Starship Krupa

Of course I do. It was actually the first thing I tried when I wanted to add tracks. I wrote that from the perspective of a new user who may not be so right click oriented, and to point out how counterintuitive the menu system is. The menus in the major views are confusing and inconsistent. If we assume that the Track View is the "default" view, then the other views should follow the same menu logic (such as it is) and layout. As much as I love the Console View, its menus are baffling. "Track" menu instead of "Tracks" menu, Modules and Strips should be consolidated into a View menu, Track Manager is in the Strips menu rather than the Track(s) menu as it is in Track View, and Track and Bus should be consolidated into a single menu. Options is the only one that makes complete sense, and it's in a different location from the Track View's Options menu. In Piano Roll View, the commands that are in the Notes menu and Controllers menu should be in the missing Options menu, and again, there's no way to add new tracks from inside the PRV (even with a right click in the Track pane), you have to switch to another view or the Global menu to do that. Also, and this is the most egregious omission, there's no way to go directly to Drum Map Manager from the Piano Roll View, which is where drum maps are used. None of these changes require revisions to code in the functions themselves, they're just shuffling menus around, and, before the moaning geezers chime in, there could be an option to use the old menu configuration. @abacab, it's there, it's just easy to miss. When you select "Intrument," down at the very bottom of the list of synths is "MIDI Only." I think it would be better to have it as a checkbox or even a tab, with options to set the output, etc., but it's there.

My personal WTF DAW is Reason. I got the Lite version as a PluginBoutique freebie. Can't do diddly squat with it. I spent most of my time just starting at it dumbly because I couldn't figure out how to do anything. I couldn't even figure out how to get to the MIDI editor, if it even has one. And of course, Cakewalk's Console View has me spoiled for anything else.

Re: the OP, I agree that CbB has a learning curve. It has been in development for 32 years and it shows. Why are the menu commands for inserting new tracks up on the global menu instead of down in the Track Pane? Who knows. At least it has the buttons up above the Track Headers. The analogy to learning to play guitar is a good one. If you just pick up a guitar, yes, you can learn how to play music on it without studying anything, but it will be frustrating and take a long time. Learn the E, A, D, G and C chords, though, and you're good to start off. Even learning those chords takes hours. When I first started playing guitar I tried stringing it left handed, because it was my impression that the guitar was designed backward for a righty. The stronger and more dexterous hand just strumming and picking, and the weaker hand doing the hard work on the frets. It was counterintuitive, it made no sense. The experiment didn't last, though. These days, a DAW is as much an instrument as it is a means for recording and mixing performances, maybe more so. How long does it take to learn an instrument? I've been playing drums for over 5 years and I try to sit at the kit and practice every day. It's just 6 objects that I hit with sticks and 2 that I operate with pedals.

All three of my systems are on it. It was weird, the first one that got the update was my oldest system, a 15-year-old Gateway Quad Core 2 system. Then months later, my Dell Optiplex tower and E6410 laptop got it.

Yes, make the glossary entries links to the full topic. Just knowing what people on the forum or the docs themselves are referring to when we say "Comping Mode." When I was learning to sail a boat, before I left the dock I learned what a "tiller" and "rudder" and "centerboard" and "cleat" and "boom" were. "Forward," "aft," "port," "starboard," "winch," "jib," you can't even crew for someone unless you know those terms. How about teaching someone how to start a car if they had never seen a car before. A friend who grew up in a hunter-gatherer tribe in South America and is visiting a city for the first time. If I say "sit down behind the wheel," they might think I'm telling them to go around behind the car and sit on the concrete.

Similar to that one, except it would have descriptive entries for Cakewalk-specific things like "Console View," "Clips Pane," "Multidock," "Matrix View," "Step Sequencer," "Smart Tool," "Track Header," "Take Lane," "Clip Automation," "Track Automation," "Drum Pane," "Drum Grid," etc. Imagine never having seen SONAR (or maybe even a DAW) and coming to this forum for help and seeing all these terms thrown around. I was a complete n00b to Cakewalk 2 1/2 years ago, when there was no Reference Guide, and while I knew what those things were from using other DAW's, I didn't know the Cakewalk-specific nomenclature. Even if I had had access to this glossary, it would not have helped me. In general it also needs updating, about which I shall alert the authorities. It refers to WASAPI as a "new" driver mode and makes no mention of ASIO, VST, Freeze, and many other commonly used terms.

