Will.

2 hours ago, Stephen Power said:

I'm mixing 35 audio tracks, one of them is a triangle with 3 hits. It leaves a hissing noise on the tail as it fades out.

Can you advise on what to use to reduce the hiss - and walk me through it please. I've tried the Cakewalk compressor and gate, but I'm not sure if I'm setting them correctly - I'm not experienced with using these tools. Thank you.

p.s. I can't remove or replace the track - the mix is for a competition and all the tracks (35 in total) need to be in place.

 

If you have the Tape Emulator inserted on the Pro Channel, remove that module. Always remember that certain plugins try to emulate the analog hardware, so you might want to use its effect sparingly - especially that gain and mix knob. If you use such a plugin on every track its effect will become more prominent/noticeable. 

On 2/16/2024 at 7:18 AM, Michael Fogarty said:

Hi. I've inherited a 10 song project with many playing errors which I have fixed,  but my master bus is way too hot. I have everything going through buses -drums, vox, organ, piano, guitars, acoustics, etc. The mix is good now, but when I summed everything it's just too hot. Is the best remedy sonically to lower all the buses by the same amount -lets say .3db, or is it ok to just lower the input of the master bus (it would have to be -.6 to not clip. )What effect does that have? Am I hurting something by doing that? Feels weird to have everything going in their hot and just lower it. Or am I making too big a deal out of it? Should I put a clipper at the top of the master bus? (the genre is alternative and the client wants it to sound a bit tough/dirty so I'm not worried about that 
 

PS I know about rolling off the lows of different instruments, etc, but simply across the board on all the songs the master is too hot. Most have over 50 tracks and do restart the whole mix again would be way too tough. It's my fault this happened. I got everything sounding great, but it's just too hot.

The quickest way would be to rebalance your tracks to -9dB going into your Master Bus. 

The best way would be to rebalance your tracks to -9dB going into your Master Bus.

Gain staging seems to be the issue here. Theres also your Pan Laws and the matching levels of all your plugins to the ones on your faders. Your Dynamics could be all over the place, peaks could be hitting the ceiling of some tracks, compression could be off. Amps could be screaming too.  All this contributes to an out of balance track. 

6 hours ago, pulsewalk said:

 I do more heavy automation work due to working with EDM. Cakewalk is mainly for other genres than EDM I'm afraid

I do commercial work and automation works without any issues. I create my own samples in app while doing my Sound Design. 

4 hours ago, Kay Turner said:

I am using a BM 800 condenser mic with a V8 soundcard however when I tried recording vocals, the vocals are recorded together with the instrumental 

You need to setup 2 seperate tracks in any DAW to play you instrumentals and to record your vocals only. Dont use the record button on the "MASTER" track. 

Cakewalk does not have a dedicated "Master" track without the Pan and Record button on it. This is where most confusion amongst newly users running to Cakewalk to do Podcast comes in. 

So your steps will be as follow. 

Drag your instrumental into Cakewalk. Next - hold down "Ctrl and press T" to create an Empty Audio Track. This Empty track is where you will record your voice on - not the Master Track. 

3 hours ago, Simple Verse said:

Am I correct assuming this trick is rather modern thing? I don't think they used this back in the 90's in euro dance? Or what you think? Any sample tracks where this might have been applied during that era?

No. Sidechaining reverb to vocals wasnt really used until the 2000's, but it was a common technique in the film industry on screams and explosions and mostly on claps and snares in both Film and Music. As for the "Sidechain" technique itself - that has been around since the 1930's. 

8 hours ago, Simple Verse said:

Do you mean this trick for EDM? 

 

You don't always have/need to sidechain the reverb. There's NO "secret effect." That lush reverb effect does not always work on every vocal EDM track. Sometimes only a delay is needed. It all depends on the track. You can easily destroy your vocals with compression if it's not needed.  Just because your favorite singer/rapper uses a certain effect - does not mean it will work for you. We use certain effects to fill up the track and if the body is already full and round, using this effect might eat up and muddy up your track - ruining it. Even though it's meant to clean up the vocals. 

In the end it all comes down to your taste and approach to what works for the mix/track. If it is not needed WHY use it? ?

2 hours ago, Simple Verse said:

Thanks for the insights everyone. In my case I have some recorded vocals I ordered through Fiverr and I'm not sure if the singers used any compression in recording them. Maybe I should ask. And as this tip is obviously meant for the recording phase I might not need to think about it. De-esser, one compressor and/or manual adjustment as Craig explained would do it for the peaks I guess. Or another trick is the parallel compression, that is meant for mixing stage, could be one to consider. Any ideas on that? Do people use it on EDM?

