but said the install didn't take. Once I restarted Native Access, it said everything was up to date... I hardly ever touch the factory selection, so not really an issue. Strange nonetheless.

I clone my HDDs at least once a month. I keep the most recent 2 backups. For projects, I also use a cloud backup. I've got a batch file that copies my projects & audio files to and from a backup folder. The backup folder is set to sync to Mega (You can also use dropbox, OneDrive etc.. in fact, I use OneDrive for syncing other stuff). The reason for having a backup folder & batch files, is because Cakewalk will crash if you have your cloud sync trying to backup audio files when Cakewalk is writing to them. The other reason is that I have control over when I want it backed up. The initial cloud upload took a few hours (which only needs to be done once). Now when I've finished a session, I just click on the short-cut to my batch file and it's sync'd with the cloud in about a minute or so. I can then go to my laptop, and click on the "copy from cloud" shortcut, and all my projects etc are available on my laptop. A complete restore is usually pretty quick... both the cloud sync & batch files only deal with recent changes, so it doesn't need to download everything... just what I've changed since I imaged my HDD.

It essentially allows you to remove clutter on the UI, by removing all the modules you're not going to use for a certain workflow task and making them easier to find.

Plogue Alter/Ego is a pretty good free alternative to Vocaloid: https://www.plogue.com/products/alter-ego.html I wouldn't say the voice is of the same quality, but it's easy to use and great for getting ideas down. And it's free. I use it occasionally when I've already got a good idea of vocal melody and lyrics. You just type (or cut/paste) the lyrics into the VSTi, then it "sings" the syllables as you play the notes. It'll even hold on to the same syllable if you play legato.

You can use the Move Tool or Smart Tool to move the clips up against each other. For example with the move tool, just left click on the clip and move it over. To join clips, you just select the clips you want to join and right click "Bounce to clip(s)".

As an alternative, you can use Melodyne for quantising audio tracks.

Back in the Cakewalk ProAudio days, you could use "Record Macro" to create a CAL program for you. There was pretty much a one-to-one mapping between the available menus and the CAL functions available. Of course in those days, MIDI functionality was king with only a basic support and a handful of functions for audio tracks / audio operations. When CAL was deprecated, new SONAR / Cakewalk menu functions weren't added and the Record Macro facility was removed. The old menu calls still work however, and CAL is still very useful for manipulating MIDI. I guess it would be nice if the CbB devs at least provided CAL functions for the new menu functions that are available in Cakewalk, but to be honest I've not really found a need for them for a long while. There's quite a few suggestions for 3rd party workarounds in the link in scook's post. So although it's unlikely CAL will be updated, there's usually some way of working around it.

I listen to similar stuff - mainly prog rock, hard rock and jazz fusion. I try to compose in the veins and styles of the genres I listen to... then it goes unintentionally to other places!

Link to Azslow's AzLUA plugin: http://www.azslow.com/index.php?topic=286.msg1363#msg1363