Ooh, the Cakewalk Glossary. That would be a very handy tool for new users.

There is no way to "send you a copy" of Cakewalk and have it work when you tried to install it. It would still require BandLab Assistant and a BandLab account in order to validate. You already have a functioning BandLab account. If you are able to log in to this forum, you are able to log in using BandLab Assistant using the same email and password. If the install process is not completing using BandLab Assistant, that is a matter for Cakewalk by BandLab technical support, who will probably be able to sort the issue in less than 24 hours. All of the above is, of course, as free of charge as when you first installed the program.

Unfortunately, that's how people are and have long been, and I include myself for many things. We want the prize without thinking about what we're exchanging. In the matter of companies' tracking my web habits, etc., I go in with the assumption that I'm trading their selling my info in exchange for the service they provide. I never think of it as their somehow benevolently bestowing upon me a wonderful gift, no strings attached. Back when retailer loyalty cards first came on the scene, I remember reading alarmist articles about what an invasion of privacy they were, how now any company or agency who wanted to pay could know every item I had bought. I had a chuckle at the idea that people believed that the data wasn't already out there due to being tracked through credit and debit card purchases. Even in the case of Cakewalk, I'm exchanging my awareness of their company and its other products for use of the software. I do my part and use that awareness to recommend their other products to people as well. Even if it's not an explicit recommendation, just mentioning "BandLab also owns Heritage Guitars" in a musicians' forum puts that (very much for profit) brand in front of people's eyes. So instead of spending millions on print or web advertising, BandLab pays a handful of people to work in their homes on the Cakewalk code. I like that way of doing business, but I don't have the illusion that it's not a way of doing business. Having me and others rave about how the excellence level of Cakewalk has moved so far puts out the idea that "brands benefit from BandLab's ownership." I follow Formula 1 auto racing, and Mercedes and Ferrari and Renault and Honda spend many, many millions doing it just to bolster and maintain their brands' reputation for excellence. Mercedes' F1 driver Lewis Hamilton is the world's highest paid athlete. I don't pay any cash to enjoy F1, but I do hear those brand names at least every 5 seconds when watching a race. BandLab could be sponsoring Battles of the Bands, instead they "sponsor" Cakewalk by BandLab. There doesn't have to be anything more sinister than that to it.

I love all the updates, but I checked, and it still says it was authored by the original guy. It's your theme now, and you should give yourself credit. The way to change that in Theme Editor is in Properties.

I'm sorry if this is a hijack, but I'm asking these questions because I don't know, and you all seem better versed in automation: does the Shift key modifier work to slow the change down? I use it in Console View when I'm putting fine touches on panning and sends. (of course, the longer a feature request stays at the top, the more likely the devs will take notice of it, and I like this one)

Most definitely. When they have inconsistencies, it slows me down by having to memorize what does and doesn't work in a particular View. It also makes a program feel disjointed. Fortunately, in the case of CbB, a lot of the changes are cosmetic, or enabling functionality that exists in the other Views.

Excellent idea. I always just "eyeball it" as you describe, but is it possible to fine tune points by typing in the exact value (via right click or whatever)? It is in other DAW's I use.

