Starship Krupa

Next time you install Swatches or a sound pack, search for "AAS Player" from the root of your system drive. I think 17-18 copies of it are strewn around in various forms like 32-bit VST3 and AAX. I wrote a tutorial on how to clean up after installations, with A|A|S as the prime example. What I have now is a folder on my desktop called "A|A|S Wipe" that has shortcuts to all the locations where they install unwanted copies. I just open that up and get busy.

Oops! My bad. I think I got it through that deal as well, then once I was registered for it, it showed up as free, which led me to believe it was free without signing up at soundbetter.com. . I hope the deal still works.

+1 on not having troubles with any of my AIR synths. I use the most recent installers on Windows 10.

Actually. no. It would be wonderful if this were the case, but it's not. I can change the "Input 1L" part of it, let's say I change it to read "Inputs 1+2." What I'll get in Cakewalk is the following choice of inputs: Stereo Inputs 1+2 Left Inputs 1+2 Right Inputs 1+2 For the even-numbered inputs, there is no way to get them to display correctly in Cakewalk. If it allowed us to rename the inputs individually it would be a great improvement, and at least I would shut up about it. It would be nice if the program could display the actual input numbers by default, but if I were able to do it myself, that would suffice. I don't like to play the "every other DAW" card, but in this case, since the retort has always been "we report what the driver is telling us," I will. So Cakewalk reports exactly what the driver says. That works great when the driver is correctly reporting the names. Many drivers do not, so can we please stop doing that and start doing whatever all the other audio programs on my computer are doing when they manage to correctly label my inputs? I suspect what they do is if the inputs are reported as stereo pairs, they throw away the "Input 1L Right" stuff, and just divide by 2 and label the inputs sequentially. There's nothing on the front panel of my interfaces to indicate that they are stereo pairs, or left and right, they're just labeled 1-8. This has caused problems in the heat of more than one recording session when I had the vocal mic plugged into input 2 and then accidentally armed the track to record from "Input 1L Left" when it should have been "Input 1L Right." How silly of me. I sure looked silly as I tapped on the mic trying to figure out why it was only picking up room noise while the singer fidgeted. I was actually monitoring an amp mic that was plugged into what Cakewalk calls "Input 1L Left." (When Show Mono Outputs is selected, Cakewalk also lists the outputs in the same, incorrect way)

Arturia Analog Lab Lite is something along the lines of Kompakt Komplete Start or A|A|S Swatches or Sampletank 4 CS. Like those others, it's not a timed demo or feature-crippled version, rather they include hundreds of useful sounds with the expectation that you'll be so impressed by the quality that you'll want to spend money on more libraries. When I obtained it, I was able to download both Analog Lab IV and Analog Lab V, which come with different sounds. Also, cruise around in their store and pick up the free soundbanks.

You are expecting Cakewalk to be able to correctly enumerate and display the inputs on your audio interface. This is a shortcoming of Cakewalk's. Consider yourself fortunate to get "1 Left, 1 Right." With my PreSonus Firepod, Cakewalk reports them as "1L Left, 1L Right, 1L Stereo." And so on. Yes, it calls my second input not "two," or even "two right," but "one left right." And yes, this has led to my assigning the wrong input to a a track when in the heat of recording. As pointed out above, Windows reports the inputs like this to Cakewalk, unfortunately, unlike other audio programs, Cakewalk displays this to the user without translating. It's possible to do, Cakewalk is the only audio program I've used that doesn't tell me that input 3 is input 3. If you don't like how this works, please do report it in the Feedback Loop forum.

Duhhh, of course, it's "Cakewalk For Windows," version 2.01. ? I was in software QA at the time a few years away from the IT phase. I liked Windows for Workgroups 3.11 because it finally came with a Microsoft TCP/IP stack. Funny, I'm also watching Captain Marvel on my second screen and they start the film out with a Kree agent traveling to Earth in the mid '90's.....they are doing a pretty good job with the recreation of California 25 years ago. They're on the wrong side of the country to run into Greg Hendershott, though.

