Starship Krupa

Maybe this topic ought to be made a "sticky" it comes up so often. Mostly because every so often I go poking around my system/program/plug-ins drive to see what sort of cruft program installers are leaving behind. Having noticed that plug-in manufacturers don't like to waste support money answering the eternal question "why aren't my plug-ins showing up?" when instead they could be wasting space on my SSD, I've learned about all these different types of plug-ins that I don't use that get installed anyway by certain companies' installers. Because room on my hard drive is free (to them), while support inquiries cost effort and irritation (to them). Today I learned about the "DAE" folder, because I stumbled across "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Digidesign\DAE\Plug-ins" that was harboring 20 files from iZotope, Celemony, AIR, and of course, A|A|S. Because Applied Acoustics Systems, while being my favorite supplier of soft synths, is also far and away the worst when it comes to scattering copies of their plug-ins all over the place. The other companies had, oddly, just one or two in this folder. iZotope had a couple Neutron 3 components, there was Melodyne, and although I have several AIR instruments, Vacuum Pro was the only one in this odd rabbit hole. A|A|S had everything I own from them. I had to do some Googling to find out what this folder was about and as it turns out, DAE was the location for storing the since-deprecated (7 years ago) RTAS format plug-ins. Which explains why there is no corresponding such folder below the non-(x86)Program Files folder. Not a lot of 64-bit RTAS pluggos, I guess. So how about that for "gee, thanks?" If asked, I would have told the installer "64-bit VST3's only." I don't run Pro Tools, and even if I did, it would be using AAX's and those AAX's would be 64-bit. Bad installer! If you want to be nervous nellies about it, just put in a dialog after your doofus customer has clicked "Custom" saying that if they are not sure, just leave everything checked. But let the people who know what we are doing choose what we get. If you have it, and many if not most of us do, either from owning the Platinum Suite or freebie deals at Pluginboutique, search your system drive for Strum Session 2. I can think of 9 locations A|A|S puts that plug-in in different forms when I run the installer just off the top of my head and I'm sure there are a couple more. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the installer scans every folder on your system and if it has the string "VST" in its name, they put a copy of the VST2 in it. Waves is the other company that's insane about this, but I'm too scared to delete any of their .DLL's. I used to have one of those Waves issues where whenever I'd start a DAW, Waves would ask me for its own file location over and over again and finally let me start the DAW only after the last drop of my creativity had been converted to irritation. Now I realize why the poor plug-in couldn't figure out where it belonged, its DLL's are strewn all over the disk. Whatever that bit of code in Cakewalk is that checks to see if a plug-in has already been scanned, that bit of code must get a pretty good workout. So, at this point, if you want to check your precious SSD space for plug-in clutter, assuming that you're a Cakewalk user who doesn't run another program that needs 32-bit plug-ins, here's where to look for overzealous installer clutter: Your regular 32-bit plug-in folder, wherever it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VSTPlugins C:\Program Files (x86)\VSTPlugins C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3 C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-ins C:\Program Files\Common Files (x86)\Avid\Audio\Plug-ins If you don't keep your VST2 plug-ins in C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins check there for extra copies C:\Program Files\Common Files (x86)\Digidesign\DAE\Plug-ins C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VstPlugins I've found spurious copies of plug-ins in all of those locations. With some it's no big deal, but with others, like iZotope, you can reclaim a lot of disk space. Meldaproduction installs 32-bit plug-ins whether you want them or not. Same with Native Instruments. You're getting 32-bit copies of Kontakt and Reaktor whether you want them or not.

Thanks, Freyja. I've messed about with the VSCO samples in a couple of different forms but being able to load them into a version of SampleTank that doesn't crash will really help. (BTW, Freya is the name of one of my favorite characters on one of my favorite TV shows, Norsemen)

It should show up in the Browser under Meldaproduction if you sort by manufacturer. Did you use the Meldaproduction installer from their website? I've been using their stuff for years, am a big fan of Vojtech's work, so I'm sure we can get this sorted. He actually makes an effort to use the "category" string, so it may be tucked away in a category you are not expecting. On my system too many Meldaproduction plug-ins appear, if you get my drift.? 37 plug-ins in the Free Bundle and all you want is MAutoPitch? MEqualizer, MCompressor and MTuner are some of the best plug-ins of their type. Embrace the Melda!