We use different kind of compression in EDM. Again, an RnB approach even a Jazz approach will work depending on the track. Sometimes compression isnt needed. 

Its what works for you through what your monitors tell you whats in your tracks. 

On 1/24/2024 at 6:30 PM, charles kasler said:

Can I use the same side chain input from a vocal bus to two different vsts on an instrument bus - an equalizer for unmasking and a compressor for ducking? These seem like two different functions to me but are they redundant? I'd be interested in other people's experience. Thanks

Why not use a multiband compressor for this purpose - instead of sacrificing what might have been a good EQ sculpting before? 

5 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

One thing to bear in mind if you're dasiy chaining compressors.

The ratio settings that you dial in will in effect be multiplied 

So if your first comp is set at 5:1 and your 2nd at 3:1, the overall effect on the signal is 15:1

Not quite true. Your threshold, attack and release compensate how the compressors uses its ratio. You can get a -1dB GR on a 8:1 ratio. Even a -14dB with a 2:1 ratio.

Its all about what works for you to catch all your peaks with that specific track. 

23 hours ago, Simple Verse said:

Hi

any idea how to achieve similar results with Cakewalk plug ins as this video demonstrates with hardware compressors? It's about vocal compression with two compressors using different settings for both, subtle and more stronger.

At least the 1176 emulator is available, but how to substitute the other one and how to set them correctly? What ever the case I find it a bit hard to grasp the whole point in doing this. Doesn't the harder one overrun the more subtle one anyway?

 Thanks!

Look at it this way. One is to tame the peaks and the other one is to glue it in the mix. 

You can achieve the same results by using the same compressor. It wont give you the same character as analog gear, but wil give the same results Warren is explaining here. He is a great buddy. 

On 1/20/2024 at 9:12 PM, John Vere said:

And the winner is the TTS-1- I was listening to the demos of the 8Dio and that was totally not the sound I want, way to ambient. Might have been the choice of material. But the TTS_1 steel drum is unbelievably perfect and punchy.  It is exactly the correct sound!  Usually adding TTS-1 later in a project will crash it. Boy I will miss it when someday a Windows update kills DX. 

Bounce them to track dry and store them as a sample pack. Create a new folder in the browser pane then drag and drop them from the TV in to your sample folder. 

4 hours ago, charles kasler said:

Do most of you split the clips into smaller portions, or remove the dead space in between phrases before creating region effects for melodyne? I used to just create region effects for the entire vocal, but now I'm wondering if it's more efficient or more accurate to do it one clip at a time. It seems like more work but just wondering what other people do. Thanks. 

The best answer here would be to learn some recording techniques. Recording is a skill on its own. One you become your own skilled Recording Engineer - working with any pitch correction plugin will become a breeze. Certain words dont need pitch correction or to have the pitch drift set to center. Then there are times when you'll have to cut the last half of a words to time stretch it (this is where that recording skill come in to play.) You might want to straighten out some vibrato in a word or you might want to add some.

Everything mentioned here plays a big role before using melodyne and understanding Melodyne alone is a skill on its own. It can both ruin a recording and polish it. So knowing where and when to use it is key. We might think we know how to use it, but trust me we havent even scratched its surface. It is a powerful engine. Evertime you use it - its with a different approach. So if yoy have great recording skills, melodyne will be your best friend. 

59 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Question is why did it happen in the first place? Who’s to blame for waisting all my time? 
ILok or windows 11?  

Just this morning, I wae working with a known songwriter in the industry remotely. She's extremely talented, but 40 mins in the Zoom she cursed and said that the iLok cloud was down again. Cause we were exchanging files to and from within PT.  Her timeout was 5mins max, but everything has been smooth since. I had immediately thought of your issue and suggested to her to get a dongle 3. 

Now heres my question to you, Sir John. Do you have your PACE license app installed? If so - how is the relationship between your AV and PACE? Are things rocky perhaps? Have you noticed any strange behaviour between the  two parties lately? Maybe councelling is needed. Check for these things. ? Thought I might throw some humour in this as well. Apparently Andriod has been cheating on Siri with Alexa. 

Yep, definitely iLok issue. Contact them too. They probably think you're running a pirate version of the plugs, seeing that you have it installed on three devices - where two of those are new machines/ID's?

iLok is a pain. 

7 minutes ago, Scott Perry said:

However, the automation thing works better for my purposes.

Are you using a sine within a instrument? The great thing about Automation is it copies with your file. Just create the first two beats and use the shortcut Ctrl+D to speed things up. Remember to do this in the automation lanes. You can also highlight all the nodes > hold down CTRL and drag-copy to the next beat. 

