msmcleod

The old way of doing things live with Cakewalk was playlists. This is still a convenient way of going through multiple songs if each song is a separate project. For seamless transitions however, I'd recommend creating a new "live" project from the exported audio from each project - i.e. one project that contains all of the songs. There are several advantages here: 1. The stress on the system is far less, as it's dealing with just audio. This enables you to have a raw audio tracks for backing, and add soft-synths to other tracks to play real-time. 2. There's no loading time between songs. 3. By marking each song using the Arranger, then using multiple Arrangements to define different set-list orders, you have total control over the song order - all within a single project (vs having to save different playlists). Also, inserting an MCI command in a MIDI track with "pause" as the text will cause Cakewalk to pause playback at that point. You can then hit the spacebar to continue playing. You can position this command either at the end or beginning of a section, or half-way through a song - whichever suits. Within Keyboard Shortcuts in Preferences, you can bind commands such as Next/Previous Arranger Section, Play/Pause/Continue etc to MIDI events so you can use an external controller to control Cakewalk. Basically anything that can be bound to a key, can be bound to a MIDI event.

If you're seeing weirdness with track visibility and you've ruled out screensets/workspaces, this is almost certainly the cause. There have been a bunch of template bug fixes since 2020.09, especially with Track Templates, and of course there's now the nested folder functionality, so I'd highly recommend re-creating your templates if possible. Another thing that might fix things in a project would be to move all of your tracks into a single parent folder, then move them back out again - do another move operation, not an undo. This will force a recalculation of the folder hierarchy that might be enough to fix any anomalies. If Cakewalk crashes while doing this, then that would certainly point to some corruption in the existing track folder hierarchy/visibility states. FYI since the introduction of Folder Tracks long ago, there has always been a placeholder for a parent folder - it just wasn't used. If for some reason this had a value in it, that could certainly cause tracks to appear/disappear randomly, as a track's visibility is related to the visibility/expanded status of its parent folder. The next version of Cakewalk will have some improvements for managing track visibility. Also, there were a bunch of weird issues with track visibility when "Keep track/console visibility states in sync" was unchecked in Track Manager, and the console view had to rely on the tracks view for visibility state of tracks within folders. These issues have been there for a long time, but have been fixed in the next version.

A couple of FYI's if you're using BiaB to generate specific parts, where you've already got tracks in CbB: You want to generate a part half way through a song that starts on a tempo change, or contains tempo changes: BiaB follows the song tempo from start to finish, so it can get confused if you want sections generated out of place and the tempo is different. There are two options: 1. Enter the chords in BiaB for the whole song, and just make everything silent in BiaB until it gets to the part you want; or 2. Either in a new CbB project or in the standalone BiaB app, create a small song that covers just the section you want at the required tempo(s)... then drag the audio into your main CbB project (FWIW this is what I do). Using a temporary CbB project is definitely the easiest way to go if you have further tempo changes within that section. Uncommon Time signatures are handled badly This is probably my biggest gripe - common time signatures such as 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, & 6/8 are fine... but once you get to 5/4 or 7/8 it gets ugly. It treats two bars of 7/8 as a bar of 4/4 followed by a bar of 3/4. Sometimes this works fine, but other times not so much - e.g. you actually wanted a 3/4 followed by 4/4 feel. There are four options here: 1. Allow BiaB to do it's 4/4, 3/4 thing... it may be fine 2. Use RealBand (which comes with BiaB) - this does support uncommon time signatures, so you can use that, but it's a bit more work. 3. In BiaB, use a combination of syncopated pushes/holds and time signature changes, but there are limitations to this.... not all RealTracks support pushes & holds. 4. Don't use 7/8 in CbB, but instead use a combination of 3/4 and 4/4 in CbB itself - you may also need to double or half the tempo depending on how BiaB interprets this. It's also worth noting that apart from the "About Time" style set (which is MIDI only), none of the RealStyles natively support 7/4 or 7/8 - so you may get odd results. If you're generating guitar solos, you may get better results by generating the whole solo in 4/4 ,and selectively chop out an 8th note from each bar where it's most appropriate.

