bitflipper

Before anyone gloats over his post count, especially here in the Deals neighborhood, you might want to compare cclarry's numbers. To the topic: I think I'm done buying hardware altogether, at least for 2021. I've got a good controller, decent speakers, functional interface, SSDs and two big monitors. Pretty much set for the studio. Now, if live music ever makes a comeback, I might actually open that Sweetwater catalog again.

I dropped a big one this morning, but didn't report it. Oops, thought I was still in the CH... I'll second the motion to acknowledge Larry's efforts. I get most of the same emails he does, but am not always diligent about actually reading them. So thanks, Larry.

Collin, you've probably gathered that there are a "zillion" (to quote CJ) possible reasons for not getting any sound. With some additional information, I'm sure we'll be able to help you out. Both Kalle's and CJ's posts ask good questions. Let us know if you don't understand them.

Collin's new here and was unsure which forum to post in. He made the mistake of first asking this question in the Coffee House, with predictable results, lol. But yeh, it's best to post just once, and the main Cakewalk forum is indeed the best place.

Don't replace your interface just yet. When you hear the volume jump, do you see a corresponding rise in the meters on the master bus? If so, it's not your interface. Is it repeatable or random? Does it happen at the same point in the playback, or is that random? If it's repeatable, globally bypass all plugins and see if the problem goes away. If it does, you can then start looking at plugins. If not, disable all automation and see if the problem goes away. If it does, you can start looking for stray MIDI CCs. Is it specific to one project? Does it occur with a new, minimal project? Does it persist if you freeze all tracks? I doubt it's Cakewalk that's boosting the gain. We'd all have noticed such an obvious bug. The challenge is to narrow the focus of investigation to a specific project, synth, sample or track and drill down from there.

Sadly, a square room can never be acoustically flattened, only deadened. That's your best strategy: absorption, lots of it, and then artificially un-dampen it with reverb. But before you trap yourself in a fiberglass coffin, arm yourself with knowledge. There is a lot of free information available online, starting with Ethan Winer's RealTraps website. Ethan sells acoustic treatments, but he's such a great guy that he freely tells you how they work, why they work, and even how to build your own if you can't afford to buy his products. If that whets your curiosity, grab a copy of the Master Handbook of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest. It's an intimidating tome, but written very clearly so it's quite accessible. Another good one that's actually more targeted to your own situation is Floyd Toole's Sound Reproduction, especially if you're considering adding a subwoofer to your rig.

All self-respecting monitor makers strive for neutrality and full-spectrum response. That's what qualifies them to be called reference monitors. Expensive models do better at that, but there are diminishing returns as you raise your budget. Spending an enormous amount on monitors is truly a waste of money unless you address the real reason speakers lie to you: acoustics. The primary reason you can't trust your monitors isn't their fault, it's the room. The influence of room acoustics is easily 100x greater than the effect of limitations in the speakers themselves. Every room has a distinct signature, which means no matter how hard you try, no one else will hear exactly what you hear. If your space has too strong a personality you are doomed to forever chasing the neutrality that's so important for a universal balance. This phenomenon cannot be avoided through room EQ, no matter how sophisticated. At best, you can only partially mitigate it, and only in one small area. That's because acoustical anomalies differ in different parts of the room. A peak you measure in one place may be a deep valley just a few inches away. Systems such as ARC try to calculate corrections based on multiple measurements, not a bad idea in itself. However, what that really accomplishes is to dial back the adjustments so that helping one area doesn't make another area way worse. My advice: buy whatever well-regarded speakers you can comfortably afford - don't mortgage the house - and reserve half your budget for acoustic treatments.

I'm a sucker for Scandinavian epic symphonic metal. Always gets my heartrate up. This crew does it the better than anybody.

Yup, it's all about the performance. I'm sick of this song, but I've watched this performance at least a dozen times and get a lump in my throat every time.

Monark is probably the most broadly representative of classic synth architecture, and thus will give you a solid foundation for learning other, more sophisticated synths. In any case, John's advice is good for any VI or FX plugin, namely learning all you can about each one, one at a time. With that large a collection, you won't get bored for literally years.

