Starship Krupa

It just seems like sloppy programming to me, and as a longtime software QA engineer, I don't like sloppy programming. Adopt a standard and stick to it, at least in a single company's products. Ah well, I gots me MIDI transposin' plug-ins.

Yes, it is. Deleting it from the list of ACT Control Surfaces restored my visual keypress feedback. Thank you. Does that mean that I can either have my visual feedback of keypresses OR knob control in my VST's, but not both? ? If so, I kinda don't understand that. A note on is a note on, is it not? If it triggers the synth to make a sound, why not show the keypresses in the Notes Pane?

That's easy to remedy; MCompressor is part of the Meldaproduction FreeFXBundle. A (slightly cut down) Unfiltered Audio G8 is part of the Computer Music plug-in collection. I bought the upgrade to G8 because it's the best all-around gate I've yet to encounter, and cut my compression teeth on MCompressor. I've also since upgraded my FreeFXBundle to the "pro" version. MCompressor in "pro" form has internal oversampling (BTW, @LittleStudios/Chris, if you want SERIOUS oversampling, Meldaproduction plug-ins, including the registered versions of the FreeFXBundle let you internally oversample to 1024X ?). I don't think REAPER improving its oversampling is going to change any games for me. I hit a wall with perceiving any difference at 2X. Also, I don't use REAPER.

I don't know what's gone wrong, but on my main DAW system, when I play notes on my MIDI controller, they sound, but I don't see them being "pressed" on the Notes Pane keyboard. It works fine on my other system, so what did I do to turn it off? More importantly, what do I do to turn it back on? (BTW, it's not theme-related, it also doesn't work with Mercury)

As others have said, it depends on what you want to make with the program. In my experience, it has a fairly short learning curve for the basic tasks of recording audio and MIDI. How long it will take any given person depends on more things, such as prior familiarity with DAW software in general. I had been doing songs using Mixcraft for years, and the workflow in that program is close enough to Cakewalk's that I jumped right in. As others have said, Cakewalk has 34 years of development behind it, so to master every feature in depth will take years, if one could ever even do it. But that's not how DAW's are, the initial way you learn is to decide what task you want to do and then figure out how to do them. After that, poking around different menus and Views to see what they do, asking questions on the forum or Facebook group or Reddit, watching tutorials on YouTube, reading the Reference Guide.

I checked the Reference Guide before asking here, as I always do. Asking for help in figuring stuff out after one has checked the documentation and still doesn't understand it is what the Q&A subforum is for. ? No insult intended. I checked the Ref. Guide before posting and couldn't parse it. That's part of why I said that I wouldn't have figured it out on my own. I think I, like @John Vere had always been leaving it at 50%, but then noticed it and thought "wait a sec, this is supposed to be a machine beat, I don't want any swing." I might have guessed that something was up when it wouldn't take "0" for an answer. I'm used to "none, thanks" being indicated by a zero. Now I know that "50%" means no swing at all. In order to figure out what effect other values might have, I'll just have to try some and listen.

Indeed, I am. My question is about playing notes with my MIDI controller and then wanting to tidy them up. In the Piano Roll View, after selecting the notes I wanted to quantize. If you select some notes and then right click (I usually right click somewhere there is not a note) in the PRV you'll get a nice process menu. Well, thank you. I can confidently say that I would never have figured that out on my own. So to have the system put the notes down dead on, I tell it 50% swing. This does not make sense to me, but I don't need it to make sense, I need it to work. If getting it to work requires typing in 50 I will type in 50.

You can specify most of them in Preferences. I wouldn't suggest trying to move your C:\Cakewalk Content\Themes folder anywhere. It's more firmly coded than setting it in Preferences.

Believe me, the developers know that this is a very popular feature request, maybe even at this point (post Arranger Track, Articulation Map, improved Export dialog, etc. etc.) the most popular feature request. The way for the developers to take notice is to keep bumping it, though. They haven't solicited for what features we want to see; I'd think that they would do that unless they have already been looking around at what paradigms already exist. I'm not really up for much reinvention of the wheel when it comes to Cakewalk getting new features. If something takes the best features that are already out there in the marketplace, that's the way I like it. I don't use one single DAW; after buying a couple of audio interfaces I now also have Mixcraft, Ableton Live Lite, and Studio One Artist. Each of them have implemented this technology in ways that would work for me in Cakewalk.

(In this question I am referring to only MIDI notes and the recording and editing of such) So, I had a hi hat and snare pattern that I laid down by drawing the notes in the Piano Roll. Had trouble getting the kick drum part down, so I decided to record just the kick using Sound on Sound. Pretty simple, everything is 8th notes, no fancy 16th note stuff, but I think I had the grid set to 1/16th. Whatever, my idea was to play it with the MIDI controller and then have Cakewalk quantize it to the grid. All goes well, the kicks are about where I want them, this is supposed to be a machine beat with no swing or anything. I'm not a machine, I was a bit off with a couple hits, so quantizing was in order. Selected just the kick notes (the other notes were already on the grid because I placed them there with Snap engaged), right clicked, got the Quantize dialog. Resolution 1/16, strength 100%, Swing 1%, Window 100%. Left everything on the defaults, so MIDI Event Start Times, Audio Snap Beats, and Only Notes and Lyrics were checked. Hit OK, and....the notes shifted a hair, but I could see with my eyes that they are not evenly on the grid. So I tried it again, this time with the Duration to 1/8 and the grid set to 1/8. Again, a slight shift, but still a little off. I clicked on the "off" notes to check them with Event Inspector and they're all 9 ticks later than they should be, given that I told the Quantizer to basically crowbar them onto an 1/8th note grid. Most of the notes made it on grid, but about 20% of them are 9 ticks late. No amount of repetition of the command, nor change of settings will move the start times of those notes to exactly on the grid. They will get no closer than 9 ticks. What am I doing wrong here? I thought MIDI quantizing was for putting note start times and durations on the grid. I selected the notes by clicking the note name over on the left (this is using the drum grid). This has always worked for selecting notes in the past. Am I misusing the command? Expecting too much from it? What gives? Why are the ones that are off all off by the same miniscule amount?

