Starship Krupa

As a great admirer of Meldaproduction's plug-ins and loss-leader marketing, who thinks Vojtech is a genius coder with a sense of excellence and generosity, and as someone who years ago had a big breakthrough at understanding how to really set up a compressor thanks to the Free Bundle's MCompressor, here are my insights about the plug-ins: Whether by design or not, they are aimed at people who already know their way around processors and in most cases, want to take it to the next level. While they do sound great out of the box, they very much reward even a small bit of poking around. Press a button and a panel will slide open revealing a bunch of other options you had no idea were there. Even my beloved MCompressor, I used it for years, then one day clicked on a button and a window opened up and I discovered that it's possible to pre-EQ the detector. Later, I found that the upgrade version (when you register the whole bundle of 37 plug-ins for $50, or $25 on big sale days) lets you draw your own curves in the detector (actually, the free version might, too). Another example, all the EQ's, even the Free Bundle MEqualizer have an amazing sounding saturation algorithm built in. I noticed it one evening while setting up the EQ, just up in the corner waiting for me to try it and be knocked out. The reasonable prices may lead people to think otherwise, but just about every audio processor in the lineup is an incredibly deep powerhouse once you dig into the features. As relates to the above, the documentation SUCKS. For such next-level tools, a lot of things that people have never seen before, not to be explained better to the user, is sad. I started a thread about this on the KVR forum and it went on for pages. Vojtech never even chimed in. Everyone pretty much agreed, no matter how much of a drooling fanboy they were: they loved the products but felt held back by needing more explanation. It's silly, it's the achilles heel. The same guy who waxes on and on about how the world has never seen such advanced signal processors fails to supply adequate instructions on how to use and, especially, apply these innovative processors. With Meldaproduction plug-ins I always feel like one of those people in a movie who finds a piece of alien technology that does all this amazing stuff, but they don't know exactly what all it can do, and part of the suspense/humor is whether they'll be able to figure it out. Like the Stargate franchise. The YouTube videos are helpful, but not everyone learns well that way and they are not a substitute for a good manual. As relates to the above, the presets can be too sparse, and to put it politely, not descriptively named. The online preset exchange is a brilliant idea, however. If you dig really deeply into working with oscillators and multiparameters, despite the fact that you could probably make a full-time career out of learning how to use them on something as simple as MEqualizer or MCompressor, what you learn on one processor readily translates to the others. One last thing: IMO, MComb nukes every other filter of its type that I've tried. I didn't know this for a long time because I just never got around to trying it out. Moral: if you have one of their bundles, especially the Free Bundle, and you haven't tried all of the plug-ins, especially the "weird" ones, it's fun to take a little time to load 'em up and step through a few presets.

Huh, I wasn't even aware that MSoundFactory had an LE and Player versions. That's doing it right, a $99 LE version for people who don't need/want to dive into all of the features of the monster that is MSoundFactory. IMO, that's the missing piece in the Kontakt line. Right now I'm still enjoying my subscription to EVERYTHING. Which, truth be told, is confirming my buying choices. The other Meldaproduction plug-ins have been fun to play with, but there's nothing I really need to do a mix with that I don't already have.

One way to get a really nice vocoder is to buy Mixcraft, which comes with one made by Acoustica themselves that may be used in other hosts (at least it could last time I checked). Current price is $75, but they have been known to deep discount it.

Thinking that BreakTweaker 2 can't be far behind. After all, they did swell the ranks of potential upgraders a couple of months ago when they were selling it for $9. It's become my favorite new thing. Break Tweaker 2, maybe some prettier, resizable GUI's for the Exponential line, get them on the iZotope authentication mechanism, that could shake a few shekels out of the crowd.

As opposed to the other programs that appear instantly on your computer instead of taking a precious 120 seconds to download an optional update. No, nothing in life is ever really free, not even being breastfed, because even then you have to go to the effort of opening your mouth and sucking.

I seldom use Staff View, but when I do, I don't want to have to fight it, if you get me. I'm not the most comfortable working with notation as it is. I don't know why an oddity creeping in like suddenly having to hold Ctrl down to get a fully populated context menu has taken so long to correct. I believe that I wrote that up as a bug and submitted it to the developers a few months ago. It may have been one of the people in this thread called my attention to it.

It looks like they both apply: From a scanning of the Terms of Use, the only concern a Cakewalk user might have would be that BandLab does reserve the right to deactivate accounts in the event the user violates the Terms of Use. Since continued Cakewalk function depends on having an active BandLab account, this would mean that in order to keep using Cakewalk, the user would need to create a new BandLab account. All of the stuff regarding content seems to only apply to content submitted to BandLab's Albums service, not all content created with any of the apps.

Your utility still works, though, doesn't it?

