Jim Fogle

SoundBytes Magazine

@Shane_B. You correctly noted this is 5 month "old" news. However, I did not see the news mentioned in the forum. I believe a corporate reorganization is worth mentioning when the reorganization involves the company that owns Cakewalk and this forum. Regarding where to go with it, my thought was some forum members may not be aware of the change. Once they become aware they may decide to click on the links i provided to find out more. It appears @abacab did just that where he discovered additional information to post and offer for discussion. I discovered the reorganization by accident. Some of the links at the top of each forum webpage have changed. I have no idea how the reorganization will affect Cakewalk down the line. I don't envision Cakewalk becoming a retail product once more. My guess is long term we will see closer integration between Cakewalk, some Bandlab services like online mastering and ReverbNation.

Bandlab Technologies acquired ReverbNation November 05, 2021. November 30, 2021 Bandlab Technologies became part of the Caldecott Music Group. Caldecott Music Group has three divisions; Digital, Manufacturing plus Retail and Media. The Digital division, Bandlab Technologies, is composed of Bandlab, Cakewalk and ReverbNation.

@Asif Ali, You should post your report +++ HERE +++

Nice vocals all the way around. Love the sound of the electric bass and the electric guitar that is panned right. The acoustic guitar panned left sounds as though you recorded the piezo pickup signal instead of using a microphone. My personal taste is I'd rather hear the guitar instead of the pickup. You might want to try and figure out a way to blend the electric and acoustic guitar sounds. One way is by just panning the guitar channels. For this song a better way might be to take advantage of the reverb. Place the reverb on a buss and run a send for both guitars through the reverb buss. Then pan the guitar sends so the reverb of the electric guitar is on the left and the reverb of the acoustic guitar is on the right.

Thanks for doing this song. It is a favorite of mine. I wasn't aware Manfred Mann first recorded this song. I'm more familiar with the bluegrass version popularized by Tom T. Hall https://youtu.be/8KuQILn2L2A The video description provides some recording background of the song. I really like the background harmonies you achieved. Great job on the song, mix and performance.

I've purchased several of Craig's articles in pdf form from Sound-On-Sound (SOS). Because SOS ran Craig's monthly column I had a digital subscription to the magazine. When SOS dropped Craig I stopped my subscription. I also emailed SOS's editorial department to explain why the magazine lost me as a paying subscriber. I received a very nice personal email from the editor in return acknowledging my dissatisfaction.

It's about time someone in media had something good to say about Cakewalk.

Really interesting video. Thanks for sharing your discoveries with us.

Translation: @Juan Pablo, Please ask questions in the Cakewalk by Bandlab forum section. Haz preguntas en la sección del foro Cakewalk by Bandlab.

Nice cover of a great song. I was not aware of the back story.

Troll or not @azslow3's answer to the original post brought up an interesting point. The strength of most DAWs depends on the original purpose each DAW was created. All DAWs can reasonably do everything audio. But if you want a DAW mostly for live performance, to create electronic based music, emulate a recording studio, use scripts to customize the interface and so on, there will be one DAW that excels in each respect. As an analogy you can write a a book using Notepad or Writer Document from LibeOffice but the latter is better suited for that use. Most posts like this one never state the reason the original poster wants to use a DAW. Knowing the reason helps everyone else provide a response.

@DeBro, Much thanks for posting the links.

Very good video. My only negative comment is your introduction audio is much louder than the rest of your video. Since it is not listed in your signature do you mind sharing what video capture and editing software you use? I've subscribed to your channel. I'm looking forward to seeing more Cakewalk videos in the future.

You picked a great song to cover and did a wonderful job with it. I enjoyed listening to it and shared a link to the song with my brother who is always a Beatles fan. Great vocals.

I've enjoyed every one of your songs that I've listened to and "Anyway" is no different. Your voice matches the songs you sing. The very beginning of "Anyway" confused me. The intro sounds disjointed or like a false start. I'm wondering if you did a fade in and thinking perhaps the fade in was a little excessive. There is very little stereo audio as most of the instrumentation seems to be mono and panned either left or right channel.