Squares will clip. 

22 minutes ago, Scott Perry said:

I had thought of this basic idea but I did not have a way to do it. Thanks!

Use automation on your sine. This eliminate the use of plugins. 

40 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Don’t bother with the Mini Grand. Unless they de bugged it. It was very unstable for me but that was 6 years ago. 

It is actually really stable now. Suits certain tracks really well. 

On 1/12/2024 at 11:10 PM, John Vere said:

SOLVED UPDATE: I'll put it up here so no one has to wade through the mess. 

Not sure exactly what did it. The list of what I did would fill a book.  I eventually got Xpand and Velvet working. This made it even more of a mystery.  DB-33 showed as successfully installed  and was played just fine in Magix Music Maker and Ableton Lite. ( ya I had to install them to test) But nothing in Cakewalk.

So I re installed it for the 4th time but this time as Administrator. At first it still didn't show on scanning. So I checked all the boxes including Re scan failed and scan in sand box. Scan dialogue showed 0 new plug ins found still, but. DB-33 is back and seems to be working fine.  

 

 

Below is my original post: 

I have used 2 Air products on 100's of projects over the last 6 or so years since I first bought them. The DB33 and Xpand2.  I have everything they make and got it all on sale at one time or another but these are the only 2 I like. And I like them over anything else I've tried.  I even have 3 different licenses for xpand2. But every time I've had to install them it's been a huge PITA.  

I just built a new machine and I more or less had all my plug ins up and running within the week after I fired it up. And I have used Xpand on a few new projects no problem since. All the ducks are in a row.   I lok is happy, Cakewalk knows they are in the Steinberg VST folder, they are on the plug in list etc. And as I say, I've used them. All of a sudden when I tried to insert the DB33 yesterday I got the notification shown below ( same one)  

I opened iLok and logged in and I found it was activated. I did notice a demo version showing too? Was that causing a conflict? 

 

I uninstalled DB33 in windows apps as well as making sure the dll. was gone from the VST folder. I checked all folders just to be sure.

I still had the old installer and all went fine and DB 33 was re installed and inserted in the project and played just fine all day.

 

Then the bad news- I shut down for the night and re open to resume and get the message again. I then tried inserting Xpand and got same message?? 

Another issue is my old computer had all there stuff installed and I forgot to de-activate before I re built it. All the other vendors responded and fixed the activations with in a day or two. Still no word from Air.  You can see all my Air products show 2 activations. The second shows as the old computer that has a new name now. There was also my Laptop I used and I went in there and deactivated all Air products and the others so I could use them on the new machine. There's another possible issue. It might have only sort of worked for Air. 

Thank you all. 

 

 

 

This was because of your new Machine ID which iLok do not recognised. iLok have been a pain the past two weeks. Licenses have mysteriously moved from my dongle to the cloud at one point. It took their servers 5 hours to be restored last week Tuesday. 

Anyway - your issue might have been related to a server issue on their end. 

On 1/14/2024 at 7:17 AM, sjoens said:

I've always wondered why converting stereo to mono increases volume.  Seems to me the process should maintain total output level.  As is, another editing step is required to bring it down if it's too much.

There are DAWs that compensate for this - much like 0dB center balance control with panning in Cakewalk. The same goes for when you do a send. It adds the same 3dB as collapsing the L&R channels together. 

On 1/13/2024 at 8:02 AM, sjoens said:

I've noticed when a stuck note requires a reset via the Control Bar Reset button, ALL MIDI track velocity faders default to 101 regardless of fader position, requiring them to be manually reset as well.

Is it necessary to reset a stuck note? I normally just hit the same NOTE again to get it to stop. 

All you need to do is just overwrite the current preset. All my plugins Default presets have been overwritten for me to start off with a "Clean/Empty" preset everytime I load it. 

22 hours ago, William Copper said:

but if you look closely things like the use of auxiliary tracks and plugins that are shared between tracks can cause a different answer, at least so far as bounce to track

You dont have to bounce to tracks with your effects on. It gives you the option to choose that, but even when you do or dont - it still doesnt degrade the sound. 

1 hour ago, Roger W said:

Does Bounce-To-Clip degrade the sound quality in any way?

No.

Neither does Bounce to Track - should that be your next question. 

4 hours ago, Sal Sorice said:

Mark, your video examples are GREAT! One suggestion - maybe post them at half speed - I find myself having to rewind/replay several times to take in all the great info they provide  :^)

In the Track View, locate the Tracks Tab next to the Options tab and select BOUNCE TO TRACK 

You can also set this up as a shortcut in preferences.