BTW, I think this thread may help answer the perennial question "why hasn't BandLab released the other Cakewalk software that came with SONAR."

Way to go, seriously. Running a DAW on a system like this puts the "stud" in "studio" as far as I'm concerned. Both of the systems I use to run Cakewalk were hand-me-down castoffs I got for free because someone at some big company or other considered them obsolete. My laptop is an i5 that ran just fine with 4G of RAM before I maxed it out to 8G. Honestly, I saw little difference in performance after the upgrade, but hey. It's still running off its 7200RPM drive. I imagine it will seem like a rocket sled once I put an SSD in it. My desktop is more in line with what someone would expect in a hobbyist DAW, but not exactly a powerhouse, you can see in my sig. As you can also see in my sig, I'm a Firewire jockey. I started with a PreSonus Firebox and the thing worked so well on low end hardware compared to the USB interfaces of the day that I've stuck with it as long as I can. Even when USB 2.0 has more raw speed, Firewire has inherent advantages that translate well to use with audio. For instance, Firewire is full-duplex, so information can go in both directions at once. That is a huge advantage when you're doing A/V work. USB below 3.0 doesn't do that. A USB 2.X interface has to time slice in order to do things like real time monitoring. Firewire also offloads a lot of the processing so that the main CPU and bus don't have to work as hard. Anyway, back to your issue. Given that your Firewire controller is onboard, I'm less inclined to go with it as a source of IRQ conflicts. Windows 10 is good at managing that sort of thing. You might take a look at your video card driver, also make sure that if it has an HDMI sound device that it is disabled. Something to look for is whether you have shut down all other programs that might be trying to use that sound device. I'm sure that with a lower-end system like yours you practice good hygiene as far as making sure Cakewalk is the only thing running, but make sure. There's a program I use called Process Lasso that's good for finding and terminating unnecessary processes. Just in general, with an older system, we have to be more careful about giving it too much to juggle. Also make sure that system sounds are turned off, etc. If another program is trying to grab your sound device, you are more likely to see errors like these. A good thing to do is journey into the past and run Control Panel (yes, it still exists in Windows 10) and run the Sound app and check the settings there. Windows shouldn't be trying to use your sound device when Cakewalk is. As scook said, Windows doesn't know about ASIO. It can jump in and try to use a sound device while it's in ASIO mode. Most ASIO drivers, in my experience, will tolerate this, but some will not. Best of luck, I suspect you can sort this out without resorting to dumping your interface.

I've been having outlandish amounts of fun playing around with The Free Orchestra by Project Sam, which is a Kontakt instrument that is compatible with Kontakt Player, the free version of Kontakt that has been mentioned in this thread and that everyone should get because it comes with a load of great freeware sampled instruments all by itself. The Free Orchestra is a set of instruments specifically oriented toward cinema scoring. It has a bunch of those workhorse cues and hits that signify "this is scary, heroic, funny, tense, or whatever," plus gloomy drones, evocative strings, I've been exploring it for literally hours now. I dare you not to hit the "Octaver" button and work out the first 9 notes of "Dragnet" after you load up "Pandora Bursts." Also, if anyone were not aware, IK Multimedia SampleTank 4 CS has finally shipped, and I am pleased to report that unlike its predecessor the VST3 works without crashing its host. I know this has been announced in this forum more than once, but since the intent of this thread is to be a "virtual sticky" compendium and resource, I wanted to mention it here. The free version comes with a ton of content, it looks like they're taking on Native Instruments in that regard. It's nice to see that IK have sorted that nasty crash issue. It's now my go-to acoustic piano.

There are several freeware ones listed in The Freeware Instruments Thread, which is overdue for a good bump anyway. Big news being Sampletank 4 CS. Like Sampletank 3 CS, but doesn't crash its hosts.

Let's break this down more step by step. We need more information. Are you looking for it in the Browser at the right side of the Track View? Or are you trying to insert it from the FX bin on a Console strip or Track header? If you're trying to insert it from an FX bin, is your list of effects sorted by Category or Manufacturer or Type? If it's Category, new effects often appear in Uncategorized. Plug-in manufacturers don't add that string to their code I guess. There are multiple ways to add an effect. If you find it in the Browser, you may drag and drop it onto the track header.

As someone who doesn't own Kontakt, who runs his home studio hobby on a shoestring budget, the big difference is that libraries created with/for TX16Wx aren't proprietary. Just something to consider: proprietary format vs. open. It limits the audience, or user base or whatever of people who can enjoy your libraries.