Interesting and enjoyable. I wish there was more floor tom hits and I'm not hearing much low end. Great work though. I like your drumming. Nobody has mentioned what a good job you did assembling samples into a recognizable and coherent song. I liked the way you used one repetitive piano note to drive the song. You may think this is a silly question but how much time do you estimate you spent on selecting and assembling the samples you used? I'm looking forward to hearing future covers from you. I'm sure I will enjoy them

Another application that is capable of using soundfonts is VST Synthfont 3 I like it because the developer is still active. Note it is not free but the price is very reasonable.

Will, Thanks for sharing your information and for taking time to verify the metering is accurate.

Ah, if we all were as proficient as the musicians that create demonstration files our ears would always be filled with beautiful music.

Groove3 has two tutorials, one for Mac and one for Windows. Both primarily deal with data entry and how to navigate around Band-in-a-Box. There is a third video series called "Songwriting with Band-in-a-Box".

@abacab, I greatly appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. The cost/benefit perspective is always a primary concern for me as I'm sure it is for many users. My reason for starting this thread was more to make an observation and comment and learn from other perspectives. I was not looking for recommendations or resources as much as I was wondering out loud, "Why so many stock keyboard instruments and not any guitar instruments in most DAWs"? In many ways, I believe computer music is returning to it's MIDI roots with more music created using plugin instruments and less music created with an instrument, excluding the greatest instrument of all, a voice. Music instruction is declining in many middle and high schools. After hours potential music students may not have the transportation, time or money for private or group lessons. So many younger people explore music on a computer. @Starship Krupa, thank you for your kind and generous offer. I just used the link you provided and downloaded Swatches. It has been awhile but you and I have had several interesting conversations offline. I consider you a valuable friend.

@kevin H, the Groove3 tutorial is great. I don't think any company structures video tutorials better than Groove3 and Eli Krantzberg packs a lot of information into a small amount of time. Also, the BiaB sale has been extended to January 15 (see my edited post above). Groove 3 offers free access to the Band-in-a-Box tutorial for 14 days. Contact PG Music Marketing for the code.

@kevin H The usual advice from users in the Band-in-a-Box forum is to purchase as much as you can afford. My advice is to first decide how you plan to use it and why you want it, then select a package based on your plan. If you want to learn how to use the program and what it has to offer the ProPAK or MegaPAK are good starter packages. You'll get the same programs in the starter packages that are in the higher priced packages; the difference lies in the amount of content each package contains. The program has a lot of features and depth to it. It takes awhile to run through the program, learn what features are available, the terminology used and essentially, just get use to using the program. Both the ProPAK and MegaPAK have enough of all the types of content to fully use all the available program capabilities. One frustration many ProPAK or MegaPAK users encounter is they want to use content their package does not contain. The program "conveniently" marks each piece of content you haven't purchased as N/A. You'll see content that likely matches the project you're working on and it can quickly get frustrating. If you quickly want to begin creating song projects, get the UltraPAK or Audiophile. Both contain all package content but the UltraPAK has lossy audio files while the Audiophile has lossy and lossless. Send me a pm if you have any questions.

@Tim Smith, great topic for a thread. I'm glad you posted it. I most appreciate that Cakewalk is free to everyone with a Windows computer. Along the same thought, that frequent fixes and feature enhancements are available. I haven't counted the number of fixes applied since 2018 but it has been a lot. Seamless ARA2 and élastique Pro integration. I like the way the interface looks. While both of the default Tungsten and Mercury themes are okay I generally use the Tungsten theme. I greatly appreciate Workspace. Once I get my custom Workspace figured out, I'll be a pretty happy camper. My major dislike is likely different from most users. I dislike the smart tool. I prefer to manually select a tool. It would be great if the smart tool could be enabled or disabled as a Preference setting. Then I could manually select to use a tool, become well grounded in its use, move to the next, and so on until I'm comfortable with all of them. Then I could enable the smart tool. I believe Cakewalk's major deficiency is the lack of an integrated, multi-purpose sampler.