1994 is kinda late in the game to have anything to do with Windows 2.01. By that time I was all about Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

If you look at my sig, you'll see that under $100 cans are my thing. I really liked my Samson SR850/Superlux HD668's, but the magnet for one of the drivers fell off after about a year so I replaced them with a pair of Superlux HD681 EVO's which look and sound similar. Superlux OEM's these to half a dozen different companies including Monoprice, Focusrite and PreSonus. I think I may slightly prefer the sound of the HD668's, but since I can't try them side by side. I'm not completely sure. The stereo image is great on these. For long mixing sessions into the night, these are the most comfortable and easy on the ears of anything I've tried. Importantly, my mixes translate well. Detail is easy to hear. These are the closest to ideal cans I've yet to try, but I'm always up for checking out something that might be better. I'm always kinda chin-scratchy when I hear about amazing cans for under $50. The Sennheiser HD 200 Pros were a disappointment, sound-wise. Their big advantage is that they isolate well, so I use them for monitoring while tracking. Not recommended. The Audio-Technica ATH-M40X's sound the most neutral of them, which is good to have around. I'm still getting used to them. I got them after trying a friend's M50's. They kind of have a thud in the bass that I don't care so much for. Ah I hate when that happens. Has the decay gone beyond just pad replacement?

I delved into this last night for the first time putting some pitch and mod wheel moves into an existing synth track, and yes, when I went to draw in the curves using the freehand tool, each node, or "event" was on the snap. I turned snap off and got much smoother curves. I also commented and suggested that he come to the forum with these issues, so we'll see.

Indeed. XelOhh is another prolific YouTuber who demonstrates hip hop production using Cakewalk. He's a big advocate for Cakewalk getting an integrated phrase/loop sampler. I'm getting more into electronica, synthwave stuff, and the production techniques are similar, so I check out what he's up to. People like these will attract newer crowd to the platform, and my hope is that along with that, Cakewalk will get more enhancements oriented to electronic music production.

From the looks of things, they're still hammering this out, the latest build addresses an issue about cutting/copying and threshold rules. So far I've only used the AT as fancy markers to show me where my song sections are, so I don't have a great insight into it. One of the things that AdK didn't like, the nearly imperceptible clip outlines in Piano Roll, is also addressed in this release. Did you notice that his opening title card says "Cakewalk: Things That Need To Be Improved?" He's put out 16 videos demonstrating production techniques for various electronic/dance genres in Cakewalk over the past year, so he comes off to me as kinda the opposite of a hater. Takes the viewer from blank project to mostly finished piece, Bob Ross style. He may not consider Cakewalk to be "the best free DAW," but he doesn't say any of the others is, and from skimming the videos, well, he sure does seem to prefer using it, even if he doesn't regard it as "the best."? His music is good examples of some of those genres if you like that sort of thing (I do) and his Cakewalk technique is pretty well-honed (if you watch his other videos, you'll get insight into why anything that slows his flow might bother him). If the program is to get criticism, at least it should come from someone like this who's spent a lot of time with it rather than those ding-dongs who get all bent when they find out that there's a learning curve. He's paid enough Cakewalk dues to be able to complain a bit, IMO.

Also, although I said that clip outlines in the PRV weren't a big deal, as soon as it started working correctly I immediately found it to be quite handy and workflow-improving.

Aha, thanks. I think the designation "Wheel" instead of "Pitch" may be where things were falling apart for me when trying to figure out the automation, and then CC1 being under another list. The sidewalk crack I kept tripping over. I knew it would be something hidden in plain sight. As far as playing it real time, then, all I need to do is record more takes in Sound On Sound mode. Will do this and mark answered as soon as I get it to work.

I think Eric's going to be hearing from me, too. As seen in another thread, even just Swatches eats more and more memory each time the loop goes around.

Interesting. You're running the latest CbB hotfix? What happens if you use Swatches instead?

When I want the feel of a live performance, I play my keyboard parts in from a MIDI controller. One thing I haven't figured out how to do is record or even manually draw pitch and mod wheel movements. I want to play back my MIDI file, do some fancy moves on my pitch and mod wheels, have Cakewalk record those moves, and then apply them next time I play the MIDI file. If I can't do that, I will settle for drawing them in in automation lanes or similar. I've checked the Reference Guide and searched online, and where I choke is the part right after they say "choose the parameter you wish to automate from the drop-down list." This is because out of the many, many parameters I find on these lists, the two that I can't seem to find are "pitch wheel" and "mod wheel." Really, I never knew there were so many automatable parameters other than, y'know, the two that have come standard on most MIDI keyboards for the past 35 years. If what I wanted to do was change the shape of oscillator two, bang, no problem, I wouldn't even be typing this. I've floated my Synth Rack to see the knobs, I've clicked on the automation lanes, changed the button in the Track and Clip headers to Automation, all of these, I even know that the mod wheel is CC 1, so if it weren't explicitly labeled "mod wheel," I could still find it, but even just CC 1 eludes me. I also know that for some reason the pitch wheel isn't the same kind of "continuous controller" that the mod wheel is, but moving it results in some kind of data stream, so I'm hoping that this data can be recorded. What am I missing so far? What piece of the puzzle? "Tembah, his arms wide!"

