Mark Morgon-Shaw

It sounds like you may have another Vsti in the project which is sending out CC data and because you have the midi in set to Omni mode , this data is being read by The Orchestra.

Me neither ! Although for some they have no choice.

Yes, many thanks for this Jerry. A completely different approach to any I have seen previously, I can understand now how you get so much expression. Next time I need to write some strings I'll try this approach for sure.

Interesting Jerry thanks, it's rare to find someone expert in all this that uses Cakewalk too. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the best way to switch articulations ? I see some folks using key switches, yet others insert a new instrument per articulation and manually place the notes on the relevant midi track. I guess now there are folks who use the articulation lane now too but I've yet to try that. I sometimes need to add strings parts to a piece so I bought a dedicated controller with 2 x programmable CC faders. I set one to modulation and the other to expression. I try to use them with my left hand playing the part with my right ( as per a Youtube tutorial by Marc Jovani ) and whilst it generates a lot of CC events they don't seem particularly easy to manipulate/edit on the PRV in Cakewalk compared to using the draw tool on an automation lane within the track view instead.

Great work , impressive use of orchestration - it's not easy to get these orchestral sample libraries to sound realistic, you must have bee working overtime with the expression controllers and articulations ? If I have one slight nitpick those cymbals at the start sound too loud to me , they kinda jump out of the mix like the guy playing them is stood right next to the conductor. Out of interest which orchestral libraries do you use ? There's so many of them to choose from these days. Could totally hear it used against planetarium type footage but last I heard NASA had a deal with Killer Trax ( part of Universal ) for their production music. I remember reading about it somewhere a few years ago but they are notoriously difficult to get accepted into as a writer. A lot of these big corporate entities like NASA won't be inclined to do direct licensing deals with individuals because they need everything locked down and pre-cleared to indemnify themselves as far as the license goes and possibly mixed / mastered in some sort of immersive format for replay in a venue like a planetarium . Also If you write for one of the bigger publishers like Universal or Warner Chappel they will usually take your mock up and re-record some or all of it with an actual orchestra and do their own mix & master so it sounds as good as it possibly can. Really impressive though, I hope you can get as many sets of ears on it as possible - I'm sure some of the production music houses would be open to listening to your work.

Thanks Tom Obviously it depends on the type of track but I generally don't use reverb a bunch, and more often than not it's actually delay. I do like the Valhalla reverbs though and I use Echoboy for delay. The main trick with either of those is to use them as an FX send but to EQ the reverb return to keep all the mud and mush out of the mix - so the reverb bus may end up looking something like this. Well spotted , it's not actually a wall in fact. When I took the measurements there was still some bass overhang ( visible with a free program called Room EQ Wizard ) and this was visible on the waterfall plot. I'd been posting my results on a Gearslutz forum for acoustic treatment and someone suggested a " limp mass barrier " . So I looked into them and I just didn't have the budget but I did see mention of a "ghetto " solution of hanging a up a rug. I happened to have a large one as we'd just moved house and it didn't really fit anywhere so it was just lying around so I hung it the suggested distance a couple of feet from the back wall which involved pulling my desk further into the room. I measured it again and there was a noticeable improvement , the guys on Gearslutz all seemed to approve and ten years later it's still there !

Thanks Jeff, it's a big long learning curve for sure. Part of comes from doing it a lot , I can guarantee that if you wrote & mixed 100 tracks in a year, the 100th would be quite a bit better than the 1st. You don't need a big fancy studio to get good results but I honestly think if the room you mix in is not properly measured and acoustically treated you will likely find that once the mixes leave it, they won't translate well. Most of those tracks were made on the setup in the pic although I've since had bigger screens, and larger controller keyboard but you can see some of the acoustic treatment and I also use Sonarworks Reference as well. So it's about as flat as it can be for what is basically a garage studio. I've adopted more a "topdown" mixing approach over the years which means you do most the heavy lifting on the Master Bus or Group Buses and essentially to less on a per track level. A lot of mix issues I hear are down to arrangement - things clashing with each other and fighting for space in the mix. One thing that helped me learn to avoid that was the little mixcube, I spend a lot of the time working in mono which really highlights when parts are in the way of each other as well as being a great tool for balance. I see some gorgeous looking studios on the Cakewalk Facebook Groups that make me drool , but often when I listen to the music folks make in them they don't sound as good as they look. So it's definitely about the guy in the seat as much as the rest of it. f

Hey Cyril - @scook had you right, it is that setting. I use it on a fairly regular basis when I need some strings, they are using one of my tracks on CNBC promo at the moment that I wrote in Cakewalk using The Orchestra. https://www.cnbccouncils.com/ceo-council/ You need to untick it and it should work , but it 's a per project setting so it's a bit of a pain unless you make your own template.

