GreenLight

Hi @E-Wolf Music! I love the Duplicate Clip feature and was a very vocal promoter for it to be implemented, so I love when people have opinions about it. To get what you're looking for in Cakewalk, you have to enable "Use Current Snap Settings on Duplicate Selected Clip(s)" in the Preferences / Customization / Editing. Then the Duplicate Clip feature follows your snap settings. I believe what most people usually want when duplicating clips is what you get with snap set to Snap By Whole. That way, empty space in the beginning and in the end of clips is retained. Check out the documentation here. I'm a bit torn by Duplicate using snap. It makes Duplicating both flexible and... slow. I think duplicating is supposed to be super fast and something you can do without thinking, and without adjusting a lot of snap settings. "Oh, I had it set to 16ths. Dang, it was set to To. Ah, now it works." Good find! I had not tried this myself, but Duplicating while playing does not work as expected at all. It would be really nice if it would work! ? I can see why you're frustrated. In Cakewalk, deleting notes has actually never automatically trimmed the end (or beginning) of the midi clip the note is in. The Bounce to clip(s) command (keyboard shortcut CTRL + B for me, I'm not sure if that's default) is therefore something I press all the time, almost without thinking. Until this behavior has changed, I think it's what you need to do as well... ? All that said, Duplicate Clip has been giving me some unexpected behavior for me at times, but I haven't yet had the time to investigate it more. But all in all, for me, this small command is one of the biggest additions to Cakewalk for the past 5 years!

+ 1 for this idea! Live has this exact feature, called "Simplify envelope" which looks really nice, check it out below (video is linked to start at the correct location the feature is used):

I appreciate that different tools are good at different things, but surely the process itself of switching DAWs one or several times is also a pretty time-consuming one? (Especially as there is no universal DAW project format.) But maybe it's worth it if you're very fluent in several applications and can utilize the individual strengths of each app? Let us know if we have to move this discussion to a separate thread. ?

You have most certainly done your homework, impressive research! ? Learning a DAW takes time and is an investment, so changing is not something most people do lightly. I'm always amazed by how many people actually know and use multiple DAWs, so I've always thought I should learn Live, but I've never really found the time to dig deep - I want to spend the time making music, not learning software.

This is exactly why one should test several DAW:s before deciding which one to use. One might suit you, another one might not. I myself tried Ableton Live when Gibson went bust - I make electronic dance music after all - and within 10 minutes I was swearing. You can't customize keyboard shortcuts!? (But I've been told since it's supposedly possible. But even with a lot of Googling and manual reading I could not at the time figure out how that was done!) What I would change? In Live, to show the browser, you press CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + B. I kid you not. In Cakewalk it's just "B". Also, multi-monitor support in Live is extremely unflexible, it's obviously made for a single laptop screen. So, what I'm trying to say: horses for courses, to each their own, different strokes, etc. Best of luck with your music! (Sorry, this discussion should probably not be in the "2020.05 Feedback" thread.)

To be honest, this kind of challenge-response method is almost a standard of how a software offline activations are done.

Michal Mikulski wrote in an edit (a bit camouflaged at the end of his post) that he solved his issue, so no worries. ?

Ah, with your excellent help and the help from @marled, I think the bakers can probably find and squash the mono freeze bug! @Noel Borthwick Is this something you guys could maybe have a look at? Marled had already sent a project to reproduce it:

Does the gain value change after freeze? Or is it at the same level, but you can just observe on the meters (and/or hear!) that it's 3dB louder? Does it happen all the time for all soft synths, or just ones with multiple outputs? EDIT: I saw this thread about the issue, where you participated. But it seems that no project was sent to Noel for reproduction of the error? If you did that, I think they could probably find the issue! ?

...and if you have an "analogue style" VST instrument, remember to try freezing the track several times (copying and undoing in between) as you might get different results each time. It's not unusual for me to "comp" my synth freezes. ?

Noted, thanks for the reply Noel! I do like the separation between tracks and buses myself, but I have been struggling quote a lot with copying bus automation so I kinda thought it was related.

What would you guys say about rethinking the concept of the separate panes for tracks and buses? The separation has been causing copy & paste issues in Cakewalk and Sonar for many, many years, and still seems to do so. I think that some kind of revamping or unifying the concept to a single view (or something similar) might help? So that all tracks and buses are considered equal. But maybe it's easier said than done...? ? And since Patch Points are more like "regular tracks", it feels even more weird that buses are so messy when it comes to copy & paste of automation. How do other DAW's manage buses, compared to tracks?

No worries, glad to help! ?

I agree. And I hope they will fix it! But is my suggestion a workable workaround for what you are trying to do?

I haven't really understood the issue, but does it help if you force mono/stereo operation on the channel using the Stereo/Mono button? From the manual: "The Mono/Stereo button in each track forces the track’s audio signal to enter any patched plug-ins as either mono or stereo, whether or not the tracks are mono or stereo. This allows you to use either mono effects on a stereo track or stereo effects on a mono track." For example, I have been running stereo plugins on tracks with mono audio just by setting track to Stereo and then using a stereo plugin. Sorry if I'm confusing things.

Wow, impressive amount of music you've been involved in! What kind of stuff do you play at the solo/duo gigs?

Thanks! Great work, guys! ? Really looking forward to try this!

@RobertWS The behaviour captured in your animation is what you get if you duplicate with snap set to Snap To Whole. If you set Snap By Whole the pasted notes will be placed with the correct offset. Also note that Snap By for Duplicate Clip was fixed in 2020.01, in case you're running an older version. I don't know why Duplicate Clip with Snap By isn't more celebrated! It's the best thing since Aux Sends! ? Addition: I like that Duplicate Clip is flexible and respects the Snap settings... but that kind of also slows things down a lot. Before duplicating something, you always have to double check the snap settings and sometimes modify them. And for me, duplicate is about speed. Part of me wishes there was a way of locking Duplicate to your preference (like Snap By Whole) for super-quick and idiot proof operation.

I thought it could be a fun and inspirational thread to hear what kind of stuff you do with Cakewalk and in what circumstances! I just read that someone uses Cakewalk in radio shows every weekend and I've seen a lot of other exciting uses. I myself? I produce electronic dance music in my home studio (mainly techno these days) releasing it on independent labels all around the world. Please tell us your Cakewalk usage story!

@David Murray You actually also have to enable the "landmark button" (don't remember the correct name now) for your landmark snap settings to take effect. It's the button with the flag, to the right of the By/To switch. Should work great then!

In Cubase there's a "Find track" icon just at the top of the track list, check it out below. It basically presents an overview of all tracks and let's you jump to a track. Maybe that's better/faster than live filtering of all tracks?

Many projects have a lot of tracks, so to facilitate finding the right track quicker, how about implementing a track find/filter feature? It would change the display of tracks in real time based on searching all track names. CTRL + F or something could be used. ? Usage example: Type "strings" = shows all string tracks Type "slap bass" = did I have a slap bass track somewhere? (now, why would you? )

I will be waiting before jumping on this particular train, for sure... ?

Hm, maybe check the interleave button on your buses as well? (I sometimes check for mono compatibility by switching to mono on the master bus.) Good luck!

You should send a minidump to staff. Although Morten wrote above that the final 2020.05 would drop early next week, so any potential fix for your problems will probably not make it for this release...