Starship Krupa

This is sounding familiar. For anyone with this issue, I suggest increasing ASIO driver's buffers to see if it helps. I'm having vague memories of my transport getting balky on a project and jacking up my driver buffers fixed it when I was very new to Cakewalk. If it helps, please let it be known so that everyone can benefit and the developers can work on it. Increasing the buffers would be a workaround, which is all well and good, but the program should be the boss of the driver, not the other way around. This suggests to me that while the program is still polling control surfaces, it's given up polling the GUI and the keyboard. Educated guess is that it's about servicing interrupts, and what priority the program gives to which ones. Surely it would need to pay as much attention as possible to I/O in order to allow the lowest latency, and I imagine that paying attention to the GUI is an "expensive" activity. It has to update status and maybe put the program into a different mode and pop a window every time the cursor goes over a different hot spot, of which there are many. I can't see the keyboard as such, though, all the program has to do is sit and wait for input, just like with a control surface.

Yes, and you should post about it in the forum section that's dedicated to talking all about creating themes with the Theme Editor. People who read that section would be glad to see it, and if you have any questions about creating themes, there are some experienced people there: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/31-ui-themes/

That is a beef I have in general with Cakewalk, that it lets you type in your "own" filenames and paths and then overrides them in more than one place. And, please, Captains Obvious, do not chime in and tell me the design philosophy behind this.

This. Even if you want to blow off steam in the forum, it's helpful to add this, because members of the dev and beta teams read the forum. Bugs may seem random, but often they are not as random as they seemed at first if you keep your awareness up while you are watching for them to manifest. With the spacebar transport control bug, you say that it only happens after you start and stop it many times. How many, and are there certain activities in between the starts and stops? Is it with audio projects, MIDI, mixed? Projects with certain plug-ins? Melodyne? People outside the development process think that finding bugs is easier than it actually is. We can't just tell a developer "sometimes I can't stop the transport with the spacebar" and expect them to read through the code and "oh, I see, there it is, that's where the code has a problem!" It takes a team of people to find something like this, and the first step, always, is figuring out how to get it to manifest 100% of the time, and that's where you can help.

Yes, I watched it when they first posted it back in April of 2018. And some people still don't get that all of their extra Sonar content is compatible with Cakewalk, that they coexist side-by-side, etc.

Yeah, now I understand why they ignored my request for a sticky.

For sure, one can ruin things pretty good with an EQ. Most of them these days seem to have some coloration designed in, like the buttons in the Quad Curve. My preferred one is "E." There sure are a lot of Pultec emulations out there. If there are any MEqualizer users reading this who haven't tried the "Saturation" knob, give it a try. Typical Vojtech, he doesn't make a big deal out of it, but it's one of my favorite saturation effects.

Oh, the eternal drawback to Meldaproduction's plug-ins. You put it perfectly. "Welcoming." I literally learned how to properly use a compressor using MCompressor because the person who was teaching me thought the display was good for showing what the compressor was doing (and it is). So I had been using it for years when one day I clicked on a button and an interface popped open and I learned that in addition to all the other stuff it can do, like letting you create a totally custom curve, it has a built-in EQ so that you can filter what the detector hears. Whoa. And that's been my experience with their products, I use them every day, but always with the feeling that there are features under the hood that I don't know about. I actually like to read manuals to find out what the software can do, but Vojtech takes the same approach to documentation that he does to the software, where most of the manuals' text is shared between products. There are pages and pages on the preset management system, the A-B auditioning system, etc. but less on what is specific to the plug-in. And there is usually either nothing or next to nothing about how to apply the effect to program material. Especially in cases where the plug-in does something specialized and out-of-the-ordinary, like MAutoDynamicEQ, the feature set is incredibly deep, but I'm not making the use of it that I could be due to lack of documentation. Don't get me wrong, I'm getting more than my money's worth, but I know I could be working some magic with that thing if I knew how to apply it better. And not just that specific dynamic equalizer, but maybe someone's never owned any dynamic EQ before. It's not that common a plug-in after all. How about a little information on what they do and why? Yeah, YouTube videos, but that only goes so far. My one business suggestion for Vojtech would be to raise the price of every plug-in by $5 and use the proceeds to hire Chandler to expand the manuals, and include application information.?

It is excellent, and the one I use most, but if you dig deeply into Meldaproduction's MEqualizer, it does just about everything that the QuadCurve EQ does, plus way more, if you start digging into the deep features. Try the harmonics for one thing, and it also throws in this really great sounding saturation knob, if you choose to access it. It has the scaleable GUI, your choice of skins, color schemes, bunches of sonogram and analyzer options, mid-side, more stuff than I can list. For me, the PC QuadCurve is my everyday workhorse, but when I really need to go to work on something, it's MEqualizer (or one of my paid plug-ins). I'd have no problem being given nothing but what comes with CbB and putting together a decent mix. It would be more work, and it might not pop and tickle as much as if I had my favorites to work with, but I could get it done in style. Everything else just makes it faster and more fun, and in some cases lets me work magic with challenging material like phone recordings.

