Robert Bone

Thanks - I added the studio cut, by the Dregs for comparison, to my initial post. (I should have done so to start with - DOH).

Thanks for giving it a listen, and for the kind words. I have edited my original post, so that it includes a link to the real song, in case you want to compare. Bob Bone

Night Meets Light - a Dixie Dregs Cover - recorded by Robert Bone and Mike Reidy This is a remake/cover of the Dixie Dregs song, Night Meets Light, that I finished in 2018, and posted in the old forums, and just plain forgot about sharing it with all the folks here in the new world of CbB. Both my friend, Mike, and I, would love to get some feedback on the production aspects of the song - which we mostly were fairly faithful to the general sound of the original song, though I did "modern it up" a bit here and there. Feedback from you folks would mean a lot to both of us, because while we chose this song because of a profound love and appreciation for the beautiful playing in it, we also wanted to use the process of engineering an existing song, as a way to gauge where we stood in terms of crafting a finished product, and by replicating the original song, we could compare our version with the original, we could figure out how well we were "getting it". There is a considerable pool of diverse talent from the Cakewalk community, as musicians and as engineers, and I consider folks here to be my giant disfunctional musical family, and there truly are some experts inmusic production here - certainly way better than me (I am pretty much a keyboard player who tries to additionally wade through the music production process). So, be gentle - and also, please be honest, because I will be taking any feedback to heart, to help me get better at all of this. As far as the playing of the parts, we tried to nail those as best we could, to put our best into honoring the Dixie Dregs, and in particular, Steve Morse, who authored the original song way back in 1978 (their What If album). My friend, Mike Reidy, plays the guitar parts, and the remaining instruments were played/sequenced up by me on my keyboards (violin, keys, bass, and drums). Transcribing the drums took me almost 3 weeks, because they are different pretty much all through the song. Then, near the end, the drums get pretty active, and that was a challenge to faithfully decipher. Oh - lastly, the video was just made to give folks watching in YouTube something to look at while listening to the song, and is simply a series of pics of the Dixie Dregs, pulled from the web. It is the music itself that I hope to get feedback on. THANKS to anyone who read all of the above, and even MORE thanks to anyone who invests around 8 minutes into helping me and my friend, Mike, get better at music production. I hope you guys like it - I edited this post, to now include a link to the real Dregs studio cut of the song, down below mine, for comparison. Link to real studio cut by Dregs:

OK - so I guess Nomad Factory had some sort of bundling deal for presumably a prior version of Sonar, and I have a friend who has used BlueVerb DRV-2080 in some projects, and has had some recent crashes in at least one project that does use BlueVerb DRV-2080, which seems to be a Cakewalk Edition version, from 2013. There was maintenance applied by Nomad Factory, as general maintenance, to all older products, from 2015, and I want to have my friend switch to using the more currently maintained version of the plugin. The issue is that the newer version, after install, only runs in Demo Mode now, and I see no evidence of having any product key or serial number or whatever, from the older version that had shipped with a prior version of Sonar, so I do not know how to get the more currently maintained NEWER version I just installed for my friend, to become licensed again. Does anybody know what sort of license code would have been associated with the original version of BlueVerb DRV-2080, that shipped with some prior version of Sonar? (I am hoping to be able to plug in whatever licensing code was associated with the old version of the plugin, to authorize the better-maintained 2015 version of it). Thanks, Bob Bone

I always record seperate instruments on separate midi tracks. If you DO really want to combine them into a single midi track, the link above, on the different recording modes, should guide you on how to do it - I just again would never do it that way. Bob Bone

I have a drum map for AD2, that Noel put out there, that includes notes mapped for cymbals and there are those for choke on Cymbals 1, 2, 3. I have not tried them, but they are in the map. http://www.noelborthwick.com/cakewalk/2015/02/06/drum-maps-ad2-in-sonar/ Bob Bone

I downloaded the demo - which seems to operate for like 15 or 20 minutes, so I will try to work through all of their combi sounds. Can you please confirm that these 'Moss sounds' you referred to, are Combi sounds? Or, are they basic presets (not Combi)? Bob Bone