I had this issue big time a couple of years ago, then the devs implemented some fixes and it's been great since then.

Wow, I think at some point when trying to explain how it can be free, I may have mentioned Paul Allen's investments in certain things because he through they were cool and wanted to leave a legacy. Cinerama Theater in Seattle, for one. I haven't seen the books, but if a single screen movie theater can earn its keep in this day and age, I want the recipe. This model of producing a free product in order to spread brand good will was by no means new when Kuok Meng adopted it for Cakewalk; it wasn't even new to his company. They were already producing and distributing 3 other freeware DAW's before the Cakewalk acquisition. Meng doesn't need to pay the rent with Cakewalk or the other Bandlab DAW's, other parts of his business are paying the rent. The things that are business expenses, like the development of Cakewalk and their other DAW's are expenses that are written off. It's a promotional item, like a nice canvas tote bag you get at a trade show to hold your literature. It's an advertising premium, that's all. There doesn't need to be any more justification than that. I guess it's hard to see Cakewalk that way if one had become used to it being a commercial product, whose sales supported a whole company of administrative people, accounting, sales staff, marketing staff, layers of management, etc. If you've ever walked around a software company and thought to yourself, as I have "these 5 engineers are the ones who actually create the product, and the rest of us are overhead that is necessary for there to be a company around it," well, Bandlab got the code and the 5 engineers. After 30 years of existence and adoption, it didn't need to be marketed except by word of mouth. The basic code and design and UI and everything were already there. Anything can happen, of course, but Bandlab suddenly deciding to start charging for Cakewalk is not likely to happen. It's not even donationware, there is no way to pay for it even if we wanted to. I'd LOVE to have Cakewalk logo t-shirts and laptop stickers available for purchase. Why not believe the head developer when he says the reason for the 6 month validation is because they want to know how many people are using it and want to make sure that people at least have the opportunity to get upgrades to their prestige premium product? If there were plans to take it back to payware, why have Bandlab seemingly not spent a dime on advertising or promotion to grow the user base in preparation for the big change?

Why can't VSTi manufacturers/preset designers decide on which octave their "basses" are supposed to be played? Case in point, I'm auditioning bass patches in bx_oberhausen, Consumer of Resources, and every third preset, I have to hit the Transpose MIDI plug-in I keep racked up for just such occasions. Up one octave to get it out of the complete mud, then back to no transpose to get it out of the "pad" zone. I could forgive it better if it were different across different manufacturers' synths, but these are factory presets from one single source. 1st world problem I know, but it chafes.

Way late to the party here, but that sounds like a tape stop to me. There are multiple free FX that can do that. I think Wavesfactory has one.

Unfortunately for your thread, before I got Channel Tools I already had Eventide UltraChannel, which does that harmonized microdelay pretty dang well (no surprise considering that it was pioneered using Eventide hardware). Channel Tools has some nice features, but they're ones that I'd already gotten used to using other plug-ins for.

I'd hit that installer again. I don't have it, but there's no way that a premium industry standard plug-in like Pro Q is only available in 32-bit in this day and age.

Interesting; there's now a selection button for "MStarterFXBundle," which selects a subset of the MFreeFXBundle. 16 plug-ins. I can't spot a logic to which ones are selected. Except for (the almighty) MCompressor and MEqualizer, and MStereoscope, none of them are ones that I use. Some are FX and some are analyzers or utilities. I wonder if these are going to give newbies the pro versions for free, or if the upgrade price will be reduced for these. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's not upgraded their FreeFXBundle to see if things have changed.

True, that. His betas are usually as stable or more so than some other companies' release builds.

I'd be very surprised to see the EA products get M1'd. I suspect their policy is that if you want those sweet EA algorithms, get Neoverb.

Really, faster than asking here and then waiting for a response.

What I did with my outbuilding was get a roll of Cat 6 cable and run it hard wired. The cable is rated for burial, but for the underground parts I used plastic conduit, then ran it along the fence line to keep it out of sight. I put an RJ-45 biscuit jack at each end, the cable came with a little plastic punch-down tool.

Are you referring to the "W" button in the Mix Module? That's for Write automation. It should toggle your ability to write automation if you press it. If you want to know more, look up the Mix Module and Automation in the documentation or Reference Guide.

That is some good-looking undeveloped real estate.

Indeed it will. If I ever ran the program with those panels floated, I would like that: one key to open, one key to banish. But I don't, I run with the panels docked. The only time I ever float them is when I want to banish them.

Anything in the local environment is a potential source of RFI. As Jim suggested, troubleshoot it by paring down the components one at a time, especially the ones in the audio chain. Get it down to the barest few components required to get sound out (presumably as he suggested, headphones plugged straight into the interface). Then add things until you start hearing the noise. Since it's a high-pitched whine, I'm going to go with "switching power supply" as the source of it. Most computer stuff is powered by switching power supplies, which generate a LOT of high frequency noise. The switching power supply for your monitor or the computer itself may well be the source of or a contributor to this issue. If it's on the same breaker as the mixer or audio interface, get it on another circuit, even if you have to run an extension cord to check it. His suggestion to put everything on the same circuit to test it is a good one, and I'll submit that when chasing ground loops, it's valuable to go the other direction too. Run an extension cord into your studio from an outlet you are sure is on a different breaker and try plugging each component into it one by one.