Starship Krupa

True, that is the best solution. There are of course those one-of-a-kinds, like HG Fortune's stuff, (built in SynthEdit, the blessing and later curse of independent synth developers), and since Mr. Fortune passed in 2014, they are unlikely never be available in 64-bit. There are some developers that I wish would stop shipping 32-bit versions, if only because their installers spew them all over the place on my system.

Are you running the 64-bit or 32-bit version of SONAR 7? Cakewalk is said to coexist well with previous versions of SONAR, but I don't know that I've seen anyone with a 32-bit version doing it, so there may be more of a chance for a configuration problem. I would think that a 32-bit version would completely ignore 64-bit Cakewalk, and vice-versa, but who knows. Your SI plug-ins appear in your list of available plug-ins, but when you try to use any of them, either in a new or an existing project, you get error messages. Is that correct? I've never used SONAR 7, so I don't know what the interface looks like. My guess is that Plug-In Manager is still the same. Do you know how to run the Plug-In Manager? In my version of Cakewalk, I can run it from the Utilities menu. You need to run it in SONAR 7. Once you have opened Plug-In Manager, you'll see a list of all the plug-ins SONAR knows about over on the left. You can click on VST Instruments and see if the SI ones are on the list. If they are, you can click on one and see information such as the path where it's installed. Down at center bottom, there's a section called VST Configuration. If you click the button there that says Options, you can do things like check what folders SONAR is scanning for plug-ins, re-scan the folders, and reset your plug-in system's folder configuration. Doing a re-scan is the first thing, then if that doesn't work, try the reset button. These will force SONAR to rebuild your plug-ins list. Also, when you check to see what folders its scanning, make sure that it's set to scan the correct one(s) as Scook outlined. There may also be paths to other locations, but you can leave them alone as you choose, if they look okay.

Thanks, Jim, I know about those, and I can assign them using Notes, and they will show up as icons in the Recent Projects area of the Start Screen, but not in New Project (where the Templates are). Is the Start Screen not such popular a feature? It's how I navigate into Cakewalk. Those thumbnails of my projects and all kind of spark interest that just clicking on a file name doesn't as much, which is why I'd like to get some nice looking icons on my custom templates.

While I definitely agree with this practice for use in new projects, there's the common scenario of wanting to mix or augment a project that was started years ago. The person may have used a unique, no longer produced instrument only available in 32-bit form, and/or may even have been running SONAR on an older 32-bit version of Windows. In some genres, it's impossible to migrate or start over with another instrument. because improvisation with the instrument is the composition. Ambient and drone, for instance. So I have sympathy for those dealing with 32-bit VSTi's, especially in those scenarios. Using them in new projects....not the best idea.

Perhaps, in light of the confusion we've had, it could be removed from the Properties page for VSTi's?

If you already have SONAR Platinum, Cakewalk by BandLab is a great way to get a free upgrade to it, so check it out. Cakewalk by BandLab came from the same code as SONAR, but has 2 1/2 years of bug fixes and feature additions. It will install and coexist with SONAR Platinum and use all of its extra features as well.

I really like Mixcraft's implementation. Typical for them, it doesn't over-complicate the instrument itself. Part of what I mean by well-integrated is that it offloads a lot of the stuff you're talking about to other areas of the DAW that are already in place and that we already know how to use. So, some of what you describe is already in place inasmuch as Cakewalk detects pitch and timing whenever you drag audio in anyway, Loop Construction is comprehensive in other ways, so for instance you'd fine tune your sample using that tool, then right click or hit a button and select "Send to Phrase Sampler." A dialog pops up, asks you which cell/note you want to map it to, done. Then the sample player only needs to handle basic things like reverse, envelope, retriggering behavior. Speed and pitch variation as well, as those are already built into CbB. If you want filtering, that's what that FX rack is for. Mixcraft split their samplers into two different instruments. The first is the phrase sampler, which is what @Xel Ohh is talking about (I think). It lets you bring in audio phrases and trigger them with MIDI notes. The integration comes in where the phrases can be brought in from. You can right click on a clip in an audio track, bring it in from their version of the loop construction tool, the sound library, it's hooked in to all these other places where you're creating chunks of audio. Same with their Performance Panel, which is their implementation of a Matrix type view. Very well-integrated with every area of the program, in both directions. Then they have a Sampletank-like sampler that lets you bring in sounds and spread them across a range of pitches. I haven't worked with it, so can't say as much about it. It's not a separate instrument, it's an integrated feature, like a View. Call it the Phrase Clip Player View.

Ay-yi-yi. Worse than you thought, John. Have you just been assuming that Cakewalk was accepting the setting? If so, try making the setting, closing the plug-in UI (or Plug-in Manager, whichever you're using to make the setting), and then reopening the Properties page for that plug-in. On my system at least, when I do that, the box is unchecked. I didn't test anything to see if there was weirdness with delay, but, definite bug here. What I would call it is "Cakewalk is not accepting the plug-in delay compensation setting for 32-bit plug-ins."

