Amberwolf

It wouldn't (shouldn't, can't think of how) be software. This kind of thing is usually a ground loop, and most often caused by an ac adapter for something attached to the laptop, the sound device, the mixer, or something else in the audio path. Since you have a second computer, what is different between the two, in how they are connected to power from the wall? Including which outlets things are plugged into?

Finally got the artwork composited: Also updated the track itself 07-22-25: 071825 000001 000075m -- added environmental fx, widened part of the lute solo to fill space.

@Max Arwood@Kevin Walsh Thanks! I forgot to note here that last night I'd updated it to version 07-21-25: 071825 000001 000067k -- further fine tuning, added bass grace notes and fills, some mix changes in spots. Reworked the intro percussion, turned it way down along with the intro vocal notes. Moved some percussion bits around, added a few more shakers here and there. Altered the "trap style" pre-measure bits in most places to fill with shakers or tambs or caxixi, or leave empty for expectation of a note that isn't there this time so the next one has more impact, etc. Also automated more of the amp / eq controls on the lute solo in the final section for more dynamics. Still working on the cover art. Have to composite several different things, since my usual help sources don't seem to want to create anything remotely resembling what I need this time. (how hard can it be to create an image of a storm-wracked ocean covered in clouds to the horizon, thunderstorms visible here and there...viewed from a clifftop high above that sea, looking out and down on the waves battering spines of rock like dark teeth rising from the foam, and between you and all that, just visible in form but not detail, is an old woman with silver hair falling fast from that clifftop she has leaped from, very long metal glider wings extended out to her sides for several meters...?)

Thanks! I updated it with various edits, mix, fx, etc. Added "lute solo" to final reprise section...might surprise you, might not. Worth a listen if you heard the original. https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/the-last-flight 07-20-25: 071825 000001 000055f - new version Original version here: https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=15058975

I prefer the ones with the steps on the back side.

If anyone has ever read Windhaven (by George RR Martin and Lisa Tuttle), this is The Last Flight: https://amberwolf.bandcamp.com/track/the-last-flight Since Windhaven is an ocean world, with what amounts to an archipelago of islands for it's land, I went with what I hope is a mediterraneanish sort of sound, in my own wierd way. 07-19-25: 071825 000001 000042a-- first public version 07-20-25: 071825 000001 000055f -- Various edits, mix, fx, etc. Added "lute solo" to final reprise section. 07-21-25: 071825 000001 000067k -- further fine tuning, added bass grace notes and fills, some mix changes in spots. Reworked the intro percussion, turned it way down along with the intro vocal notes. Moved some percussion bits around, added a few more shakers here and there.Altered the "trap style" pre-measure bits in most places to fill with shakers or tambs or caxixi, or leave empty for expectation of a note that isn't there this time so the next one has more impact, etc. Also automated more of the amp / eq controls on the lute solo in the final section for more dynamics. 07-22-25: 071825 000001 000075m -- added environmental fx, widened part of the lute solo to fill space. 07-23-25: 071825 000001 000077n -- had forgotten to widen the space for the rain 07-23-25: 071825 000001 000093q -- Added wind, walking and hten running footsteps in the clifftop gravel, the sound of flapping clothes, etc. 07-24-25: 071825 000001 000109u -- Fixed program failure (all buses mysteriously set to hardware out instead of chains they had been in) and fixed awkward placement of cliffjump / start of flight. Original version here: https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=15058975 07-20-25: 071825 000001 000042a - first public version

Aw, I thought I was getting a thread dedicated just to me!

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I had the icons themselves hidden by the browser (so I can enlarge all the text to be able to read it without making all the graphics gigantic too), so I didn't see them; just the numbers of reactions). Sorry about that.

BTW...if everything I said was wrong...why did you "like" my post? 😕 EDIT: Nevermind; was pointed out below that it was a negative not a positive (I couldn't see that on my screen).

