Colin Nicholls

Sound On Sound is a print magazine and has to strive to stay in print somehow. I get that they have to drop the Techniques column for Cakewalk when it frees up space for advertisers like Studio One and Cubase etc etc. And my rant wasn't directed at MVP @Craig Anderton either. Ads disguised as articles or not, you'd think that whenever DAWs are brought up for comparison, Cakewalk would get mentioned maybe every now and then amongst the other great offerings such as (look, I'm going to do it) Logic, Studio One, Cubase, Digital Performer, Reaper, What-am-I-missing, Tracktion/Waveform, etc etc. Yes even Reaper gets mentioned and as far as I know, the it kicks the llama but doesn't advertise either. I feel that the feature set of Cakewalk - a FREE offering - like the addition of the Arranger - does not even make a paragraph in the NEWS section... oh it looks like they dropped the NEWS section in June 2020. *sigh* ...so apparently my mini-rant wasn't over. Oh well. I still enjoy the magazine.

Feel better? Posting a series of reproducible steps to the Problem Reporter will be more likely to yield a fix in a future release.

I'm just .... offended... on behalf of Cakewalk, is all. I guess without an advertising budget, they don't get mentioned, ever. Rant over.

I don't understand why it would work differently. I also do not use the Export module (I like a clean, reduced UI and leverage the Custom module) but I have to say, I never noticed the behavior.

I suggest re-installing 64-bit SONAR X2, then re-installing CbB. All the 64-bit DX plugins installed with X2 should be available to CbB.

I've updated the theme to 1.1. Changes: Add Track and Duplicate Track buttons show color change on mouse click Ripple Edit is now fluorescent green when active (not PINK) See link in top post.

I've used Hue shifting in Paint.NET, but in my latest theme I started building up a library of multi-layer button sheets, with Background, Icon, Tint/Gradient, and Overlay layers, only flattening and exporting to paste into the Theme Editor. Paint.NET has some nice gradient tools that can do the circular 'bloom'. After a while it is is not as tedious as it sounds. I still leave a lot of ActiveBlue untouched where possible, though.

Yes, I noticed that some of the button sets, while coloured in the standard off/hover/click/active/disabled sequence by default, are not in fact used that way. I paid particular attention to the Control Bar buttons, and tailored the colour tinting to suit their actual use. Mostly this was a case of changing the "click/depressed" to be the bright "active" colour, rather than the subtle hinting used by default. I acknowledge that this strategy was not applied across the board, but on more of a "surgical strike" basis. It is possible you've spotted another candidate in the Add Track/Duplicate track buttons. I remember looking at them but may have decided to leave as-is. I'm happy to revisit. The theme is definitely use-able in its current state. And, yes, I think a note to this effect in the I.T.G. makes sense.

Yay! Someone noticed! This has bothered me for a while, and I first did it in Polar Blue (from which MIL-SPEC evolved). Re: Control Bar: I hear what you're saying about the olive colour being used more, but it was a design decision to try to use colour to highlight function - and to retain some bright-light blue for specific purposes. For example, the loop control is yellow because the loop point ruler indicator is yellow. I can't recall off the top of my head about other colour choices but I tried to be mindful in my selection. Are they perfect? Probably not. I haven't felt the urge to change them, though. To make them all Olive would be to discard this design goal to make the controls distictive. You don't want the recruit to accidently hit the missile launch button, but to have as many guides as possible preventing mis-activation. Hence the PINK! ripple edit. I know it doesn't match the theme, but I personally have a problem leaving this activated and the pink sure lets me know as strongly as it can that we are in an abnormal state. I'll try your suggestion for Alt Text #2 and see how I feel. (Not at my DAW right now).

This thread might be helpful:

Officially, Windows 7 is not supported, but I recall seeing a statement from the developers some time back, indicating that nothing has been done to the code base that specifically prevents Cakewalk from running on Windows 7 (except that it is 64-bit only but that isn't an issue for you). It's a relatively easy test for you to install it and find out. Caveat: I haven't tried installing the latest CbB on Windows 7, and it might not work, but I haven't seen any reports on this forum about it no longer being possible. As for Kontact, although I haven't used the full retail version myself, only the Player that comes with some of my libraries. I'm sure many folks here do run the full Kontact, and I do not know of any reason why it would be a problem.

I'm super-willing to include 3rd-party appendices from anyone who offers them ?

Possibly this: Accommodating effect tails during clip export Effect tails are the reverberations or signal delay that continue after the source has stopped. If your project uses track or clip plug-in effects (reverb, delay, etc.) that result in effect tails, you will need to extend the duration of the exported clips in order to properly accommodate the effect tails. Otherwise, the exported clips will end prematurely, before the effect tail is finished. You can tell Cakewalk to automatically add a specific amount of time to each exported clip. To specify how much time to add to all exported clips to accommodate effect tails, go to Edit > Preferences > File - Audio Data and specify the global Clip Tail Duration N Seconds value. Set the value high enough to allow for any delay or reverb or other effect that you may have patched into a track.

I chose to distinguish between "Song/Score position" (Measure/Beat/Tick) and "Time" (h:m:s) for clarity, but we're both right ?

Or Ctrl-Home This puts the Now time at Bar 1, Beat 1, which is Time = 00:00:00:00

@Noel Borthwick, speaking as one who reported this as a bug way back in the past, and then (with @scook's help) grew to accommodate the behavior, I thank you for taking another look at this one.

Here's the Groove Clip Header Bar - it's in the Inspector. Select the clip:

I can't speak for others, but when I read @scook's previous explanation of the relationship between [ ] Copy all audio and the automatic audio subdirectory creation, something "clicked" and I'm now comfortable with how Cakewalk handles the Save As process. For what it's worth.

Rules of using V-Vocal (or any pitch-processor): Process single clips at a time Keep your clips as short as feasible, minimum length Avoid substantial or sudden changes in pitch (curves or ramps are good) Render will mute the original clip and create a new one, but still, be wary of accidentally deleting the original. Always keep the original clip archived, just in case you change your mind Don't leave multiple instances of V-Vocal active on a track as you continue working. Render as you go If the rendered clip contains defects: try repeating the operation in an otherwise empty project, to reduce possible CPU or memory problems (worth a try) try increasing audio buffers (i.e. increased latency, but you're not recording in real-time so it's fine to do this temporarily)

I think the only way to free up the processing from the engine is to ARCHIVE the track. You can unmute clips during playback, seemlessly. If you want. But you can't change the status of an ARCHIVED track while playback is active. So, yes, muted clips are still processed.

I recommend picking the option you personally like, and sticking with that.

I might have to steal this idea for my own themes. I've avoided diving too deeply into knob stacks.

One of the most successful themes targeting this aesthetic I've seen. Kudos.

Possibly. Interestingly, I recently created an Enhancement Request related to your question which, if implemented, would make it trivial to right-click on the vocal take and find the underlying WAV file in the File Explorer... so we'll have to wait and see. I think it is a viable Use Case.

"Export Audio" is how you get a .WAV file out of SONAR. Mute the backing track and click on the Export button in the control bar. Select Audio > WAV. Specify a destination file to create. If that is too complex then you are using the wrong software.