Starship Krupa

Yes, once you have your tracks in MIDI format, the sky's the limit as far as what you can do with it in terms of sounds with Cakewalk, even if you have no money to invest at this time. Get SampleTank Free CS 4, which has many really good sounds, Kontakt Komplete Start, 6GB of free high quality content, or even just start with the SI Strings, Drums, and Piano, and TTS-1 and put on some effects.

Very entertaining thread. I'm a mid-field olde tymer, had the one college programming class back in '79 where I submitted my FORTRAN programs via deck of punched cards, built my first computer from a kit, Sinclair ZX-81 in 1981, then next one was a frankenclone XT out of castoff parts in 1990. Been participating in online forums since 1989. Was one of the founding architects of the SF Bay Area's notorious NirvanaNet; our first meetup was at one of my bands' gigs in the lower Haight. Good times. Been keeping an eye on Linux since I downloaded a copy in 1991 and gave it to a programmer friend at the company I worked for. Also obtained a pirated copy of "Chicago" for the same company via my sketchy BBS connections, delivered to my doorstep by what was known back in those days as a "courier." Nice feller, I met him again when we both worked at Macromedia a few years later, pre-Adobe. I agree with the OP for the most part, although in my impression, Linux-as-moonieware is nowhere near as rabid as it once was. Perhaps I've learned to tolerate the moonieware phenomenon. It has been my impression that most Linux desktop users had just settled into using "Windblows" DAWs under Wine. Let me dust off my Linux user trolling hat and remind them that the argument that the ongoing hilarity of trying to set a native DAW under Linux using the most common of audio interfaces is somehow the fault of the hardware manufacturers seems odd, because, hey, your pet platform is supposed to be all about this army of coders toiling away for the common good, isn't it? So why don't they just write the drivers you need for your hardware? Or is that beyond their capabilities? Why is this one area of code the one thing that the Linux world is sitting around on its collective utopian a55 waiting for commercial entities to hand them on a silver platter? Nobody can take a break from the Mr. Robot fan forum long enough to code up a driver for the Scarlett 2i2? Having said that, I don't think that there's anything holding it back from use in any field except serious NLE creation like audio and video. I use GIMP on Windows, it finally made it to the point where it will do what I need it to, and it's a native Linux app, so I'll give Linux photo editing, and Inkscape is a powerhouse as well. So as long as the content you're creating doesn't move it's great. Video and audio editing is just too close to the hardware. We find crash bugs in Cakewalk, and it has a dedicated team of veteran programmers who work on it for a living and have done for a long time. For productivity, with so much being done in browsers these days, and with Libre Office having matured, the underlying platform is becoming superfluous. My mom is 82 and her main system is a Chromebook she got a couple of years ago. Originally when it arrived at her place, she was going to wait for Mr. Family Tech Support Guy to come and set it up for her, but her curiosity got the best of her and the next day I spoke with her on the phone and she had it up and running and connected to her wifi router with no outside intervention. The hardest part for her was finding and typing the wifi password. I migrated her to Google Docs from Libre Office a bit before that, so she was good to go. She runs into bit of trouble from time to time when her friends and collaborators can't deal with something that's not in Word format, so I discovered Microsoft Office Online last week, and I hope she gets up to speed on that. I know that Google Docs can export as .doc, but I figured it might be the better route. So there you go, a desktop Linux computer passes the "old lady" test with (almost) flying colors. However. The hardware bugaboo again, when she needs to print something, she still fires up her old iMac, which sits next to her printer, even though I set up the Chromebook to print to her wireless printer. Something about the printing dialogs with the Chromebook escapes her. Next visit, after the pandemic dies down, we'll be investigating this. My girlfriend has an iPad and does everything on it, including photo editing. She does most things in Safari, even, I can't get her to use things there are native apps for, like YouTube and Google. Another friend of mine, who has a rippin' Mac Pro tower for Pro Tools, prefers his iPhone 6s for everything else, and I mean video editing, photo editing, screenplay writing, everything. I sometimes feel like a dinosaur for doing so much using, you know, a regular desktop Windows 10 computer. People ask me if I saw this or that that they posted on Instagram and I say not yet. I would browse Instagram more often if Instagram worked better in a damn browser. You still can't upload pictures from anything but a mobile device. I have some fun pictures I'd like to put up, but sometimes not taken with a phone, and I just don't stare at the thing as much as I do the 'puter. And I like to throw a bit of cropping and color correction on my photos, which I do using GIMP. Now, as a veteran IT guy, a few words about the clinging to Windows 7 phenomenon. I was a later adopter, mostly because my behind the curve computers worked, and I got cantankerous about Microsoft putting that unwanted tray icon on my system. What tipped it was Noel and Jon telling me that BandLab were no longer interested in active support for Windows 7. I upgraded my oldest system, and wonder of wonders, it actually seemed to work better than it did before, and a bunch of hardware that I couldn't get to work under Windows 7, like my old Canon scanner, started to work again. I had put an SSD in this because it was an older computer. Windows 10 must have a fast system drive. The first rule of Windows 10 is that it must have a fast system drive. My laptop, running 7 Pro, so went to 10 Pro, also great. 7200RPM spinny. The main system, however, has been more problematic. I'm still working on that, and I'm finding out that part of the issue was that Windows 10's behavior exposed a hardware issue on my system. I'm learning a lot about Windows 10 system optimization. I'm glad I made the upgrade, and consider it an upgrade for sure. One thing it does that I really do not like, it writes a LOT of logfiles, but these can be turned off. I'm going to post about this in the regular forum as a tuning tip. As far as staying with Windows 7, what's the big deal about "OMG, I'm not going to get security updates from Microsoft, so I must airgap my system from the internet!" I'm open to new information, what disastrous outcome do you imagine from having a computer system operated by you, connected to the internet, but no longer getting security updates from Microsoft? I presume that the system in question is mostly dedicated to DAW usage, so doesn't contain any sensitive information like email messages or personal documents, and since we're cautious about data loss, we're meticulously backing everything up. So tell me: what happens to systems connected to the internet that aren't getting patches from Microsoft? You want to know what my protection against malware is? I don't open executable email attachments. I run Malwarebytes on an ad hoc basis to clear the occasional browser hijack. And In 35 years of using computers, Windows 10 is the first time I've every had a permanently resident anti-malware program running, and that's because Microsoft forces it on you as part of the OS. I have, in all those years, gotten exactly one virus, 20 years ago, when I broke my rule about running sketchy downloaded executables. Hey, I thought it was an archive. I should have scanned it first. Since being on Windows 10, I have had this Coyote/Roadrunner battle with Windows Defender's Realtime Scanning. I found a way to turn it off permanently using Group Policy Editor, which I had to figure out how to enable on Windows 10 Home, then Microsoft figured out how to get around it and an update turned realtime scanning back on. Currently they are winning, but I'm working on a fix. My computer, my rules. In the meantime, at least I can exclude my audio and plug-in folders.

