Michael Richards

Thank Gary, this song didn't get much love. Ha.

garybrun: What a BEAUTIFUL voice. I must have been absent when they handed out great voices. Also, nice recording. Very full. Michael

Marco, I enjoy your music, especially your harmonies. You are right, it is a great time to be alive and producing music. Just wish this all would have happened 40 years ago.

Back in the early 1980s when I was a working musician my band had 2 Teac 3340s decks. We used one to bounce to the other. We were never good enough to bounce again, so we only really used 6 tracks. I have one of the 3340s and let it sit for 4 years. It no longer works and it seems it will cost a fortune to fix it. I look at it quite a bit and feel very bad I let it get in that condition. I then had a Tascam (?) 8 track cassette. It always sounded thin. Then I had a Sony DAT. It still works fine, but I no longer use it. Don't feel so bad about that. My band recorded in a New York recording studio with a Studer A827 24 track beast. We thought we were big time. The recordings were not very good. I learned a lesson early on that the person doing the recording is probably going to determine the quality of the recording more than the equipment used. I think that is one of the reasons I have stuck with Cakewalk for 30 years. I feel like I need to explore more than what we have and hope the new Sonar will eventually have some fancy bells and whistles. Yet, I realize I can get better with what I have.

I agree. I think it is very debatable. There might be some pixie dust that gives tape a warmer sound, which is very pleasing to some people. Though, you can't deny the clarity in something like Blu-ray audio that was recorded in a digital studio, that probably still used analog outboard gear. I think of it like gasoline vs. electric automobiles. You know which one is the future but you still have a passion for all the cool things a powerful gasoline engine gives you, like the sound of a Ferrari or a Porsche. I recently drove a Mustang Mach-E GT. I forgot about the sound after I became obsessed with pinning my head against the headrest. Wow, what a thrill. I don't know this for a fact except for my own home studio experience but I feel like every little mistake or note that is not played to perfection is duly noted in Cakewalk. My memory says that my recordings on tape seemed to hide slight imperfections. I know tape and digital are different and totally feel digital is better but I love the passion that people have for tape. Not a bad thing to debate about.

I add measures all the time. This week, for the first time that I can remember, I had problems. Strange problems. I needed to add 24 measures. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do 20, 18, all the way down to 12. That worked. So I added 12 more measure. That didn’t work. Only 2 measures would work. After that nothing worked. I gave up. Michael

Hello group Here is the latest from the Curtin Richards Project, Night of the Living Dolls. The melody was written 7 years ago by Hugh Curtin and I orchestrated and finished the song last week. Hope you enjoy it. Michael Richards https://viamichael.com/2023/09/15/night-of-the-living-dolls/

So glad you use Cakewalk. Top shelf work, and the video is impressive.

I've seen most of Guy Michelmore's videos. Funny guy with what seems to be a wonderful career. He's happy, therefore not using Cakewalk to score video games. I just started using the free version of DaVinci Resolve and can't seem go get one of their export formats to work. As Andres said, I've tried all their MP4- H264 codecs. Nothing works. I did get some free-for-a-day software (either Vimeo or Filmora) and was able to convert an iPhone video to an mp4 h264 and it worked. I just didn't like them and figured Resolve would be better. Anybody using Resolve and exporting successfully into Cakewalk? If so, what am I doing wrong? Michael

I say, after Sonar is released Lord Tim , Jimbo, and Andres should head up some subcategory for film scoring in Cakewalk. I am sure there are many others in our forum that have a serious interest in this. I am amazed by how many people started out, like me, with Cakewalk on floppy disks. People usually evolve, their interests expand, and moving into film composition is a very natural transition. We probably lose a lot of composers who can't get over these hurtles that we have been discussing and move to a program like Cubase. That's a shame and also a business loss. Michael

Jimbo88, that is excellent and hard earned information. It also gives me hope. I can’t believe you have scored so much to picture in Cakewalk. That’s the best news I have learned in a long time. Michael

Thank you, Lord. I really want to learn how to score a movie and want to start with short video clips. I think this is the only music skill I didn't learn in music school. I really don't want to make the expensive move to Cubase so I can try my hand at this. I really don't think Sonar will have this capability, though I am holding out for it. I would think they know almost all of the competition offers decent video scoring.