Wow. This was the missing piece of the puzzle the entire time. All I've ever wanted to do is display drum names instead of piano keys over on the left side, I didn't want to work with little fuzzy triangles or necessarily even deviate from General MIDI, because most of my drum synths conform to it. And I see that when I draw a note with it set up like this, it shows the name of the instrument on each MIDI note. Handy. I asked on the forum how people were getting those drum names to show up on the MIDI notes and nobody answered. Maybe as with chuckebaby, they had so much experience that it was "like normal" to them and it didn't occur that I wouldn't know that you could do it, even though I just checked and the documentation says you can specify different instrument names, but doesn't say "you can replace the piano keys with a list of instrument names." Not that I could find, anyway. Two years I've been hassling with Drum Maps when all I had to do was right click on the piano keys and tell it I wanted to use General MIDI Drums. And everyone who's listened to my complaints has probably assumed that I already knew you could do it the easy way. Thank you Steve and Chuck for enlightening me.

If this is using the Smart Tool, if you haven't already, you might try experimenting with right-clicking on the Smart Tool button and turning off the Smart/Comp function for a while and see if it helps. I prefer having Smart/Comp on sometimes and off other times because it always assumes I want to be working in that mode.

Thanks, Steve. I followed that link and read your post, but I obviously missed the point and will revisit it again.

As I said, the only way I've figured out to do that is to assign a Drum Map to the MIDI track and select Show Drum Pane. If there is another way I can see the correct drum names on the left side, I don't give a rat's anatomical part about Drum Maps. That's all they've ever been for me, a way to display the drum names of the soft synths I'm using.

Ohhhh, you mean the default setting in the Drum Grid Pane, with the triangles, and you can turn on their velocities and then work with triangles with velocity bars sticking up. No, I usually use it like you do, with Notes/Show Durations in Drum Grid turned on. That's what you're showing in your video, right? You must be, you have a list of drum kit instruments on the left, then you're placing and editing what look like the usual rectangular block MIDI notes in the grid. AFAIK, that's still called the "Drum Grid Pane," but you have note durations turned on so they switch from the triangle form to the more common one. That's the only way to make it look like it does on your screen, set me straight if I'm wrong. You can choose either triangles or full-duration rectangles in the Drum Grid. I may be off base, because you say you're not using the Drum Grid, but I don't know of any other way to have both a list of drum kit instruments on the left and edit with full note lengths on the right. If you're not using the Drum Grid, how are you getting a list of drum kit instruments instead of piano keys?

Yes, the rule should be "display as many characters as there is room for, the note, the accidental, then the octave in order of priority." There is never a reason to display an ellipsis, if there's room for an ellipsis, there's room for the accidental or the octave that is being truncated.

I use the same method you do in your video. Is there another way I don't know about? What "Drum Map" means to me is that list of drum kit instruments you have over on the left that are mapped to the drum synth you are using, whether it's a soft synth in Cakewalk or an external drum machine. Using it is fine (if kind of primitive looking UI-wise). As you point out, it's little different from editing any other Cakewalk MIDI. Setting it up is what's like playing Zork in 1986. It could be much simpler, and when the time comes, I have some ideas. It looks like others have some ideas about making them more versatile as well.

I never thought of that. Creating and saving presets in MNotepad. Which also makes me realize that this is possible to do with Track Templates and could be a good idea for memory jogging. Also, I tried putting MNotepad on a track and opening the automation lane to see what parameters were exposed, and in addition to Preset Change, and Bypass, it lists Scroll. That might be handy for displaying lyrics while tracking vocals, which is something I found Cakewalk's Lyrics View to be....unsuited to my needs. To say the least.

Easily amused are we? In the age of exploration sometimes special measures must be taken in order to obtain the treasures. Enjoy the theme, good fellow. I found it most inspiring myself.

I don't use a control surface either. Logitech mouse, keyboard, Alt+Wheel, or even keys to zoom in. Maybe we're talking about different situations, or I have something set incorrectly or something, but my common scenario is that I'll be zoomed out in the Track View, and want to zoom in on a clip to do some editing or in the Piano Roll to work on a section of MIDI notes, and as I zoom, for no reason I can determine, the view drifts to the left or right. This is with the transport stopped. If it's drifting to the left, I can "cheat" the mouse to the right to get it drifting in that direction or vice versa, but then it starts drifting in that direction. I don't want it to drift to the left or right, I want it to zoom in statically. I don't care if that's going to be where I have the cursor/Aim Assist pointed, the Now Time, the MIDI notes I have selected, whatever, or merely zoom in wherever it's sitting, I just don't want it to always be going away from where I was focused. The whole point of zooming in is to focus on something, and CbB's zooming takes my focus away from what I want to work on. As it is, I just chase it back and forth as best I can with the mouse, and then when I get to the magnification I want, I scroll over to where I wanted to be when I started zooming in. If that happens to be maximum zoom so that I can notch automate a lip click or something, that can be a challenge. Since I can't believe anyone would actually want to go through all this hassle every time they zoom in, can you share with me how you go from zoomed out on the whole project to zoomed in on a clip, using Fast Zoom (Alt+Wheel), accurately, without it drifting around? I must be using it the wrong way or have something set incorrectly. The way I would expect it to behave is that I'd click to set the Now Time, and zooming in would center on that. Every other program I can think of uses a zooming logic of "the user wants to zoom in on the area they are currently focused on (rather than something off to the right or left)."

