Starship Krupa

I thought I saw or read somewhere that there's a quick way to make a standard 4-node automation segment. By that I mean a flat segment with double nodes at each end so that the flat part may be dragged up or down, like for toggling a parameter or muting or whatever. It was something like drag to select the segment you want to do this on, then a modifier key and a click or drag to automatically create a line segment with two nodes at each end. I've combed the Reference Guide and documentation, searched on the forum....am I imagining this?

Wow, I just looked, and it's pretty dire. 4 years after most of the content on the site became obsolete, this is what I get when I search "Cakewalk on Google. Cakewalk by BandLab does show up, but it's below a Google review for a local dog walker: I can imagine a confused person seeing this and thinking "huh, I thought it was free, but here it says 'free for 30 days.'" Those links to support and to demo and purchase SONAR really need to go. Knowing this isn't the place requires knowing that the company Cakewalk closed down, sold off the IP, and then the product was renamed "Cakewalk." The average person can't be expected to know that. How many shuttered companies still have functioning websites up 4 years after they closed the doors? It's time to narrow it down to just the download and licensing server(s) and take the rest offline. Or put in those html codes that tell Google's spiders not to index. Especially in matters of support, I've seen this trip people up over and over. At least just make the support email address forward to the (hardly) new support staff.

Which I use in every MIDI project and love, especially since visibility was increased with dark PRV's. But I agree with the OP, that it would be nice if the colors of the notes changed to match the foreground color as well.

There are plenty of tools and options that don't have anything to do with Track View, so each view gets its own menu that pertains to the view. This makes it easier to find the tools that affect the view I'm working in. I've got the Console open on my second monitor, I don't have to go back over to the main window to change console settings. I advocate for having the Main Menu contain only things that pertain to the entire project and move the Track View specific ones down to the Track View menu, kind of the opposite of what you're suggesting. Overall, rather than asking to have the program features reverted to Pro Studio 9, I'd suggest asking how to get the current tools to work similarly. Cakewalk as it is now is a hugely configurable monster.

Ooh, I like this one.

PRV and Console is a good combo. In some situations, depending on what I'm doing, it's just good to be able to see what's going on.

Oy, this one, too. My brain has decided that Cakewalk already has this feature, so multiple times a day, it's "Replace Synth, then sit and stare at the screen waiting for the UI to open until I remember that it doesn't work that way." It's like having a rock in my shoe. Who ever replaces a synth without immediately opening the UI to either edit it or choose a patch? Some instruments, like Kontakt, SampleTank, and Syntronik, have no instrument selected when instantiated. Many others have something like an annoying plain triangle wave (Hybrid, Vacuum Pro). Please reply if you agree. The way these things get attention is to stay at the top of the pile.

AAARGH! Why can't I stop doing this? It's become more than once a day. Bump'd. And while we're at it, replacing a plug-in, be it synth or effect, should absolutely default to opening the UI.

This would be nice. I'm a big fan of setting my clip backgrounds so that they can be distinguished in PRV, but having the note colors distinguishable would be even better.

Yes, nested folders are HUGELY welcome.

To say the least. Tactic is, for me so far, the most accessible of Glitchmachines' instruments. There is much value to be had in just using the preset beats. And because of the randomization controls, they don't have the sameness that can set in with other drum machines' stock rhythms. Try setting up an arp with a synth that's good at it like Hybrid or Chromaphone, then let it run while you browse the presets. I don't yet know if it's the samples they supply or the processors in the plug-in itself, but they have some amazing 3-D effects going on, with beats appearing all over the place (the fact that I'm running it through R4 probably doesn't hurt).

F5-F9 select the various tools. However, bigger issue, you may be doing what I was doing for a long time when I started using Cakewalk: you're using the Select Tool where you would be better off using the right mouse button. Try it. Hold your right mouse button down and drag a selection. No need to switch tools, it works no matter what tool is selected.

One thing I can say is be sure you have Windows Defender's realtime scanning excluded for your Cakewalk projects folder, your samples folder, and your plug-ins folder. If you have realtime scanning enabled, Defender reads and scans every file that is accessed by a program. In your case, over 100. Cakewalk streams every audio file in a project regardless of mute state, unless they are in Archived tracks. That's a lot of unnecessary malware scanning every time you hit play.

