Starship Krupa

53 bit plug-ins are notorious for causing issues on bounce. The devs don't seem to care. ? Most likely culprit is plug-in incompatibility. I choose my words carefully, because I'm beginning to understand that "it's probably a plug-in" is too often read as "it's the plug-in's fault, Cakewalk is never to blame." The issue is that they're not playing nice together. I have at least one plug-in that works fine in other programs but with Cakewalk, needs to be used in VST2 form only. Otherwise it generates horrible screeching, which I do want sometimes, but not unintentionally from a chorus effect. The VST specs are loose enough that both pieces of software can be compliant and still fall down and go boom. A plug-in can expose a flaw in Cakewalk and vice-versa. Look at the Cakewalk update release notes to see the changes made to Cakewalk so it can work with certain plug-ins. As a practical matter, the thing to do is first try the operation with all FX disabled, then if it works, begin whittling down the plug-ins you're using until you find which one the operation is choking on. A VSTi may be what's not playing nice, but that happens less often. At that point, you can report to both the plug-in manufacturer and the Cakewalk devs that there seems to be a compatibility problem. The plug-in devs obviously have easy access to the freeware Cakewalk, and the Cakewalk devs can usually get an NFR license for testing purposes from plug-in developers (one of the perks of being a software developer ?).

I remember one poor soul who was seeking help with a precursor to Home Studio that used to come with some audio interface or other. Despite having gone through the whole process of registering with BandLab and coming to the forum, which process, IIRC, has popups pitching Cakewalk by BandLab, he was gobsmacked to learn that he could just download this whole new advanced program and use it for free. I'm not baffled by the affection for SONAR 8.5.3, and even wanting to still run it, I know that old workflows die hard, and SONAR users included many people for whom 8.5.3 was not broken, whereas X1 did not make the best first impression. I'm baffled by how people who have been using a program for that long come to this forum looking for help. And who sometimes aren't aware that what had once been the mighty SONAR is now the even mightier freeware Cakewalk by BandLab. How do you get as far as being able to post on this forum without learning that? I never ran 8.5.3, and I started up again with CbB after my last dance with Cakewalk Pro Audio/SONAR being in 2002, a 16 year hiatus. I do know that whatever version of SONAR I was running at the time was rock solid on Win 98SE, whereas the initial release of CbB on Windows 7 was....not. Noel and Jon and Morten and Ben proceeded to hammer that code until 3 months later I could leave it running overnight. In that 16 year break, I got some experience with Mixcraft and Pro Tools and FWIW, had little trouble adjusting to the UI and workflow paradigms of CbB. Despite the initial implementation, the industry was heading in the direction of take lanes, and IMO, the Skylight UI is still brilliant (and imitated, look no further than Studio One). It scaled wonderfully to the advent of multiple monitors. Once I figured out right click for marquee select?, I don't ever manually switch tools in PRV. I have the two thumb buttons on my Logi 705 configured to Ctrl and Alt, so I only go to the keyboard for Shift, in the case of constrained moves and copies. Similar with Track View regarding manual tool switching. I set the Smart Tool so that the Comp function is turned off unless I'm actually using those features and it's good to go. The current Cakewalk PRV is my favorite of the ones I've tried, which now also includes Ableton Live and Studio One. What am I missing? Is there a feature request or two that could restore what you liked about 8.5.3's PRV?

3 more native LINUX programs with tabular MIDI event lists: https://manual.ardour.org/midi/midi-editing/midi-list-editor/ https://terryewell.com/m116/MIDI_PC_values/MIDI_PCvaluesNEW.html https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform-pro

This. There are multiple current products that feature editable MIDI event lists. Surely one can adapt one's workflow to one of them. A small bit of searching and checking out trial versions is more likely to yield good results than offering to buy the time of a commercial development team. With just a little bit of Google Fu, I even (in typically frugal SK fashion) found a freeware one that looks a lot like olde tyme Cakewalke: http://www.midieditor.org/ Ain't that cute? I might even just download it and putter about with it. It actually looks like the developer missed the days of the early 90's and decided to roll his own MIDI-only sequencer. Bonus: it's open source and has a Linux build, so even if it doesn't do exactly what the OP wants, that team of WINE developers (or the developer of MIDIEditor himself, he solicits suggestions) could probably add or adjust whatever features. No need for WINE. Load the .WRK files into CbB, export the MIDI, load it into MIDIEditor, et voila, workflow accommodated.

