Starship Krupa

I like this one better because it's $180 less ?: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/WA12MKII--warm-audio-wa12-mkii-microphone-instrument-preamp Looks like it has a nice fat input transformer sitting in the middle of the box.

Oh this, for sure. Thank you. Not many seem to be aware of it, even in the audio engineering world. I'd expand that to "poor reproduction of transients by any part of the audio chain." I usually describe it by saying it sounds like a poorly-encoded MP3. I have long stories about this, but the first time I became aware of it was 20 years ago when I read the term "bit-perfect" in regard to digital. I had been doing 44.1K DAT transfers into the S/PDIF port of a Soundblaster Live. Then I read about how the chip on the Soundblaster operated only at 48K did a resample to 48K then back down to 44.1. It would actually resample 48K for whatever reason. There were also plans for a little adapter board (about 5 components) to enable non-resampled S/PDIF input on cards that used a CMedia chip. Those could be had for under $20, so I put together the adapter circuit and tried a transfer of my girlfriend's album to see if I could hear any difference. I had already done the transfer into the Live, so I would have the two to compare. When I hit play I was knocked out, I mean, emotionally. Previously it had sounded fine, no issues, clear. But now it was like there was a hologram of my girlfriend floating between the monitors. She was away on vacation and I had been missing her, and the experience was so emotional I started to tear up. When she got back from her trip, I played it for her, and she started crying, because it was the first time she had heard the album the way it sounded in the studio, and the sound took her back to when she recorded it. Once your ears learn to perceive it, it's not subtle at all. My 61-year-old ears have no trouble. Neil Young, and god knows that guy has played some LOUD gigs, is a big advocate for hi-res pure digital reproduction for this reason. It affects the emotional response to the music. I've heard it in recording/playback interfaces, even in power amplifiers (I have an Alesis RA-100 that sounded constricted in that same way until I modded the circuit). Electronics engineer types don't like talk about this because it's not something that's easily measured with test equipment (or at least it's not part of the usual frequency response and harmonic distortion tests that they rely on). They'll try to assert that it's "placebo effect" or whatever. I've learned by this time what to listen for, it's usually spatial information and things like reverb tails. If you follow the link, you'll see a bit of back and forth between me and a doubting electronics engineer. With A/D D/A converters, the culprit seems to be jitter. It was a much bigger problem before the introduction of phase-locked loop technology in around 2009, so you really need to be careful with anything produced before (or even a little after) that time. So I don't doubt that something along the chain, the preamp, the A/D and D/A converters, any of those can mess up those important transients/detail. It's documented. The idea that all interfaces (and amplifiers and even DAW audio engines) sound alike is a fantasy. Theoretically they should, but we don't live in a theoretical world. Design choices and corner-cutting and mistakes happen. As for your preamp issue, it does sound like you could benefit from putting a good mic preamp in front of your interface. The less work the inputs of the interface have to do as far as amplification, the more neutral they're likely to sound, and preamps have their own characteristics as far as sound coloration. There are plenty of choices in the under $1000 realm. Due to your concerns about tubes, look into one that uses FET's. Me, I'm thinking of building a mic preamp with transformer inputs because I know that the human ear likes what transformers do to color sound. I would like a preamp with a transformer front end. Not that I'm unhappy with the ones in my Focusrite interface at this time. Focusrite's preamps have a good rep in the prosumer world and I know that they pay attention to them. I've also been eyeing that FMR Really Nice Preamp. I use Audio Technica mics (AT2020 and AT3035) and AFAIK there is no difference in their output level to other condenser mics. Please try an A/B between your Behringer and the RME once you get it back. I'm very curious.

Yes, all good ideas that would make Loop Construction much more useful. When Xel Ohh speaks, the devs should listen. ? Srsly, I don't think I've ever seen you suggest a "yeah, whatever" feature, it's always something that would be really useful for a large group of users (those of us using Cakewalk for electronic music production).

I would like to be able to show/hide Console strips based on their folder membership, with the idea being that I can easily and quickly hide everything but what elements of the mix I'm currently working on. For instance, hide everything but the drums, hide everything but guitars, etc. And yes, I know that using Track Manager I can show or hide anything I want, but it doesn't recognize folder membership in Console View, so it has to be done on a track-by-track basis.

