Xoo

Thanks for "moving" this - we were getting OT on the early release thread. To expand on my position I mentioned in the other thread, I think the current slider=envelope-except-when-it-doesn't model is fundamentally a problem, both for supporting undo "intelligently" and some other issues that can cause problems (I'll mention one of these later as it's a personal bugbear of mine (2)). I'm going to focus on the volume widget/slider, as it saves me having to retype "or other slider" every time, but assume what I write applies to all (caution: pan has its own complications when you factor in offset mode too - I'll mention that at the end too (1)). The single slider has multiple different functions: with no envelope, it sets an "absolute" level for the track; with an envelope, but unarmed, it reflects the current level of the envelope at the Now time; with it armed, its a control that changes the current level of the envelope as playback proceeds. Oh, and there's offset mode which, er, sets the "absolute" level of the track (I know it's technically an offset to the envelope, but with no envelope, it has the same effect as the slider in non-offset mode)! If the track is playing back and has an envelope and the slider is not armed, the slider has no effect on the sound - it effectively always tracks the envelope value. But...it sets the "absolute" level as well, right? So which is it doing at any one time? And what should I undo under these 3 different conditions? I don't know. To my mind, the non-offset slider should do one and only one thing - be used for automation. I have an envelope, which reflects the position of the envelope (by definition!), so having a slider follow this is redundant and leads to function confusion. Use offset mode to set the "absolute" level and be done with it, and the slider, when automation is enabled, allows automation recording. In fact, with this, you don't need an offset/non-offset mode: when armed for automation, the slider is a control, when not armed, it is the static level that is now reflected in offset mode. If you want to see a slider (maybe in console view only?) move in real-time with the envelope, then it's a seperate widget, not one that already has another function. I think if you seperate the functions out, undoing then becomes cleaner: a slider move when unarmed is, by definition, a simple change to the static value, so undo makes sense; when armed, it's a control, so there is nothing to undo except the whole recording *once* automation recording has taken place (much like an undo removes an audio recording if you hit undo after stopping recording) - again, unambiguous and simple. The concept of undoing a slider when it is a control has no meaning and so does not need to be supported, and doesn't conflict with the envelope (see (2) below too). Expansions 1 - Pan and offset mode. With volume, it's easy to see that an envelope of -3dB and an offset of +1.5dB has a net effect of -1.5dB. But what does a pan envelope of 35%L and offset of 63%R actually *mean* in practice. Hint: it's not 28%R, I have absolutely no idea. And as for 100%L and 100%L, I can't get any more L than 100%! 2 - The other gotcha with envelopes=slider. Suppose I've created a volume envelope with lots of automation points and lines. I then delete the envelope. Depending on where my cursor is at the time I delete, I get a different result. The slider value is set to the value at the Now time. No - I've deleted the envelope, so presumably I don't want it, so the widget should be reset to 0, or at least a well-defined value. Having it set to essentially an arbitrary value is horrendous. FWIW, there is a cakewalk.ini flag to support undoing all changes made within a plugin's GUI (but, again, not made via envelopes).

Try looking up subst ("DOS" command still available in Windows 10) - that may be a way to create a virtual G drive for you.

That does leave an exe running. If you have Windows 10 Pro and/or access to Group Policy Editor, you can completely kill it (I forget what it's called but Google/Bing/search engine of choice should help you find it quickly).

And now (I don't know when they added this to be honest!) let you select what plugins you install in that bundle, it really is a no brainer!

AMD fTPM (onboard Ryzens) apparently satisfies the requirement. That said, I've never been able to get Windows 10 to play ball with mine (it constantly says it needs to be cleared).

Even better!

Can you not add Spectralayers as a Tools menu item in CbB so this works transparently and automatically? Checks his own notes...yes, you can. I did this with v4 and it worked fine (I don't like Spectralayers though so uninstalled it): Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Tools Menu\SpectraLayers Pro] "ExePath"="C:\\Program Files\\MAGIX\\SpectraLayers Pro 4.0\\Win64\\SpectraLayers.exe" "HelpFilePath"="C:\\Program Files\\MAGIX\\SpectraLayers Pro 4.0\\Documentation\\index.html" "MenuText"="SpectraLayers Pro" "Type"="WaveEditor" "StatusBarText"="Edit the selected audio event using SpectraLayers Pro" Change paths, YMMV etc.

+1 (unless it's an update to something I've previously possibly used the VST 2 version for - I assume the VST 2->3 migration won't work in most cases).

Thanks.

I've now gone to 21H1 and seems OK - I did have one blue screen(!), but I had one prior to 21H1 too (I think it's a bug in my HDMI audio driver). It also looks like Windows hasn't done its fun thing of making me reinstall some drivers (older Edirol PCR keyboard)!

