Starship Krupa

I am not sure how to interpret your statement about not being interested in addressing or having feedback. Do you not want to have these issues corrected? Cakewalk is very deep, and configurable. Some of the things that bother you may be addressed by settings that already exist in the program. Sometimes these settings are hard to find, which is itself an issue, but they are there. I agree that a scalable interface would be great. My eyesight is not 20-20 and even with eyeglasses I sometimes can't read small text in CbB. The issue with "multiple mixers" is that you have multiple projects open at one time. There should be no reason to do this unless you are copying clips or tracks between projects. To prevent this happening by accident, open Preferences, go to File/Advanced, and make sure that Allow Only One Open Project at a Time is checked. I ran into this myself and messed up a mix or two before I figured out what was happening. I agree it is confusing as HECK. I hope you have explored the options for configuring the Control Bar. You can drag the modules into any order you wish and then lock them, delete or add whatever you want, etc. With the latest release there are more options for configuring the Control Bar. The "mountain with a flag" icon signifies snapping to "landmarks" like a zero crossing point, the edge of a clip, a marker. I guess a mountain with a flag on it looked like a "landmark" to whoever designed it.? The Time Ruler, I think I know what you mean if what you are having trouble with is the readout box at the top of the Aim Assist Line. I also have trouble with this. The only options are to turn off the Aim Assist Line (Edit/Aim Assist) or to try to adjust the color of it so that it doesn't cover up the color of the Ruler markings (which you can do in Preferences). I have submitted a feature request to allow toggling off the information box at the top of the Aim Assist Line for just the reason you are talking about. There is room for it to be moved out of the way, too, which would help. Where there are problems with localization strings, I'm sure the developers would like to be informed. If there is a problem, help them out by letting them know. Submit the problem to support staff. Having said all of this, in cases where a new user has gotten into trouble or is confused, I agree that a program should help keep the novice out of trouble as much as practical. Defaults should be as benign as practical. Documentation should explain the results and dangers of changing various settings.

SONAR Platinum was a suite based around the core SONAR DAW, and the current product is still a suite based around CbB, right? Cakewalk Inc. gave away a version of the core DAW for free with an issue of Computer Music at one point. Home Studio. Even that version had instruments and FX that aren't bundled with CbB. The initial announcements that said the new product would be equivalent to SONAR Platinum were....inaccurate. And they caused a lot of angst on the part of existing SONAR users who had bought the lifetime license. From reading the marketing literature on the old site, the CbB suite is somewhere between Platinum and Artist. It's only equivalent if you already had SONAR Platinum ?. Whatever it's called, it STOMPS anything else you can get for free, and IMO, plenty of DAW's you have to pay for to use. Maybe that's where the suspicion comes from; CbB just seems too good to be true. I can understand where it fits in BandLab's portfolio of DAW's. They're on iOS, Android, Chrome browser, and with the purchase of Cakewalk Inc's IP at a liquidation price (and they seem to have skimmed off the cream of the Cakewalk staff as well), now Windows. In a BIG way. The foremost Windows-only DAW is now better than it has ever been both under the hood and workflow-wise, documentation is being worked on, etc. I like the cut of their jib. While I agree that so far BandLab could be doing more to promote CbB, with the free subscription model, at this point, they don't need to. They can work on their long-term plans without the burden of the financial need to attract new users in the short term. Cakewalk can grow by word of mouth and attraction, and from reports, it has been exceeding expectations.

When the "free instruments" require purchase of the full version of Kontakt, it's "meh" enough.

Thank you David for the in-depth, detailed explanation. Yes, I always have a "Cans" bus, and I have 4 sets of monitors, so who knows which speakers I might have had selected at mixdown time when I was choosing "Entire Mix?" I'm going to have to read that a few times to be able to digest that, but now that I know what "Entire Mix" does, I might be able to use it properly, or set something up of my own. Maybe my third question about how to get an optimum level should wait until I have that set up. First I'm going to try setting up a Mixdown bus that will be post Master bus, and have nothing on it but metering plug-ins and do nothing but set level. During mixing, the Master bus will route to that, and it will route to whichever hardware out I'm using to monitor. At mixdown time, I'll get the levels set properly using the metering on my my Mixdown bus and do the Export directly from it. That way I don't need to clutter the FX rack in my Master bus with the metering and analyzer plug-ins. And I'll know that what's coming off that bus is the mix that I want, not a combination of whatever hardware outputs I may have left turned on. Sound feasible?