Another use case scenario: I download one of W.A. Production's sample packs, which always include "one hit" or "one shot" drum samples. Instead of building a beat using them in clips, I can just drag and drop them onto sampler cells and within minutes, I have a whole kit using these drum samples. And, importantly, if I want to massage them using a stutter tool or something like that, I can load them into a Cakewalk audio track, mess around, then send the resulting clip(s) directly to a sampler pad with a right click or by clicking on the "tetris" button each clip already has in its upper right corner. Yet another use case scenario: I've been building a song, "The Greatest Persuader," around dialog samples from the (in)famous "punk rock" episode of Quincy, M.E. At one point Quincy (Jack Klugman) and his assistant make the scene at a punk club, prompting Quincy to ask her "what could persuade a kid to act like that?" to which she replies "the greatest persuader there is. Music." So, using TX16w, I've cut those samples into "what could persuade a kid," "to act like that," "the greatest persuader there is," and "music." Then mapped each phrase to a slot. In the project, I have Klugman saying the first phrase 3x, then resolve to the second phrase. Then for the next verse, the actress' samples in the same form. (look closely and if you know about poetic metre, the phrases conform to commonly used metres, and the actors deliver their lines in metre). Then later on, I use "music" by itself as an occasional repeated interjection. So the "lyrics" to my song are: "What could persuade a kid/To act like that/The greatest persuader there is/Music" with a refrain of "Music. Music. Music." This all could be done in Cakewalk using clips, but it's so much easier to have it all in an instrument and use Piano Roll to place the events. I can also experiment in real time by hitting the keys on my controller. If I have the pads set to retrigger, I can stutter it like "Mu-mu-music." Also use note lengths to truncate. The thing is, I had to create those clips in one program (it might have been Sound Forge), then load TX16w into Cakewalk, then map them. Having it integrated would save so much work, be so much more intuitive and handy. My estimate is that being able to do the above with an integrated sampler would have knocked 45 minutes to an hour off the process. And not incidentally, the phrases would be included when saving as a .CWB. Under the hood, within a project, CbB wouldn't even need to render out the clip, it can read it non-destructively from the original audio file, although doing a bounce to a new clip on the way would be an option, in the case of wanting to use the preset/kit across multiple projects. @Xel Ohh, am I on track here? Is this what you want for an integrated sampler?

Kontakt will do all of the above. AFAIK, so will Sampletank, but it is oriented more toward playback of existing libraries. It has many features to manipulate the sounds in whatever libraries one installs. sforzando is playback-only, it uses .SFZ's. You must use a separate .SFZ authoring utility in order to be able to use the library in sforzando. The keysplitting, layering, multisampling, etc. is their purview. Each of them can map phrases, but I would consider them overkill, and for this, a purpose-made tool with a short learning curve is called for. This is not the kind of "sampler" I'm talking about. And I may be off-base in speaking for the others, maybe they want a Sampletank-like instrument. I am not interested in that at all, I already have Sampletank. And those types of samplers are more "long game," where you spend time creating a library and then use that whole library in various projects. I don't think such a thing needs to be integrated, it's fine being more standalone, IMO. The pad/phrase samplers that I describe usually use the DAW itself to do the heavy lifting of capturing and editing the audio, although they can take dragging and dropping from outside the program onto a pad (or "slot"). They are able to "digitize/tweak/modify/edit/apply built-in functions to/etc. recorded audio," to varying degrees, but usually at least include the ability to reverse, filter, ADSR, and trim. Again, the idea is that if you really want to massage the sample, you use other tools already available in the DAW, then click a button or use a menu that says "send to phrase sampler." Those tools should be easily accessed from within the sampler UI as well, if you want to do further editing. So all the slicing, warping, beat matching, all of that, you just use the existing tools that Cakewalk already has, you don't need to learn a whole new instrument. Yes, absolutely they can store presets that can be played in realtime. That's a big part of the fun! It allows the composer/producer/performer to improvise using a MIDI controller, and that improvised performance can be captured just like any other MIDI performance as well. As far as "a complete and fully implemented multi-timbral synth engine (with a minimum of 32 midi channels, each channel having a full set of controllable parameters) including an extensive system exclusive implementation," that's more Kontakt/Sampletank territory, but since it's an integrated tool, and therefore light on CPU, rather than multitimbral, multichannel, it would be more efficient to just load multiple instances. Really, for anyone who wants to understand this kind of sampler, 5 minutes with that Mixcraft demo video will answer questions better than I can. Also, you could download and mess about with Sitala, which has similar functionality, but lacks the full integration. The way I see it is that this instrument wouldn't involve anything that Cakewalk can't already do, it would just consolidate it and present it in this type of UI. Cakewalk already has similar functionality in the Matrix, but the Matrix isn't an instrument that you can load onto a track and trigger with MIDI events, it's a separate view.

Pretty simple, I'd like to be able to double click in one or all of the areas of a Console Strip that aren't mapped to any function and have it toggle Narrow Strip. That is, any place where you can right click and get the context menu with Narrow Strip, I'd like to double click and have that narrow/widen the strips. A similar function already works in Track View, where you can double click on a track header and it toggles minimize/restore. (this should be Quick Groupable)

Must have been a temporary glitch with their site, 'cause the download is working now.

Drat, I keep getting an incomplete download.