Is there any documentation on how to use the EQ matching?

Did you get it to "Clean up system files" too? It often shows more to clean than it actually does end up cleaning (I have no idea why - it lied to me about 340MB just now ?), but it seems to be in "system files" that the big disk gobblers live, if anywhere. The other suggestion is to use junctions to move things you can't move (like Adobe CC) - I use a tool that integrates into explorer (https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html) but there are command line tools in Windows that can do the same. - Find the big bad folder on C drive (let's say it's C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC - Create the same folder on D drive - D:\Adobe CC - Copy the contents of C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC to ?\Adobe CC - Delete C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC - Assuming you're using that tool, right click on D:\Adobe CC, and "Pick Link Source" - Go to C:\ProgramData - Right click and "Drop As..." - I usually use Symbolic Link rather than Junction, but both should be fine

And also run Disk Cleanup tool - there's quite likely gigabytes of Windows updates lurking around (cleanmgr). For what it's worth, my C drive partition is only 64GB, and I currently have over 40GB free on it. That's by ensuring I have large libraries, documents, samples etc on other drives/partitions (I can't be bothered to move a library of a few megabytes!) and keeping temp folders and the like clean. One of the biggest disk space suckers is C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download which doesn't seem to get cleaned up by the Disk Cleanup tool (my work machine has 600MB in it, and I've seen it have several GB after a Windows update).

Not sure where to start dissecting the "information", but +1 to @scook

Good idea: and Windows does this "natively" (within File Explorer), so no need to go fiddling around with command prompt or similar.

Funnily enough, I overcompensated for this on my own "Tungsten-" theme (it's basically an overlay for Tungsten which tweaks clip and track name colours, so no need to constantly update when there's a new release - I alternate between it and Blue Aston with my clip colour overlay applied) - I made the scrollbar thumb too close in colour to the scrollbar background to the extent it was invisible and I couldn't find it to grab it ?

I did???!? I forget these things nowadays ?

Couple of things: 1 - Have you (intentionally or unintentionally) disable 8.3 file naming on the drive where your VST dll's are stored? For historical reasons, Cakewalk needs the 8.3 file naming to be enabled (https://www.tecklyfe.com/windows-server-tip-disable-8-3-naming-strip-existing-short-names/#:~:text=To disable 8.3 naming system-wide%2C run the following,short names%3A fsutil.exe 8dot3name strip %2Fs %2Fv D%3A). NTFS can do funky things with 8.3 names even if you delete a file and copy a new one with what should be the same 8.3 name back in, if you do it quickly enough, Windows gives it a new 8.3 name... 2 - Given the above, have you tried uninstalling and then re-installing, rather than updating, which might create the same 8.3 name for the new file (if it's essentially the same filename/8.3 name(? 3 - There's no central registry for VST IDs, so there's merit in using the filename (else you could end up with 2 different VSTs with the same ID...what to do then?), but there's probably improvements that could be made (eg. use filename to disambiguate if you have 2 dll's presenting the same ID). But that would possibly(?) break backwards compatability, and we know how good Cakewalk is with that. 4 - It's probably possible to hack the relevant registry keys to make it work, but you'd likely have to do it every VST scan (definitely if you do a full rescan): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Cakewalk\Cakewalk VST X64\Inventory DosName, FullName andFullPath are probably the values that would need to be tweaked within the plug-ins key. But I can give no guarantees of what would/wouldn't happen, so do so at your own risk.

20H2 working OK for me - I had to drag my PC kicking and screaming as MS was convinced it was never ready for the update, but it's worked fine.

I'd completely forgotten this song - brings back a lot of (old) memories!

Alternatively, open up regedit (Registry Editor), navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Cakewalk\Cakewalk VST X64\Inventory\c:/program files/Cakewalk/shared utilities/Internal/Saturation Knob.dll, and hasVstEntryPoint from 0 to 1. Open CbB and rescan VSTs; you may need to close and re-open CbB (I did, but that may be because I was registry editing at the same time). It'll appear as a plug-in and a PC module.

Time flies. You cannot. They fly too quickly. ---------------- Ah, the joys of the English language.

Thanks for this link - hard to keep on top of everything to update these days!

1 - Who says? 2 - That Sweetwater article explicitly says "Myth: VST 3 plugins are more efficient" (they can be, as there are some features that VST 3 supports more easily than VST 2, but there's no guarantee). 3 - VST 2.4 is only being phased out if a host/plugin wants it to be (there are some restrictions on new developers, but not those with existing VST 2.x licence agreements). The (non-DSP) coding is *very* different, so this is not necessarily trivial at all. And since the existng plug-ins work, why "waste" time re-writing them?

It'll just not be called Windows, hence Windows 10 will have been the last version of "Windows". Problem solved ?