BTW, @Jim Fogle, Pluginboutique has a bundle of Sasquatch and Little Foot for$10. Drop a tenner on that, collect your free license for Mastering the Mix Expose, and you need look no further for kick drum enhancement.

If you start typing the username after the "@" the forum software will start making suggestions, too.

I must have, the theme I started with was M-Lux Blue, my favorite dark theme, and the icons came up looking like the Mercury icons. What I was having fun with was the color though, making the icons match M-Lux Blue. I know that a lot of people change the track icons to something else once they have everything set up, they have a template with the picture of their drum kit or favorite synth or guitar, but even in that case there's still that time period right after you add a new track or bus when the default icon is there.

I see people successfully circumventing the "click magnifying glass to display image smaller than thumbnail" feature of the forum and posting images that display at their full size, and I see people saying that the way to do this is to host the image on another site. However, I do not remember seeing an exact recipe for doing this with any particular site. I have accounts at Google Drive, Google Photos, Flickr, and MEGA, and at this point, I've given up and just put a url in my posts. If someone can be bothered to click on it, they get to see my picture. Still, I would like to be able to post images that are viewable at their original, legible size. Is there a way to do this with the hosting services I already use? Can someone post an exact recipe?

Something I noticed when checking out all these beautiful themes, I currently have at least 10 of them installed on my system and none of them change the color of the default track icons in the Console View. I thought that this was odd, given all the hours of hard work the themeweavers put in to come up with these dazzling color combinations. Maybe they (you) don't use track icons. Anyway, I got bored looking at the same grey ones sitting in the midst of all the great-looking colors, so I fired up a copy of GIMP and got to work, using @Matthew White's M-Lux Blue as a starting point. They might be a bit rough in spots compared to what a more experienced pixel jockey could do, but I like how it came out as a proof of concept. If anyone is interested in incorporating these in their themes I can make them available, even do some more work on the pixels. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PxsVq0R1El9WS5uDcUnWIz-EO8li6f7n (BTW, I am not a stupid person, but this forum has been up for some time now and I have so far been entirely unable to get an image to display from the file sharing sites that I use, which are Google Drive and MEGA. I detest the forum's native "click magnifier to shrink image" thing and would love to find some other way, but no go so far)

Thanks. I was doing that for a while, but I can't find an explanation in the documentation of what bus that "entire mix" comes from. Is it the Master Bus? Post fader? Pre fader? That's where I was getting the odd variable results. At least coming off the Hardware output I know what I'm getting. If I knew where that "entire mix" was being routed from, it would give me a better idea.

Background, TL/DR folk please skip: I only started using Cakewalk by BandLab when it was first issued in April 2018, and had only the online documentation, no Reference Manual, and only the old forum with a broken search engine to go on. My previous DAW was Mixcraft, which prides itself on simplicity of use, and they achieve that goal pretty well, to their credit. I was ready to "graduate" to something with a deeper feature set, and jumped right in with Cakewalk. Mixcraft has obviously been inspired by some of Sonar's features, so it wasn't difficult. One thing that I had trouble nailing down, and still, over a year and a half later need the help of an external program to complete, is export of my final mix. The Reference Guide and online help are good about describing the many options in the export dialog, but IMO, they fall short on suggesting defaults. "Here is what you will select when you want to export your full mix, here is what you will select when you want to export stems with effects, here is what you will select when you want to export stems with no effects" and so on. I had to figure all this out stumbling about in the dark, and I'm still not sure I'm making the most of the options. One issue that I would like to address is that after I export a full mix, I find that I need to open my files in Sound Forge for normalizing to get the levels hotter. With Mixcraft, all mixdowns come off the Master bus, period. There is a separate dialog for stem exporting. Less versatile, but easier to deal with because fewer decisions. TL/DR part: My process currently is that I mix with the Master bus as the final bus, with its output going to the Hardware out. At export time, I export from the Hardware out. Initially, I was exporting from the Master bus, but was getting odd results, my mix wasn't sounding like it did over the monitors. So my first question is: how do you export your mix? I mean, what options do you choose in the Export Dialog? Where do you take the output from? Second question: how can I best get a "what you hear is what you get" export? Should I create an Aux bus and send the Master to that and export from it? Third question: how do I get the level of my exported file up to the point where it's peaking at about -1 or -2 dBFs so I don't need to normalize it in Sound Forge? I have good metering plug-ins, Meldaproduction, dpMeter, Youlean, TB, etc., but they seem concerned with loudness and I need level. Bonus round: why is the documentation so vague and how did you figure it out?