Would like to say: I got it and am browsing the presets, and it is, of course, worth at least 10X the ridiculous price of $5. Even if I never delve that deeply into it, just the presets are amazing. It seems strange to push this thing when most reading this can get it for under $5 with existing PB rewards credits, but hey, it must be told. I had a hunch that it was Gltichmachines' answer to Break Tweaker (a favorite of mine). And by that I mean "sample-chewing drum sequencer." This one has randomization built into its (multiple) sequencers. Along with the usual Glitchmachines "FTL-capable spaceship control panel" array of controls. I'm not even halfway through the presets and I can hear that there are some great breakdowns in there. It comes with the usual collection of Glitchmachines' excellently produced and curated samples, or load your own. I'll be trying some vocal and dialog samples just to see what happens. Like Break Tweaker, it does its own thing, it doesn't respond to MIDI notes, it turns on when you hit play on the DAW. @abacab or anyone else into rhythmic sound mangling, or who wants a messed-up sounding drum machine, just get this, don't even pause to think about it. Every Glitchmachines plug-in is, safe to say, unique, so no worries about duplicating something you already have. Caveat: As with all Glitchmachines plug-ins, you may ask yourself "how do I work this?" But the question is really "where does that highway go to?"

IME, you can't do better than Exponential Nimbus, currently on sale for $9.99 at Pluginboutique and JRR.

After demoing them, I bought 2 licenses for each. Came to $33 and change at JRR with the GROUP code.

IK Multimedia SampleTank 4 CS (also add Syntronik 2 Free) delivers a lot.

Last year was so deep and crazy that I'm still working on stuff I got a year ago. I will be upgrading my reverb collection with Nimbus and R4 for $9 per license, gonna get 4 so as to have them both on my iLok and laptop.

Most of the instruments in the Freeware Instruments Thread have been at least vetted for compatibility with Cakewalk. Since this thread leans toward the orchestral, my favorite free orchestral instruments are the Orchestools ROMplers, which they also offer in SampleTank 4 format.

What finally got everything usable was to register the Syntronik 2 serial via the old Authorization Manager and then check and rescan all the ST4/Syntronik 2 paths. On my second system, the Syntronik instruments still show up as not authorized in ST4, but no matter, they show up in the Syntronik 2 interface. Browsing the presets, I have to admit that Syntronik 2 was worth the hassle, but if Sampletank 4 had been something that was in my current critical path, the process would have been a disaster. All I can say at this point is that I hope that IK can use the information gathered from this to improve their install process.

True for every "sure fire" method that's been posted so far, unfortunately: it seems to work for the person who posted it, and any number of others, but there will always be at least one person who can't get it to work at all. Who knows, it may stop working for me as well. Until someone can tell us for sure how Cakewalk decides what file to either associate or embed, we won't be completely confident.

Being a HUGE fan of Exponential Phoenix (and R2 as well), I'm drooling.

Going to snag Tactic, had my eye on it since it came out.

Good lord, I checked PB this morning and they have Exponential Nimbus and R4 on sale for $9.99 each. When I got Exponential Phoenix a couple of years ago, it laid waste to any other reverb I had heard. I sort of hate to admit this, but the default preset is so good that I mostly just use that. Nimbus is supposed to be the same algo with extended features like tempo sync'd predelay and more comprehensive EQ. R4 is the same story for the also excellent R2, which I have and is the only reverb other than Phoenix that I use regularly (when I want that Cocteau Twins early 80's Lexicon wash). I'll be demoing both of them, and won't be surprised if I wind up with a couple of licenses for Nimbus. There's no reason to get a "throwaway" plug-in just to qualify for the freebies. You can get one worthy of using on every project.

I've tried using the AudioSnap palette several times over the years. I've never been able to do anything useful with it. About half of the time I can't get any of the buttons to do anything at all. This is one of those times. What I would like to be able to do is set the project tempo from previously recorded audio. This is for when I want to match the project to a recording that someone has brought me or when I have a sample I would like to build another piece around. Normally I just give up and listen to the audio and figure it out with a tempo tapping program, then entering what I find into Cakewalk, but this time I want to see if I can get the feature to work, or at least to do something. I have a clip that's about 7 measures long and consists of guitar chords strummed in a straight quarter note pattern 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4. This would seem like the easiest kind of audio to feed it, there's no complex rhythm or division at all. Per the documentation, I clicked on the clip, then hit Alt-A to bring up the AudioSnap palette, At this point the Reference Guide says "Click the Set Project Tempo From Clip button on the AudioSnap palette." I did that and nothing happened. What's supposed to happen, according to the Ref. Guide, is "The clip tempo map is copied to the project tempo map so the tempo maps are identical." But it doesn't. My project tempo remains set to 120, same as before. I normalized the audio file before importing it, so there's plenty of level. It's not noisy or particularly effected, just a couple of guitar players going "doink doink doink doink" X7.