Here's what Adobe Audition shows. Check to make sure that before MP3 encoding there is sufficient headroom. The encoding process can increase your peak values by up to 3 dB. Min Sample Value: -32768 -32768 Max Sample Value: 32767 32767 Peak Amplitude: 0 dB -.01 dB Possibly Clipped: 12 14

Yes and yes. They do it because it sounds good through earbuds, and they have a low opinion of their customers' technical acumen. Go ahead and name names, RR. We always like to hear about products to avoid.

Gotta wonder if there's really any money to be made creating presets for a Hammond. I suppose if you can sell beats, then you can surely sell drawbar settings as well. Trying to think what else hasn't been done yet...presets for light switches? (btw, not knocking the product; IMO it's the best Hammond emulation you can buy atm.)

So, to everybody who's already in 2021: how's it looking so far? Is it safe to come out yet?

Here's hoping that in 2021 people find the minds they've lost. Gotta have hope, eh?

Witch! Witch! She turned me into a newt! A newt? I got better.

You should have begun this conversation with the song, as it would clarify what you're going for. It's a good tune! I'm sure you'd agree that ambient music sounds simpler than it really is. The point is to make interesting and immersive textures, and your tune does that very well indeed. What you have to consider while mixing - and this goes for all genres - is constantly asking yourself "what do I want the listener to be listening to right here?". At any point in the song there should be a clear voice that says "Listen to me". Too many competing voices makes it difficult for the listener to follow along. There are places in your mix where it's not clear which element I should be focusing on. I can't tell you how to fix that, since it's a creative choice only you can make. But for every measure/phrase/section, ask yourself "what single element do I want the listener to be focused on, right here?". A more technical observation: the big climax is too hot. That's not a subjective call, but a measurable one. Overall, the macro-dynamics make a pleasant progression from quiet to loud, with a good peak-to-average ratio through most of it. Unfortunately, it takes too big a jump at around the three-minute mark and becomes distorted. Not the pleasant kind of distortion, but the fingernails-on-chalkboard kind that results from trying to exceed 0 dBFS and consequently incurring overs. I suspect you may have broken LANDR's algorithm on this one, as it doesn't seem to do well with big dynamic changes like this. Fortunately, you can fix this pretty easily. The principle here is that everything can't be loud. Start by just pulling all the faders down a few decibels to give yourself some headroom to work with. Then decide specifically which tracks are going to supply the beef, and pull the others down even more. I'd suggest a high-pass filter on the kick drum so it's not driving your (by which I mean LANDR's) mastering limiter so hard. Insert a spectrum analyzer (such as the free SPAN from Voxengo) and compare the guitars' spectra to the drums and see where they overlap so you can add some EQ to the guitars to help get them out of the way of the drums. The idea is to carve out a space for the drums and not have the guitars own the entire audible spectrum. You should post this tune to the Songs forum, where you'll get plenty of opinions, some of which will actually be helpful. I'd suggest posting an unmastered version, since that will reveal more measures that you can take to clean it up before LANDR mangles it. P.S. I, too am mostly "self-learned". Even after half a century of such self-learning, new lessons continue to remind me that there's no end to it.

A single reverb bus is usually adequate, but only if all the effected instruments need the same type of reverb. In your scenario, that's probably the case. The reverb plugin on that bus is usually set to 100% wet, and you'll use each guitar track's individual bus send slider to tweak how much each guitar gets. This send can also be automated, so if there are places in the song where one guitar needs a lot more reverb and other places where it needs to be drier, you can do that. The biggest mistake I hear in mixes is setting the reverb tail too long. That can sound great when you solo one track, but might get muddy in the full mix. How long is long enough depends on the song style and guitar tones, as well as the song's tempo. Think about what happens when a reverb tail carries on into the next note, and how that might make the part sound indistinct and distant. Decide whether the reverb should be an Effect that listeners are intended to hear prominently, or if it should be subtle, e.g. the reverb is there to simulate the guitars being in a reverberant physical space. If it's a David Gilmour style slow melody with pitch bends, slather on the reverb with 4-6 seconds or more. If it's a fast rocker, keep the times under 2 seconds. Bear in mind that at 120 bpm, each quarter note is a half-second and each measure is 2 seconds long. A two-second reverb tail will bleed into each subsequent measure, potentially blurring the melody. That can either be a good thing, or a recipe for mud.

