Starship Krupa

Glad you got it working. VST3's working in Cakewalk doesn't mean all VST3's will work in Cakewalk. Acon Digital Multiply's most recent incarnation in its VST3 form results in horrible screeching coming from Cakewalk. The most recent VST2 version? Solid as Multiply has been for many years.

Whoa, looks like The Pharaohs' drummer was playing one of those Trixon Speedfire kits with the "Salvador Dali melting bass drum." From the day Ivor Arbiter's salesman convinced him to go with Ludwig until the Candlestick Park gig, Ringo only ever played his iconic Ludwig Black Oyster Pearl set. The most iconic drum kit in history. During the subsequent studio era, he sometimes played a natural maple finish Ludwig kit (although always using the same Jazz Festival snare that came with the Oyster kit), notably seen on the rooftop of Apple Corp. Yes, I am both a vintage drum and Beatles geek. For anyone who is into drums, one of my most prized, carry it out of a burning building instruments is my 1959 WFL Barrett Deems snare, which is what the model of Ringo's snare was called before the Ludwig family bought their name back. Even though I consider myself a Slingerland man, I acquired and restored this drum although I have the really really great brass Krupa Sound King snare that came with my vintage Slingy outfit. My Ludwig snares, specifically this one and my Acrolite, are the only ones that sound "right" to me. Thank Hal Blaine, Ringo Starr, John Bonham, and Graeme Edge for that I guess.

If I understand correctly, you're in luck. As with so many things, Cakewalk already has such a feature, Clip Automation. This is in addition to Track Automation. Each clip can have its own automation. Check the documentation. Again, Cakewalk already does this, at least on my systems. If your system hasn't separated FX and instruments into different lists, you need to force a re-scan of your plug-ins. When it comes to effects categories, a host must rely on tags embedded in the plug-in's code by the people who make the plug-in. There is no other practical way for a host to figure it out, so we have to rely on the plug-in manufacturers' using the feature as well as them using it correctly. I've had a manufacturer's FX placed in categories that were the company's own name, which I'm sure is against the VST spec, but there is no actual enforcement of the VST spec other than market pressure (also license revocation, but I've not heard of Steinberg doing that for a relatively minor infraction. AIR's XPand!2 is a favorite of Cakewalk (and other DAWses) users who seek to graduate from TTS-1. I have seen it priced as low as $5 during sales at Plugin Boutique and elsewhere. Sampletank 4 SE is a freebie that includes multiple synth and drumset sounds, as is KONTAKT Start. It's crazy how much great music creation software you can get for free these days, but Cakewalk by BandLab users already know that!

Really? Is this as-designed? Or a bug or just an oversight? A pain, as the first time I noticed it, I was dragging an audio clip to drop it onto a Matrix cell and flubbed it and the clip moved in the timeline a sixteenth or so. Next move was to Ctrl-Z and put position locks on all the clips I wanted to Matrixize. 'cause I wanted to prevent it from happening again, right? It's odder still because I could Ctrl-drag those locked clips to copy them elsewhere in Track View. I didn't like that they copied as locked, because I wanted to scoot them around a bit, the inability to drop them into the Matrix was worse. The former is easy enough to remedy with a right click or keystroke, the latter not. Both Documentation and Ref. Guide are silent about this phenomenon.

Did you see the thread in Deals about how both Waves AND PACE couldn't deal with me disabling (and immediately re-enabling) the network adapters on my notebook? Some of those poor folks wound up traumatized, I think. I take it in stride that by the time my computer even boots, I've cheated the adage that chances for a system's failure increase in proportion to the system's complexity by so much that every processor cycle that passes without it spitting out springs is a tiny miracle. ? Judging by the number of bewildered people who used to show up on this forum, I suspect that BandLab Assistant may have had a lunar phase issue, at least at first. Well, that and the aforementioned people who couldn't get used to the fact that the software they downloaded from the web wants to phone home every 6 months. BTW, it's been so long since I did a fresh install that I can't remember whether the user is cautioned about that during the process.

Not a sign of dumb, rather an indication of being human. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that every computer recordist who has demo'd commercial software that either ducks or emits hiss has gone through the process of tearing through their systems to figure out where the heck that dropout or noise is coming from. Only to discover/remember that they had neglected to put in the serial after purchasing the plug-in. Just as we've all been in the situation where we could not get an audio signal to come out of our gear no matter what we tried, where we exported 4 minutes of silence rather than our latest rough mix, and, one of my favorites, have spent 15 minutes carefully tweaking a compressor plug-in only to discover that it was either bypassed or on a track other than the one we thought.