Okay, probably why I might have missed it, I've finally gotten to the point where I can pretty much go all-64 bit for my VSTi's in new projects. I keep some 32's around so I can reinstall them if older projects need them. I'll give it a look. So I need to: 1. put a 32-bit VSTi in a project 2. check its properties to see if delay compensation is enabled, and if not, enable it 3. Save and exit the project 4. reload the project 5. check its properties again to see if delay compensation is still enabled That should do it? To do a mention, just type an "@" sign and then start typing the username you want to mention. The board will present you with a list of names that match your entry, and it will come out like so: @Kurre.

I heartily endorse both of these suggestions, and would like to also be able to add tagging to FLAC and other format exports.

Remind me John, I know you talked about this at length in the Free Instruments thread: is this for all of your VSTi's? Was it only 64-bit or only VST2's? I can't remember. This isn't happening on my systems, so something probably somehow got ganked on your installation. Cakewalk stores most of its settings like this in AUD,INI, which is in your C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData/Roaming\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core folder. Try renaming this file and restarting Cakewalk and see if the issue persists.

Mr. Ohh is doing some good work, I've liked his tutorials on electronic music/beatmaking workflows and meat-and-potatoes operations like final mixdown. He covers all the steps, which is great for people new to the program, which is a lot of people these days. I hope that he can add some advocacy in making an integrated sampler happen. I'm getting into genres now like chillout that use breathy vocal samples, and I find myself talking myself out of using them because I'll have to load an external sampler and all that.

Y'know, it's funny, I checked into this thread out of curiosity and to see if I could help with a temporary solution and then with the advocacy, but reading how enthusiastic you all are, makes me wanna patch in some of my old outboards. I have a patchbay, a nice one, Behringer, built like a kettenkrad, that can be configured in all different flavors of normaling. I hadn't incorporated it into my current setup because of all of the great plug-ins that are out there. In addition to the spring reverb I have some stuff like a Valley Arts compressor and an Alesis Nanocompressor and various Alesis MIDI/Micro/Nano verbs. Also a Zoom rack thing that can turn itself into different things, like a vocoder for instance. It can even connect via S/PDIF. Hmm. Also, bump.?

I think it's been said before in this thread: these are great ideas. However, posting them all in one big thread both lessens the impact that they might have on the people who need to see them most (the developers) and makes it difficult for other people to comment on and maybe expand or refine your ideas. This entire subforum was created for posting these, so there's no reason to out them in one huge hard to follow thread. The developers read the forum and gauge the popularity of new features by the enthusiasm shown. That's harder to do in a 10-page thread. Some the best ones in here aren't even getting single Likes. Great idea=new thread! Please!?

My bad. When you mentioned excess noise, I somehow got it in my mind that you were working with a capture that was noisy, but looking back I see that's not the case. So at this point you can export mixes and they play well on other people's computers but sound quality is poor when you play them on your system with any software other than Cakewalk (Dopamine, VLC, MusicBee). However other music files play fine on your system with these music players. I don't stump or give up easily but this one's kinda got me.

There's nothing wrong with ASIO4ALL, it's just that, as I said, it adds another layer, and for the specific work that you're doing, audio restoration, it's not necessary, so for troubleshooting purposes, I wanted to set it aside. That's all.?Now that you figured out that you have a playback issue, you can go back to using it. To address that playback issue, my favorite music player app is MusicBee, which may be configured to use ASIO4ALL or WASAPI, just like Cakewalk, so it's very high fidelity, and runs less risk of the kind of issues that you ran into. It's free, too. Be sure to check over in the lower right-hand corner of your screen, the System Tray, to see if somehow there is a driver for your sound system running that provides sonic "enhancements." Click on the up arrow where the hidden icons are, click on the speaker icon. Sometimes there is software that is designed to enhance the headphone listening experience, and it makes the speaker listening experience sound like poo. MusicBee in ASIO or WASAPI Exclusive will likely bypass that.