I have tried everything I can think of. Can't seem to reset the start time. They always start at the very beginning. Michael

I’m with Starship Krupa. I gave up on using the nano KONTROL2. I spent over a month trying to get it to work, awhile back until it broke Cakewalk and Noel had use some debugging software to revive Lazarus. Last week I spent several days, again, using these directions which are very clear. Still, it does not work. I really want it to work. I didn’t ask for help this time around. I think I was annoying my first time around.

I have been using Cakewalk for more than 30 years and have never experienced scratchy-ness in my mixes. Also, I am not so quick to jump ship. Years ago I produced an industry (not this one) newsletter and many Mac people came to me saying "you can't do that with a PC." I did, and soon began to understand the lure of a Mac. It looks cool and more importantly doesn't have any issues, because you aren't using it. Once you use it, it will have issues. Guaranteed. If it doesn't, then you aren't pushing it. I have DPC problems with my powerful Dell. Once I spent several months trying to solve this problem I eventually found out that the problem has existed for years with different manufacturers, different motherboards, different video cards, etc. Maybe you are correct and Cakewalk is scratchy, then you are very fortunate that you found a product that you could mix with in 90 minutes in what used to be in more than 30 days.

Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it.

I figured something out about SoundCloud. I cannot be logged into the account and copy the location of that song in SoundCloud. I only gives me the first song location. When noynekker was able to post a song location I figured something was at play. The way to solve this is to use a browser where I am not logged in to SoundCloud. So, here is another instrumental (Final Destination) I wrote with Hugh Curtin. I played all the instruments and did all the recording. Michael

I figured something out about SoundCloud. I cannot be logged into the account and copy the location of that song in SoundCloud. I only gives me the first song location. When noynekker was able to post a song location I figured something was at play. The way to solve this is to use a browser where I am not logged in to SoundCloud. So, here is another instrumental (Final Destination) I wrote with Hugh Curtin. I played all the instruments and did all the recording. Michael

Hi, that is exactly what I do, but it hasn't worked. I'm linking another song and it doesn't look like a link on my end. Here it is for a song called By The Throat: By The Throat by Curtin Richards Project (soundcloud.com)

Hi, the song above is not Carry On. Can somebody please tell me how to link individual songs from Soundcloud. Thank you, Michael

Hello Members, here is a vocal song I wrote originally wrote as an instrumental. Hugh Curtin played it for the singer Artie Hoar and he insisted singing on it. I only wrote partial words. The original title was When A Man but Artie came upon Carry On so I changed the title. I played all the instruments and the recorded it. Michael

Noynekker, thank you very much. I appreciate the feedback. I’m watching Magic Is In The Midrange, now. Can you tell me the name of the song you heard. I was under the impression that I posted my entire SoundCloud page. Maybe that’s a no-no here.

Jack, I posted my SoundCloud page with 11 songs. That’s why I ask. I use Mackie 824 monitors. I’ve had them for 20 years. I also use Sennheiser 598 headphones. I don’t filter the lows on the cymbals. I will from now on.

This has some serious mojo. Won't pull any sales away from Taylor Swift, but could have a cult following. I agree the cymbals are a bit overpowering in the beginning, but I forgot about that as the song moved on. I don't know the original. The octave vocals give it some mystical feeling. This is good.

Thank you, Jack. I will take you up on mixing. 1) Which program do you all use to determine your LUFS level? 2) I work hard on reducing the low-mid clutter that seem to multiply with each added instrument. I try to stop this by reducing the EQ of each instrument in the low-mid range. I have sat through several Bobby Owsinski videos and have 2 of his most recent mixing books. Still, I find that reducing the low-mids seem to reduce the impact on the kick and bass. I am walking a fine line between nice tight bass with clean mids and highs, and a muddy mix. I can hear an improvement in my mixing from 3-5 years ago but feel like I have miles to go. I have tinnitus and hearing loss in both ears. Bobby Owsinski told me that all the older engineers he knows have similar issues but their brains and years of experience compensate. I don't have years of mixing experience. This is a hurdle I need to climb, so I will take all the help and direction I can get. Thank you, Michael PS Which song did you listen to?