Great idea. I'd love for Cakewalk to include a sampler. I understand that the purpose of doing this would be for an aspiring producer to have this important feature ready to go as soon as they install the program, but I'm curious about Cyclone's feature set and integration. Would it have any advantage over Sitala other than the (important, I understand) fact that a person wouldn't have to download and install Sitala or Speedrum or Tx?

Also no pop-up message from 4 years ago telling me about how Cakewalk is now free. ? I found the online documentation system too clumsy to use. Only good for the first hit, then any searching sent me to outdated pages about SONAR. I love having the documentation local on my system. I have to remind myself that it's there, because I've gotten so used to going to the Reference Guide when I want help. But the Reference Guide is nearly 2000 pages of detailed information, therefore a lot to wade through.

I think the question here is "have you been bad enough to be plugged into the stocks?"

I think it calls for a "clean" uninstall/reinstall of Cakewalk. It looks as if somehow, various .DLL's that Cakewalk uses have become unregistered with Windows.

Tough but fair. I think I can get satisfying mix results using only the plug-ins that come with a DAW (with the exception of reverb, I don't like having to use anything but Phoenix/Nimbus or MTurboreverble). Throw in the Meldaproduction FreeFX bundle and I'm well into comfy territory. It also can depend on how good the stock plug-ins are. I use the QuadCurve EQ in ProChannel more than any other EQ. If the DAW is Cakewalk, the Percussion and Vocal multi-FX pack a pretty good wallop. Mixcraft go the route of partnering with ToneBoosters for their suite of plug-ins, so of course those are pretty capable. My preferred FX don't usually sound that much better inherently, but they have UI's that I like better and often offer shortcuts and features that reduce the amount of fiddling I have to do (Trackspacer, MDrumleveler, MAutoalign, etc.). I like the Sonitus suite that comes with Cakewalk sound and function-wise, but I don't like the tiny plain jane GUI's so I never use them. I also do mid/side processing on buses, which is usually missing from stock FX. I think of a good chef: plunk them and their ingredients down in almost any kitchen, and as long a there's at least one decently sharp or micro-serrated knife they'll be able to come up with a good meal. But at home or work, they'll have invested in more and better tools that make the process easier, faster, and more enjoyable. Good mixer, blender, food processor, juicer, cutlery, pans, large cutting board, etc. My life in the kitchen became much more fun once a friend turned me onto the joys of thrift store Revere Ware and Pyrex. I also keep my own Victorinox and Henckels chef's knives shaving sharp.

It does have its own Wikipedia article, which goes into the need (or lack of it) for BandLab Assistant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cakewalk_by_BandLab#Licensing (some Wikipedia cop deleted the list of notable features I included, citing a lack of references. The reference I used was the Cakewalk feature list published on the official website ?)

Yeah, those unwanted tracks. I'll try it the way you described next time.

I'm curious, @scook, why are you suggesting doing the outputs one by one rather than having Cakewalk create all the outputs at the time of track creation?. As follows: I'm still kinda new at the multiple outputs thing; sometimes when I've tried it Cakewalk has created approximately 3,500 audio tracks for a sampler (kidding, but it seems like it when I have to go through and delete the unused output tracks).

I am one who should, and does, leave it switched off, because even when Noel explained it, it sounded like its purpose was "marketing." When I released "Sensation," I tried various permutations of playback and export, using plug-in upsampling or not, exporting at 44.1 vs. 88.2, 64-bit Double Secret Probation Engine or not, and the 64-bit Engine selection didn't make any difference that I could hear (plug-in upsampling and exporting at the doubled rate did, however, with the higher rate export being the safest in terms of unforeseen behavior from plug-ins).

The usual culprit when this is the symptom is that on the older system, the person was using either the 32-bit versions or the VST2 versions of the plug-ins in question. It makes sense that on a newer build, someone might reinstall their plug-ins and go with the latest versions, which may include a VST3 version when the earlier version of the product didn't. When scanning and displaying plug-ins, Cakewalk by default will show only the VST3 version of a plug-in even when both VST2 and VST3 are available: Cakewalk indicates whether a plug-in is VST2 or VST3 (or 32-bit) by displaying the names of VST2's, VST3's and 32-bit plug-ins all in different colors. Unfortunately, that is the only way to tell VST2's apart from VST3's aside from checking more deeply in the plug-in's Properties menu. So check to see whether maybe the earlier build had these instruments only in VST2 form and Cakewalk is now trying to use the VST3 versions. The transition isn't always seamless.