Same here - I think the message only popped up because the program is now called " Cakewalk1.exe" and the existing firewall rules are for "Cakewalk.exe"

Some folks were asking about music for TV, here are some of my tracks and which shows they are in. All made in Cakewalk , I seem to be one of the few in a sea of mostly Logic Pro users but I refuse to use Apple gear on principle ( crazy pricing , non upgradable/repairable etc ) but I can make just as good music as they do in my beloved Cakewalk

Yeah I don't think I could have done it when my kids were younger and hold down a full time job too. Mine are at Uni / College now and I can generally do two tracks per week depending on how busy my day job is, but back in the day it would take me the same amount of time as it takes you now. This is why I often harp on about DAW workflow in some of the threads because when you work to deadlines every minute counts and when you use it pretty much day in day out you get a much better idea of it's strengths and weaknesses. I'm not sure it would be usable in it's current form, one of the unwritten rules is " no foley " ..which means no sound effects that are not musical parts and you have a fair few going. You could always bounce another mix without them. That transition around 36s is a bit clunky so you'd probbaly want to smooth that out and make it more musical. Those tranistions are often used as edit point when cutting to picture so some sort of rise & hit type sound usually works best ( like a reverse cymal swelling in the forward playing cymbal for example . If you send it to a bonefide sync library you'll need to be a member of a PRO ( Ascap / BMI in the US ) as the mebership number goes with the metadata and is how they know who to pay royalties to. There aren't really any that would take a one off track as it's not worth the Admin to onboard a new writer for one track, most want 4 or 5 or some want a full album. There is a lower tier of libraries that don't really deal a whole bunch with broadcast, they are more for content creators to get music from..corporate videos, Youtubers etc. You don't necessarily have to join a PRO to submit music to these places as they aren't really supplying TV shows so there are no royalties, you just get a share of the revenue that someone paid to use your track in their Youtube channel or whatever. If you wanted to try one of those places like Audiosparx, AudioJungle, Pond5 will probably let you sign up and put a single track up. Be warned though that one track is a bit of a needle in a haystack and you need a volume of material in any library before it will likely start getting used.

Ah right - I think I use a combo of LoopCloud and Melodyne for stuff like that, but it's not someting I do a ton. If they built in a decent sample workflow though it would be way better though.

I've used Cakewalk since Windows 95 days and I've never used the Loop Construction section - I think I may have looked at it many many years ago and dsmissed it for my workflow ...what do you mainly use it for ?

If you're interested in writing for Libraries, I suggest following the Sync My Music Youtube channel - there is a free 5 part course about writing for production music libraries there where you can get an overview of what it's all about. I have to warn you though it's pretty competitive and you would need to write at least 50 tracks per year for a couple of years to make any sort of dent in it. Although this is one of the better tracks I've heard on the Cakewalk forum the production bar is somewhat higher for sync so you'd need to hone those mixing and mastering skills some more to reach the standard but it sounds like you have some decent composition ideas that would work for TV. Mostly you have to write to briefs rather than whatever comes into your imagination - " We need X styles of music for upcoming shows " - so you have to be cool with writing what they need , rather than what came into your head that day. If you do get anywhere it can be rewarding to hear your music in TV shows, much better than just sharing stuff with friends online and hoping someone wil listen. It's kinda cool to know literally millions of people have heard your music around the world, even if they don't know it was you. The money can vary hugely, I've had some placements earn literally pennnies whilst the best ones can make 4 figures over time. All I would say to you or anyone else interested is if you do it you go all in. Read the Dan Graham articles in Sound on Sound about library music, and be prepared to do a lot of work for a couple of years with zero money before you start getting any traction. Good Luck ! Edit : Posted a link to some tracks in a thread I just made

Thanks Noel, I just tried the reditributable installer and the only difference it made was Cakewalk now tells me an update is available too

They need a pathway for their Bandlab users to upgrade to , their App apeals to the younger demographic but I suspect when they make the jump some of the users who came through as beatmakers etc will not find the transition as easy as it could be and we could lose them.

Hey Noel - Same issue here , it happened after I installed Wavelab 11 ( 30 day Trial ) and it updated a bunch of redistributables Using the rename workaround for the time being.

Same here

I requested this in 2019 and many others before did so on the old forum

Yep This a common occurence when midi editing, it shouldn't really happen and is a pain I think the point is the PRV shouldn't allow crazy tiny midi notes to be created that then can't be edited properly, I've got in the habit of deleting them and re-drawing when it happens. Got zero to do with playing skills , if you do any extensive amount of midi editing this is a regular occurence.

I don't really have any separate midi tracks as I just use simple instrument tracks

All hail the mightly Console Inspector

I'm not sure what you mean then ? If I hide a Folder in Track Manager the corresponding console strips are hidden as long the option to keep the track / console views in sync is selected ?? I.e. - Only Drums selected in Track Manager Leaves me with only the Drums in the Track View And correspondingly in the Console View So it does respect the folder in both views

I've said it multiple times, but Cakewalk will never regain it's place among the top DAWs until they cater for modern producers with a proper sample workflow.

So basically it's an Inspector for the Console View that would include a Track Manager- Why not make that the request, it might have wider use outside of just the Track Manager. I make 2 tracks every week , week in , week out... 100+ every year and personally I never use the Track Manager but then there are many other things in Cakewalk I never use too that others migh want. As a concept a Console Inpector might have wider implications than your orignial feature request though and may have some merit but I don't think there is much in it from a workflow / speed POV.