msmcleod

I think it's important to remember that Cakewalk is very much a linear DAW, rather than a pattern based DAW. I actually started using Cakewalk (CWPA 7) in 1997 coming from 10 + years using a pattern based sequencer (mainly MusicX on the Amiga), and it did take a while to change my writing workflow. Using the arranger to try to emulate a pattern based workflow can work to an extent, but isn't going to result in a very satisfying experience, and you'll start hitting issues. This is especially true if you have tempo/meter/key changes and use any generative VSTi's. In saying that, it there are things that might help: Bear in mind you can have both multiple arrangements and multiple arranger tracks, so there's nothing stopping you using smaller sections at the start, committing your arrangement (or inserting it later in the timeline), then creating an additional arranger track with longer sections. You can then base your new arrangement on a combination of the longer/shorter sections. Committing your arrangement using Linked Clips can also help here if you want to changes to one clip to affect the other clips you've repeated. Also, don't restrict yourself to creating an arrangement. The editing features of the arranger track essentially allow you to arrange as you go along, rather than relying on creating an arrangement and committing it.

A long, long time... it was definitely there in Cakewalk Pro Audio 7 (which was the first version I bought back in 1997). I never used it until a few years ago though (and to be fair, I didn't understand what it did until then either ? )

I think it's worth us looking at an easy way of removing cross fades (unfortunately under the hood, this is not easy at all!) In the meantime, the best advice I can give is: 1. Don't cross-fade too early in your project. 2. If you have cross-faded, use Snap By rather than Snap To. 3. If you really do have to cross-fade as you go along, consider committing your comps regularly, thus removing the need for the cross-fades altogether. In fact, I'd say this is good practice for most operations - make a decision, then commit to it. You'll end up with a far simpler project, and you'll remove the temptation to go back and second-guess yourself.

Ian Dury and The Blockheads – Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

Yes - Rhythm Of Love

This kind of thing is certainly a possibility, and yes - this is exactly what Cakewalk is interpreting the change as. If the synth changes things internally it shouldn't be a problem, but if it informs Cakewalk that a change has been made, then it will dirty the project.

I think both of these suggestions are good ones and can be considered. Repeats for arranger sections was discussed at one point, but proved difficult at the time and was largely seen as a "nice to have" - after all, you can easily duplicate the section as many times as you want. However, it shouldn't be difficult to do this now - essentially it would build a temporary "play" arrangement with the current arrangement + repeats rolled out (which it actually already does in other places). The only tricky part would be the UI - i.e. actually providing the repeats editor, and also giving the correct position feedback with relation to the arrangement in the inspector. The lack of scrolling I see more of a bug, and should definitely be fixed. Given our workload regarding Next / Sonar however, I can't give any ETA on this.

Something, such as a CC message is altering a parameter in the synth which causes it to tell Cakewalk it's been changed, and that is what is setting the modified state. Things to check: 1. There are no CC messages on your synth track that could be altering parameters. 2. That MIDI output isn't enabled on other synths, when you don't need it. It could be that another synth is sending MIDI out which this synth is picking up. I'd start with checking which CC messages the synth responds to first though... then look at what could be sending them.

Sounds like you've got ripple edit on - turn it off.

If you want some of these inside your DAW, there's a few free/paid options around: RMI Electrapiano - RMI-EP: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2482/ Mellotron M400 - Tapeotronic: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/799/ Hammond Organ - Spinet Hammond VL-122: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1490/ ARP ProSoloist - ProSolo: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1491/ ARP Quadra - Quadra ($39) https://store.cherryaudio.com/bundles/quadra-synthesizer ARP 2600: tonus 2620: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2669/ CA2600 ($25) https://store.cherryaudio.com/bundles/ca2600-synthesizer The free ones are all 32-bit, but so far I've had no issues running them with both BitBridge and JBridge.

