Brian Walton

Hopefully a future article on Chord and Aranger tracks in Cakewalk. ? In the meantime + 1 on drum maps or the current version of take lanes.

Current version has to authorize to the server (or go into demo mode) something like every 6 months. I don't know the code written into it, but I'm betting that scenario would not work. Also you mentioned saving your projects as Cakewalk Bundles. I'm far from an expert there, but if you are a doomsday theorist, saving in a fully closed proprietary format probably not the best route. Maybe save each project with stems both processed and unprocessed. Those could be imported into any other DAW. The fact I've opened Cakewalk projects from 17 years ago gives me some confidence in what they are doing.

Check in your ilok account after some time. I got the same annoying message, but it actually showed up despite the error.

The whole premise of unpredicatble is the fact we won't know. Only old versions of Cakewalk that authorized locally off-line by using a serial number and registration code that did not connect to any server to authorize are the only way you can assume to be able to install Cakewalk should something outside of anyones control happens. Of course there is no guarantee that version will work on any future state of Windows, etc. That is actually a better backup than you will get from most other DAWs as they majority (such as current Cakewalk state) requires the company to be in business to authorize. At least there was a period of versions where Cakewalk didn't and therefore if you own one of those versions, you might have a small amount of security. Not sure about backwards compatibility though. I'm only opening with current versions of Cakewalk these days, including projects created many years ago.

Requires a UA interface to run, so that is also apples to oranges, especially considering the price of any of the non entry level options a production house would want to use. I agree that I'm not sure Harrison has the clout to charge that and get a bunch of takers, the market will quickly dictate if I'm off base.

They make no qualms about who it is designed for. If you are running a large format video production house, $1500 is in the realm of Izotope RX Advanced which you already also have. Would be interesting to know if they did open the market more to say $200 per seat if they would actually make more money or not than with the strategy of only going after studios/production facilities.

Heritage guitars, made in the original Gibson Factory. Haven't had the pleasure to play a new one from when BandLab took over. But my Heritage Prospect is my favorite guitar (own Gibsons that I rarely play including vintage ones). When I went shopping for a semi-hollow (or hollow) a number of years ago, I'm still very thankful I didn't buy any of the Gibsons I looked at. I do think getting rid of the Prospect out of the standard lineup was an unfortunate turn of events though.

Also costs just as much, if not more once we see actual street prices for the Console 1

It is either that or they don't know how to build an OS that is backwards compatible with anything.

It is proprietary. Otherwise Win10 would recognize it and extract it without having to install another program to do so. Agree with Larry 7zip is the best free option I'm aware of. However, I still stand with the notion it is annying to have to install another program to extract such a small file set. RAR is for when real compression and large files are in play.

Using a proprietary compression format (albeit a respected one) for the delivery of the file is pretty lame.

They make solid plugins but $50 for a couple "effect types" I basically won't use is a super easy pass for me. And agree the Two notes is cheaper for the cab simulator and those guys know a bit about cab simulation.

New ones are much smaller than those old clunkers. Yes your 17 year old machine has a "square" screen, but there is also the thickness component. If that thing was actually usable for 17 years, that is a small miracle. Current model life expectency isn't even a fraction of that. The T430 feels about twice the size of a T490. Unless I was the original owner I wouldn't look at anything older than a T440. That is already a 5 year old laptop, which is end of life time frame for many users.

Lots of experience with ThinkPads T440,450,460,470,480 (and s) models. No experience with Refurbs though. Would only risk it if the price was right. They make good machines but refurb in a laptop is likley basically used with some swapped out parts.

Most plugins are abandonware as far as I'm concerned. They are 64 bit and VST, I'm guessing those standards will be supported for a little while. I've got Waves v9 pluings from a year ago that don't work as they are Abandonware if you don't pay more than I paid for them in the first place to WUP. Own Strings and Brass but have never installed them (size and ilok)

Very cool. Was worried it was goign to be another ambient guitar texture thing (which I have plenty of tools for myself). This I can get some use out of!

All those MasterClass ads are annoying. Good to see an excellent spoof done by celebrities. Alternate fact seems to be your wife has good taste in music Forget the fact that they are popular, they were writing excellent songs, with an organic approach years before they got main stream acclaim. They have copious amounts of talent, the simplicty could be considered an art. Dan can get some really interesting tones, plays tastefully and writes good parts with solid lyrics and melodies. They actually deserve the success, the real deal, in my opinion. (newest album is "meh" though) Search "The Black Keys: No longer the underdogs" on youtube.

I did that but no luck with that step alone. First computer took Support deleting a bunch of files and other manipulations. 2nd computer I had to both copy the folder from the 1st computer and then run an install. Both computers working, but took hours of work and support to make it happen (and I have way more IT experience than the average person).

This is true. I personally didn't bond with PaintShop Pro for photo editing. If that is the only thing someone was looking at in the bundle, I'd recommend Affinity Photo next time it goes on sale for $35-40 again. I got the bundle to add ParticleShop as a plugin for Affinity Photo, and Painter 2019 for the ability to paint on photos (or turn them into paintings. Painting on photos can easily be done with Affinity Photo, but wanted to check out the abilities of some of the "smart" workflow that Painter brings to the table in that particular area.

Fair warning, the Painter Program has been a nightmare to install on both (up to date Windows 10) machines I've tried it on. Curious the experience of others.

This only includes one that was in the bundle. $49 is still a steal to get the others. I paid over $125 for that same set during very good sales.

Instaling and Uninstalling software can leave, scars. Lets just say I know more than the average person in this area (though I'm not a full blown expert in that particular area of computer science), if you are not familiar with this, especially with software that can require authrizaiton methods you might want to either do more research in the area or just remain blissfull. Not all software leaves such scars, but this is pretty small time software, so I'm betting it would take way more time than I'd be willing to commit to looking into how the particualr software operates. Ever wonder why you can't just uninstall and reinstall software to start a trial over again? Pretty basic stuff...it leaves things behind that are (usually) not easy to get rid of. And the more software you install and uninstall, the more of those leftovers you have. And that doesn't even touch on other things that can get left behind.

Thanks, aware of Captain Chords, but $80 is way out of line with what I'd be willing to pay. Have EzKeys, which I got for about $29. Would certainly like something with an improved workflow, but $80 isn't going to do it for me at this time.

I may do that, but it did not interest me until the discovery of the "chord/song" building functions you pointed out. Installing software is more than just the size, instaling and uninstalling things can start to have a trickle effect in computer performance depending on the way a compay handles the process, therefore I only install when I beleive there is an expected value out of a program. Appreciate the feedback.

That is cool and something BandLab really should integrate. I've long said a tool like this is far more useful than some random feature enhancement to bridge the gap between beginner and advance composer/daw user. Question though, the start clearly shows the Chord Track (which mentioned above is not included in this free version. Does the entierty of this Pattern Generator work in the free version, and can the MIDI then be exported as a MIDI file? Thank you!