No, you did not. I sometimes make my grand wise pronouncements for the "benefit" of lurkers. Really. Maybe I should try it with the most recent builds of both Cakewalk and Multiply. But then I just got a bundle from Meldaproduction that includes MChorusMB, so....I'm beyond the sanity point of having too many FX that do the same thing. I reported the issue to both BandLab and Acon, and neither seemed too interested in investigating it beyond "use the VST2 version, then, I suppose." Unless the day ever comes that a non-Waves plug-in has any features in VST3 form that it lacks in VST2 form, I'm fine with that workaround.

Inspires confidence, doesn't it? "Less likely?"

Ah, so you have Resolve set to use ASIO, and when you play the file you export from Cakewalk in Resolve, it sounds fine? Then the exported project from Resolve sounds poopy again? That points to whatever player program you're using on your desktop. Try using VLC for your audio and video playback. By default, VLC does go through the Windows mixer, but you can configure it otherwise. It will at least help you sort out why your audio playback sounds so crappy in Windows. And again, don't worry about somehow giving your mixes cooties by monitoring with your industry standard pro-level cans. I use the same ones and my exports sound fine. If anything, headphones can be more revealing than speakers. As I said, if the artifacts are audible on the cans in one situation, that means the cans are able to reproduce them accurately. If they're hiding them in Cakewalk and Resolve, they would be hiding them in other programs as well. @bdickens is actually employed by the audio equipment industry to promote purchases of gear. ? (just kidding, I love ya, ya big lug)

I stopped paying attention to PA's sale and voucher notifications several weeks ago, but this is a return to form. Vouchers or none, $24.99 for BYOME is great, and there's enough in that bundle (NIMBUS, Vocalsynth, Class A Mastering Compressor) that doesn't usually go on deep discount to make it a very tempting purchase.

Wow, I see the auction ended with no bids and they just relisted it at the same starting price. One of the definitions of insanity.... BTW, I'm glad that you said "trying to sell." I've seen much confusion and blather stem from someone on vintage gear forums posting that "someone is selling...." and then the obligatory stream of outrage follows. They are not "selling" it, they only listed it. Thank you for making the important distinction.

I think of this when I get stumped in Cakewalk despite having studied it hard for over 4 years. If it's this way for me, who has put so many hours into learning the program, how is it for someone who's just downloaded it and recorded some audio or MIDI they want to edit? Cakewalk is very powerful, and with great power comes great possibility for confusion. The Spider-Man movies always show Peter Parker having weird experiences and making messes with web-spinning before he completely gets the....hang of it. One of my biggest sources of confusion before there was a Reference Guide was how Cakewalk behaved so differently depending on which area of a clip I clicked on. I had no idea that there was any difference and just chalked it up to a buggy interface design. Then I happened upon the handy charts in the Rerference Guide and it made way more sense. I guess the confusion that can come with great power is even worse when the great power doesn't come with great documentation.

I see that you've done some investigation into the matter of other playback programs routing through the Windows mixer, as opposed to Cakewalk, which goes direct if you're using WASAPI or ASIO. Which you always should be regardless of what audio device you're listening through. If Resolve can use WASAPI, switch to that and see if you still get the crappy sound. There are also good music players that can use WASAPI and ASIO (and therefore bypass the Windows mixer). MusicBee is freeware and can do this. I recommend using it or something similar for listening to final mixes. If it sounds good in MusicBee in WASAPI Exclusive but not in other programs, then you know for sure that the export is good and there is something wrong with the output configuration of the other programs.