@msmcleod has a nice set of definitions for using the nanoKONTROL II in Cakewalk.

Dude, I was at that show. You were so wasted you got the name of the venue mixed up with the name of the band. When Stacia offers you a strawberry soaked in "wine," hang on.

Hey, calm down. We're trying to help here. As I said, you had it coming with calling your issue "Blue Sticky Finger Bar." I did the best I could with the information you posted, really I did, including looking closely at your screen grab, which appeared to me to show the Inspector with a white box around it. Your Inspector just so happened to be inspecting a track that you had colored blue. I have helped people with simpler questions. Pretend for a moment that I can't read your mind and that terms like "blue highlight" or "blue highlight box when dragging window" or something mundane like that might help me understand what you're talking about and that I might not think of it in terms of "finger" "sticky" or even "bar" no matter what you personally call it. ? Now I understand what you mean, you're talking about how when you move an undocked window back over the main Skylight, there's a blue highlight that appears showing you the place your undocked window will dock into if you let go of it. Right? To my knowledge, there is no way to switch it off, the only workaround is to hold the Ctrl key when dragging those windows. Please give it a shot in the Feedback Forum. I, too would like to be able to turn this off, as I, too, like to work with floating windows.

Do you have any other VST hosts to try them in? That may help narrow down the issue to "working on your system" vs. "working with Cakewalk on your system."

i-yi-yi, I thought that was the case, then I opened the Views menu and there was no "i" shown as the shortcut. Thanks for setting me straight!

BTW, Percolate, I'm sorry to say, is not even worthy of unZIPping. Absolute poo. I don't think they even list it on their website any more. It's the kind of plug-in that probably gave SoundSpot a poor reputation early in their history. Ho-hum processing in a needlessly obscure UI. SoundSpot seem to be focusing more on the "hot producer" EDM market, which I think is a good idea for them. They have cool-looking UI's that inspire messing about, but when it comes to more straightforward "I need a warm-sounding compressor for this acoustic drum bus," or "let's put some EQ on the master bus," I haven't found as much use for their offerings. And....ho-lee virtual space, does Phoenix sound amazing! I did a simple, quick A-B putting it into my reverb send bus with Oril River on a drum mix and the difference was spectacular. I just left Phoenix on its default preset, with similar levels and whatnot on Oril River. With Phoenix, my mix' image extended beyond the monitors both left and right and up and down and front and back. It was stunning, and at first of course I didn't trust myself, so I switched back and forth, checked the settings on Oril River....nope, pretty similar. Up to this point, I've loved Oril River. It just slaughtered every reverb I've ever auditioned, instantly and decisively. Never heard anything like it. Of course, I am wary of FX that instantly make a mix sound like a million bucks, so I will revisit this phenomenon and see how it holds up, but for now it's the best $9 I've spent on a plug-in in quite some time. Also, the first reverb I've liked enough more than TrueVerb or OrilRiver to even pay for, and the descriptiveness and abundance of presets will help a great deal in guiding me to select the right one for the sonic space I'm trying to create.

As a SoundSpot fan I can say that Nebula is absolutely worth installing if you're into messing with modulation. It's a creative tool, as in, when you play with it, you'll find things to do with it that you hadn't thought of. Plus it has the gorgeous SoundSpot UI. MSW2....just got it so I can't say. MSW1 is not a go-to width manipulator for me, but they say that 2 does stereo-from-mono as well as being able to set a lowpass and then mono-izing below the lowpass, a-la Boz' Mongoose. And it has a display that shows you what's going on. And the newer SoundSpot UI look. In my quiver, it's up against the Boz/Joey Sturgis CM one, which is a hard act to follow.

Can verify both feelings of happiness and consternation. Reverb is something I still don't have the best handle on, I'm not far past scrolling through the presets in the hope of finding one that sounds decent on my send bus. Just the fact that Phoenix has jillions of great well-organized presets with descriptive names puts it miles ahead of anything else. For instance, the first professional sounding reverb I got was TrueVerb in a giveaway. Have always loved the way the algo sounds, but it comes with only about a dozen presets with the usual "Medium Hall," "Drum Room," "Cathedral" designations, a complicated interface, and a thick manual that reads like someone's master's thesis.