That's some seriously misleading instructions there from the manufacturer, when it's absolutely essential that you use Phantom Power. @Dikona - Although you can get boxes to give you phantom power for your mic, your still going to run into other issues using the Realtek for recording. Your onboard Realtek device is probably fine for mixing/playback, but for recording you really need a real audio interface. Something like the Focusrite Scarlett Solo or a Presonus AudioBox will do the job for less than $100, and you'll probably pay half that if you go for a used interface. Don't be put off by the fact that it's used, as many people sell these entry-level interfaces when they want to upgrade to an interface with more inputs & outputs.

Camel The Snow Goose Medley Live at BBC The Old Grey Whistle Test 1975

Cutting Crew - Any Colour

Downloading from github will give you a zip file of all of the entire source code repository. Open up the zip file and you should find the installer under Surfaces\MackieControl\Installer. It's worth mentioning though, that unless you need an extra three independent MackieControl instances, there is no benefit from using this as everything that is in my version of the MackieControl is now in the standard MackieControl shipped with CbB. That being said, if you just want the installer, you can download it here: https://msmcleod.co.uk/cakewalk/MMcLMackieControlSetup.zip

You can shut it off - just turn off auto cross-fade when splitting.

If Auto-Cross fade is enabled, using ALT + left click with the smart tool should apply a cross-fade when splitting clips. The next update of CbB will include a fix to ensure that the "Split Clips" command (i.e. the S short-cut) does the same. Sorry, I've got no ETA on the CbB drop... we're still waiting on some back-end server changes before we can release, which has to be done by someone outside of our team.

I can't see any way of doing this to be honest, even CAL doesn't give access to tempo entries. Short of manually editing the entries starting from the end, the only other way would be to export as a MIDI file and hope there's some other 3rd party utility/DAW to move the tempo entries around for you. Alternatively you could write your own utility... but it would require both programming experience and experience in reading/writing MIDI files.

Pressing the Plugin button should give you access to the plugins. The control surface up/down arrow buttons will navigate through the plugins, whereas the left/right will navigate through pages of parameters. Pressing F1 on the MackieControl control surface dialog will bring up the Mackie Control help - I strongly recommend reading it, and practicing going through the different modes. It takes a while for muscle memory to kick in, but when it does, you'll appreciate the increase in workflow speed. Plugin parameters that are available are either shown in order as published by the VST, or can be defined in MackieControl.ini (see later on in this post about how this can be edited more easily). ACT Learn does not work when using the MackieControl control surface. Assuming of that the X Touch has a one-to-one button mapping with the Mackie MCU, if you hold down M1 (Shift on the X-Touch) while pressing the plugin button, it should switch it into "Synth Rack" mode and you can use the control surface up/down buttons to navigate through the synths, and the left/right buttons to navigate through the parameters. Pressing the Plugin button without holding the M1 (Shift) button will put it back into normal plugin mode. Originally, there are essentially 3 strip modes using the Mackie, which essentially mirror the three sections in the console view: Track Strips Bus Strips Main Outputs (your hardware outputs) Synth Rack is an additional strip mode which was introduced for the Roland V-Studio 700, but until recently wasn't accessible via the Mackie control. To be honest, I've always found the plugin control on the Mackie MCU (and especially those that emulate it) a bit clunky/restrictive - even before we allowed Synth Rack access. Having only 8 parameters in view, and a 6 character display isn't that great for modern plugins - I guess when the MCU came out, plugins were much simpler. Personally I use the Mackie C4 along side the MCU, as with 32 rotaries it's far easier to use for plugins. If you do manage to get the X Touch into Synth Rack mode, be aware that the number of parameters for VSTi's is usually overwhelming to the point of not really being useful at all. Even on the C4 which has 32 rotary controls, navigating through 100's of parameters with a 6 character label for each isn't really useable. It takes forever to locate the parameter, which could have been found almost immediately using a mouse on the plugin UI. Attempts at creating sensible synth layouts in the MackieControl.ini file haven't been particularly useful either, as what might seem an appropriate set of parameters for one sound are not always appropriate for another. If you do need hardware control of a synth, you're much better off using a separate MIDI CC controller along with ACT Learn for VSTi's. This way you can limit the number of parameters to the ones you find useful. The Korg nanoKONTROL 2 (in CC mode) or the Akai MIDIMix are good examples of CC controllers. Personally, I avoid synth control altogether and just use the mouse... but then again, I don't generally do any real-time control on synths apart from the standard pitch-bend/modulation. On the rare occasion I need something else, I'll just manually draw automation. If you want to edit your plugin layouts, you can use my C4 Mapper utility which will edit MackieControl.ini for you using simple drag/drop. You can download it here: https://msmcleod.co.uk/cakewalk/C4Mapper.zip : BTW - the reason I've duplicated the controls on the top/bottom rows is so I can use the bottom row on the C4 (which is easier to reach), and the top row will show on the MCU should I want to edit things there instead. On the MCU / X Touch, just remember to limit yourself to only the top row of controls, and set "Number of VPots" to 8 for each plugin. The M1 - M4 checkboxes give you an additional 4 pages of control mappings, which can be accessed on your X-Touch by pressing the Shift, Option, Control and Alt buttons. A few caveats for using this: 1. You must have used the plugin at least once in CbB after you've been using MackieControl, and closed down CbB cleanly for it to show up - this ensures it has an entry in genericpluginparams.xml, which C4Mapper uses to read the available parameters. 2. As MackieControl.ini resides in a sub location under C:\Program Files, you will need to run C4Mapper as administrator for it to have writable access to it. Each time you save, a backup of the previous MackeControl.ini is saved along side it... bear this in mind, as these backup files may build up, and you may want to delete them periodically. 3. C4Mapper reads both Cakewalk's plugin inventory in the registry and the genericpluginparams.xml file to get its list of plugins & parameters. If you have a large amount of plugins, it can take up to a minute for C4Mapper to start up.