Okay, Tezza, this topic is pertinent to one of my biggest frustrations when trying to put together good components for a workstation. Since gaming drives the GPU market, it is virtually impossible to find specifications or benchmarking for a graphics card's 2-D performance, yet I know for a fact that they can't all have the same performance. Hitfilm and DaVinci are 2-D applications, if they use the GPU it's only during rendering, please correct me if I'm wrong. Vegas Pro, which I use, is like that. It comes with CODECS that can use my CUDA processors at render time. I would like to get a video card that would allow me to work in Vegas as smoothly as possible but I don't want to pay for 3-D performance I'm not going to use since I'm not interested in gaming these days (used to enjoy it, just not currently). I also sometimes have the video window open in Cakewalk and Mixcraft, so I would like that 2-D use to be smooth as well. What did you base your card purchase on for your video editing use? Do you know of benchmarking software for 2-D performance? When I search on video editing forums for "best video card for Vegas" I get results that say things like "pretty much any card," but I know that the faster the memory the faster they can display, and my cards are over 10 years old. Their memory is slower than the later ones, and since it was more expensive, they have less of it. That at least must make a difference?

What CPU running at what frequency, how much RAM, what model of video card, what type (SSD, 7200RPM or 5200RPM) and size of hard drive(s), what audio interface (running in what driver mode, ASIO, WASAPI Exclusive or Shared, MME). Without that information, it's very difficult to help troubleshoot. Also what operating system. For an example, look in my sig. If you're not sure yourself about any of this, my favorite tool for gathering information about a system is HWINFO64. Google it if you need it. To say you went from a "slow computer" to a "fast computer" means nothing when we don't know what it is about the hardware that makes it "slow" and "fast." Information about whether your projects are mostly audio or MIDI/virtual instruments is also helpful. Time after time I see people asking for help, and people in return asking for information about their systems and not getting any answer. I don't understand why people are so coy about it.

Both my desktop and laptop are still "not ready" for the update, and just for the heck of it I clicked on the "learn more" link and determined that the likely cause in both cases is the elderliness of their nVidia graphics drivers. Both are running 342 (the latest available for the hardware from nVidia) while the earliest driver that Windows 10 2004 is okay with is 358. So there you have it: in order to defer the 2004 update, stick an older nVidia card in your system. I can tell you that there are a lot of Dell laptops with nVidia Quadro 310's out there. The Latitude 6400 series, for instance. Fine with me if nVidia and/or Microsoft have to come up with a new driver for us.

That's too bad. In addition to its other shortcomings, the poor Drum Map must suffer from homeliness as well.

Zooming has always been tough for me in CbB. In my perspective, the recent update didn't take anything away, it's always been a challenge, kind of like I'm trying to play a flight simulation game set to "heavy unpredictable crosswind."

In my experience, those inexpensive home learning all-in-one keyboards work great as starter MIDI controllers. They can often be had cheaply at thrift stores and garage sales. They're usually velocity sensitive, and as long as they have the 5-pin DIN MIDI out, you're good to go. Play on it, if it feels good, it is good. My main controller at my workstation is a Kawai K1 from the mid 80's given to me by my ex-girlfriend. I don't use the internal sounds, I just like its action. One of my favorite controllers is a Rockband keytar that I snagged at my local Salvation Army for $6 after I noticed that it had a 5-pin DIN connector. Turned out to have a nice velocity sensitive action and works great for sitting on the sofa with the laptop using a USB-powered MIDI interface. Speaking of which, to add MIDI input all you need to do is augment your setup with something like this: https://www.amazon.com/OTraki-Adapter-Converter-Professional-Keyboard/dp/B08549TD7G/ There is a rock-bottom type of those that in my experience has problems with stuck notes, so mind the reviews. They have an opaque oval plastic shell with screen printing and go for around $10. They are best avoided. Alternately, you could upgrade your interface to a PreSonus or Focusrite that has a built-in 5-pin MIDI port. I toss out those brands because if you're going to bother getting a new interface, you might as well get something with really good preamp(s). Caveat: advice comes from a variety of perspectives. Some comes from "if you want to put together a well-equipped studio now" and others' comes from the perspective of "if you want to minimize your initial investment, have some fun exploring, and then upgrade later if you want to get serious." Mine is very much the latter, because that's how I do it. I have a home studio that consists of a workstation along one side of my dining room, which by a fluke of 1903 architecture, has interesting acoustics. I labor under no assumption that I will earn money by creating music, unless by some kind of fluke. I make music for fun, and to be listened to, by the more, the merrier. The better it can sound, the better.

I'll admit that they do seem to have a lot of takers, whatever they're doing seems to be working until someone else comes along that can eat their lunch. I don't know what Kontakt has going for it that SampleTank (the most recent issue) and other such products don't, except maybe the ability to create those elaborate UI's? I don't know if SampleTank and sforzando can do that.