Does System Mechanic have a feature that allows you to restore your registry to what it was before it did its cleaning thing? Many such utilities do. You might try that if it's available to you. Cakewalk does indeed use the registry to keep track of plug-in information. A re-install of Dim Pro wouldn't hurt anything, and it might cure the issue. Yes, the issue is Dim Pro crashing CbB, but why, when it works fine on so many other systems? What happens if you mute Dim Pro? Just as a test. And as always, when asking for help with tech issues, we'd love it if you could post your system specs in your sig, or at least in your post. Windows version, amount of RAM, what kind of processor, disk, audio interface, etc. Use my sig as an example of the pertinent info.

The licensing model is a free subscription. The terms of the subscription are that you create a BandLab account, install the BandLab Assistant on your computer, then at least every 6 months, allow BandLab Assistant to contact the licensing server. The best way I have of explaining it to people is that it's like Tape Op magazine and other trade publications. You register at their site with your email address, get it for free for a while, then you re-verify or you stop getting it. Like a library card. The BandLab Assistant functions like the old Cakewalk Command Center, allowing you to download and install the main program and various add-ons, keep the program updated, as well as upload and download to and from your BandLab account if you wish. Some people freak out wondering what would happen should BandLab go out of business and their licensing server no longer be around to keep Cakewalk running. First, unlikely. Cakewalk Inc. went casters-up almost 2 years ago and their zombie server is still up and running on life support, offering to sell you SONAR Artist. But if it were to happen, BandLab are good guys and would probably issue a final build that didn't require that it talk to the server every 6 months. If that didn't happen, someone would come up with a patch or you could just keep resetting the date on the real time clock in your computer. The culture at BandLab the social media site is a little weird, but I see potential in using some of its features, like the collaboration. I move stems around using Google Drive and MEGA now, and if BandLab can make that process easier, I'm up for checking it out.

This, for sure. I remember at the old forum, people who were hacked off as could be about those of us who would be now "getting SONAR Platinum for free." ? Uh, yeah, so where's my copy of Rapture Pro, Z3ta, Dimension, Melodyne, CA-2A, half a dozen ProChannel modules, Strum Session, Analog Session, Lounge Lizard Session, TruePianos Amber, Session Drummer, Studio Mixing Suite, Engineering Suite, Creative Suite, Channel Tools, Linear phase EQ and multiband compressor.... I've never seen Melodyne Essentials for less than $49, and more than half of the rest of it is unobtainable, you literally can't buy it for any amount of money. And most of it you can use with other DAW's just fine, too.