AFAIK ( @Noel Borthwick - please correct me if I'm wrong here), there is a time limit where older versions of CbB can no longer be re-authorized. It would be better to work out why the latest version is giving you so many issues. Given that I'm running with an 11 year old 3rd gen i7 CPU, I seriously doubt it's an aging PC issue. The main feature that was added in 2020.10 was Articulation Maps. This is based on the same UI technology as the Arranger, so in theory if 2020.09 is working, there shouldn't be any real difference for you. In saying that, it could be that there's a configuration issue on your machine that is causing it problems. It might be worth running dxdiag.exe - just press Windows Key + R, then type dxdiag and press the OK button. The diagnostics should run automatically. Once it's finished, click on each of the tabs (Display 1, Display 2) etc and check in the notes box at the bottom of each tab to see if any problems were identified.

Having tried out some of the stem splitters, I found the results to be surprisingly good bearing in mind what they're doing, but rarely perfect - you'll always get artefacts. If the goal is to rebalance/remix, or perhaps add/replace parts, then it's usually fine. However, if your goal is to use a stem in isolation, you may find the artefacts are too obvious to use.

I use it quite a bit - normally for filling in parts, or coming up with parts I wouldn't have thought up myself. In this sense it's like collaborating with a bunch of other musicians. There's nothing wrong with the music / realism quality of BiaB. The parts are expertly played, but for me the styles are a bit middle of the road. In saying that, taking a part out of context can give fantastic results. As far as audio sound quality is concerned, I'd definitely go for the audiophile edition if you can afford it. I've got the Ultrapack, which is essentially the same but using lossy compressed audio. The compressed audio quality isn't at all bad (in fact is very good), but to the trained ear you'll be able to tell the difference: if you can tell the difference between a good quality mp3 or song streamed on Spotify, vs a CD then go for the audiophile edition. I tend not to use the BiaB generated tracks in final songs in any case. I use them for ideas and re-record the parts myself.

For the most part, I get the track volumes at a ball park, then route everything to buses - usually no more than 8 of them (although tracks may go through intermediate buses to get to the final eight). If a combination of tracks need some detailed volume changes, I'll either draw or record volume automation. I'll then ride the faders on my control surface as the song plays, recording volume automation for the buses. If it's 99% of the way there, I'll manually tweak... otherwise I'll play it through / record automation again.

1. Select the tracks Then either: 1. Start dragging the effect from the browser, then hold down CTRL as you drop it on one of the tracks; OR 2. If using the track fx bin context menu, hold down CTRL when picking the effect from the menu.

Band in a Box will do this: https://www.pgmusic.com/ Pick a Jazz or Blues style, then click the Reharmonist button is the one you want - it'll auto-generate chords from a melody with full backing using the style you've chosen. The individual tracks can then be dragged/dropped into Cakewalk.

AFAIK I don't think the timing of topology change messages has changed much since X2, apart from the obvious introduction of Aux Tracks & Patch Points. Basically ANYTHING that changes the routing will trigger a topology graph change, so that includes: - Adding/Removing Tracks, Buses, Patch-points or Aux Tracks - Adding/Removing Sends - Changing any inputs or outputs - Adding/Removing Effects - Enabling/Disabling input or output ports This particular scenario was different, as the routing itself hadn't actually changed - only the name of the ports had. The control surface cache is reset: - Any time the topology changes - Any time the track or bus ordering changes and in the next release... - Any time a bus, aux track or patch-point is renamed As far as controlling sends are concerned. You can't change the destination of the sends via the API, but you can: - Enable/Disable a send - Change the send level - Change the send pan - Change it to pre/post

@alan j. wilson - it looks like your default browser is set to Internet Explorer. I suspect that's your issue. IE has been deprecated by Microsoft, and doesn't support the most up to date security settings most modern websites require. Microsoft Edge, Chrome or Firefox should work fine. Opera may be fine too, but I've not personally tested that one. It looks like you've got Chrome & Edge installed - set one of them to be your default browser.

Have you tried checking "Enable MCSS for ASIO Driver" in Preferences ? This was actually introduced in 2022.09, and defaults to unchecked as some drivers got upset when the DAW tried to override their setting. Prior to 2022.09 it would have been effectively "checked" as long as "Use MMCSS" was checked. You could also try turning off "Plugin Load Balancing" - as a processor with a high number of threads and using a small buffer size may actually spend far more resources context switching than it saves by balancing the load. The other thing to check is your ThreadSchedulingModel. Compare this to what you have set in X3.

Given that you had a "Create Process failed; code 740" (which is to do with the process needing greater privileges), and Cakewalk runs as admin, it sounds to me like there's a permissions issue with your normal account. Until you narrow it down, you could run Cakewalk as admin. You could also try creating a new user account on the PC and see if that has better luck?