Probably Pianissimo. I'm familiar with the doings over at Acoustica and I know that Spin It hasn't been touched in at least half a dozen years and they've never included it in any kind of promotion in the past half dozen years either. I think it's not really a live product. I also don't think it's worth $19, or even a fraction of that. Pianissimo, on the other hand is a very nice-sounding, very easy on the CPU virtual piano made by combining sampling and modeling. twenty bucks is a rather good deal for it. And with IK Multimedia giving the superb Berlin Piano away for free with SampleTank 4 CS, I can see where they might feel the need to be more competitive on the price. And to clarify for those who may have misunderstood what Larry said: when you purchase a license for Mixcraft Pro Studio, Pianissimo is one of the bundled instruments. That's how I became familiar with it. I have a friend who bought an upgrade license from Mixcraft to Pro solely to get the Pianissimo license, although I don't think he minds having the Melodyne Essentials. Mixcraft has a few juicy features that would be sweet to have with Cakewalk. The integrated phrase sampler and performance panel are really useful, and their new vocoder looks cool. Not locked to Mixcraft Pro Studio either, far as I can tell.

For the great unwashed who don't own Kontakt (there are such people), it looks like it's basically the SynthOne instrument.

My experience so far is exactly similar to @iScream's. It would be nice to have another titler to play with, but if all I get is their one-knob de-esser, I ain't complaining.

I don't fully understand ARA2 technology, but I wonder if editing of wave files with an external program is an area where it might find an application.

