Jerry Gerber

Thanks Andy, and thanks for listening! Jerry

Yep, as I always do. I use the mouse to pop notes on to staves, occasionally I'll play parts in, but nearly the entire composition is composed using the mouse, the staff view, the event list and of course tons of controller data, tempo changes, velocity changes and attack/release data. Since I am using VSL, I've got a very large pallet of articulations and sample sets, which helps a lot. Thanks for listening, glad you enjoyed it Bjorn..

From the album Virtual Harmonics Scored for VSL Symphonic Cube PLAY

Also keep in mind that when you export Cakewalk notation to a program like Sibelius or Finale, it's best to export as a .mid type 1 file, not XML. First of all, if your piece has more than 23 staves you won't be able to export all of the music as XML. Also, if you export as XML the graphic inaccuracies will be exported too, so you'll have to edit them in your notation program. With a MIDI file export, the MIDI data will export accurately. You'll still have to do some editing, but there's less chance of errors cropping up than with XML. In perfect conditions, I'd use XML upon export, but we don't have that so I prefer to use MIDI to maintain better rhythmic accuracy. Jerry

I have no idea whether programming the staff view to include 32note triplets, tied triplets, dotted triplets, etc. is quite doable and the will just isn't there, or whether it's a very difficult programming problem. I do know that the original code for the staff view is quite old so I suspect it's probably quite a complex job. But there's good news: The display of these events has no impact on MIIDI precision upon playback. If you program tied 32nd notes or dotted 16th note triplets, you'll get exactly that on playback. When I export a .mid file into Sibelius it's not a big problem to edit and clarify the notation. The other good news is that even though Cakewalk doesn't display 64th or 128th notes, the fact is they are not often used, at least not nearly as often and 32nd and 16th notes. So, the workaround is this: if you're working on a piece that suddenly requires 64th notes, simply double the tempo and write them as 32nd notes. Or, leave the tempo as it is, and when you export the file to a program like Sibelius, correct the notation there. I know it's not perfect, but I'll take the limitations and imperfections of Sonar over every other DAW on the market because of all the things that Sonar is that other DAWS are not. Jerry

Hi Tom, The voices are from the Roland XP-30, there's a vocal sound set that I had came on a ROM card. I believe they are probably a mix of samples that were processed by Roland.. Best, Jerry

I've written this before, but keep in mind that the notation editor in a DAW is primarily about MIDI sequencing and editing. It's not a scoring program, which is essentially a graphics program. To prepare a score with parts for performance is not a recording function, it's a publishing tool. I do all my scores in Sibelius, but I do all my MIDI work in Sonar. I wouldn't expect, or even want, a DAW to be a publishing tool, better in my opinion to have the DAW for the creation and production of music and the full-fledged graphics program like Sibelius for publishing and final score creation.

I bet if the staff view were given as much attention as other aspects of the program, many musicians who abandoned Cakewalk would come right back. I did after spending 18 months with Digital Performer. Cakewalk is the most underrated DAW on the market, it is as powerful as any other DAW, ergonomically superior to the other DAWs I've worked with (Cubase, Reaper, DP, and a demo of Pro Tools) and makes complex operations easy and simply, but not so simple that precision and detail are sacrificed. Being in the education market, I would think the notation editor would be of supreme importance--regardless of how many musical styles don't depend upon or use notation, the fact is that it's going to be around for a long time and scoring to picture, classical music, complex arrangements and other styles of music are going to employ notation in one way or another. Sonar is also beautiful to look at; I've worked in Cakewalk since 1991 and still am excited to be looking at and working in the program. It's solid as a rock on Windows 10. I left Sonar because of the staff view, but after using DP, the staff view in Sonar has much that is more to my liking. I often write for lots of instruments and I write complex, long pieces. DP's editor is set up to imitate an 8.5x11 piece of music paper, which is fine for short works with few instruments. But Cakewalk's notation is more like an arranger's pad, it's much easier to scroll through pieces with hundreds of measures and I can see much more music in one screenful, horizontally speaking, and vertically, the number of staves I can see at once is larger than DPs (23 vs 18). And the event list--just having color coded MIDI events as Cakewalk does makes it so much easier to see what's going on. Tiny text and no color coding is really hard on the eyes... Jerry

Hi msmcleod, that would be really great, thanks. I also hope the other staff view issue, which is being able to right-click to get the editing menu is restored so that CTRL doesn't have to be held down at the same time... Jerry www.jerrygerber.com

From the album Number 11: The Path Scored for VSL Orchestral Cube and the following synths: Roland XP-30, Native Instruments Massive, Cakewalk Rapture & Virsyn Tera. PLAY

Really enjoyed listening to this song.. Straightforward, nice guitar part, your voice is easy on the ears! Jerry

Hi Tom, I chose 12 poems for an album I did a while back. I composed music for each of the poems. I started another all vocal album this year but due to Covid-19, I can't bring singers and narrators into the studio to record, so I'm working on a new symphony until I can bring people into to the studio. Thanks again for the kind comments! Best, Jerry

From the album In Praise of Poets PLAY Jerry

Hi Lynn, Well, I am glad there a some people who get my music and like it. I think composers like me, who work in the virtual medium but don't write pop-like music, are in the minority. Thanks for your comments! Jerry

This track appears on my album In Praise of Poets PLAY Jerry

Yes, this is correct. No matter what note value is chosen, the snap function is always hit or miss. I find the workaround is to make the staves bigger, this helps. It used to be that when you choose, say, an eighth note, the snap would follow the eighth note and snap into place at the place where you want it to. Does Bandlab read these comments? This issue and the issue where we have to press CTRL-right click to call up the context menu for MIDI editing should be repaired. We should be able to call up the menu just by a right-click, which requires only one hand rather than two... Jerry

That would be the best thing that could happen for the staff view.

Both methods have their advantages. For accuracy I also prefer exporting type 1 .mid files. But for clarity of notation that requires less editing, XML works well . But since I cannot find a way to export more than 18 tracks (the maximum allowed to view at one time in the staff view) I'll just stick with .mid file exports.... Thanks, Jerry

Does anyone know if it's possible to export all the MIDI tracks in a file via XML? I'm finding that I can only export the tracks that are visible in the notation editor, and the limit is 18 tracks. I'm working on a piece that has 36 MIDI tracks and haven't figured out a way to export all of them at once. I thought I had done this before, but I forgot how I did it, if I did it at all. Thanks! Jerry

I believe "orchestrally" is definitely a real word, regardless of what the dictionary says.

Yes, but not for this piece. I use FM8, Massive and Kontakt quite often. I still find FM8 very useful for many different situations. In this track, there's only samples of orchestral instruments. Jerry

Very good! and very true! The "president" is an insane, pathologically lying buffoon. Great job! Jerry

From the album Rebel Planet PLAY Jerry

Thanks Bjorn and Mark. Glad you liked listening..

Hi Wookie, The piece is scored for 8 instances of softsynths: 2 instances of FM8 2 instances of Rapture 2 instances of Massive 2 instances of Tera No samples or orchestral instruments.... Jerry