I don't know that I do, actually, other than giving a critical listen (with a music player that uses WASAPI, not going through the Windows mixer) to the onboard hardware CODEC's in my Dells and Gateway/Acer and being surprised. Although my tone was confrontational, I really do want to hear from you guys, whose opinions I respect, and I thank you for answering, and especially for giving it such attention and actually listening. That's really cool. So if you hadn't used the Realtek's own amp, instead fed it to your monitor amp, which is what I tried, it might sound closer. Just for giggles, a couple of days ago I did a mix sitting up in bed, using my bedroom hi-fi system (Yamaha receiver and Infinity speakers) and Superlux 681EVO's as the monitoring systems, onboard chip, High Definition Sound Driver in WASAPI, coming out of the 1/8" jack of my antique Dell laptop. 3 tracks, my vocal and stereo mic'd acoustic guitar. The mix came out sounding ee-normous, and translates well to everything I've played it on. Best thing I've ever done, mix-wise. After being surprised, I checked to see what version of the CODEC was in each of them and went to the Realtek website to check the specs. Turns out they talk pretty seriously about providing high fidelity playback. Depending on how the motherboard manufacturer chooses to implement the IC, that is, what they hook up, that little POS chip on my motherboard could do S/PDIF in and out, 7.1, power speakers, etc. But since it's a Dell aimed at business customers, you don't get all of that, or maybe if I poked around the headers on the board I'd find the S/PDIF connector. Here's Realtek's 79-page data and app sheet on the hardware CODEC in my Dell Optiplex. But for those who don't wish to look at all that, I'll summarize what they publish: 98dB dynamic range at the input and output, 20Hz-22KHz freq. response, playback at 44.1/48/96/192, recording at 44.1/48/96. Headphone amp puts out 2W into 4ohms. I turn off all of the Windows driver "enhancements," but was amused to see that one of the ones in the custom Dell driver was Waves' (yes, that Waves) MaxxAudio technology. So, I dunno if any of that changes anyone's perception of "Realtekchipsuxgetaninterface!" It does mine. A lot of hardware development these days is oriented toward making gamers happy, and my guess is that gamers may have similar issues to the ones we do as far as audio playback. Do gamers use external DAC's to reduce latency? I actually don't know. Realtek's blurbs talk a lot about "gaming experience." However, many years ago a coworker of mine, who had been hired as the head of Quality Assurance at a then-leading musical electronics company said to me ruefully "a reputation for poor quality is the hardest thing to shake." I agree with the Realtek/High Definition h8t0rZ in that as recently as Windows XP, you wanted to get away from that onboard chip as fast as possible. I believe that that time period is when the truism was formed. I used to tell people that myself on the BBSes. Turn off the onboard chip and go get a discrete sound card, even a $20 no-name with a CMI8738 chip on it (remember those?) will sound better. The almighty 8738 was a classic. I probably have a card around here somewhere with one of those on it, I made a breakout header so I could use the S/PDIF to talk to my DAT recorder. For sure, if you're recording audio, you need something with XLR inputs, and with an onboard CODEC that will be a mixer running into the 1/8 stereo input. If you're going to spring for a mixer, you might as well spring for an interface that's made for the job and you'll be getting a 5-pin MIDI interface and maybe S/PDIF and zero latency monitoring and a non-buggy ASIO driver and bragging rights on forums and all that. I believe, however, that with the advent of WASAPI in Vista/7/8/10, as well as Realtek themselves getting their act together and just downright designing and making better CODEC's and drivers, that the truism no longer necessarily holds for people who only need a device for playback/monitoring. (And, this is very important, when comparing sound quality between two playback systems, make sure that the software used for playback is bypassing the Windows mixer. Musicians should be using a player like MusicBee or foobar2000 that can run in WASAPI mode for checking final mixdowns. The difference (to my ears) is enormous between that and something like Windows Media Player or VLC in default mode. Because sure, my PreSonus sounds way way better when it's playing music using ASIO than the Realtek CODEC does using DirectX, and I've never tried, but I might be able to tell the difference A/B'ing them both in WASAPI, but switch it around the other way and the Realtek would smoke the PreSonus. This is because the Windows mixer resamples and crunches audio streams and the less of that they get, the better they sound.) I'm still not saying it's not true that "you need to get an external interface," but I don't accept it as a foregone conclusion. School me. Take me to class. Tell me what I'm missing. Why an external interface if it's all playback and monitoring? Why does my digital audio stream need to that trip out the USB 2.0 cable?

For anyone who's interested, I tried the Snip & Sketch trick, and it didn't work for templates. It worked per the documentation for the Recent Projects screen, but not New Project. I sure can't figure out the logic of the New Project screen's icon assignment. I renamed the stock Basic template and it retained the "studio monitor" icon, but when I opened it and modified it and saved it as Basic.cwt, it came up with the generic icon. On my notebook computer, my self-created Drums.cwt shows a Slingerland kit (as befits the former Gibson ownership of both brands), while on my main system, Drums.cwt shows the thumbnail view of the Track View. I think this has turned out to be a feature request, to allow custom Start Screen icon assignment for user-created templates.

If you would like to be a voice for change, please say something in the Feedback sub. You went to some trouble to make that nice animated picture. I and others will likely chime in, and who knows, it might get amended. As I said, I would at least like the dialog to stop misleading the user as to what it's going to do. If it must create a whole new directory tree below a folder I specify, then it should say so: "Specify where to create the new project structure" I don't want it to pretend to give me control over what's going to happen and then override it without telling me (I won't make the obvious joke here because it would likely violate forum rules).