Even further outside the box. I've been putting the Matrix through its paces this evening. Bounce each of your songs into clips (or multiple clips as need be), put them in Matrix columns, then use MIDI-Ox to have Gig Performer trigger the columns with MIDI note messages. That way you don't have to be concerned with exactly what time each song starts, you trigger it when you like. You could even get a Novation Launchpad like the kids use for live performance these days. ? The Matrix is set up so that cells that share a column can all be triggered simultaneously with a single note on command. Cells that share a row cannot play simultaneously. This acts as insurance that you won't accidentally trigger things that you don't want playing at the same time. If you never want to hear certain things at the same time (which in your case would be the entire songs), stick 'em in the same row. Cells can be set to loop until further notice or play through once and stop. It occurs to me that you might need to switch to a different tempo for each song. I think Cakewalk can handle being the follower in a leader-follower sync with other MIDI software. That would include the clock. Set it to follow Gig Performer's clock.

Workflow immediately enhanced. I'd kind of abandoned FX Chain Presets because I didn't know about this ability. Good heavens.

The second thing that comes to mind is that Zac may have inadvertently written some automation while mixing or recording. One thing that used to happen with me is that I would pop open an automation lane either by accident, or deliberately and decide not to draw any automation. Then during playback/mixing, I'd have Read Automation enabled on the track and wonder why every time I tried to make a fader move, Cakewalk would immediately set the fader back to whatever level it was when I had opened the automation lane. I didn't realize that Cakewalk creates a volume automation line when you open a lane. This made for some weird times until I sorted out what was happening. Like The Love Bug or worse, HAL9000. "I'm sorry, Erik, I cannot allow you to jeopardize this session."

If I'm understanding this correctly, then I think I agree with you. I haven't tried using an outboard MIDI sound source except briefly for the sake of trying it, but if I set up a MIDI track and route it to the interface's output port on Ch. 1, I'd expect muting that MIDI track to make it cease sending MIDI information to the interface's output port on Ch. 1. "Mute" to me, means "stop sending data to wherever you're routed to." Whether it's audio or MIDI. Or are we talking about the same thing? I guess it could result in stuck notes or controllers or whatnots, but having the track transmit "notes off/zero controllers" when it's muted would fix that. Okay, I think I did have it wrong. You're talking about the MIDI track muting incoming data to stop it from being routed to whatever sound module or virtual instrument. I think? In that case, I would expect muting the track to make the track stop transmitting whatever data it contains, which is different from muting its input.

I'd like to suggest that "just how it works" is not, of course, necessarily the same as "how it's supposed to work." ? Both require me to figure out why my expectations don't jibe with reality and then adjust my workflow to compensate. But if the "supposed to" isn't true, then I feel a duty to report it and watch for a fix. I've been messing about with the Matrix and really need to hit the Reference Guide and then ask some questions. When was the last time you tried using take lanes for audio? I ask because there was a nasty a few years ago that my newbie flailing helped flush out. It only happened when the user recorded in comp mode with the lanes closed. The last and shortest takes were getting scrambled up at the end of recording, when Cakewalk assembles what it's just recorded into clips. The audio was getting recorded, but the clips showed long bits of silence that should have contained data. I was new and conflated it with that favorite Cakewalk feature that is currently under adjustment, automatic clip splits. Put the bug and the confusing feature together, combine it with me trying to fix things with the Smart Tool (before it was configurable), it was like trying to run with my shoelaces tied together. I made some miserable messes and wound up having to find the raw WAV's and import them into new tracks. All the time wondering "am I just not getting this process?" ? O lord has the configurable Smart Tool made a difference for me. When I want to get my comp on I often use the Comping Tool rather than the Comp function of the Smart Tool, which behave differently from each other. If the automatic clip slicer attacks, a merry swipe of the Smart/Comp tool will set things right. The merry swipe is my workaround, I guess. (The devs had a hard time understanding what I was talking about because apparently, they all record with their lanes open. Which makes sense, as devs, they probably like to have things set up so they can "keep an eye on them." But especially when I track drums, I close my lanes to reduce screen clutter. Maybe at first they took it as just moaning about the automatic clip cuts.)

As below. Can't find it anywhere.

Thanks! As with any feature I don't understand, I always wonder how it might benefit my use of the program.

Inspired by the flat buttons in Studio One and Ableton Live, I decided to do a 2-D version of Midnight Blue that also increases the size of the transport and metronome controls (there's a lot of extra button real estate in that module). It also increases the size of the images on a few other Control Bar modules, such as Markers and Mix Recall. Mix Recall gets text on the buttons to relieve my own forgetfulness about which button does what. There's plenty of room on its buttons for text. Racing Green was originally a flat Tungsten-based theme, before I was seduced by 3-D buttons. I'm still debating whether the Record button really needs all that visual clutter telling the user what record mode they're in; my suspicion is that most people stick to one recording mode and then know from the behavior if they happen to change it. Even the stock themes' small Transport Modules omit the differentiation between record modes (although it's also debatable whether anyone actually sets their Transport Module to small). Here is a clip of the Transport Module and a couple of others: If I start using this and take a shine to it, I'll probably do a similar version of Racing Green.

I hereby retire from maintaining and hosting Logical, 'cause I think you've surpassed it.

The behavior I'm seeing is not that the tracks expand, but rather if a track is in a folder and I click on its strip in Console View, the folder that the track is in will open. I can't see any reason for this behavior. I don't know whether it's new or not, but I don't care for it.