Couple of reasons I do it the way I do: First is whether or not you are worried about the small (but always possible) risk of this low-probability-high-impact event: Let's say you are in the middle of saving a file, and the computer reboots, program or computer crashes, power shuts off, etc. For almost all programs I've ever used, in this event, the file isn't finished saving, but it already overwrote the existing file. (some programs actuallly write to a totally new file, then delete the old one, or evne just "hide" it from you when using the program (but it still exists and is visible in Windows Explorer, etc). I don't know how the modern Sonar does it's saves, so it might avoid this situation (and it has Versioning, which would also avoid it). In that specific event or set of conditions, unless you have a copy of the file somewhere else, your work is now gone. It happened to me, once (long before Cakewalk or Sonar), and I ensured it would never happen again. Second, it depends on how you work. If, like me, you want to be able to go back to any version of any project (in whatever program), you can SaveAs to a new file everyt time you save, and save at every point you make any change you might want to undo. This leaves you free to do any kind of edit, deletion, etc, and experiment freely, and then later completely change your mind and go back to whatever point you want, either to start over, or to just copy that stuff back into the current version of the project. So I use a filename system that is the date, the number of the project I started taht day (as I might get ideas for several), and then the version of the project, and then any notes about why I'm saving right there. An example might be something like 071825 000003 000325C -- mix edit changes - bass - strings - vocals. In Sonar, there's "versioning" available (I assume this still exists in modern versions ) so that you can just do your usual Save or Ctrl-S, and it will automatically deal with saving older versions as files with a different version number and keeping however many around that you specify (up to 999 I think). But most programs don't have that, and I developed my system before it existed, so I just use my system to safeguard myself. I do actually have it turned on, but since I disabled the save button in the toolbar and took it out of the File menu, so I only have SaveAs, and I bound that to Ctrl-S instead of Save...it doesn't ever use the versioning.

Ok, that's good to know. I don't know how it works internally, so this is useful information. Thank you. I added a note at the beginning of my post that you'd quoted to advise that the scenario couldn't happen, but left the orignal below taht for reference. That's true; I didn't know there was a warning, or I wouldn't have typed all that up. (I'm not using the modern versions; I'm still back at SPlat and earlier).

It seems too obvious to have missed, so my guess is they had them in there under some other type of sound name, making them harder to find, or they were under some subcategory instead of a top-level of their own.

EDIT: Noel pointed out that Sonar doesn't work this way, *and* has a warning at startup (for non-activated versions?) so the situation couldn't (?) happen. Left my original post as-is below for reference: ****************************************** That's complete data loss, a situation that should never be allowed to happen by the code itself. I would report this as a data loss bug. The bakers may disagree, but: If it could happen in the situation you had there (in a perhaps never-activated install of demo? post isn't clear about that part), it could also happen anytime a reactivation becomes necessary for any reason, including a program fault where it "forgets" it was activated because of whatever issue. So a user could be working along, doing things normally on what for them has been an already-activated version of Sonar that the've been using for however long without issue, then they go to save, and because it has somehow become inactivated (reason doesn't matter), it has to be reactivated before they can save. If at that time, the version being run has a required update available*** when activation is attempted, and it wont' activate and thus won't save before updating, all the user's unsaved work is now lost. **** (are they all required? Or can you skip them? I don't have direct experience with Sonar's updates, or have it to wait for them to come up and then test) Data loss is a really big problem, to me (and presumably to most artists and other computer users). I do everything I can to prevent it, saving often, always saving as new files never over the top of one, etc., using autosave, versioning, everything any program has to make it harder to lose data. (and copying to external drives that are not connected except during backups, etc). But...a situation like the above could, even with frequent saves, still create a dataloss situation, if it came up.

Very OT, but if you use your ARM-based DAW to play all your music for you, does that mean you have an ARM Band?

I poked around and don't see a specific place for it, just this https://help.bandlab.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404926548121-How-do-I-contact-BandLab

FTFY

For those following: their new reply said that maybe their shopify system hasn't updated yet because the ad should go to the sale items, if anyone wants to verify if it gets updated and post here. Personally, I think that these sorts of things ought to be worked out before "release" of the public-facing site, or at the very least someone at the companies doing them ought to verify they're working as designed. But it seems to be common at many companies for this to not be the case.

FWIW, they replied that the sale price is only on selected items (which their title bar doesn't say; it implies that they're all on sale with "INSANE HOT SUMMER DEALS! (deal timer) SOUNDS FOR €9.99"). But the page displayed when clicking *on the sale ad bar* doesn't show those items, it shows everything, making it even less clear. From another part of their reply, the "free" items are apparently free if you want them to be, after you jump thru the hoops of following specific instructions on each item's page and adding a code it shows there to the cart, etc. Even if they're a good deal, I'd pass on the whole company if they're going to be that confusing with a simple sale--I can't imagine how bad support or even the actual programs would be. If a buyer has to ask how to get the sale and what's on sale, that's a pretty complete failure of website design and sale implementation.

That last should be read with the voice of Margo in The Magicians....