Howdy - I happened to see that Korg has gotten around to recently releasing a soft-synth recreation of their Triton keyboard, and I am trying to understand its included sounds. I see from the doc, that it comes with a bunch of expansion packs, but what is not clear to me (never having owned the actual original keyboard), if the collection of sounds that comes with the new soft-synth version have all of the sounds from their Triton Extreme keyboard. I am asking for a friend of mine, a fellow keyboard player, who happens to own and still use an original Triton Extreme keyboard, and he is potentially interest in buying this new software recreation, to use live, because the original keyboard weighs about a billion pounds, but he is concerned about whether or not the software version has all of the "Combi" sounds that came with the Triton Extreme keyboard. He is a bit leery of dropping $249 on the software version, if it doesn't have the Combi sounds from the Extreme included, because those are the sounds he would be interested in. I looked at a couple of his combi sounds (he sent me phone pics of the various parts of 2 of his combi sounds from his keyboard's display window, which show all of the effects and internal routing that give those sounds the rich depth that they have, and I had thought perhaps I could create equivalent sounds using Kontakt instruments and applying similar effects, etc.... to save him from spending the $249, but it seems like a bunch of work for me to do that, SO I thought I would ask here - if anyone knows if the current sounds included with the new Korg software recreation of its original Triton (with its included expansion packs), would then also have the various combi sounds from the Triton Extreme - and if so, that then might justify my recommending he spend the $249 and pick it up, for live use. Sorry for the long post - trickier to explain than perhaps necessary, I need some coffee and am pretty sleepy. THANKS to anyone who might know the answer to the above. Bob Bone

Can you please explain what it was that fixed your issues with this? (maybe I missed you posting it earlier). That way, whatever fixed it for your system, might help someone else out, in the future - should they too have your issue with it. Thanks, Bob Bone

Yup

There is an ongoing issue that I have, because the midi devices and their USB ports got modified, GRRRRR to the friend that accidentally did that to my desktop computer. Anyways, any existing project now contineus to 'see' the midi controller, however absolutely no midi activity is recognized/detected by CbB. The workaround I have been performing is to: 1) In the open project, remove that midi controller in Preferences - Midi Devices, and click Apply, then Save project. then close the project 2) Re-open the project, add the midi controller back in Preferences - Midi Devices, click Apply, then Save the project again. I kind of lumped several steps above, into each numbered steps, just because I look at those logically in that manner. Hopefuly, that won't confuse anyone. SOO - the thing with the above, is that I keep having to do the above steps, and I have not figured out a way to have one final 'fix' to permanently correct this REALLY annoying scenario of having no midi activity detected for my midi controller. On top of the original issue because one midi device moved to a different port, and it wasn't even my midi controller that moved ports - it was actually the audio interface, but it still resulted in Windows remapping the association between devices and ports - so BESIDES this, my desktop has no internal DVD/optical drive - because of the case design, so anytime I have to plug in the DVD drive, that too causes the midi device mapping to associated USB ports to change, and it too causes this issue all over again. This mapping to ports issue has gone on since at LEAST as far back as Sonar 8, and most folks I know zealously guard, and even map out, the USB ports each midi device is plugged into. Can't this generic NIGHTMARE get a permanent fix or at least a reliable set of steps that only need be run ONCE, when ports and device mapping gets altered? Please? Bob Bone

I absolutely LOVE my WA-47. I bought a $9,000 Sony mic for my son, and personally like the performance of the WA-47 just as much. Different mics 'fit' different vocalists subjectively better than others, and I am quite happy with the WA-47. Bob Bone

I used to have a Reaktor 5 patch that would play fine, 1st time, then would be either a half or whole step lower, thereafter. Turnded out that the specific patch tied pitch to the mod wheel, and when the default Zero All Controllers would get triggered after playback, it lowered the pitch. I cannot recall if I simply turned off the Zero All Controllers parameter in Sonar (this was prior to CbB though it still works the same), or if I modified that patch to sever its tie of the mod wheel to pitch,. Anyways, just something you could check, by going into CbB Preferences, and turn off the Zero All Controllers parameter, which is under Preferences > Project > MIDI - just remove the check from the box to the left of where it says: "Zero Controllers When Play Stops", and then click Apply. If you do the above after freshly loading the instrument with the pitch issue, and if this is what has been causing these issues for you, then repeated playbacks should then leave the pitch alone. Bob Bone

Can you try loading VIP into a new project? Also, does it have a VST3 and a VST2 version? If so, and you were using the VST3 version - what happens if you use the VST2 version instead? Bob Bone

