Starship Krupa

That one was fab! What was the company who did it? Also the MAGIX Humble Bundle that upgraded me to Vegas Pro Edit 15 with Sound Forge Audio Studio and DVD Architect and a couple of other titles tossed in all for $25 was pretty insane. The Pluginboutique free-with-any-purchase deals are usually stellar, usually an iZotope Elements suite or other top-notch plug-in or instrument. proximity eq+ was killer, and the current mix auditing program at least looks interesting. But the best bang-for-the-buck in recent weeks was, of all things, I happened to be in the market for a good sampled drum VSTi and found out that Reverb.com had Sonivox' Blue Sky Drums on sale for $1. This turned out to be an excellent drum VSTi, and I don't mean "for the price." It's better than the same company's Session Drums, so if you've tried only that don't think they sound similar or have similar scope. Blue Jay has more kits available, and to my tastes, they sound better.

When you are running BandLab Assistant, click on the "gear" icon in the upper left of the interface to access Settings and make sure you are signed in. I know I said to follow the prompts. Sorry for misleading you.

Going forward, please be more specific about certain things. You rebooted and "up comes a message." Is from Windows, Cakewalk, or what? You didn't mention starting Cakewalk. Previous to this, you said you had everything working, which was great, but at that point you did't tell us what you had selected in Cakewalk's Preferences or Windows Settings or any of that, so I have no way of knowing what configuration worked for you. All I know is what I suggested, but I think you went with something more like @John suggested, which is fine. After you've nailed a problem it's a good idea to post in the forum thread what your solution was. This has two purposes. First, some other poor sod who has the problem in the future can read it and do what you did and make it work. Second, the poor sod may be you!? So, first item of business, can you remember how you had it set up when it was working? Next, tell us how your audio system is configured now. Start with where everything is plugged in. What kind of speakers do you have and where are they plugged in? Where are your cans plugged in? When you go into Windows Settings/System/Sound/Output, what devices are listed in the pulldown? When you go into Cakewalk Preferences Playback and Recording/Driver Mode, what is that set to? What about Devices? Back in Windows, Hit Win-R then type Control Panel into the box and hit Enter. From Control Panel, select Sound. What do you see listed in the Playback tab? The forum will help you get this to work, mate. It's not a tall order.

Since @David Baay explained it to me, I understand it. I think I'll submit a documentation feature request to mention this in the description of Entire Mix. The Reference Guide is great and getting better. At 1700+ pages, no reason not to spell it out, right?

Sigh. I know, me too. But there's always at least one track that winds up by itself: bass guitar. I can group vocals, keys, guitars, drums, just about anything else, but that darn bass....

The thing is I had multiple hardware outputs active at the time I was experimenting with "Entire Mix," and didn't know that it was coming off of the hardware outputs. I do a separate cue mix for headphone monitoring while tracking. I also use the hardware output faders to control my monitor levels, so making a dedicated bus will work better as I won't have to be concerned with those faders affecting the level of my final bounce. Entire Mix is not the best choice for me, which is good to know and why I asked. It's all good, I now have a solution that will fit with my workflow and configuration.

It can, but when Cakewalk loads the ASIO driver, it should take over and load whatever settings you specify. Also, if you go into Windows' sound settings via Control Panel you can set sample rate and bit depth to match what you are using in Cakewalk so that the interface doesn't have to switch. I like using my Firepod/FP-10 for general Windows playback because it just sounds so good. Also, I don't use "computer speakers," I use one of my pairs of studio monitors. But whatever works best, and there are many ways to a successful solution.

I had similar issues with the very first releases of CbB, but they went away around the second round of bug fixes. If I moved the main window, the transport indicator (now time) would sometimes get disconnected on go floating off in space on the Windows desktop. But I thought those issues had been corrected. Maybe not for all systems, so I'd suggest that for anyone reporting the issue, please include what kind of graphics chip/card your system has. That will help the developers and QA staff reproduce the issue and correct it.

What kind of graphics card do you have? How many display monitors? I've found that Cakewalk is happiest with more graphics memory. It doesn't seem to care much about having a fancy GPU, but when I'm running on two monitors, it likes more graphics RAM.

ReWire. Also: https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=SoftSynths.20.html

Can you clarify? You may certainly install them on your system and then import the resulting MIDI files into Cakewalk. As far as integrating them into Cakewalk itself, there may be ways to do it with ReWire or with a VST that allows MIDI editing that I'm not aware of.

Thanks. This is what I have been doing up until now, with my issues being the final level of the exported audio, and my not knowing precisely how it worked. I don't like having blind spots on something this critical. Getting input from other users on how you all do it is great. As usual in the Cakeiverse, barely any two are alike. Everything has always been routed to the Master bus, either directly or via sub mixes. That's one of the first places I look when things don't sound right. My initial problem with it sounding "off" was with the Entire Mix option, which I abandoned in favor of the same approach that BRainbow takes. I just tried one using the above method that I came up with after reading @David Baay's explanation, and it seems to work great. I opened the resulting bounce in Sound Forge and normalized it and it barely did anything, so I think I'm on the right track (so to speak). ? I don't want to come directly off the Master bus anymore because I want to set up my metering on a separate bus. I don't want to come off a Hardware out, because that's affected by where I have the hardware volume set, and I only want to adjust that to affect my monitoring level.

You should plug your speakers into the new interface as well. You have a great-sounding audio interface and no need to use that onboard chip. In Cakewalk's Preferences, switch your driver to use the Focusrite ASIO driver. In Windows settings, select the Focusrite as your audio output. At this point everything will be output to the Focusrite, you'll get better playback sound all around, and you'll be able to listen through headphones and/or speakers on the Focusrite. The sonic improvement through the speakers might impress you.

Which makes me wonder if it can be addressed in Preferences/Colors or the Theme Editor?

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?