bitflipper

There have been three beta releases this year. Combined, they include about 30 bug fixes and some nice enhancements. I can't talk about them per my NDA, but they're going to be very welcome additions. Some old favorites from SONAR days will be coming back, so everybody who came onboard after SONAR's demise are going to get some new goodies. But even you old SONAR guys will smile when you see the new version.

If you have a lot of plugins and suspect one of them may be problematic, use a binary approach. Note that it doesn't necessarily have to be a plugin that's at fault; a corrupt audio file or buggy software instrument can cause the same symptoms. Perhaps even a prepared track, e.g. a Melodyne region or one whose transients have been marked for timing edits. That's why I prefer to delete whole tracks to narrow the search rather than focusing initially on plugins. Open the project and delete half the tracks. Whether the problem persists or goes away, you'll have eliminated half the clips, effects and soft synths in the project as potential suspects. Continue halving them until the problem track is isolated, then follow the same binary process of elimination for the plugins on that track. Note that when eliminating plugins, you need to delete them from the project, not just bypass them. That a real-time bounce works but a "fast" bounce doesn't suggests to me a soft synth or corrupt audio file is slightly more likely than a plugin. Try copying the entire project to another location, preferably a different drive, and export from there.

Ah, yes, the acid days. I have not since experienced a gig so satisfying as one where everyone in the entire venue was tripping, including the band. At least, I think it was awesome, although admittedly few actual details made it into longterm memory.

Yes, but there isn't much on it at the moment, as we're currently woodshedding with a new member. Just played our first gig with him last night. He's good, but we've got a long way to go. Should be ramping up soon, though. Summer's coming. Give me a heads-up when you'll be in the area.

I have seen this phenomenon. It was long ago, so the details are hazy, but it had to do with some interaction with another plugin that preceded the Sonitus effect in the same fx bin. Also had issues with the Sonitus Delay. Both would work fine on their own but went crazy in combination with other plugins. And both get cranky sometimes when you automate their controls or tempo changes. I doubt it has anything to do with being DX and more to do with just being neglected for 20 years. My solution was to move away from the Sonitus effects, which is a shame because they all sound good and are easy to use. You might want to look into one of the many free or cheap reverbs that are out there, such as Voxengo's OldSkoolReverb, SuperMassive from ValhallaDSP, or the TAL Reverb. Granted, all of these are someone limited one-trick ponies, but they sound fine and are free.

It just means some enhancements take longer to implement than others. Beta releases are still happening, so nobody's died or been institutionalized. Plus even Noel gets a day off once in awhile, or so he claims.

For decades my nickname was Bilbo. From The Hobbit, of course. Tolkien wasn't mainstream back then like he is today, but every college student read him, along with Carlos Castaneda. I got hooked after reading The Hobbit in one all-night sitting, on LSD, sitting in the courtyard of the dorm. Our college band was called "Bilbo's Tired Head", from a line in The Hobbit. People would come up and ask which one of us was Bilbo, and my bandmates would point to me. I don't know why. I don't have large feet and they're not hairy. Using a distinct nickname has its advantages. I could call somebody up that I hadn't spoken with in years and say "Hi, this is Bilbo" and they'd never have to ask "Bilbo who?". There are probably still people in the world who never knew my real name. I stopped using it when I realized that many were mis-hearing it as "*****". My user name on KVR is still bbaggins. [EDIT] Apparently, you can't say "*****" here. You can buy one at Walmart, but don't dare say it out loud.

The Zombies. Yeh, those guys show their age on their faces, but they've still got chops. And it wasn't just a case of playing the same songs for 50 years and getting them down (see Doobie Brothers) because they included novel arrangements and extended jams.

Ironic that #1 emulates hardware that I couldn't wait to get rid of back in the day.

Background: "flipping a bit" is a term used by both digital hardware engineers and low-level (machine language or Assembly) programmers. It refers to changing a 1 to a 0 or vice versa. I've had my handle since the 80's. I was in Sacramento having lunch with my boss Paul and another coworker, Sean. A friend of Paul's joined us and Paul introduced Sean and me as "my top bit flippers". Paul was known for clever wordplay, and it was just the kind of inside joke that nobody else in the restaurant other than four of us would understand. All of us were adept at a rare skill: programming by literally flipping toggle switches on a control panel where each switch represented a bit in a CPU instruction. This allowed us to hand-enter diagnostic routines such as memory scans into a broken system that couldn't boot into the O/S. I'd sometimes show off this trick when troubleshooting onsite just to confound the operator, especially if he was one of those know-it-all types who insisted on "helping". They'd demand to know what I was doing, and I'd say "just flipping some bits", as if their system's problem was just a few errant 1's that should have been 0's. I was just getting into computer-based music at the time (Cakewalk 1.0) and loved the idea that even though I was creating music via software it really all came down to flipping bits. Indeed, all computer magic from Donkey Kong to ChatGPT, if you dive deep enough, comes down to flipping bits.

Just append a cat pic or a bikini-clad Halley Berry, and you'll have satisfied the unwritten CH TOS. Over to you, Craig.

When you say "shuts my computer down" do you mean that literally? Powers down? Or do you mean Windows crashes? Or that Cakewalk crashes? There was an issue a while back, where Spectrasonics instruments were crashing Cakewalk after they changed the number of outputs. The solution to that one was to remove the instance of Omnisphere (or Keyscape or Trillian) and insert a new one.

Note that when the PDC button is highlighted as shown below, that counter-intuitively indicates delay compensation is disabled.

There you go again, Kenny, giving useful advice in the Coffee House. Careful, such behavior could catch on. And then where would we be?