It looks like you've zoomed the clip area so that some notes are out of view - double click the area between the clips view and the track headers ( where the keyboard scale is) and that will reset the zoom.

Thanks for the report - we'll look into it. [EDIT] - Found & fixed the issue for the next release. Normally, the cache isn't cleared unless the project topology graph has changed (e.g. routing changes or adding/removing tracks). Bus routing and their names are cached, because it needs to walk the topology graph to find them - this takes time, which is why we introduced the cache in the first place. Track names however are instantly available, so they're grabbed in real-time. The fix was to clear the cache whenever Bus, Aux track, or Patch Points are renamed.

The CTRL key should do that for you: - When using "Insert Audio FX" from the context menu, hold CTRL while choosing the effect - When dragging from the browser, hold down CTRL after you've started dragging. However... what is actually happening here, is it's treating the insert as a quick-group operation - so make sure you've only got the one track in the selection before doing this, otherwise you'll get the effect added to all selected tracks.

FWIW I'm running a very old 3rd gen i7 3770 processor running at 3.4Ghz with 16GB of RAM, and I normally run my Scarlett 18i20 or 6i6 at 64 samples. It will actually run at 32 samples if it's a simple audio project with no FX, but 64 works for most projects unless I start adding some CPU intensive reverbs or something. I rarely need to go above 256. If I'm using my RME, I use a buffer of 128 simply because in real terms it's pretty much the same latency in milliseconds as the Scarletts at 64... and I have no need for lower latency. There has to be something else at play with the Apollo drivers, or at least something else on your system that is interfering with them.

@Michael Richards - For me, the Korg driver had problems not working, and the occasional crash but it never prevented the installation of Cakewalk, or removed other software (I've also got RME TotalMix installed). It was simply a driver that wasn't compatible with the latest Windows. What you're describing are far more serious problems, which sound like they could be: 1. A failing disk 2. A virus 3. A corrupt Windows installation You should rule these out in that order. 1. Failing Disk - right click on your system drive, select properties, then click the "Check" button on the Tools tab. Your computer should restart to do the check. If you've got errors, backup the disk ASAP and replace it. Note that SSD's give very little warning they're about to fail... they just start doing weird things and suddenly die. HDD's at least start clicking or making strange noises. 2. A virus - right click on your system drive, and select "Scan with Microsoft Defender" 3. Press Windows Key + X, followed by A to enter the power shell, then type the following: sfc /scannow If you get errors, type the following: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth You should get a report telling you whether it found any errors, and if it could fix them or not. If it found errors but couldn't fix them, as a last resort you can use this... however, you may have to re-install things like redistributables, audio/video drivers etc depending on how much needed to be restored: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

FWIW - I've found Korg a bit slow to react to Windows changes with their drivers. The Korg software/drivers stopped working when WIndows 10 20H2 came out, and it took a few months before a working update was made available. It looks like the same thing might have happened for 22H2 and WIndows 11. Personally, I've kept the Korg software running on my Windows 7 boot, and uninstalled the Korg software & drivers on my Windows 10 boot. The nanoKONTROL (both nanoKONTROL 2 and nanoKONTROL Studio) work fine with the class compliant drivers. The only reason you need the software is for mapping CC's.

One solution could be to do everything in 440Hz, then slow down the 2 track master in an audio editor (e.g. Audacity) so that it's effectively playing at 432Hz.

No, CbB will always use the default system browser, but FWIW I've got Firefox set as my default browser and BandLab login in CbB via Firefox is working fine for me on several machines. Check Firefox is up-to-date, and also check your security settings within Firefox. I'm using the Firefox default settings for security.

Omnisphere is memory intensive, so it's possible it could be a bad memory. This has happened to me in the past and is very difficult to identify. If you're lucky, you might see some discrepancies in the BIOS when it's reporting the speed of your memory modules - i.e. if one looks different from the other, that's a good indication that one has gone bad. Alternatively, Windows 10 has a built in memory checker: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-check-your-pc-memory-problems-windows-10

Hold down CTRL + SHIFT while dragging them into Cakewalk.

Although it's best to install them in order, I don't think it's absolutely necessary as long as you install (or re-install) CbB last.

Within Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts, it's possible to bind the commands to MIDI notes - including start/stop. However this will start/stop the whole project, not just a specific track. To trigger a specific track, you could use the Matrix view - however, the Matrix view is clip based, so you'd need to make sure that everything on that track is a single clip (i.e. bounce to clip(s) ).