Keith Wilby

Some interesting replies, thanks everyone. I've posted lots of songs on here and no one has ever commented on inferior sound quality, and I have to say, if it sounded inferior then I'd be the first to notice ? but there is certainly a slight latency issue. That said, I'm always keen to learn from the experiences of more qualified people, and I wondered what an "ideal" setup might comprise. One caveat: I have a Focusrite Platinum Penta compressor that I use for my vocal mic (has phantom voltage), and that has a simple mono line output. Many thanks.

My setup is pretty straightforward. I have a self-built desktop PC with onboard graphics and sound. I use a pair of Samson speakers via USB which also have inputs for my vocal microphone. Everything works fine but I was wondering if the onboard sound processing is used by Cakewalk for anything other than playback, ie is it used for rendering/exporting, and if so, would a dedicated sound card be of any significant benefit? Many thanks.

From my local BBC radio station: Hello Keith Wilby, Good news! We're going to play one of your tracks on BBC Radio. Your track, Supply and Demand, will feature on BBC Music Introducing in Cumbria, on Saturday 27 Aug 2022 (on BBC Radio Cumbria). If you miss the show, you can listen again on BBC Sounds for up to thirty days at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0crt3sq Got more tracks you think are good enough to get played? Sign in and upload them now at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader Thanks again for sharing your music with us. And keep those tracks coming. BBC Music Introducing http://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/

That did the trick, but I won't pretend to understand why. Many thanks indeed ?

Hi Lord Tim, here it is. I have to stress that all of my other projects have exported just fine which is why I think it might be a corrupt file. Many thanks.

Hi John, thanks for your response. It's not clipping, it's just a noise when you play it, none of the musical content is there for the first 35 seconds or so. Sonically, the track is fairly "even". On some attempts to export it, I get no sound at all, but if I use the option in the attached screen grab, the export works without fail. I'm wondering if I have a corrupt file that I need to import into a new and pristine one.

Hi all, I've been using CbB for quite a few years now and never encountered this problem with exporting before. It only seems to be doing this on my "Supply and Demand" song, but the export partly fails. Please see screen grab of my WAV file in Sound Forge. I'm using all default settings but changing the bit depth (for example) makes no difference. Any clues? Many thanks. EDIT: if I use the export drop-down that bypasses the settings dialog box, the export works.

Many thank Mark, I'm a jack of many trades and master of none ? I'm on with the drums now ?

Hi Nigel, I use Addictive Drums 2. I've already corrected the rhythm, which I thought was near but not quite right, but I'll certainly have another listen to where they are in the mix ?

Thank Tom. I imagined a solo similar to Paul Kossoff's on Free's "Goin' Down Slow" - friend of mine is more than capable of doing that, it's just a question of getting him here and recording him, which might not be quite so easy. I'll revisit the horns/brass now ?

It needs a proper lead guitarist on it, which rules me out. https://www.bandlab.com/post/fbc588f7-7e1c-ed11-9441-000d3a3f83b4 EDIT 1: Drums now hopefully behaving themselves, plus a few tweaks to the lead guitar and the organ solo. I decided to leave the brass/horn swell over the vocal as-is, I think it builds the moment nicely. EDIT 2: Drums backed off a tad and lead guitar improved.

I like it as it is. Hints of Oasis, The Verve and Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles) on the arrangement. How do you get those awesome guitar sounds? Whenever I try to record a guitar it sounds awful.

Just to show life isn't always doom and gloom ? https://www.bandlab.com/post/578e8785-0b14-ed11-bd6e-281878315d59

As with a lot of what I write, there are elements of me in it ?

Thank you Nigel. The drums are Addictive Drums 2 with each channel separated out "post fader" and with plenty of "room" ambience. There are some "extra" snare and tom sounds too sampled from my trusty 90s vintage Yamaha PSR-SQ16. Yes it is long but I like that solo (believe it or not, there used to be another chorus after it and before the final verse, so I sacrificed that) but what I intend to do is a fade out from about 4:20 to 4:50, thus trimming off another 20 seconds.

Many thanks Larry. This is a sensitive subject I know, but if it made you feel that way, firstly I'm sorry, but then I must have set some sort of mood so, in that respect, mission accomplished.

With apologies in advance, this is the second "downer" in a row that I've posted. Well, life can't always be about happy toe-tappers I guess. This one explores the delicate topic of the hospice, an institution I hope I never end up in ? I'm not so sure about the use of the word "baby" in the chorus. It's a bit cheap and throwaway for the weight of the subject matter. Any suggestions on that one would be appreciated. Thanks.

I really enjoyed reading your post, most entertaining ? The sax sound is from my 1990s vintage Yamaha PSR-SQ16. I tried the TTS-1 one and it didn't cut the mustard, so I reverted to type. There really are some great sounds in that old thing ?

Sorry for the long post but this is a long song, and I thought filling in the back story might help. Once upon a time, there was a 62 year old man whose wife had died two years ago at the age of 59. They had been married for 30-odd years and had two children but, throughout the marriage, the man was convinced that he had married “rebound girl” and privately, he had pined for his "first love" from his teens for the whole of that time. This had the effect of the man holding back on his affections for his wife, since he did not want to betray his “first love”. Since his wife’s death, he had time to reflect on the effect that his futile interest in his “first love” had had on his marriage and, over time, he came to realise that she had been a “poison” inside his mind all along. He hadn’t willed it, he wished she’d never been there, but there had been nothing he could do about it. It was like some sort of morbid obsession outside of his control. He realised that had it not been for this “poison”, he very likely would have had a much closer and more loving relationship with his wife. Because she had passed away before he could discuss it with her, he has an imaginary conversation with her to explain himself and to offer something of an apology in an attempt to achieve some closure. That conversation is this song. As always, comments invited and thanks for sticking with me thus far.

Thank you John, I'll take a look.

Hi all, After watching some excellent tutorials by John Vere (sorry I don't know how to embed a tag) I decided to have a play with LoudMax. I think I'm right in saying that John refers to LoudMax as a "pre-mastering tool". My question is, would you use LoudMax on your master bus and then master the exported file in Bandlab Unlimited? I've tried that with one recording that I'd previously mastered without LoudMax and it sounds awful by comparison. Should one use either/or? Thanks.

Mine has quite a few battle scars. I've had it since about 1979 and I've used it a lot, but then I made a recording using my son's Epiphone electro-acoustic and it sounds so much better, so I've retired the EKO from recording, I just busk in the kitchen with it ? As for the room, it used to double as my office when I was working from home owing to COVID, but now I've retired it's a dedicated (very small) studio. I test my mixes with my cheapo Samson studio monitors, my rather expensive Beyerdynamic cans, and my even more expensive home theatre in the living room. That's as good as it gets for me and I'm fairly happy with that since this is my hobby and not a profession ?

Awesome sound, I wish I could get my stuff sounding that good. Is that an EKO acoustic in the pic?

I might just give that a whirl ?

So-called because I've always imagined this being performed in an illegal drinking establishment in a smoky 1920s basement by a jazz quartet (that just happens to have a full string section with them) ? https://www.bandlab.com/post/e77d9ed4-4704-ed11-b47a-281878315d59