XPand!2 at $14 is one of the best deals there is to be had for a virtual instrument, especially for someone with Cakewalk, which is a relatively bare-bones DAW when it comes to bundled instruments. 2000 patches. The only minor complaints for me are the limited parameter adjustments (you can adjust amplitude and filter ADSR and that's it, no glide) and, given the massive number of sounds in the thing, no way to do a text search for presets. Few synths have that feature anyway. TTS-1 is very much a 90's GM synth, excellent for its time but now dated. Still, there are some very usable sounds in there if you dig down below the top levels of the preset browser, especially the pianos and organs. I have a template for when I want to get ideas down quickly and TTS-1 with one of its pianos is in it. Light as a feather, loads in an instant. If you have a General MIDI file you need to work with, there's nothing better.

I think Steinberg wouldn't make such a big deal on their website about the download version of Halion Sonic SE not coming with any extra content if there weren't a version somewhere on dvd that does come with extra content. Or maybe they're just making sure people don't get it mixed up with Kontakt Player and SampleTank and sforzando, all of which burden the people who download them with dozens of demo instruments. If that's the goal, maybe they could use some good ol' advertising slogans to help them stand out from the competition, to turn potential customers on to the benefit of downloading and installing their download manager and their licensing server and then downloading and installing and registering their virtual instrument at which point they will have a sample player with no samples. (I still haven't received any license code for the #stayhomeandwait promotion either) "Download Halion Sonic SE now and find out why it's the favorite free sample player of people with metered Internet service." "Halion Sonic SE by Steinberg. No stutter in your playback, no clutter in your download folder." "When space on your SSD is at a premium, the choice is clear: Halion Sonic SE." "Does your free sampler keep you up at night worrying how a company can remain solvent giving things away? For 'sound' sleep, the doctors at Steinberg prescribe Halion Sonic SE." "Shhhteinberg!"

Which all sound better, I bet. I was impressed when I got the decade-old ST2 libraries converted and working in ST4, how smoothly the features were migrated. Each SampleTank patch/instrument has the usual oscillator/filter/ADSR information, but also comes with information regarding their extensive effects rack. When I open the effects racks, they are populated and have settings, and since their FX have improved the instruments all sound better.

Aieee, Steinberg's site, Halion SE, #stayhomeelements, elicenser, that's hours of my life I'll never get back. I don't blame you, ZincT, it's my own desire to get something for "free." I ended up with....a sample player/synth with apparently no samples or patches to play back, or it won't recognize the ones it does have, and still no licenses for the elements programs. After I downloaded and installed Halion SE, it complained that I needed to license it using what is I guess their take on iLok, elicenser. So I figured out where the Halion installer had put that (not under the Steinberg folder) and requested a serial number a couple more times and finally got one. Went to authorize it and there's no softelicense in the elicenser, so I had to download their special "burn it down and start over" tool, finally I get everything installed and....it's Halion. There's a folder with VSTpresets in it, and the Steinberg Library Manager wakes up and registers them as such, but when I try to load them into Halion, as the Zombies said, don't you bother tryin' to find them, they're not there. I was thinking I'd like to try their free notation editor, Dorico, but I dunno if I want to even mess with Steinberg any more at this point. And lest anyone think that I'm just a leech who only sucks up free stuff, yes, I'm frugal, but I spend money at the companies whose freebies prove useful. Meldaproduction, for instance, has sold me several licenses after drawing me in with their free bundle, as have Boz and Hornet. I also try to play my part by promoting the free stuff that these companies release, to make sure that people know about it and are attracted to it. So I'm thinking that Steinberg is kinda failing in the freebie department if they want to attract us to purchase their other products as a result. I found my experience with Halion itself frustrating, the UI is cramped and confusing and the help was of no help. 3rd place to SampleTank and Kontakt Player.

How does one obtain this library? I was about to download Halion Sonic SE to check it out, figuring I could groove on some more free sampled instruments a la Kontakt Player and SampleTank 4 CS, but there's this big exclamation mark with the notice "The free HALion Sonic SE download version does not contain any content." By which I assumed they meant no instruments, but I couldn't see how to download them separately, so I passed on Halion. Right now they're failing to send me my registration code for their #stayhomeelements collection.

That would suggest a good chance that sforzando would as well, as they are quite similar.