Notes: Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio is the new Mixcraft, not the new Home Studio. Home Studio had a track count limit, Mixcraft Recording Studio doesn't. The Recording Studio and Pro versions differ only in which bundled plug-ins you get, so if you're already covered in that department, there's nothing to fret about. Pianissimo is one of the good add-ons, and it comes in the Hunble Dundle. Pro comes with a Melodyne Essentials license, and most people reading this probably have a couple of those sitting around. A user of both, I prefer to work in Cakewalk these days, but there are some features of Mixcraft that Cakewalk doesn't have that I dearly miss, like the easy ability to stack multiple VSTi's and markers with tails that run all the way down to the bottom of the project window. The ease of applying drum maps is another. The company's commitment to bug annihilation is a thing to behold. Mixcraft is amazingly stable and bug-free.

I'm trying to use MSoundFactory as the first in the chain, because it supports MIDI out. The next one in line is Surge, which doesn't. This is mostly learning how to do it so that I can apply it in the future. So far, and this seems odd, I've gotten it to work when playing my external keyboard routed to the MIDI track, but not with the MIDI data in the track. So close, yet still not there.

Thanks for participating. I can't edit the thing, so if you use it "sometimes," "occasionally," or "every so often" please vote "Yes." That's "regularly" enough. ? I'm trying to get a feel for whether behaviors when clicking and dragging in that space are important to people other than me, and also if anyone votes any of the 3 options other than "Yes" I'll be asking how they perform certain operations that I often do down in that area. I might find out better ways to do what I'm doing.

Hmm, neither of the synths I'm using seem to support MIDI out (the box to enable it is greyed out). I'm having trouble with following your instructions with a synth that has MIDI out. I enabled that, but can't get the rest of the routing right. Should all of the instances be Simple Instrument tracks?

This is such a basic thing that I must have just missed it in the documentation. Playing multiple instruments from a single source is something MIDI has been able to do for 37 years, so there must be nothing to stacking 'em up inside Cakewalk. I have a recorded-in-real time MIDI track that I want use to drive 2 different soft synths. My MIDI track seems to allow only a single output, and I can't see any way to "stack" or daisy chain soft synths. Some equivalent to the hardware synth "thru." I've tried different combinations of Synth tracks, Simple Instrument tracks, MIDI channel assignments, examined the Synth Rack, still, nada. I tried creating a Simple Instrument track and putting the other synth I wanted to use in its FX rack. Nope, no matter what I choose as the MIDI track's output, only one synth at a time makes a sound. The way I've always done it in Mixcraft is that all of their "Virtual Instrument" tracks are similar to Cakewalk's Simple Instrument tracks in that both the MIDI data and the synth are part of the same track. There's a "rack" on each track to insert one or multiple soft synths. Record the MIDI data and you're free to change synths or add and subtract as many as you want to your heart's desire. I thought I had it working at one point, then saved the project, but when I exited Cakewalk and came back to it the next day, it was back to not working, so that may have been a fluke or late night confusion. Is it a matter of routing? In Mixcraft if you want to go in the other direction, say use multiple tracks of MIDI information to work one synth with multitimbral abilities, you have to do a little bit of routing.

I know of no way to do exactly this, however, if you just wish to have them both open, side by side, that's easy. Did you know that these Views (and others, like Staff and Matrix) can survive outside the MultiDock in their own windows? I didn't for a long time. With the MultiDock open, click on the tab of the View you want to liberate, and drag it outside the MultiDock. The Inspector, Browser, Synth Rack, and Help modules can also be undocked from the Track View window by expanding them, then clicking on the "Undock" button in the corner of the pane. Once a View or other module is undocked, you can either drag it back to dock it again, or click on the X in the upper right corner to banish it. Once banished in this way, you'll have to use the Views menu or keystroke to see it again. I use this method to maximize usable area in my Tracks pane when editing on my laptop.

When I'm working in the Track View and have my tracks set up (using folders or just very few tracks) so that there's an empty space below them, I use my mouse in that area to zoom with the wheel, set Now Time, and make selections (the Smart Tool goes to Select down there). The reason is that it's a guaranteed "safe" place to click, with few consequences if my finger slips. I don't have to be concerned with accidentally focusing or selecting a track or muting a clip or any of the things that might happen if I clicked in the wrong place in a track. How about you? (I'm curious, and I've never created a poll before, so here it is)