Really, unless you're a professional mixer, I would say the best thing to mix on is what you listen to music most on. Thinking back to when I used to do record demos in my mid teens to mid 20's - everything was done on 4 track or 8 track tape-based porta studios. Some of my friends tried treating part of their bedrooms and mixing down recordings on fairly decent speakers. However there was one friend in particular who looked like his headphones were a permanent attachment. His mixes were truly awful on speakers, but when he mixed on the headphones he wore 4-6 hours a day they translated incredibly well. The point is, if you're constantly listening to music on headphones, you know exactly what a mix should sound like on headphones. So mixing your own music on those headphones may be a far more familiar environment than mixing on a speakers. Obviously there will be potential issues with the low end (simply because the headphones may not be able to reproduce those frequencies) but a high-pass filter should remove those you can't hear. In any case, I've found with some consumer headphones the issue isn't lack of bass, if anything it's too much bass as they've quite often over-compensated in the design. I also don't completely buy into the whole "headphones don't give you a true stereo image" thing. If you always listen to music on headphones, then that's how you're used to hearing it, so your brain will likely adjust accordingly. Whatever you decide to mix on, the key is to listen to as much well-mixed music as possible on them, and over a long enough period (e.g. weeks to months) to truly get used to that environment.

I can comfortably say that 99% of the time, the ProChannel EQ is my go to EQ for mixing duties. With 4 different EQ curve styles, if you can't get what you want from that then I strongly suspect that it's not the EQ that is the issue (i.e. it's a recording, arrangement or skills issue), and changing to a different EQ won't help. That being said, there are times when you need an additional EQ, either because you need EQ both before and after compression, or there is some detailed correction/shaping you want doing first and you want to leave the ProChannel EQ available for later. But in these cases a "colour" EQ probably isn't what I'd reach for. Personally, if I want the sound of a console, I either record through one or stick Kazrog's True Iron on the channel.