Something on (or not on) his PC is possibly exposing a bug in the downloader, which, face it, ain't always the sharpest tool in the shed. If a program needs a specific missing library in order to function there are better ways to handle it than to go wandering among the daffodils. ? Does BA store its downloads in c:\users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\bandlab-assistant\Downloads? If so, it might be worth checking there or wherever it does keep them to see if there might be an aborted download sitting around Cakeblocking the process. I recall that being a problem for some in the past.

Whoa, really? Workspaces can hide things from the user in Preferences?

Unfortunately there are possible issues with bundling the old SONAR plug-ins now that Cakewalk has evolved 2 years from its origins as SONAR. Even if the plan were to include them as freeware, which we're still not certain they want to do that. There was mention of offering the Cakewalk, Inc. Platinum Suite content for sale at one point. There would have to be a storefront and licensing system set up for that, etc. It's also another feature to support, and if any incompatibilities are discovered, the current development team may not even have access to the code for some of those old plug-ins. We know they don't for the Sonitus suite or TTS-1. BTW, I only just now figured out what TTS-1 stands for: Twelve Tone Systems-1. It's so far removed at this point that it didn't even occur to me. I think it's awesome that this bit of that branding has survived into the BandLab era.

You got it. They're libraries that programs can use instead of the coders having to write them from scratch. For instance file open and save dialogs and menu lists and DirectX interfaces and color pickers, just a ton of stuff that Microsoft programmers put together. The main program calls them up when it needs them. It saves a lot of work on the part of the programmers and has the huge benefit of the look and feel of Windows programs being standardized. You can always spot a program where the programmers used their own code for the file dialogs, right? Unfortunately, I guess the libraries change as the different versions evolve, so the different versions all need to be available for the programs to access. It would be great if the latest installer could be backward compatible, but it's not. Hence we get Visual C++ runtime libraries up the rootie kazootie.

Man, I am sorry to hear that. I've just been up for hours playing the SampleTank 2 Free instruments I imported to SampleTank 3 so I could use them in SampleTank 4 CS. Which has been solid as a rock since the 4.1 release on my system, whereas ST3 crashed in both VST2 and 3 versions. The fact that it crashed after you loaded and unloaded and then loaded and unloaded instruments repeatedly before it crashed suggests to me the plug-in has a memory leak. That's exactly what I was just doing for hours, though, and it didn't happen for me, but I also have 16G of RAM on my system, which is a bigger margin for error if ST4 isn't releasing memory correctly when it unloads samples. If you know how to start up Task Manager/Resource Monitor to see if it's progressively running you out of memory, that would be a big clue. I was just being happily reunited with all the cool instruments that came with SampleTank 2 that I had forgotten about because I never bothered to import/convert them until now. Really great Mellotron/Chamberlain assortment and huge pads and a nice sampler of the Miroslav orchestral sounds. They work amazingly well in SampleTank 4, with all the effects and macros intact, so anyone who still has ST2 instruments around, it's worth the trouble to use ST3 to convert them. You need to do that because 4 won't import them directly. There are things in there that are not in the subsequent freebie packs: they have the Moog Radio Shack Concertmate MG-1! For Joe, or anyone else doing playback using their onboard sound chip, I discovered Alan Finotty's Modded Realtek Driver a few days ago whilst hot-rodding my Obama years Dell Latitude-With-Attitude E6410 laptop. Today she's getting the 240G Kingston SSD from my Dell tower since the tower just got a WD Blue 500G SSD. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get the laptop to install the driver, likely due to the fact that it uses an IDT chip, not a Realtek or Intel. Alan's posts seem to say that his driver will work with IDT chips, but it's a hack, so who knows. Never heard of IDT, but I must say, with a good pair of cans, playing FLAC's with MusicBee in WASAPI mode sounds really, really good coming out of that thing. It appears that part of the package is a native ASIO driver that is not just a WDM wrapper.? Or it might be a WDM wrapper, but one that works better than ASIO4ALL so it's worth a shot I think. I might fiddle with it some more to see if I can get it to install. I would dig having a real ASIO driver. Or at least a better one than ASIO4ALL.

