Starship Krupa

MTuner from the Meldaproduction MFreeFX bundle has, as one of its functions, an audio-to-MIDI converter. I've tried it and it works pretty well.* (*what you should really do is grab a bass and practice with a metronome until you can nail the part with impeccable precision. Then set Cakewalk to record in loop mode until you get a take that will require no quantizing, comping, or copy-and-pasting. Ideally, your playing should be so precise that even compression would be superfluous. This is because acquiring skill playing your instrument is inherently better than acquiring skill using your DAW and it is always futile to try to salvage imperfect recordings. You must go back and re-record, even if doing so would require rounding up multiple musicians or inventing time travel, the latter of which is likely to be the easier task)

Mixcraft comes with a UI-less GM synth that has some decent sounds in it (especially drum kits). It behaves similarly to Cakewalk/TTS-1 when bringing in MIDI files.

? This is huge! Who is the man? Why, I do believe it's you!

Of course, and it figures that Reaper has it, it's such a "roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty" powerhouse. Their unfortunately named scripting language even lets you create your own effects. "Cakewalk/Sonar not mentioned" is par for the course these days, innit? I don't mind so much, it's kind of a secret weapon thing. We CbB users tend not to pester publications about covering it, which may have contributed to the unfortunate demise of Craig's column. I've been meaning to drop Admiral Bumblebee a note suggesting that he update his review of CbB. He dinged it for fragility and crashiness and it's become so much more robust since then.

Hmm. How do other DAW's perform these tasks? Cakewalk is the only one I've used that even has a scripting language.

I'm late to the thread, but I have a Zoom Q8 that's not only a video recorder, but has a couple of XLR inputs with phantom power. The switchable onboard mics are great, so you can get both a room sound and 2 channels of board mix or vocal mic or whatever.

"I'm ready for my PluginBoutique freebie, Mr. Shelby"

Same here, and I have it all pretty much running smoothly. Since I have Windows 10 Home, I had to take extra steps to enable Group Policy Editor, but it does come with it. It's not a big deal to do so. It's funny, it reminds me of how CbB comes with TL-64, PX-64, and VX-64, but in order to use them, you have to go into Plug-In Manager and take them off the Excluded list. Enable Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Home Edition (at Major Geeks) The first best thing to do as a DAW user is to get Windows Defender out from between your disk and your DAW. By default, Defender is configured to scan every file that every program accesses, in real time. That means every plug-in, every sample, every library, and even the audio and project files. I discovered this while using Process Monitor to see what my disk access looked like during a Cakewalk session. There was Cakewalk doing its expected thing, but then there was this other process that was accessing the same files. I'm a curmudgeon, so I disabled all realtime scanning on my system using Group Policy Editor. If you would prefer to color inside the lines, it's a simple matter to go into Settings and exclude your plug-ins, DAW programs, DAW projects, and audio folders from realtime scanning. As with all such tuning steps, any performance difference will be more apparent on resource-challenged systems, but I figure I might as well give the heavy hitter programs the cleanest environment possible. There's just so much background crap going on all the time. I also found a program called Process Lasso that, while it makes some disputed claims about increasing realtime response for foreground programs and their children, has another very handy feature where it will terminate any process that you tell it to. With extreme prejudice. It will take down things that Task Manager or even Process Explorer won't. It shows a list of running processes, you click on them and tell it to exclude them and it will kill them whenever it's running, and if the processes re-spawn, it will kill them again. I once watched Process Lasso duke it out with Apple mobile device services and iTunes Helper. Trying to shut down background Apple services is like playing whack-a-mole, because terminating one will trigger a launch of another, which will check to make sure its fellow services are running and start them again. The Apple services would restart in less than a second, and Process Lasso would smack them down every time. This went on for about 2 minutes, which in computer time is a long time. Then the Apple Services just gave up in defeat and stayed down. I don't know how or why, but ever since then, when Process Lasso knocks out Apple Services, they stay down. Maybe there was some learning going on on one side or the other.