It's always seemed odd that launching the online documentation from within Cakewalk by BandLab throws up an announcement about the existence of Cakewalk by BandLab. I'd gladly accept a cookie that would flag me as someone who's already gotten the message.

My only quibble with how this is implemented is that Cakewalk still truncates the clip and makes the automatic splits if I stop recording in the middle of a take, rewind, and start again. I'd rather have it extend all incomplete takes out to the end of the loop.

It's right there in the error message: Cakewalk is losing contact with your audio device. That's why the suggestions to check the cable, the driver, etc. Could it stand for "Audio Capture," which may be the reported name for the Roland Duo Capture?

Plug-in obsolescence is an incentive to finish those damn projects and move on. ?

It doesn't seem that way to us old dudes due to time compression, but 4 years is a healthy bit of time in the software development world. Back in the day, that could be a product's entire life cycle. If Cakewalk were being given numeric releases, IMO it would be up to 3.0 at this point. I wouldn't want to use the first release of CbB. It didn't work too well on my system (to me, the audio engine was like a balky lawnmower that would poop out and I'd have to restart), and there are so many "smaller" features and fixes that I now take for granted because they made so much sense. I have shiny spots on Ctrl-Alt-F. CbB used to scramble up my takes if I recorded with the lanes closed (which I always do). Being able to use Aim Assist without the numerical readout obscuring the Ruler tick marks. Persistent note names in PRV. Right click and rename clip, for heaven's sake. Ripple Edit Indicator! Configurable Smart Tool! Select, right click and Process in the Staff View. The new amazing Export dialog. By themselves, maybe minor or less flashy improvements and fixes, but taken together, holy crap. Think of this: BandLab has now owned the Cakewalk brand longer than Gibson did. People who started using CbB in college are now graduating or already have. I wonder how many people can now say "I used Cakewalk by BandLab throughout college." Yet we still get people who are dubious about whether the program can "survive" as freeware. It's already "survived" better and longer under BandLab than it did under the last owners. ? No argument there. I haven't completely parsed it, but it looks like you could set up your mouse buttons to do just about anything.

I like the idea of offloading audio processing to the GPU, whose cores usually sit there picking their noses while running audio software. However, back when they posted the system requirements, none of my systems' GPU's met it. It's a technology, just as with UAD cards, companies can either use it or not. My concern would be that plug-ins designed to take advantage of it wouldn't run so well on systems like mine with just CPU processing. As far as the M2 announcement, I'm sure it's a heartbreaker for the Mac weenies who must have the latest thing. BTW, I don't consider ALL Mac users and fans "Mac weenies," just the ones who must have the latest or they feel inadequate. I myself have a couple of nice iMacs.

After decades of deferring it, I've gotten back into creating electronic music. 90% ITB, although I do sometimes sample myself playing physical instruments. I love playing out, and I recently discovered a live EDM night in my area, but I don't really know where to get started with that. It seems like most electronic music artists use a combination of backing (or sequenced) tracks with them doing some things live like triggering samples and loops from a pad controller, or playing one of the parts on a keyboard. I have Ableton Live Lite, and have putzed around with Cakewalk's Matrix, but my brain is so used to thinking of "songs" as things that are composed linearly that I'm going to have to work on thinking of it in another way. I'm no stranger to improvisation and experimental stuff, I was a fan of Terry Riley's In C and Brian Eno before I ever played rock 'n' roll and most recently played in a Rhys Chatham ensemble with 99 other guitarists. I have a good sense of where to take an improvised piece, and I can drop into that zone, but I need help with the specifics of using today's software to do it. Also doing this while keeping my songs recognizable through the improvisation. I trust Cakewalk's stability enough to use it, but I know that Ableton Live is tailor made to support live performance, and I like to use the right tool for the job. Should I invest in a pad controller? Most people I see doing this use one for at least some things, although I watched a video of Four Tet and he was using something that resembled the old Korg KAOSS Pad. People who are doing this, what has worked for you?

Well, for anyone who wants an integrated sampler/loop browser, I wouldn't suggest waiting for Cakewalk's to drop before using one. ? Believe that the devs know how badly we want this feature. It will take a while, both because it's non-trivial and because I'm sure they want to cover the bases feature-wise. I'm hoping for good integration with current Cakewalk features like Step Sequencer and Matrix. Like maybe the much deferred "record directly to Matrix cell" functionality. I'm in the very early stages of trying to come up with a live performance workflow for my electronic music, and would love to be able to use Matrix. I just don't know if it's "there" yet.

I do loves me some flexible configuration ability. One of the reasons I drifted away from Mixcraft when CbB dropped was its lack of keystroke assignment ability. It's very mouse-y. I like not having to hit the keyboard if I don't want to; the advent of the context menu in Windows 95 was love at first sight. But not to a fault. I've even feature requested the addition of some keystroke commands in CbB (fit horizontal was one that was fulfilled).