This could be many things. I wouldn't worry about your headphones as a source of confusion. After all, you can hear the artifacts using the same headphones in programs other than Cakewalk. Curious, though: what model AT's are you using? My go-to cans are M50x's, which are brutally capable of revealing details like this. In general, any hard-wired MT series should be delivering pretty honest headphone mixes, from the M20x on up. Bluetooth has to go through extra CODEC's, and the fewer of those your audio passes through, the better. Get a copy of Bitter and put it in the FX rack of whatever bus you're taking your export from, or that last one you route through before it goes to the hardware outs (Cakewalk's default "Entire Mix" export location). For whatever reason, you may be getting intersample clipping, and Bitter can find those. The mystery is why it's only happening during Export and not simple playback, but you can try to address that in the following ways. I don't take my exports from the hardware outputs. I set up a dedicated bus that I route the Master bus to. I have a sophisticated metering plug-in on this bus (I use Mastering the Mix LEVELS, but Meldaproduction's MLoudnessAnalyzer from their FreeFX bundle will also work) to make sure that the levels I'm sending to the rendering engine are the same as what I'm listening to. Is it possible that during export, you're bypassing a limiter or compressor that is engaged during mixing? That might result in the export having interstage clipping. Also, too low a level during export can also result in degraded sound quality. With digital, the sweet spot is huge, but there are still ways to get outside it. Also: are you using plug-in oversampling, the 64-bit mix engine or the 64-bit rendering engine, or any combination of the above? Some plug-ins go sideways with combinations of the above. I've found that for safest reduction of aliasing, if I just render the project at 88.2KHz I get the benefits without the possible unwanted side effects. Then I use a separate converter program on the exported file to generate formats for distribution or use in video production (MediaHuman is my favorite freeware convertor). In your case, you would render at 96KHz, as that is double your project rate. Try doing a render with all of your FX bypassed and listen to the results. Maybe a plug-in is going weird at render time, and that might help find it.

I'm having a hard time parsing what you've tried, although I get that you're only hearing the first note on playback. What happens when you enter notes one by one into the Piano Roll? Have you tried examining the Event List for your track(s) to see if there is something weird like an All Notes Off or zero velocity being inserted? Are you using Instrument Tracks or split MIDI and Synth Tracks? What audio interface are you using, and in what driver mode? ASIO? WASAPI? Exclusive or Shared? Are you using a separate connection for your MIDI controller or does it plug into your interface with a 5-pin DIN MIDI connector?

Shoot, I didn't mean to muddy the waters further, quite the opposite. Ah well. My analogy helped me to understand it better, but it can only be taken so far, as with most analogies. Cakewalk sticks pretty close to the MIDI hardware model, but that's never been the easiest thing to get my head around either. Any time I tried to go much past "MIDI out on the controlling device goes to MIDI in on the listening device," things got muddy in a hurry. I figured out the "channel 10 for GM drums" thing, but not all synths stick to that. My favorite workhorse sound module XPand!2 is an example, it listens on channel 1 by default for drums and everything else. I didn't figure out how to control a multitimbral synth until I got into the virtual realm, despite having multiple hardware synths that supported it. BTW, I've talked in the past about "sacrificing a chicken to Cakewalk's MIDI chain" when suddenly a MIDI track stops being able to drive a synth track. What I mean by that is performing some voodoo ritual like duplicating the MIDI track and pointing it at the synth, restarting Cakewalk, etc.* I finally figured out that when this happens, setting the output channel on the MIDI track to 1 fixes it in most cases. That's the best chicken sacrifice. Doesn't answer the question of why it worked fine when it was set to Omni or None, but I don't care. I just want it to work. *(it comes from the old expression about sacrificing a goat to your SCSI chain when it suddenly stops working because something changed in regard to termination, device ID's, etc. A friend of mine once jokingly "clarified" that the reason that you shouldn't leave a SCSI cable plugged in with no devices attached is because "the Earth's atmosphere has a SCSI ID of 0 and will conflict with your internal hard drive." ?)

I think you mostly correctly parsed what I wrote. My understanding of the MIDI spec is that a Thru function in a device is supposed to pass along whatever data comes into the device unaltered. Connector-wise, there can be a dedicated Thru jack, but not necessarily. An Out jack can be set to behave as a Thru jack. Anyway, for the purpose of my hardware/software analogy, Thru is just a function. If I wanted to drive my MIDI sound module with my MIDI sequencer how else would you suggest I connect them?