One issue in the past with trying to use Workspaces has been that too many of the settings I've already set up get changed. Window position, etc. At the moment, I think I've figured out how to not have it shuffle my windows around when I don't want it to (mostly I do, after all, it's a custom view). However, one of the important things for me is which strips are visible and not visible in Track and Console Views. Specifically, in the case of Split Instruments, I always set the MIDI tracks visible (and Synth hidden) in the Track View so that I have access to the clips for editing. Conversely, I show the Synth strips and hide Midi in the Console View, as my focus there is audio mixing, and I'd only ever change a setting in a Console MIDI strip by accident. If I need to work with a MIDI console strip, I do it in the Inspector. I have a workspace for "Erik's Mixing," and it's mostly working as I would like, meaning that it eliminates various elements that I don't need at mixdown and pops open the Console maximized on monitor 2 for really getting my mix on. The one thing that's still not what I want is strips visibility. The Workspace always turns on the MIDI strips in the Console. This seems like something that Workspaces are aimed at addressing: making elements visible/invisible. What do I need to do to either stop this from happening, or better still, set up a Workspace that hides and shows the types of tracks/strips I want to hide or show?

Yes, if CAL is a deprecated feature, any of its common uses should be implemented directly. I've seen plenty of questions here on the forum answered with "run this CAL script," which shouldn't really be happening any more.

That did it. What I had been doing was clicking on the Tetris button. I wonder why the Tetris button doesn't open it centred....

Is there a way to have Piano Roll View launch from the Track View to show the notes or clip I have selected? Scenario I've just recorded a MIDI clip, then I click on the "tetris" menu button (I don't know what it's actually called) in the clip's upper right corner and select Piano Roll. It seems to be anyone's guess how much scrolling and zooming out I'll need to do to see the notes in the clip I just clicked on. Same with selecting the clip, then calling Piano Roll from the Global Menu. This causes needless wasted time and frustration scrolling and zooming. Why aren't the notes I've just selected front and center? Is there any way to set things up so that my selected clip, or linear selection, is what appears in the PRV when I open it? (If not, hello feature request)

And, wonderfully, there are so many of them. Hmm, it seems like there should be a key modifier that will slow down node adjustment. I agree in theory when it's in the case of audio volume. Still, even if no human can perceive it, if John sets out to pan something at 75%, he shouldn't have to settle for 74% or 76% just because the UI is fiddly. Same with a change in level. If he wants to automate a 3 db drop from -2db, why should he have to settle for -5.1db? It throws in a bit of frustration, maybe you start thinking "I need to improve my mouse hand" instead of keeping your attention on the mix. Even then, I've automated highpass filter adjustments to tame plosives, and I have a friend who hates gating, so he automates volume drops between every snare hit to stop hi-hat bleed. Or if you're automating a plug-in that you want to kick in and out or change a parameter at just the right moment. As in "throw" delays, where you might switch on the delay plug-in at the right moment, then kill it before the next sound on the track. You might even need to do that between syllables.

Downvoted. With all respect for the frustration expressed, the OP selected the Q&A subforum to post a general complaint in rant form, with no actual questions asked. This suggests to me that they may not be the greatest at watching what they're doing. As for the suggestions in this thread, which, if they are truly "done" they won't be reading anyway, yes, check the project's Audio folder for the condition of the original audio files. If they're corrupted, there's very likely a dying drive to blame. If they're good, they can at least be used to salvage the project. Import the raw WAV's into whatever other DAW you're not "done" with. If the issue is somewhere within Cakewalk, then for future reference, Preferences/File/Advanced/Enable Versioning of Project Files is an option that allows the user to easily revert to earlier versions of the project, one for each time it's saved. And for heaven's sake, before you get to the "whole songs ready for mastering" stage, especially with a program that's new to you, back your projects up to a different drive or CD-R or something.

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)