This is a courtesy service to people who bought software from the old Cakewalk, Inc. What is the purpose of trying out Cakewalk plug-ins and old versions of Sonar that can no longer be purchased? The old Cakewalk, Inc. web server, with licensing and downloading engines working, is being kept running as a courtesy for the old customers of the company it used to belong to. It still has ads for the products that Cakewalk, Inc. used to sell. The employees who originally built the server probably now have new jobs and the web developers at BandLab have more important things to do than work on an old server other than maybe keep it patched enough to prevent it from getting hacked/crashing. But it's unlikely that anyone's going to open up the code and change it enough to remove the ads for the defunct products and risk breaking the parts that old Sonar users might need to use to download software. Think of it like a gas station/grocery store where the grocery store part closed down, but if you had a credit card with them, you can still get self-service gas. At some point, maybe the underground tanks will run out and they'll stop filling them, who knows? At some point people are going to have to download all the installatin files for the old program and do the offline registration or whatever. It will not be there forever. In the meantime, don't be concerned about the ghost Internet server. If you purchased Sonar and have your serials, BandLab might have some way of helping you out. If not, there's a really great DAW you can use for free. Maybe someday they'll reissue some of the other Cakewalk software too. Until then, there is so much other free music software. Look in the "Favorite Free FX" thread. In my first post, there are links to 80 plug-ins to try out. I think the name change was a good idea, to distinguish the old program from the new one. I tried the first version of Cakewalk by BandLab that came out and then the next release and the improvement in the first few releases was impressive. Like it or not, Sonar was known for being buggy and crashy. The first version I tried, the transport indicator would get separated from the rest of the program and go cruising across my screen on its own, if the thing went one session without crashing somehow it was unusual. Good idea to distance themselves from that legacy, however it had come about. The current team are slaughtering bugs and doing some good optimizations as well.

The answers to these questions seem too obvious. Cakewalk obeys the usual GUI convention where pushing the mouse to the right makes the cursor also move in that direction, same deal with left and up and down. Somehow, I doubt that's where your confusion lies. @Craig Pavone, please provide more information as requested. The Edit Tool behaves different ways in different situations. The only time it messes me up is directly after I have split a clip and I want to trim the edge of one of the resulting clips. The Edit Tool thinks that what I want is to sit and merrily move the split point back and forth between the adjoining clips when that is not the case, no, not at all. If I hold the Control key, the Edit tool will let go of one of the clips and let me trim the other one like I want. Maybe that's what you mean? More info on what you're trying to do and what's going wrong, and we'll be happy to help.

You are trying to use in-line Piano Roll View? If not, just switch your Edit Filter back to Clips. If you are, do this, in this order: 1. Pop open the Take Lanes, at which point you should be in full velocity tails horror mode 2. Then go up to the MIDI menu at the top of the Track View and switch Show Velocity off, back on and then off again, Unless it's already off, in which case, toggle it on, then off. This seems like it's probably a bug.

I recognize those retrieved words! I've still not been able to determine why those four processors are on the "disabled list" as CbB is shipped. They all appear to be Cakewalk-branded (Tube Leveler says "Powered by Studio Devil").

That is a tall order, John, but you are in luck, as there is a plethora of instruments out there, both free and otherwise. It sounds like you might have a sound in your head that is an idea of what you're looking for, so the challenge is just to find it. There is a thread here for Freeware Instruments that you can check, and Pluginboutique usually has AIR's Hybrid 3, Loom 2, Vacuum Pro and Xpand! 2 each on sale for $14.99 or less (do NOT pay more than that for any of them). They each have great lead sounds, You can often pick up Vacuum Pro for $14.99 with the Fresh Air preset pack included, and from what you describe, it might be the closest of them all to having a preset that would serve the purpose. It's over the cutoff price, but if you don't already have Hybrid 3 and Xpand! 2, go get 'em. I think they're both $14.99. I don't yet have Loom 2 so I can't personally vouch for it, but it gets great reviews for that price. It's $14.99 right now.