Sigh. No, it's not you, it's designed this way. Even though you can specify the path in the dialog, and the dialog accepts it, it goes ahead and does what it wants. It thinks it's protecting you by always creating a file structure below where you create the project every time it creates a new project. I and others have complained about it to no avail. I would like it to at least not lie to us and tell us that it's going to do one thing and then do another. It's supposed to prevent people from losing track of their files, but in my case it had the opposite effect until I figured out what it was up to.

Okay, that's great. Looks like you're doing everything right up front, so let's address it downstream. This is where I ran into issues, so let's go.... Do everything the same, except: 1. In Preferences, switch your driver mode to WASAPI. Either shared or exclusive, doesn't matter for the purposes of what you're doing, mixing and playback. ASIO4ALL is for trying to squeeze the last little bit of latency out of your Realtek hardware CODEC, but latency isn't an issue for your application, and WASAPI can get pretty low anyway. The default export mode for Cakewalk comes from the hardware out, and ASIO4ALL adds another layer of complication to that, so we'll eliminate it 2. Use the File menu instead of the Export module. The Export module is handy, but it uses a lot of "default" settings. You have more control over your export when you use the File/Export option, so if you're having issues, try using that instead, and pay attention to the options in the dialog. It gives you more control over things like whether you want to print FX and automation and so forth. Also you get more options regarding format, such as FLAC and AIFF Have a nice hot output level set when you do your export unless you are planning to use another program to normalize it. In other words, don't have the hardware output or Master bus in Cakewalk turned down, because if you do a "complete mix" export (which is what the module does), that's where it comes from. For comfortable monitoring levels, use your computer's volume control to turn down the speakers instead. If that still doesn't do it, I have other things to try, but this should put you on the right track (pun intended). BTW, I can't resist: if you do a lot of this audio restoration/cleanup stuff, field recordings with your Zoom and the like, Pluginboutique are running a deal right now where if you buy anything from them, you get a license for iZotope RX7 Elements, which is a very good tool for audio restoration work. They have many items in their store for $5 and under. Quite a deal. You have until the end of August to move on it.

Being exposed to the excellence of their products via the Elements series has unquestionably led to me spending money on other iZotope products. My budget is very tight, but I don't need to vet their stuff. It's uniformly excellent and useful. Meldaproduction is my favorite loss-leader marketing company, with their 37-plug-in FreeFX Bundle. I've often said, give me that bundle and the stock DAW plug-ins, and I'm good to go. I 'll pine for Phoenix Stereo Reverb, but I'll give you a mix.

I'll chime in with another recommendation for Phoenix Stereo Reverb or any other reverb product by iZotope Exponential. Pluginboutique seems to have the Exponential Audio line on sale in rotation lately, I got two licenses for Phoenix at $10 each recently, then two more for Excalibur. When it went on sale, I downloaded a trial, and the first time I tried it, I was just floored by how 3-D my mix sounded. Even if all it had was the default Neutral Hall preset it would still be my favorite, go-to reverb, but it has something like 600 presets.

Much as I am an advocate of augmenting CbB with whatever freeware is out there, and I love my Break Tweaker, there is just no substitute for a native, well-integrated phrase sampler. Emphasis on the "well-integrated," which to me means you can select regions and clips and right click and send the audio to the sampler, drag and drop clips, operations like that. Mixcraft has a nice one and I miss it.

To better answer the questions about your computers that helpful people will be asking, you can download and run HWINFO64. It will give you every specification about your computer, from how much RAM, what kind of hard drive, what kind of processor, everything. To answer your question, if what you want to do is Deadmau5 style EDM, no, you don't need to worry about ASIO at this point. Just use the onboard Realtek/High Definition CODEC that comes with your notebook computer(s) in WASAPI Exclusive or Shared modes. ASIO is the best driver mode to use if you have an external audio interface, which a beginner does not need for EDM. If you are not recording audio, and especially if your note entry is all via piano roll and loop manipulation and not keyboard performance, the onboard hardware CODEC is fine. There are people who will try to tell you otherwise, that for "serious" work you must obtain an external interface. If you ask them to explain exactly why that is they will turn silent and leave you alone. If your systems are running sluggishly, it's good to see what's running in the background with Process Explorer. Once you get sound coming out, you need to go check out this thread and start downloading and installing some instruments you can use: Also, PluginBoutique have iZotope Iris 2 on sale for $9 for the next week. There's also an instrument there called XPand!2 that you can pick up for $14.99 that is a pretty essential buy, it's a virtual ROMpler with about 2000 patches.