Cakewalk's own Step Sequencer already has some of these features built in. If you poke around in Cakewalk's dusty corners there are many cool things. I found out about these features by accident, searching in the Ref. Guide for information about the plug-in parameters randomizer. Notice all the things you can sequence, including to my great surprise when I found it, Step Play Probability. Yes, a built-in randomizer, with probability settings. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like you can do any CC value you want: I posted in the Tutorials subforum about a couple of Cakewalk's randomization features:

I really have to hand it to Dr. T for bouncing back after the 5,000 Fingers debacle.

And I suppose that in the past quarter century of MIDI sequencer evolution, every time you've tried out something newer, you deemed it inferior because you couldn't immediately work as efficiently with it as you can with Pro 3? Your old tool has finally broken. You must learn to use a newer one. Choose a current program, and allow whatever length of time it initially took you to get that good. Cakewalk still has an Event List, and my guess is that it's the feature that's changed the least in 30 years.

I've long been baffled by people coming to the Cakewalk By BandLab forum seeking help with such things as SONAR 8.3. The OP wins a prize for taking it to a new level. Have you taken a look at this:

Well, I must admit, with the more extreme presets I use with Objeq Delay, they could be masking gaps and glitches in the audio! ? Also, now that I think about it, it has such a striking sonic footprint that I've never used more than one instance of it at a time. Objeq Delay's manufacturer is still around, have you contacted A|A|S about it?

We need to get you sorted on this. Both of these plug-ins work fine even on my 10+ year old laptop. You can see in my sig that even my main system is not exactly a 2022 rocket sled. Have you posted your system specs? Have a look at https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows-music-dev/unofficial-windows-10-audio-workstation-build-and-tweak-guide-part-1/ He's a Microsoft dev who's buddies with Noel, the head of BandLab's Cakewalk group.

Start at the very top: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows-music-dev/unofficial-windows-10-audio-workstation-build-and-tweak-guide-part-1/

Just wanted to comment that the local help works great. There is so much to love in this version. Xmas in June.

I wonder if there was some equation, or analysis, or market research that told them that $29 was some kind of sweet spot, where people wouldn't think too hard about spending the money.

Well, yeah, so was my question. ? And he paid $600, he thinks, but estimates an new license at $35. He's really overestimating the cost of goods! The weird part is that even after bluzdog kindly clued him in, he still has the ad up.

Did Andy Warhol predict that in the future, all plug-ins will be priced at $29?

And the ad is still up! The aroma of burning herb emanates from this listing. Is this thread tiptoeing around the pirate software rules? ?

Probably on sale from time to time, but yeah, score. About 5 Waves plug-ins' worth. My first experience with PACE licensing, and it made me wonder what all the fuss was about! It only took half a dozen years before I had any serious hassle with it. All sorted now, though.

Sonic Anomaly Unlimited is another excellent freeware limiter. My favorite before I got MLimiterX.

This. The only one I can think of is Eventide UltraChannel. It has the transformer emulation, doubling (pitch shift as well as time shift), delay, parametric graphical (rather than knob) EQ, and de-esser. I got it for free as an introductory deal years ago. I tend to forget what a great-sounding powerhouse it is. I got into individual effects as I was learning the basics (which I still am!). I think of the VX64 as a multieffect rather than a channel strip, because it goes beyond the usual channel strip. Most channel strips keep to the analog emulation, compressor, and knob EQ. The classic Eventide pitch shifting doubler alone is great to have.

You'd probably have to change your handle, at least. ?