Okay, now that we've solved the puzzle of how to get this thing to work, I found the video I've been referring to, where the guy raves about it (and he actually uses the term "God Mode"). And I sat through the whole presentation again, remembering how he seems like a really intelligent person, knowledgeable musician/songwriter/producer/video creator, up on theory and production technique, and it seemed impossible that someone like he could get so sprung over something if if weren't truly useful. I believe I now understand what he means and why he's so excited: he's got this channel where he's trying to teach people how to compose while needing as little music theory as possible, and he's figured out a method for doing it using Instachord. If you can get past the giddy raving that makes up the first half of the video, it may become apparent. The "secret" that he's unlocked is overdubbing different parts using the same chords chosen with the left finger, but with different Actions (those "strum patterns" declared in the right hand columns when you select a preset) in each overdub. He noticed after messing with it that there are bassline Actions and that you can also kick the Actions into higher melodies. One of the problems with getting it right away from his video is that he's really swift with operating his computer in general and the plug-in specifically, and he doesn't pause to let things sink in. So: first pass, maybe using the piano roll or step mode with the lower octave keys on your controller, you enter the chord progression you want to use. Then you go into sound on sound (or maybe comp) record mode and overdub parts by pressing single keys up in the higher octave areas of your controller. Instachord just has canned "parts" that fit the chord, scale or mode you selected in the first pass. Voila, you have something that sounds like a song. And that's not, IMO, a bad way to learn how to compose, because it starts with the person getting a feel for what I,IV,V or whatever, changes sound like. If they start paying attention to what the Actions are doing, and hip hop and R&B like this guy is working in don't stick to just maj and min, they use 7th chords as well, they'll need to know about that as well. Traditionally-trained musicians and especially teachers will hate the idea of course, but "top down" is how millions of people like for instance The Beatles (and me) learned how to write songs when we first started out. Pick up a guitar, strum the 4 chords you know, notice that two of them sound kind of cool played back to back and go from there. I still don't know if Instachord will be of great use to me personally, but I can at least see why this guy is so over the moon about it. You can FF to about halfway through if you want to get past his frothing and down to where he starts working with it.?

I know you said "free," but what you're talking about sounds kind of like Sasquatch Kick Machine. Do you remember whether it was just tone shaping or did it also trigger a sub? SoundSpot Kickbox is a great kick drumEQ and compression plug-in which is often in deep discount at Pluginboutique. In the freebie zone, there are bx subfilter, Combear and Bark of Dog, which is up to version 2, past the version that used to ship with SONAR Platinum.

I've tried to do my part by at least doing some much-needed cleanup on Wikipedia in the old Cakewalk and SONAR articles, and adding CbB to the lists of DAW's and music production software, setting facts straight, and with links to the Cakewalk by BandLab site. It was a miserable mess, and if you go check it out, please don't blame me for what's there now, mostly what I could do was grammar and rough timeline cleanup, and remove ad copy and useless lists of unimplemented features from the SONAR page. I corrected what facts I could. I would like to someday start an article on Cakewalk by BandLab itself, but that's a big task, and the SONAR article is so garbled as to be unusable as a starting point.

Yes, Tezza, this precisely. Love the Aim Assist Line, do not love the way the info box sits atop the Ruler numbers.

I think I read on the old forum that they are simplified front ends to other plug-ins that come with CbB like the PX/VX modules, so there's nothing wrong with the processing. I've not spent much time with them, but when I did, I found them surprisingly useful. There's something about using a plug-in with one big knob on it that bruises my ego. I like to think that my mad master mixmanship skills demand full control over every parameter.? But then I remember that some of my most beloved compressors, like the LA/2A and clones, are not that far off from being one knob wonders. There are no knobs for attack and release on an LA/2A.

But Cakewalk already has two of those three. What? Where? The unsung and oft-forgotten Style Dials, which are always waiting to add some Style. Right click as usual to insert a ProChannel module and all the way down at the bottom of the list of modules you'll find an otherwise empty blank box that says "Style Dial Fx." Click on that box and hey! Eight more ProChannel modules, Cakewalk's answer to Waves' "One Knob" series except they're actually more useful. Gater is the aptly-named gate, Smoother is the de-esser. But wait, there's more. Apparently they were feeling rather spherical when they put in those styley dials, because Shaper is a transient shaper. These Style Dials are a bag of surprises. There's also a compressor, tremolo, spatializer, reverb, and saturator to play with. I tend to forget about them because I have standalone plug-ins that cover their functions and offer more control, so it's good to revisit what they can do.