The bundles I listed have great compressors, but they aren't long on "character" and "vintage mojo." If you want to add some coloration and character to your compression, Klanghelm offers that in heaping helpings. And they have some freeware loss leaders to get you interested. The MJUCjr. is a variable mu compressor that emulates a "tube" compressor. The DC1A is billed as an "effortless character comp." It has two knobs, Input and Output, and two modes, Deep and Relaxed. Character for days. The IVGI is a saturation/distortion plug-in, I believe it emulates the kind of distortion you can get from overdriving an old console input.

The compressors emulate specific classic hardware units, and as far as I'm concerned, they hold their own with other emulations I've tried. You can spend more money and what it will get you is usually either more faithful emulation of the old hardware's quirks and coloration, or more versatility as far as added controls, or both. Vice One, if I remember correctly, doesn't try to specifically emulate any of the compressors that the ProChannel ones do, so it's hard to say. As far as using resources, the ProChannel modules seem to be light by comparison with the fancy 3rd-party ones. Whether you can do well without other compressors, in my opinion, yes, but that would include the fact that you also have the Sonitus fx compressor at your disposal. There are also many, many excellent 3rd party freeware options if you want coloration and "mojo." Keep an eye on the "Favorite Freeware" thread. Also, BandLab have other, unreleased ProChannel modules from Sonar Platinum, and we can hope that someday they include them in CbB.

Wow, you guys have gone into the stratosphere! About 20 years ago I had a soundcard built around a Yamaha chip that had the Sondius XG soundset built into it. Yamaha kind of dropped the ball with that, IMO, but I managed to find drivers and software that allowed me to access the voices and articulations with the aftertouch on my keyboard controllers. That stuff was some serious modeling, especially with the woodwinds. I'm not sure if Yamaha ever went further with it or if they let the licensing deal expire, but I thought it held a lot of promise just based on the audible results.

I'll see if I can figure out how to upload my AirWindows DeEss FX Chain so that you can try it out. I haven't had occasion to mix vocals since setting it up, so I haven't used it much in battle. I do recall that it did a great job of removing sibilance, but it also had an effect on overall brilliance. Good news on the 64-bit hood.

AirWindows is an odd company. Most of the plug-ins, while getting raving reviews from certain people, have no GUI's and many of them are stuck in 32-bit purgatory. The lack of GUI issue was something that gave me an excuse to delve into Cakewalk's FX Chain Preset feature, which allowed me to take the plug-in I wanted to use, De-Ess, and create my own GUI wrapper for it with a full complement of knobs and buttons. It was really quite useful and worked well and was something I don't know if I could have done in any other DAW. Since a de-esser is something that I want to be able to tweak repeatedly rather than poking numbers at, I would have passed on trying this plug-in otherwise.

Last time I downloaded it, it included a decent spectrum analyzer, a really sweet guitar amp sim, and some traditional modulation FX. I find their GUI's attractive.

The real question at this point, considering that you can get Cakewalk for free, is why, using a Sonar 7 program?

I think the line of reasoning is: 1. We only understand things a company does in terms of how they directly produce revenue, i.e. We make or do a thing, you pay us money for that thing 2. BandLab has never explained to us how Cakewalk will directly produce revenue for them 3. As it is a human trait to fear what we don't understand, we will invent a sinister way that Cakewalk could directly produce revenue for BandLab and try to convince Cakewalk users that BandLab intends to implement it 4. If we are successful, we will no longer fear, because with the reinforcement of the Cakewalk users' belief, we will understand BandLab's motives This has already become very tiresome for the people who are not burdened by #1, so I will try to relate a parallel example. Every year, Sony PlayStation pays millions of dollars to put their name on a college football game. The PlayStation Bowl! It's a big deal. Many people attend the game and watch it on TV. Does PlayStation make money from this? They must, in some way, they are not stupid, college football is not a charity. But the people who broadcast the PlayStation Bowl don't pay them money to do it, nor do the people who show up and sit in the stands and watch pay them. Nope, they actually lose money on the actual act of putting their name on the bowl game. However they sell enough of their consoles to more than make up for it as a result, because people who watch the game associate PlayStation with football. If they have watch parties, they may even buy a new PlayStation, and it will never be the competitor's console, because who would do that. Cakewalk can be BandLab's PlayStation Bowl, their Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, their Goodyear Blimp. Something cool with BandLab's name on it. To suddenly put code in it that would harvest user data and send it back to a server somewhere, which is activity easily detected, and DAW users are constantly monitoring their systems' CPU and network use to squeeze every last drop of performance, would be idiotic. It would generate so much bad publicity. The value of any user data that might be collected in such a fashion is rather overrated, I think. BandLab has already had my email address for a year and a half and what have they done with it? Nothing. Zero, zip, nada, not even sent me mail themselves. That's how interested they are in using our precious user data. Does BandLab or any person or company associated with them have any history of involvement with any activity like that? Of course not. The owner is the son of a wealthy and successful family who is building his own business with the help of his family's wisdom and capital and doesn't need to pull stupid scams. Cakewalk is a freebie that has synergy with BandLab's other products. That's about it. They're not going to wait until a whole bunch of people have a lot of projects they're working on and then start charging for it, and they're not going to turn it into spyware.

