Jonathan Sasor

Nomenclature can be a hurdle when getting going. In this case, an Instrument Track refers to a track that has a MIDI input patched to a virtual instrument (soft synth) with an audio output. It's a streamlined combination of the old method that required having a separate MIDI source and Synth Audio Output track.

You need to check what your MIDI track is going to. A MIDI track in and of itself will not produce sound as MIDI itself is only note/controller information. In the demo projects, the MIDI tracks should be routed to a virtual instrument such as the General MIDI synth, Cakewalk TTS-1. When your track routes to the TTS-1, you'll see different bank and patch options. Other synths will work via their own patch browsers. If you're using external synths, make sure you have your audio monitoring from those devices set correctly.

You can also check out performances from the BandLab booth here: https://www.bandlab.com/cakewalk_team

Simplest answer is to do a full install of SONAR Platinum first, then install Cakewalk by BandLab on top of that. This way CbB will leverage all the content that was included previously.

The 5.0.4 update resolves an issue with uploading projects from CbB to BandLab.

BitBridge is the default way that Cakewalk loads 32-bit VSTs, however we support using the third party wrapper jBridge as well (which you would need to purchase separately). In the Plugin Manager, select your 32-bit plugin, then hit the Plugin Properties button and enable the checkbox to use the jBridge wrapper.

You can find it here: https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk/whats-new

Windows 7 is technically supported, but gets the least of our test resources as its not under active development from Microsoft (and hasn't been since 2015). The security patches run out January next year. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of users are running 64-bit systems. Cakewalk will still run most 32-bit plugins via Bit Bridge (or J Bridge). I'm not sure where "Cakewalk on a rental basis" is coming from... We've been delivering a free version of what was previously SONAR Platinum with all its core features intact, and improving upon that for almost a year. Once the application has authorized on your system, it's not going anywhere.

The release notes for 2019.01 are live now, you can check them out at: https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk/whats-new

Might want to check your spam folder too if you haven't done so already

That sums it up pretty well. Depending on the plugins, some things you can delete (like freeware plugins that do not have installers). There's a couple different ways to not display things on the Cakewalk side, excluding removes it everywhere from plugin lists. You can also make custom layouts with what you actually want to see, but as mentioned those don't do anything to free disk space.

Cakewalk by BandLab is a 64-bit application. You can still use 32-bit plugins via Bit Bridge, but the app it self is 64-bit only.

Cakewalk will recognize plugins that are in the scan paths. The actual .dll files where the plugins load from tend not to be very large (as opposed to sample libraries), but Cakewalk will read them so long as you define any custom paths on the VST Settings tab of the Preferences. VST3 plugins use a convention where they globally install to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 per the spec. Native Access allows you to choose where the VST2 install location is separate from the larger content files.

You can open the AudioSnap Palette for any given clip to see if it is enabled or not. As for the larger scope of your problem though, doing a save as and choosing "copy audio with project" is probably a better workflow option than saving it as a bundle. You can always zip the new project folder if you need it compressed.

You'll want to be aware of the stretching algorithms using AudioSnap. The Elastique algorithms will give you the best bang for your buck for online rendering (what you hear during real time playback). You can set the defaults for this in the Preferences or change per clip via the AudioSnap Palette or Clip Properties.

There's a known issue for some users in the previous BandLab Assistant build that would fail when trying to update. As mentioned, if you download the BA update separately it will install normally.

1. You can download Cakewalk by BandLab at http://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk 2. CbB installs alongside SONAR Platinum (it's basically the same upgrading from previous versions- like X2, X3 to Platinum).

As mentioned, it's a general "good practice" thing. If you're running a SSD, you're not going to see a huge improvement, but as others also mentioned, if you do backups on the disk and stuff you can isolate your projects from that part. Back in the day with slower drives there would be a noticeable bump in performance when writing to a dedicated drive for your projects.

Check the notification setting for the forum, then if that's on, might need to check your spam folder/settings for your e-mail.

You can set a display name in the account settings.