Every once in awhile, I miss some Waves plugin that I used to use. TransX and RBass were once favorites. But they'd routinely stop working because Waves would abruptly decide that my license was no longer valid (e.g. after computer repairs), and the last time that happened I just decided I didn't need Waves anymore. They are more concerned with piracy than with their paying customers. Sorry, but that teenage pirate who wasn't ever going to give you any money anyway isn't my problem.

This is the answer. Autopanners work fine in Cakewalk, including PanCake, which I've been using for years. Panners (and many other effects) are by nature stereo effects, even if the source is mono. You're literally turning a mono track into stereo whenever you use any stereo effect. Note that it can work the other way, too. A mono effect (e.g. an amp sim) on a stereo source will switch it to mono. This trips up a lot of users.

I've gone from one screen to two screens, then to two larger screens, to three screens and finally two large screens. At no point was there ever "enough" screen real estate. I suppose you could reach a point where there's too much on screen to take in all at once, but I think by then you'd have no room for speakers. The point being that you can utilize every square inch of display space and still not have everything shown that you'd like. The trick is setting up separate scenarios for each stage of the process, and only putting the most important things up as you need them. So if I'm composing MIDI tracks, the PRV gets an entire 34" monitor for itself. While editing vocals, Melodyne fills that screen. For mixing, that monitor becomes dedicated to plugin UIs. The other monitor is always dedicated to the Track View. I decided years ago that I don't need the Console View at all. (I can commiserate with the claustrophobic confines of a 17" screen. I started this journey with a 13" display. I spent $1500 on my first 17" monitor and it was such a luxury at the time!) I'd suggest getting a large display and using that as your main monitor, and a separate keyboard. Set your laptop to one side and use its display for things like plugins. Yes, Windows lets you use multiple displays as if they were one contiguous screen. However, dragging components from one screen to another can get weird if the two monitors are of different size and resolution. Best to dedicate your smaller display to things that won't need to be moved to the other monitor, such as plugin UIs, browser and step sequencer.

20 years ago I was still deep into my leave of absence from music, devoting 80-90 hours a week to coding, split between my demanding day job and my own startup. Living off gas station hot dogs and feeling like crap most of the time. I went on like that until 2005 when a heart attack changed everything. Sold a vehicle, used the proceeds to buy a synth. Started playing live again. I decided to see what Cakewalk had been up to during my absence. SONAR 5 had just been released, so I gave it a go. It filled a hole I didn't even know existed. Priorities shift after you've stared down Death.

Such an overlooked strategy! Many musicians lack the self-confidence to play quietly, assuming that they can only win over the audience by beating them over the head. Plus, lowering the volume is the quickest way to tighten up a band. When you can clearly hear one another, you're naturally going to sync up better. Vocals work better, especially getting a proper balance between harmonies. As a piano player, it means my amplification runs cleaner and what comes out actually sounds like a piano. Everybody tends to put more subtleties into their playing, and natural dynamics just happen without having to be scripted. And as everyone has noted, your final assessment comes at the end of the night when the till is counted. If staff can't hear to take orders, that's not good for the bottom line. Finally, let's not forget one important reason that people go to bars: to hook up and to socialize. The band shouldn't be like "I don't care if it's your anniversary/birthday/office outing, just sit there and listen to US!". Those who are actually there to listen will sit up front or dance. The couple in the back with their hands all over each other don't care what you're doing anyway.

I remember as a child reading in the newspaper about a guy who was 120 years old. He was a civil war veteran. When asked his secret to longevity, he said he ate a bag of peanuts every day of his life. Well, I love peanuts, so there ya go. I pretty much each peanuts daily myself. Of course, it just makes sense to learn from those who've manage to live so long. That's why I've been on both the Keith Richards and/or the David Crosby regimens for so much of my life. It's not an easy plan. For one thing, I have yet to bed a famous folk singer, and the probability that I ever will is now vanishingly low.

$19 directly from SoundIron.

MMCSS for ASIO was not an option in SONAR. It was added to CbB because a few ASIO drivers prefer to tweak thread priority on their own and thus conflict with MMCSS. Under SONAR, MMCSS was applied to ASIO by default. I suspect the difference you're looking for is going to turn out to be between the processes each computer is running, and likely it'll be something unconnected to audio directly. It's not that CbB handles buffering any differently.

Melodyne's probably your best bet, since you can fiddle with the formants, which is useful when doing large shifts. Another option, if you have it, would be Kontakt. That would let you turn your sounds into a playable instrument. But I gotta ask: how did you get a 7-octave shift with a tape machine? Best I could ever do was 3 octaves, by recording at 15 ips, playing it back at 7.5 ips and then bouncing to another machine that could do 3.75 ips. I guess you could bounce that back to the 15 ips recorder and repeat the process, but it would sound pretty bad.

Actually, nobody noticed. It just meant I couldn't layer synths and had to revert to using both hands on separate keyboards. Unfortunately, it also meant I had no sustain pedal on one of the synths, since I use one pedal and pass it through to the other keyboard via MIDI. I also use MIDI to drive a VoiceLive box that lets us create 8-part harmonies, 4 real voices over 4 faked ones. It's great on doo-wop stuff.

Listen to Crosby's harmony part in this cover of Blackbird. He was a master of finding the harmonic hole and dropping into it. An inspiration to me, as that's the role I usual fill in my band; I give the others the obvious parts that are easy to remember, and then assign myself all the in-between notes they're not singing. George Harrison was another underrated harmony singer who often sang the most difficult part when they did 3-part harmony.