You got it. Long story: I'm a geek for corporate history. I've read every book written by former Fender employees (and there are a LOT of them!), books on Vox, Slingerland, Intel, Apple. I don't mention it around here, but I started a musical equipment company myself about 20 years ago. I was in the second wave of boutique stompbox builders and worked as a consultant to other boutique effects and amplifier companies. I've made many a trip to the NAMM show, and even seen my product ideas influence the companies who now own the brands that originally made the products I had reissued in boutique form. An interesting conceptual loop. It's a tangled web we weave even when we're not trying to deceive. Prior to starting my own company, I worked at Orban Associates, Nady Systems, and a variety of software companies including Macromedia (bought by Adobe). Macromedia was notorious for buying up promising products....and killing them. Deck was a sad example. Some here may remember that debacle. The SONAR story without the happy ending. They eventually hit it HUGE when they acquired a company whose main product was called Future Splash and renamed it Flash....which ruled the web for about 20 years. I don't know who might remember this, but back on the old forum, I was the biggest rah-rah about how the BandLab acquisition and freeware model might just result in the product becoming better than it ever had been. I was obnoxious about it at times. But I understood what was going on. Someone who cared had picked up the product, and he had done it before with Heritage Guitars. When I was 11, I acquired a stepfather who had already owned a company in Los Angeles that made fiberglass boats. Before music, boating was my main hobby and interest in life. I soaked up all of his stories of how companies go astray, observed in the next decade as he rescued multiple companies from the brink of ruin. This was getting toward the end of the era that saw CBS and Norlin going around snapping up peripherally-related companies that nobody at the home company either knew how to run or even wanted to run, and believe me, there were just as many sporting goods companies that suffered from this. Ron's biggest success was at a company called American Fiberglass, who had been bought by Ithaca Gun. Because who knows better what to do with a sailboat company than a gun company? One part of the Norlin story that's not mentioned often is that it was formed when a South American beer and cement company bought CMI. Because who better knows what to do with....you know the rest. The problem with the strategy in this era was that the acquiring companies overestimated the synergy, including how their corporate cultures would work together. I'm not as up on the Norlin years at Gibson, but I know a lot about the rise, fall, and resurrection of Fender. A fundamental flaw with the late 60's and early 70's acquisition culture was that these companies were founded and run by people who had a passion and great understanding for the products they were making. Leo Fender was a tech geek and music fan who was still inventing things up until about a week before he passed on. Gibson of course also had a great history of building great guitars and innovation. The pleasure boat business is similar. They're all founded by boating nuts who turn to design and construction. No ding whatsoever on a beer and construction materials company successful enough to buy an established American musical instrument company, or CBS/Columbia, who were and are legendary. However, the executives at these companies who were sent in to manage the new acquisitions joined the parent companies because they wanted to work in the industry these companies specialized in. People who worked at CBS wanted to work in the entertainment industry in New York City, not in manufacturing in California. It was probably similar with Norlin. You can be a brilliant in the beverage industry and/or construction, and passionate about it as well. And there is probably synergy between beer and cement. Construction workers buy lots of both things ?. No, actually, they're both made by mixing up bulk ingredients. At CBS, Fender was where careers went to die. The only hope these people had was to try to make Fender as profitable as possible so they could get sent back to New York. And no mystery what happens when that is the sole motivation for coming to work every day. In this era, Gibson was playing catch up with Fender for popularity. That Sonex guitar was a Gibson-shaped guitar built like a Fender. Screw-on removable neck (as you point out, for servicing and replacement, Gibsons are notorious for headstock cracks), drop-in pickguard with electronics all in place, etc. The best hope of salvation for these brands is subsequent acquisition by people who are passionate about the product. Bill Schultz and his crew with Fender are my favorite example. I watched Ron do it with American Fiberglass. Ron was living on a boat when he married my mom. The companies' original products also have to be popular enough and have enough reputation for something to survive. Fender guitars and amps? Heck yeah. Slingerland and Rogers Drums? Rhodes electric pianos? Sadly, not. So when Meng picked up Cakewalk, I had informed theories of how it might play out. He wisely rehired the people who were passionate about the product. I know about software development and music companies from the inside. It makes using Cakewalk more fun for me, watching to see what happens as far as product quality. I'm rooting for it. That's a cool piece of musical instrument history you have. And for maintenance and repair purposes, having the neck able to be removed makes for much easier refretting and other work. You don't have to protect the body while you're doing it.