BandLab have said little new on the subject of bundled instruments and FX, even the ones that were developed by the old Cakewalk company, for a couple of years now. In that time, there has been a lot of action in the area of freeware music creation software. There's so much stuff for hobbyists. Professionals still need to drop some money, as is fair and as they should, for the tools of their trade. Using Sitala or TX16wx bothers you a lot? Halion, SampleTank, Kontakt, BreakTweaker? I would have agreed with you a year ago that Cakewalk really needed its own integrated sampler, but now I'm not so sure it's that high a priority for me. I'm working with BreakTweaker, and it's really specialized. It would be nice to edit a clip using the tools in Cakewalk, then right click and have "send to CakeSampler" be a menu item. Mixcraft's phrase sampler is that well-integrated and it is really handy.

It looks like a feature that was never a part of SONAR, hence not a part of Cakewalk by BandLab, so I'd say that nothing happened to it. You would like a needle-movement VU meter as a new ProChannel module? I would like a dbx165a-style compressor.

I'm trying not to sound condescending, because it's been something of a struggle for me to get used to flying with the keyboard when using a DAW. However, I've just had to learn to trust my touch and muscle memory similar to learning to play guitar, keyboards, and touch typing. It's a skill, to get fast, I have to practice. (Why do I keep running into that?) Force yourself to do it without looking for a few days, you'll eventually learn to trust yourself. That's the method that works for me, and thanks for reminding me I need to learn the Cakewalk key commands better. Even moreso, because I'm one of those people who uses a trackball (Logitech Marble Mouse) so I don't even have a wheel. 4 buttons and a big sphere. If you watch someone who's really good with their DAW, who's learned the keystrokes, they can just rip, they make me look like a toddler finger painting by comparison with all my mouse clicks. (searching for where I put my print-out of the Cakewalk keystrokes)

There have been some issues in this area addressed in the current release, so try it and see. These specifically apply to virtual instruments, but there will be more fixes dealing with remapping of diconnected and reconnected MIDI devices. The Reference Guide brags about how Cakewalk can keep track of disconnected and reconnected MIDI ports, so the program should live up to those promises!

Here is the section in the manual that deals with editing and arranging. It's not a simple answer. http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Arranging.01.html If you prefer a more visual approach there are many tutorials on YouTube about editing with SONAR that will also apply to Cakewalk. You can probably nail it after watching a couple. The functionality you're looking for will involve Groove Clip Looping. Cut out a section that you want to repeat, enable Groove Clip Looping and then you can just drag the end and it will loop.

The fact that their boilerplate response still refers to the most recent version of "Sonar" is telling. Also the fact that they drop a list of plug-in formats that doesn't include the one in question. Planet Earth calling Softube support: your boilerplate is failing. Repeat: your boilerplate is severely compromised. BTW, they say that they test in those hosts. They don't say that if their plug-in crashes the host during the testing whether they do anything about it. ? I wonder how well their stuff works in Samplitude, Reason, FL Studio, Sequoia, Waveform, Mixcraft, Mu-Lab, and Mixbus. In theory I suppose.

Cool, man! Your input as a sometimes frustrated new user is helpful, too, believe it or not. The developers and beta team members read and participate in the forum daily. The thing is, Helos, a statement to the effect of "this is really frustrating and I would like it to work better" is not an attack on the product and fortunately these days is usually not seen as such. If someone takes the time to set up an account and complain, as long as they're not a troll, it's because they want the program to work better. It's valuable to get the perspective of a new user who is invested in learning how to use the program because people who have been using it for 5 or 10 years don't even see these issues, they've memorized things like pressing (not clicking!) Delete to remove a marker and don't remember like I do that I only found it out by Googling. And once we know our way around, the inconsistency and illogic fades away because we're not struggling to figure everything out. We just put up with it like a sticky door lock where you have to jiggle the key a certain way.

By a fluke, I had/have a registered account with the Cakewalk, Inc. zombieservers. Back in 2015 I took them up on a free offer of the CA/2A compressor plug-in. In the years since CbB shipped I was able to parlay that account into a SONAR Home Studio license via an old offer they once ran with a magazine, and installed/uninstalled some demos and so have expanded CbB with Rapture Session (and a bunch of Rapture Pro sounds) and other content from the defunct Cakewalk, Inc. I am helpless against defects in the uninstall process. Helpless I tell you. So I've played the lite verson, and it sounds so good I agree that Rapture Pro would be a shame to just leave sitting on the servers. And I wholeheartedly agree that any PC modules should be released from captivity ASAP. Rapture Session would be a nice thing to let loose, to go with the Si Series instruments.