You'll get as many recommendations as there are users, because everybody has their favorite go-to piano. Also, the piano is far and away the most-sampled instrument out there. That's good, because it means there are many options, ranging in price from free to $400+. There are a surprising number of good ones in the FREE category, but whether they're good enough depends on what you're after. Richard, you didn't say in your post whether or not you're a piano player. For some of us, the piano is our main instrument. For others, it's just one more element to throw into a mix. If you record solo piano pieces, or piano with orchestral backing, then you'll want a piano VI that sounds great on its own. I'm assuming that's where you're coming from. Which then begs the question: what does a piano sound like? A concert grand sounds different from an upright, a Yamaha sounds different from a Steinway. A serious "piano player" will likely have multiple virtual instruments to cover all the bases. Personally, I have at least 20 piano solutions here, and that's not unusual. My default go-to is a rather expensive one called Keyscape from Spectrasonics, but I'll often switch it up depending on the song and style. Some of my favorites were very inexpensive, although they typically require full Kontakt to use them. I'd start with YouTube. There are a number of videos there that compare virtual pianos. I know the thread asked for specific recommendations, but do the search as it will probably uncover something that fits your needs perfectly. Maybe even something we don't know about yet.

Something may have gone awry during the scan. I've had this happen when, for example, a needed file was missing. The scanner has a debug feature that can be helpful when troubleshooting a failed plugin. Rather than running the scanner from the top-level Utilities menu, open the Preferences dialog (press P) and scroll down to Files -> VST Settings. Check the "Generate Scan Log" option and click the Reset button. The reset forces a from-scratch scan, which is sometimes necessary after Cakewalk has marked a plugin as unusable because it failed the previous scan. Now click the Scan button to re-scan your plugins. The scan log will be found in %appdata%\cakewalk\logs\vstscan.log. This text file gives a blow-by-blow accounting of the scan process. The log can seem a bit intimidating at first, but feel free to post it here if you like. At the top of the file you'll see the pathnames of each VST folder where the scanner looked for plugins. Make sure the folder your amp sim was copied into is included in this list. If not, add the path and re-scan. Below that you'll see a list of every DLL that was found. Verify that your plugin is included. If not, you may have installed the DLL in a different folder than you thought you did. Next, search the log for the name of the amp sim's DLL. There will be a bunch of gobbledygook that might not mean anything to you, but again you can post the text here so others can have a look. Usually, if the scan failed it will say something like "plugin failed to load" with an error code. Cakewalk support can interpret the error code for you.

I remember you - one of the people who'd post serious replies to even the goofiest of queries. Good to have you back. The moniker change was a good idea. "losguy" just sounds like bad Spanish grammar. Should be either "losguys" or "elguy". Tone Ranger, much better.

I have actually used a PA for a similar purpose before, back in the 80's. I had a neighbor who insisted on playing his boombox in the backyard, every f*kin' day through the summer. Until late into the night and accompanied by the maddening boing-boing-boing of his kids' trampoline. The only sensible response was cannon fire, right? So I set up my PA - even dragged out the 18" subs - in my own backyard and drowned out his lame hair metal with the 1812 Overture.

My best - and most-expensive - purchase this year turned out to also be the biggest waste of money. A new PA for the band, which I bought in January when bands were still a thing and I still had a paying job. Sounds great, though.

Here's the background. And a link to the sick f&cks who are bringing down civilization this way. Turns out, the method works quite well with death metal. Who'd have guessed?

Do you love bass solos? Me neither. But in case you do, and just don't have the time to actually master the instrument yourself, AI has come to the rescue. This automated bass solo has been streaming nonstop since December 13th.