I sent them a message about it, too, but just for those reading the thread: I don't think their site is correctly setup...even the "free" stuff lists prices, and I don't see any prices that come out to €9.99 in USD on things. For instance, clicking the sale timer at the top of their pages takes me to a page that shows and the "free stuff" page https://sounds.eduprado.com/collections/freebits

Perrhaps a good UI change to prevent confusion would be to force the currently selected driver (or the first if there is more than one?) to be what shows in that dropdown when it isnt' being dropped down.

FWIW, I sometimes see a similar type of patterned interference occasionally on my laptop. On mine it will be a single square of the pattern, somwehre random on the display area, or a set of such squares. Just enough "noise" to make that area unreadable/unviewable. Originally I thought it was the graphics card or driver; it happened both on the built in LCD and on an external monitor connected to either the VGA or HDMI ports...but when those connectors began to fail and to be able to see anything (why I have the external 32" / 42" monitors) I had to use an external USB video card (Targus Displaylink, and a different brand DL before it with different drivers). The problem persists with all of them, and even with differnet monitors. And it happens in almost software, but most commonly with things that display pages of text (book readers, notepad, browsers, etc). The only two things I don't think I've ever seen it in were SONAR and Notepad2. I've never found any replication recipe for it, no specific environmental condition, etc. No specific software; the only common hardware is the laptop mainboard, PSU, as even the ram has been changed out when I removed boht originals to max it out at some point. So....while I don't have a solution to the OP's issue, I will sympathize with them....it's pretty annoying when youc an't see / read things because of such a thing happening.

I'd prefer not to have to do it manually. While it's technically interesting to learn the process, it's tedious and wastes time I could be doing other things with. (I have six hundred bajillion ideas and hobbies and things I want and/or need to do, and time enough for *maybe* one half of one of them. So nothing I do is very good, as I don't really have enough time to spend on any one thing...I spend the most time on music because it's such an integral part of "me". ) I don't presently have anything that supports sidechaining (not sure if my ancient SONAR itself even does), at least not that works in that ancient SONAR. So antyhing I do dynamically has to be done with manually created automation. It certainly sounds like it would be ideal for what I want to do (if you've listened to any of my tracks I'm sure you can hear the problems I create for myself with overlapping bands of sound). The spectrum analyser itself would be very useful, because with my tinnitus and associated hearing problems, there are things I can't hear as well, and some I simply can't hear at all, that then cause me to mix and EQ wrong. I"m trying to learn how to compensate for it, but it's tough, since right now I have to depend on other people to tell me what is wrong with something, then try to see what they hear, and learn how that looks so I can then look for it to catch it on my own. Voxengo's SPAN has helped in a few cases to see things, but it does not seem to show an accurate spectrum; the bass end either shows way higher than it is, or way lower, based on feedback I get from the tracks I mix trying to use it to see what I'm doing. So.... I've been using Audacity's built in colored-spectrograph track view to look at exported tracks from SONAR, but it still doesnt' mean much to me, I'm still learning how to associate the visual of it with the sound I hear; it's very difficult because to me sound is sound and visual is visual and while I can make them synced or see them / hear them as synced I can't really "grok" them together as one thing. (probably the same problem that keeps me from being able to "read" musical notation--I can transcribe a piece of sheet music into a MIDI file within SONAR, more or less, but it doesn't mean anything to me, sound wise--the markings are not notes, not sound, not audible, even watching the staff view as the tracks play....). Since their FAQ isn't clear, I sent them a message asking how their plugin authorizes, whether it works on it's own on a completely offline system, has any form of manager or other non-plugin stuff that it needs, autoupdates itself, etc., because none of that is allowed on my system. If it is like any good well-behaved software should be, then I'll try their demo out and see if it does what I expect it to from this thread's info (and that it truly is well-behaved), before I spend some of my limited grocery money on it. The question sent to them will also test out their support system, as the way they answer (or if they do) will tell me about how much help they'll be if I have a problem, and whether I would want to deal with them or not. (they probably won't hold up to my ideal, as most don't; ATM Cakewalk's support holds the prize, with Grin Tech ebikes.ca second place).

I really appreciate the details on what it does and how it works for you--that function is almost certainly something I could use, as I'm still slowly learning how to make holes for things to interact without stomping all over each other with just a static EQ, and have barely begun the process of learning how to automate the EQs to do this throughout a "song" to make holes for whatever the prominent part is in the others that are backings for that section of the "song", as I switch around which thing is the "lead".

aaannnd...what is it that it does so well for you?