Starship Krupa

I wish to help clarify your request for my fellow English speakers: you wish to be able to do everything without needing to use the keyboard at all? As in a right click context menu or pull-down menu? I am asking because this is important to me as well. Less so as I become a more experienced user. As with all similar editing and creative software, I find that once I learn my way around, it becomes much faster to learn the keyboard modifiers and shortcuts. However, for the very important new users, as I was 2 1/2 years ago, I believe that it is crucial to be able to find every command available from menus. So if that is what you mean, we agree 100%, although maybe for different reasons. For me, it's for new people to be able to use the program. For you? Do I have it correct? Or is it the other way around? ?

The scenario: I'm editing or comping away furiously, and hit the middle button to bring up the HUD to switch tools. I click and hold on the "Wrench" button, and realize that I spaced and that what I really wanted was one of the drawing tools, which are under the "Pencil" button. So I lift off the "Wrench" button before I've actually made a selection and click on the "Pencil" button and....poof! the HUD vanishes. If there is a setting that will change this behavior, please tell me, otherwise, FEATURE REQUEST: Please allow us to change our minds about which tool we want while we've got the HUD open. Clicks on buttons on the HUD shouldn't banish it until the user has "sealed the deal" and chosen a tool or edit filter or note duration. Clicks outside the HUD should banish it. Or whatever, at least it shouldn't go away when I'm earnestly trying to click on a button.

Right after I discovered its not-so-discreet charms, I sat down at the Slingerlands and recorded my attempt at a NIN-type early 90's industrial beat (to a click), then put MComb on the drum bus and modified one of the presets to make the filter thingies go back and forth tempo sync'd. As in the Stargate scenario above, I didn't really know what I was doing except I figured out how to change the oscillators to tempo sync and I think I adjusted the Q to be sharper. The results were ferocious. I wonder what I could do if I fully understood how to use it! Really, I could see a university class being developed and taught around these things. It would be more useful than quite a few of the ones I actually took.

You all are so awesome. It's great to get so much information, and it's also comforting to know I'm not the only one I hope that new users find out quickly about the availability of so many great themes. IMO, there should be more links to this content in BandLab Assistant. I've lobbied for inclusion of the Reference Guide as an "extras" link in BA, and I'd also like to see a link to user-created themes. After all, isn't that BandLab's thing? People sharing what they've made, I think it's a natural fit. This gives me much to digest, and in the meantime, I've "borrowed" Matthew's button strips.

Okay, I don't care what anyone says about this issue, it is neither unsolvable nor trivial in impact. The issue I'm talking about is the one where on some (all? I don't know) interfaces, at least mine, that have multiple inputs, Cakewalk displays the names of the inputs incorrectly and there is no way, even with "Double-click on a friendly name to edit it" for the user to fix this. Yes, I already know "Cakewalk is reporting it that way because that's what the driver reports to Cakewalk bla bla bla." Awesome, isn't Cakewalk's entire job to translate gibberish from various drivers into things that humans can understand? If it took that approach in other areas, wouldn't audio in Cakewalk just sound like FAX machine noise and video be a blob of colored snow? In this case, it's not doing its job well enough. It's taking in ugly information and passing it on without enough translation. I'm usually not one to play this card, but other programs are able to perform this task without breaking a sweat. Observe Mixcraft: It still shows them as stereo pairs for whatever reason, but it has their actual names in parentheses and it's clear enough. The reason I'm kind of lit up about this is because it messed me up last night once again. Two times in the past I've armed the wrong input for recording and wound up with 3 tracks of drums and one track of silence. Fortunately those were practice sessions and didn't matter. This time was a real session and we were running out of time and I couldn't get a level on the vocal mic. Phantom power on, cable in, level up on the preamp, I was getting something, just not the deep rich sound of my vocalist close in on the mic like I wanted him. That's because for 5 embarrassing minutes I was tapping on the vocal mic while I was turning up the level on the guitar amp mic, which was plugged into what Cakewalk said was "Left Firepod ASIO x64 Pod 1 - Input 3L" instead of the vocal mic, which was plugged into "Right Firepod ASIO x64 Pod 1 - Input 3L." These inputs on my Firepod are not marked Left or Right anything on the panel, they are labeled "3" and "4." Just because the driver's lying doesn't make it okay. There is no such thing as "Right Firepod Input 3L." It's "Input 4." It can be "Right Input 4" or "whatever" input 4, but there has to be some way for it to be labeled Input 4. Even if I have to do it myself, I don't care.

One of my perpetual annoyances regarding Cakewalk is my difficulty in visually distinguishing when FX (and sends) are engaged or bypassed either at a rack or individual level. Variations in grey scale aren't really enough for me. I would like a nice bright green for "engaged." Maybe a dark green for otherwise. Or blue. Rather than just grumble, I have decided to attempt to address it via creating some new button sets for the FX (and sends). If they work, I'll make them available of course. I've altered and made some original Cakewalk theme art in the past, but button strips are different. Is there any documentation available or is it just a matter of guesswork? I know that some of the multiple images in the set will represent the "on" state, the "pressed" state, the "off" state and so forth, but I have no idea going in which is which. I know that Matthew does the Red/Green, which is great, but I want to do something a little less extreme. Any help or encouragement here is welcome.

Colin, I wanted to report an error in the 0.9.6 YLG: at the end of p. 74 you offer MarianoGF's "Boston Flowers" as an example of of putting thought into how clips are colored in a theme, but the screenshot to illustrate it is missing.

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)."