Open Preferences and scroll down to the Workflow Impediments section and uncheck "Blue Sticky Finger Bar." You had that coming. I believe you're referring to the Inspector. Looks like you undocked it and it's floating around obscuring things that you would rather be inspecting. You can banish it by clicking on the little "X" in its upper right hand corner (not kidding this time, Cakewalk is a Windows app and I went an embarrassingly long time before I realized I could close the Inspector that way), or go up to the Views menu and unselect Inspector, or....well, there's no keystroke to show and hide the Inspector so you have to use the menu command.

Blue sticky answer. Duplicate post.

My favorite is BlueLab's BL Gain. Very simple. But as others have pointed out, Cakewalk does already have a channel gain knob on each strip. It's nice to have something like BL Gain around, though, because you can stick it between plug-ins if needed.

The OP isn't having problems with audio recording. They're getting an audio engine stall with an error message while playing a VSTi. Game audio is actually a demanding application for an audio CODEC, and the Realtek chip has a bit of a starting advantage hardware-wise by being directly connected on the motherboard rather than through a USB port. There is no practical reason that Cakewalk should not be able to play a violin sound through a given sound device without crapping out when a game can play an explosion sound through the same device without crapping out. In my opinion, unless someone is recording audio into their DAW computer, it is not strictly necessary to buy an external device which would be used only for sound playback. The biggest reason not to bother trying to use onboard audio facilities for DAW recording work is that the input is usually a flimsy unbalanced line level 1/8" jack. You'll spend all your time trying not to get it to hum, clip, hiss and cut out. But if you're not recording audio, and plenty of EDM and scoring music is made without ever touching a microphone, you don't need a fancy audio device. I have some suggestions for changing the settings in Cakewalk to help it not drop out when playing virtual instruments. Check in Audio/Playback and Recording and see what Driver Mode you are set to. Cakewalk only allows changing the buffers slider if you are in the WDM/KS or WASAPI/Exclusive modes, so if you are in WASAPI/Shared mode, yes, it will be greyed out. The best mode for running with a built-in sound device is WASAPI/Exclusive. You can achieve lower latency for soft synth playback in that mode, and you can also move the slider to set the latency a little higher to prevent Cakewalk from dropping out.

A tuner would be an excellent addition to the ProChannel modules. In the meantime, my favorite tuner plug-in is Meldaproduction's MTuner, which may be had as part of their Free Bundle.

Ah. I was wondering how the 8.5 stalwarts were feeling about Take Lanes after the recent retooling. Used to see a lot of complaining about the Take Lanes workflow vs. Layers(?) but that seems to have quieted down. Have Take Lanes improved or have the Layers fans just given up for good? So before ProChannel there was a conventional channel strip EQ that was replaced by the Quad Curve ProChannel module. I can see where you would miss that. The ProChannel is an extra click. Usually when I'm using it for simple HP/LP I don't bother to pop open the full interface. And how I wish double-clicking on the graph in the channel strip would pop open the full interface without having to open the ProChannel first. That's a sweet collection of synths. I just make do with a handful that AIR and iZotope put on deep discount. Hybrid 3, Iris 2, Vacuum Pro. I also have a bunch of A|A|S soundsets which I love, great for electronic/ambient. For orchestral sounds, Sonivox' great samples delivered in in crappy UI's. ? And of course whatever free loss-leaders a company is kind enough to offer.

Remember that while at least initially the forum regulars skewed heavily toward Sonar Platinum refugees (like you, I believe), Cakewalk by BandLab only ships with the Sonar Professional set of ProChannel modules. So no Concrete Limiter or CA-2A for instance. I started with CbB and therefore am missing a pile of the Platinum Suite plug-ins. All the high-end synths, for instance. Rapture, Dimension, etc. Ultimately, it's up to product management to decide what are good ideas to implement and what to wait on. Most suggestions would improve the program, if only for the person who suggested them. ?Although once in a blue moon we see something like this one guy who came up with the idea of putting advertisements in a splash screen because he was having issues with BandLab Assistant. His logic was, I think, the product of frustration. ? I did not hold back from telling him that I thought his suggestion was a poor one.?

Another visit from Annoying It Can Already Do This Guy: if you go into Preferences/File/Advanced and uncheck Allow Only One Open Project At A Time, you'll be able to open the project you wish to import the tracks from. At that point, you should be able to just drag and drop tracks from the source project to the target project.