Depends on how satisfied one is with what one already has, I suppose. I haven't looked that deeply into Playbeat Lite, but lately my favorite drum machine sound has been the DMX, which I get by loading one shots into Sitala. If Playbeat Lite has a better-sounding DMX and/or a more pleasing UI, then getting it and an updated RX Editor for $10 is a happy deal. Price of a meal at Jack-in-the-Box. FWIW, I passed on the most recent PB freebie and maybe the one before that. Whatever the Antares thing was. I keep a couple of $5-10 items in my wishlist in case I want the add-on. They're all things I want, but not urgently. All in good fun. My strategy once I decided that this was a serious enough hobby to put some money into was to (via the best deals possible) acquire a variety in the different categories I was interested in, then stick to the faves. I'm still looking for a drum machine, and always on the lookout for weirdifiers. Really, though, I have a pretty deep bench in weirdifiers, especially with Audio Damage releasing their legacy line as freeware. Still a sucker for a pretty Glitchmachine!

The blurb page at PB says that it comes with Playbeat Lite.... I'll probably get some trinket or other. I thought it might be iZotope RX9 Essentials, but as it turns out there is no RX9 Essentials, it's RX8 Essentials. PB are kinda coy, they call it "RX Essentials." I have Rx7 Essentials, and the Editor was updated for 8. Whether it was a $10 update remains to be seen in my demoing of it.

I can't help wondering if in two more years we'll be seeing Capricorn and Jones modes. Oops, I see there's already a Capricorn mode. Well, what about Jones?

Okay, I'm by no means a "luthier," but I've built a few part-o-casters and done refrets and done setups and renovations on friends' guitars. I'm also an amateur woodworker who has gotten as far as milling my own window sash and making a table saw finger-joint jig so that I could build a Bassman copy 2-12 cab out of fir. At first I was WTF? about your dovetail joint. But then I'm also familiar with the weirdness that went on at Gibson in the Norlin years. Not too long ago, I worked on a Gibson Sonex for a friend. I only knew of the foam core ones, but then I learned about this mode;, body made of MDF(!), with a bolt-on neck. Japanese humbuckers with coil split switches. Someone had botched the electronics in it, so I looked up a schematic and got it all set back to stock, and set it up correctly. Replaced the potmetal bridge with a Tone Pros. Turned out to be a really nice sounding and playing axe. So anything is possible. Selling what was probably a prototype? Sure, why not. It's a finished instrument, isn't it? I can understand the thinking behind trying this construction method. A properly cut dovetail, as opposed to the standard tenon joint, will inherently be aligned without as much need for human intervention. And they're strong. They probably got a big-a55 dovetail shaper bit, made a jig to hold the body in alignment and let it rip. At which point they also said to heck with even gluing it, the string tension will hold it in, and we can spray the finish on the bodies and necks separately. They were probably trying everything to automate the process as much as possible. If all the workers have to do is feed parts into a machine and then stick them together, that would in theory eliminate (expensive) skilled labor. Who even cares about skilled labor? This is the same era and industry that saw legendary Fender neck shaper Tadeo Gomez hired back by Fender's parent company, CBS, as a janitor. At least they kept Abigail Ybarra at the pickup winder. She could have wound up in the lunch room or something. What I see in your photo suggests that the way to get it apart is to take the strings off and hold the body under one arm (your left if you're a righty) and tug the neck straight away from the body with your other hand. There's a telltale line at the heel where there's a gap in the finish. I'm pretty sure the idea was that the string tension holds the neck snug in the pocket. And from what I know of dovetail joints (yeah), there would be no other way for it to come apart. Since you're having a hard time pulling it apart, that suggests that it's in there nice and snug, which is good. Were it my guitar, I would be sorely tempted to put some Titebond in there before putting it back together, because I have the idea that the it would "sing" better. It's a truism that the better the coupling between neck and body, the more a guitar will sustain. Sustain ain't the be-all and end-all of tone, though. Glue is a one-way street with this joint (getting it back apart would require the services of a pro), and if it plays and sounds like you want it to, it ain't broke. Many highly-regarded guitar makers, including Martin, use or used dovetail neck joints. This is the first one I've heard of that wasn't also glued. ?