It's not clear exactly what you want to achieve, so I'll outline a few scenarios: If you just want to record your piano, and play it back through the piano speakers: 1. Ensure both the Piano MIDI inputs and outputs are checked within Preferences->MIDI->Devices 2. Within Preferences->MIDI->Playback and Recording, uncheck "Always Echo Current MIDI Track". This is important, because otherwise you'll get MIDI feedback. 3. Create a new MIDI track, setting both the inputs and outputs to your Piano ensuring echo is OFF (it should be if you've unchecked the setting in step 2). If you want to also record audio and/or play other software instruments: 1. Do all the steps above 2. Take the audio outputs of your Piano, and plug them into the audio inputs of your audio interface. Leave echo on on this track. 3. Create an audio track, setting the inputs to whatever audio inputs you have your piano plugged into. 4. For recording other instruments, you'll need to manually turn MIDI echo on to hear them. 5. When you've finished your song, and want to mix-down to a stereo file: 5.1. Arm the piano audio track for recording, and solo it. 5.2. Press Record and let the whole song play through. 5.3 . Mute the MIDI track your piano part is on. 5.4. Do your export. If you don't want to use your internal piano sound, but just use your piano as a controller for a software piano VSTi (or other synths) 1. Ensure both the Piano MIDI inputs is checked, and the Piano MIDI output is unchecked within Preferences->MIDI->Devices 2. Within Preferences->MIDI->Playback and Recording, ensure "Always Echo Current MIDI Track" is checked 3. Insert a piano VST as a simple instrument track. 4. For export, just export as normal. There's no need to mess around with your piano track, as all of the sound is being generated inside Cakewalk. As a side note... even if you're ONLY recording MIDI (and by MIDI I mean pure MIDI, and no VST synths), it's always best practice to have at least one Audio track. This ensures that the audio engine is engaged, and Cakewalk can get its timing from it.

I abandoned my first journey into PC DAW land (with a "borrowed" copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio 5) due to the quality of sound-blaster audio, and promptly went back to using my MT8X and Amiga with Music-X. I tried both an official sound-blaster card, and the Guillemot Home Studio 64 card - both were awful. I couldn't believe how bad the audio quality was - if 8 tracks of audio squeezed on to a cassette can sound better, it must be bad. A couple of years later, when I got my Yamaha DS2416 card and bought CWPA 7, I heard how good digital audio should sound.

Tip - holding CTRL + SHIFT when clicking the expand/collapse button on any folder will collapse/expand all folders. If for some reason the folder expansion state gets corrupt, this will sort it out. The folder expansion state can get corrupted if you open a CbB project with subfolders in SONAR Platinum or earlier, re-arrange tracks and save the project (if you don't re-arrange tracks, the folders should be fine). But if it does get corrupted, this method will sort the state out.

The SSL channel strip is a faithful emulation of a complete SSL channel strip, which includes an emulation of preamp (with its saturation), the compressor, and the EQ. The ProChannel EQ will give an SSL E or G style EQ (AFAIK it's not a full emulation, just in the ballpark), and you can use the "S" mode in the console emulator to emulate the preamp saturation. If you've got the "PC4K S-type Channel Compressor" Pro Channel module, that gives you the SSL channel compressor, and the PC4K Exp/Gate gives you the rest of the SSL channel dynamics processing. So yes, basically they're doing the same thing. I wouldn't call the ProChannel a faithful emulation though, but it's definitely in the ball-park. Then again, no real SSL channel strip is the exactly same, even on the same console. You can see more than one Pro-Channel at once in the console view by expanding it. Using the mouse wheel when the mouse is over the Pro Channel will scroll the modules:

It does look like something is interrupting processing somewhere. I'd start by disabling all antivirus & cloud-sync apps, disable your network adapter, make sure plugin scanning in Cakewalk is set to manual, and auto-save is off. If none of those make a difference, start looking at other things running in the background. If you can get to the place where it's no longer happening, start switching things back on until you find the culprit.