Are you referring to the Akai VIP software? Bob Bone

I believe it to generally be best to avoid hibernation when running CbB, or any DAW, because of the hit or miss failure by some audio interface brands/models to properly come back to life, which as was pointed out earlier, is something specific to the hardware and/or associated drivers for those audio interfaces, and not anything that Cakewalk can control. I don't do much tweaking of anything in Windows 10, (or for the computer) for prepping when using a given computer for running streaming audio applications, such as Cakewalk. I pretty much do only the following: 1) Make sure to store sample libraries on SSD drives that are not the boot drive (not the "C" drive) 2) I modify Cakewalk Preferences, so that most content is moved off to a non-boot drive, as well. I do this for all of the folders under Folder Locations, except for those folders that by default are stored in the AppData folder on the boot drive. Please note that in addition to the folder locations under Edit > Preferences > File > Folder Locations, there are a couple more folder paths to modify, under Edit > Preferences > File > Audio Data - and those folders are: Global Audio and Picture Folders (Audio Data and Picture Cache). 3) I whitelist my sample libraries, as well as the Cakewalk Content folder (sub-folders to both are also whitelisted when the parent folders are). I also whitelist the Cakewalk Core folder in Program Files, as well as the Common Files/VST3 folder and the folder containing all of my plugins (I use VST64). All files are scanned for viruses when I download them, as my Downloads folder is not excluded from the antivirus software, and any compressed data is scanned when it gets decompressed. 4) I set my Power Plan to High Performance, with Min and Max CPU set to 100%, set it to never turn off the Hard Drives, and I also disable the USB Selective Suspend. I also never let the computer hibernate on its own. That's about it. (I don't think I forgot anything) Bob Bone

I have a 65" 4K HDTV, and if I use the recommended resolution, I use 200% scaling, or cut resolution in half and run 100% scaling. Seems to be OK at either. Bob Bone

Is it possible you moved a USB-connected device to a different USB port on your computer? If so, please respond, and I will detail some steps for you to help with that. (it is a bit of typing, so it would save my fingers to know whether or not one or more of your USB devices ended up in different USB port(s). Thanks) Bob Bone

Try going to Edit > Preferences , and check the paths for Files > Folder Locations, to make sure they are still valid, and edit them as needed.

If you use Battery, it should also have that -6 dB parameter you can adjust, if memory serves. Bob Bone

Kewl - I had no way to know. Glad some piece of it was helpful. Rock on, Sir. Bob Bone

They all use SATA III, which maxes out at around 500 MB/second. Seek times will be faster than on a HDD drive. Bob Bone

The clipping may not occur on the individual track you are recording with peaks hitting -1 dBFS, but that is almost certainly going to be too hot for many of your plugins to process properly - particularly those that emulate analog gear - as those plugins are designed to work best with an input level at 0 dB VU (which is an average, and they calibrate most VU Meters to -18 dBFS, using a 1k pure sine wave). In addition, if you start running your tracks to various buses, that feed additional busses, you will end up with the signal clipping, eventually. I think it far better to record at lower levels, so that there is a good bit of headroom left for mastering. I believe you would end up with a cleaner and better sound, by lowering your recording levels right from the start, and then if too quiet, simply raising the speaker volume would get it loud enough for your listening, while keeping enough room for a proper mix and master. Don't take my word for it - do a little digging on the internet, and while there are numerous opinions on what a proper recording level is, I would bet you wouldn't find much, if any, guidance that would suggest recording with peaks hitting -1 dBFS. For whatever the worth, I set track gain at or near 0 dB VU, with no peaks louder than -6 dBFS. That gives me an average level that leaves me around 18 dB of headroom, with room for sharp transients to get up to, but not exceding, -6 dBFS. I also have a limiter on the Master Bus set to -1dBFS, to prevent speaker or ear damage. I also make sure that each plugin is gain-neutral , meaning the output volume of any plugin is adjusted to it matches its input gain, through either makeup-gain or gain reduction. I try to run all the way through each channel and its plugins, at that 0 dB VU target, except drums - which I use a target of somwhere between -18 dBFS and maybe -14 dBFS, with no drum peaks above -6 dBFS. Best of luck to you, in any case. Bob Bone

I suggest using the midi track fader associated with the loaded Gentleman instrument, to bring its volume down (check the actual dBFS level shown on its audio track(s), for the actual gain level, because the midi track fader is using midi volume (0-127), rather than the audio gain level shown in the Peak Meter for its audio tracks. For the instrument that is too quiet, I would just use that instrument's associated track's Gain knob, to add some gain there, again observing the Peak dBFS shown on the audio track(s) for that instrument. If you have two audio tracks for that instrument (left mono and right mono), you can select both tracks, then hold CTRL while adjusting the Gain, to move the Gain knob for both tracks at the same time, as that will make both tracks move in the identical amount. The reason I suggest using the midi track volume to bring an instrument down in volume, rather than the Gain knob for the associated audio track(s), is because the Kontakt default volume setting is -6 dBFS, which is still quite loud for recording purposes, and the Gain knob may not allow enough gain reduction to get you to whatever level you prefer to record at. (I use -18 dBFS for sharp-transient instruments, like drums, and a VU Meter setting of 0 dB VU and a peak dBFS of no louder than -6 dBFS). Bob Bone

Wow - you bring Kontakt instruments in at 0? I cannot imagine being that hot on input. How could you not end up clipping? Bob Bone