I think that a person can put together an excellent system entirely with freeware, and CbB is of course an excellent foundation. I hope this thread will be a "virtual sticky," that is, I expect it will be bumped often enough to stay near the top. I'm going to start listing favorite tried-and-true free plug-ins and links to where to download them. They are all ones that I have used extensively with Cakewalk, so they are safe to use in that environment. My recommendations will be only for 64-bit VST's. This thread is intended to be of assistance to our fellow users, especially new ones, in finding good plug-ins to augment the collection that comes with Cakewalk. I'll start with the bundles that I think every DAW user should download straightaway, whether they're on a budget or otherwise. First is the Meldaproduction Free Bundle. This bundle of 34 plug-ins has been described as the best value in the plug-in world, and I agree wholeheartedly. The Compressor and EQ surpass most of the payware competition and wind up on most of my projects to this day, 5 years since I first downloaded the bundle. Download it, spend an evening trying out all of the FX on some material and be amazed at what Meldaproduction is letting us use for free. As a promo, it sure worked on me, I've paid to upgrade the Free Bundle and also bought licenses for other Melda plug-ins. There are utilities in here like signal and noise generators and analyzers in addition to the excellent sound processors. If you only get one of these, make it this one. Kilohearts Essentials. Another 30+ pro-quality FX for free. Low on resources and sound great. Rock solid in Cakewalk and Sonar. Just about every basic bread-and-butter effect you can name (compressor, chorus, phaser, delay, filter, limiter and the like) and a bunch of more exotic ones like my favorite basic pitch shifter, tape stop, slow down, reverser, vocal ensemble, bit crusher, and more. Too many goodies to remember them all. Just two downloads, MeldaProduction and Kilohearts, and you're have over 70 effects from two of the most respected companies in the plug-in business. At this point, you'd have more than everything you need to stop and get back to making music, but there are so many more great bundles and individual FX to try, so let's continue.... The ReaPlugs from Cockos, makers of REAPER. Six highly-configurable, very powerful effects, a compressor, multi-band compressor, EQ, delay, gate, and FFT dynamics processor, plus a couple more utilities. It may not sound so exciting, but these are very versatile, and very configurable, much like REAPER, the DAW that is their main product. The EQ and MB compressor allow as many bands as you want, the delay as many taps as you want, etc. Next is Voxengo's Assortment of goodies. I mostly stick with SPAN, the spectrum analyzer, and MSED, their mid-side utility, but Boogex, their amp simulator, and Stereo Touch, their stereoizer, are both excellent at what they do. I find the standard UI theme colors to be challenging on my eyes, so I tone them down in the settings. Blue Cat's Freeware Pack includes a good spectrum analyzer, a really nice guitar amp sim, and a good handful of modulation FX. Very attractive GUI's. The Dead Duck Free Effects Bundle has 25 essential no-frills FX, nothing fancy, just functional and easy on the eyes. Compressor, Gate, EQ, Phaser, Flanger, Chorus, Bit Crusher, Expander, Channel Strip, they're all there. I've tried them and they work. Nothing fancy about the GUI's, they're nice and attractive, no fake brushed aluminum. As for the sound, no attempts here to inject "mojo" or "vintage warmth" or anything, they do what they say they do. If you download and install everything you can get from those five sites, you'll have in the neighborhood of 100 new plug-ins to try out. Each of them, even Dead Duck, has unique effects and utilities that might wind up being your favorite thing or just handy to have in your plug-in bin in case you need to do a bit of attenuating or boosting or analyzing or bit crushing or whatever. I'll be back with many more, and of course, I hope that others will jump in with great suggestions. These are just what I consider the freebie essentials, the Cheapskate's Choice. And sure, we have another thread for VSTi's.

For those doing this kind of spelunking, there's also the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3 folder to take a peek in to be surprised at what you might find if you think that you haven't been installing 32-bit versions of your plug-ins.

I'm not usually a hawk, but in this case, I would rather that they had escalated straight to the computer outage and skipped the preliminary skirmishes with the submarine people killing each other.

Hmm, maybe #3 means "why do they always happen right before I do a #2?"

Thanks for bringing it up, abacab. Gee, since I always tell installers not to install AAX plug-ins, I naively thought that I didn't have any installed! Turns out that's not any more reasonable than expecting not to find any newly-installed 32-bit plug-ins on my system. I clean those out about monthly. My haul of freed-up SSD space was 1.5G

I loved the background music for Myst. It was almost as important and beautiful as the graphics.

Well the licensing's changed since you hung around, but the devs have remained and they've turned around. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

Little-known fact: Californians have over 100 words for "earthquake."