If I get a file from someone that's recorded just a few cents sharp or flat in pitch, the only way to remedy this using Cakewalk (and not with an expired trial of Melodyne) is to open the file in Loop Construction View. This process is buried very deep in the Reference Guide and took me a long time to find. We have the Process/Transpose command, which can be applied to clips from the global menu, but it only allows shifting pitch in half-step increments, which is of no use when someone shows up with something that's say, 5 cents flat. I would like to be able to apply finer increments of pitch shift via the Process/Transpose command (and/or right click on the clip). The algorithms that would do the signal processing are already built in to Cakewalk. Whenever I need to perform this not uncommon task, I feel frustrated that I can't utilize them more fully. (While it's true that I could also open them in just about any audio editing program like Sound Forge or Audacity (which I have), the advantage that a DAW has is that processes like this can be non-destructive)

Nobody loves a workaround answer to a feature request, but what else can we do while waiting? I always accompany mine with "for now" or "while we're waiting" like a couple of people did. You're never quite sure when or where a feature request is going to creep in; our most recent builds introduced two "small" ones, one of them I use many times per session, the other I just used a few minutes ago (if anyone noticed that clip outlines had gotten hard to see in the PRV, they're back). Pitch envelopes would be fun, the algorithms are there. I'd love for audio transposition to be more flexible and easy to access than it is. The Process/Transpose command holds you to half steps, which is not so often useful for situations where someone's tuning was only a few cents sharp or flat. Yes, I know that Loop Construction View can do it, but man did it ever take me a long time to find that out. All I could find on forums was people being wistful for VVocal or the old Cakewalk Pitch Shifter plug-in.

I'm surprised that nobody else has responded to this question, but my answer is yes, most assuredly. Playing back Windows sounds (without the DAW running) is about the most basic task an audio interface can do. Also, after reading the entire thread, I couldn't see that you were plugging your headphones directly into the M-Audio. I think you probably are, but I'll say it anyway: everything you do with the DAW should be with the M-Audio only. After your tracks are recorded, if you need to unplug the M-Audio and take your computer somewhere else, then the onboard sound is fine for listening and mixing, but leave it alone while you're recording. You've had a heck of a time, I hope the replacement unit solves the issue.

Screamo was a pleasant surprise to me when I picked it up in a bundle (I think it was the W.A. Halloween Bundle, a crazy value). I figured I already had enough "distortion" FX, but it does some interestingly odd things. It is surely worth giving up your email address if you like playing with sound(s).

I just tried it in Mixcraft and there's clearly a memory leak. This was using Swatches, VST3, with Multiverse/Minor Atmo Chords, a Chromophone sound. I made a 2-bar MIDI phrase and set it to loop. Memory usage of the Mixcraft.exe process jumped by about 1K every time the loop went around.

I'm psyched that they're following up with you, and of course you may pass along anything that might help. I'm also an experienced software tester and would welcome the opportunity to help out with testing preliminary fixes or whatever. Be sure to tell them that I'm only using Player. I haven't tried Mixcraft yet to see if there are also issues there.

Confirmed on my system. It's only when I have the transport running, but if I have A|A|S Player on a track, I can watch Cakewalk steadily gobble more memory. When I change to a different synth, Cakewalk's memory footprint decreases by more than half, and is stable. I'm interested to know if anything came of @Noel Borthwick's attempt to contact them. I'll try the same thing with Live! and Mixcraft and see what I get. This is awful, the A|A|S sound packs have the best ambient pads, hands-down, of any instrument in my quiver. I guess I'll have to start freezing until this is sorted.

Happy day! Anyone else notice this feature of the latest hotfix: