Maestro

I think the issue is the default Velocity being 0 causes some KS to not activate. Changing the Velocity to e.g. 10 fixes the issue.

Export the Articulation Map to a file. That is the default save directory.

I'm not really liking the Articulation Lane interface. It's really slow to work this way. I wish they had implemented it in the Automation Lane interface the way Cubase has, where we can just click in a certain row and add the articulation. This is too much [Double/Right] Clicking. It's really slow to work this way.

I'm going to wait until this gets out of EA, as I'm having a ton of issues getting Cakewalk to reliably trigger the Key switches for Miroslav. The Expression Map I built for Cubase works properly, but the Cakewalk Articulation Map does not function identically. Half the Articulations do not trigger. I did built the Cakewalk Articulation Map from Scratch (it's not an imported Cubase Expression Map). Some Key Switches trigger, but others do nothing. The sample player doesn't seem to be the issue, as it works properly when Cubase uses a map to switch articulations in the same manner. Ugh. I built the entire Philharmonik 1 and 2 Solo and Ensemble Strings Articulation Maps (from scratch) before I noticed this issue ?

Because you want a backup of the Sounds, and using the IK Software Manager is bad for this because it does the following: Downloads ZIP Files Extracts the Zip File Runs installer Deletes the Extracted Data Install the applications through the manager, and then do the sounds yourself. That way, you can extract them to your HDD in a nice backed up structure and install them in with just 6 installers being run. If you use the manager, you have to re-extract everything over again. Doing it yourself is actually faster, since you only have to run 6 installers to install everything if you extract the sound libraries into the same root directory. The downloading and extracting is what takes time. Installing them is trivial, beyond the potentially confusing way they give the installers in each sound library archive (for SampleTank 3) a different file name (despite it being the same actual file). Most people will back this up to a HDD, due to the sheer size of the files. You don't want to back up ZIP files to a HDD. You want to back up a directory structure from which you can install directly. Using the IK Product Manager means that you have to re-extract all of those files after it runs the installers, so it's actually a waste of time and a waste of Endurance if you're downloading to an SSD.

I'm going to build some for Miroslav Philharmonic 2, but they'll likely be Cubase Pro 10.5 Expression Maps. I don't want to start in a "non-portable" format (rather fix in Cakewalk than build again from scratch in Cubase). I'm not sure the extent of the compatibility, but I'll upload them for sharing after I get the Ensembles done, and add the Solo Instruments as I finish them. Unless someone has some available on the internet for download. I'll probably just start a new thread for them. I don't use GitHub, so I'll just link on OneDrive and someone can mirror if they want.

Cubase has pretty decent documentation on Expression Maps, available at Steinberg.net

Honestly, that name is too long. You can easily abbreviate that to "NI SS Brass Ens Trumpets." I think there is enough space, just try to be less verbose with the naming. These super descriptive names aren't really necessary.

Okay, I went ahead and bought it. Installation is oppressive, but not as oppressive as it seems. It's the downloading that is absolutely horrible. After an hour of running each individual installer, I realized that if you install everything and put in the same root folder, the installers are all the same (just named differently) and will install everything in one go. I noticed this when I realized the file sizes were all the same. They all do the same exact thing, install everything in the Sound folder, but they seem to have their own installer for people who buy modularly... I ran about 25 of them before I realized this (before the last one for SampleTank 3 MAX). Ugh. My poor SSDs... The same thing works for Miroslav (with the exception of Orchestral Percussion) and Syntronic. Extract all zip files to a common Root Directory - i.e. E:\IK Multimedia\Philharmonik 2 - and then run the Content Installer. It will install everything in one go. Do not install piece by piece. You will waste about 3 hours of your time. The same thing works for Syntronik and SampleTank 4 - but you have to run Orchestral Percussion and SampleTank 3 SE (bundled with SampleTank 4 - but I think it's redundant and recopies content you already own with this bundle) on otheir own. TL;DR: Create a Directory to hold all of your Installation Files: i.e. E:\IK Multimedia Extract ALL Miroslav ZIP files to E:\IK Multimedia\Philharmonik 2 - Run Miroslav Content Installer Extract ALL Syntronik ZIP files to: E:\IK Multimedia\Syntronik - Run Syntronik Content Installer Extract ALL SampleTank 3 ZIP Files to E:\IK Multimedia\SampleTank 3 - Run SampleTank 3 Content Installer - Run Orchestral Percussion Content Installer Extract ALL SampleTank 4 Zip Files to E:\IK Multimedia\SampleTank 4 - Run SampleTank 4 Content Installer - Run SampleTank 3 SE Content Installer You're Done. I installed the programs through the Program Manager application. I downloaded the ZIP files manually so that I can extract them to my location of choosing. The Program Manager automatically deletes the extracted data (but keeps the archives). No point doing the same work twice.

He's saying that Cakewalk is only loading 93 of his 420 plugins. I hope that is a misunderstanding. 420 plugins, really?

I want to pull the plug on this, but I think I'd rather wait for a Komplete Sale and get that (maybe Black Friday?). The download and installation process is just too oppressive. Tons of attended downloads, and almost all attended installations. Native Instruments does this better. I don't have the time for this, esp. when I need to install on two computers. I'm also not a fan of their expiring download allotment. I also heard that it installs a bunch of trial/demo ware plugins and you never know which they are until you try to use them. Is this still the case?

I'm talking more like String - Sections - - Violins I - - Violins II - - etc. - Solo - - Violin - - Viola - - etc. [ Repeat for different sections ] My Orchestral template is over 250 tracks, with Multis, Solo Instruments, and some that I need different articulations on different tracks (i.e. for polyphonically playing a trill and a sustain at the same time on a Solo Violin). I need nesting, Otherwise it is a scrolling haven, and kind of don't want to work like that. I have every instrument in my template, and I just disable the Tracks that I don't need for a specific project. (Track Templates aren't a work around). Why is folder nesting taking so long? It's a relatively simple feature that has huge benefits to usability and workflow.

No folder nesting, yet? Needed to organize large orchestral templates. Being able to ditch BandLab Assistant... Great choice. How does EA work. When it goes gold, can we just update from the EA to the final release, or does this require a re-install?

Sphere is a good deal, but only if you're actually going to use PreSonus' Sound and Loop Libraries. Otherwise, you're better off just doing the Splice Rent-to-Own or buying it on discount during one of those many promotions they have.

There is no way Gibson would have shut them down if this was the case. Probably second only to FL Studio, meaning it was selling more than: Pro Tools Ableton Live Cubase Studio One REAPER ??? I don't think so, and I'm not even sure how one could make that assumption given the product was summarily killed off, and none of the bigger developers/software vendors were jumping at the opportunity to snatch it up. At least it wasn't acquired by MAGIX or Corel, though. That's definitely a silver lining! That's ignoring the fact that no developer of music production software performing that well on Windows (90% of the desktop market, mind you, and probably over half of the music production market) would just kill the product off. It it were selling that well, it would still be SONAR Platinum, and being sold for $$$ by Gibson. No. There are more "Professional Recording and Mix Engineers, and Recording Studios" using Pro Tools than anything else. Pro Tools also dominates the Film Post industry, as well (i.e. Hollywood). However, it is largely absent among Composers and Producers of many other genres of music - the same way Ableton Live is largely absent in Recording Studios and the Film Post industry. At the upper end of the market (Professional Use, not Hobbyist/Enthusiasts), these DAWs settle into different niches where they don't really compete against most other DAWs in the market. The DAWs that Pro Tools is competing against - in the market segment where Avid extracts the most profit for it - cost thousands of dollars. DAWs like Cubase Pro and Samplitude Pro X are literally unusable for high end Film Post work, for example. The software has limitations that prevent it from being used for this type of work, so that the companies selling them can upsell those users to Nuendo ($1,800+) and Sequoia ($2,900+). Pyramix and SaDIE are also not cheap, at all. People producing on Ableton are largely not going to consider Pro Tools an option unless Avid does some ridiculous overhaul or massive feature updates to the software - and they aren't inclined to do that as long as they are as strong as they are in the niche in which they have settled. Avid is not going there. The DAWs that are moving in that direction are those like DP, Logic Pro X, and Studio One. SONAR was sort of moving in that direction, as well - I'd probably say it still is. That's how these things work in the market. IMO, SONAR was never really competing against Pro Tools. They were competing against the likes of Cubase and its ilk (DP is a latecomer to the Windows platform). I think Studio One was more disruptive to SONAR than a lot of other DAWs, though, since it marketed to the same core market that SONAR had settled on (Smaller/Home Studios and Singer/Songwriter types).

Everything crashes on his systems. I think the issue is between the keyboard and the chair. Most people picking up these free programs and cheap software applications are hobbyists. They are not building dedicated DAWs that are used ONLY for music production. They have a PC that is used for Gaming, watching netflix, making music, editing video, chatting on zoom, etc. All manner of drivers and peripherals are connected to it. The power and performance settings may or may not be optimal for music production. They might be running with Windows Game Mode turned on. etc. Then they get on forums and say "Everything crashes all the time on my system. They're all buggy." I never posited that CbB was a buggy PoS, anyways, so I'm not even sure where that came from. I simply stated that when people pay $0 for a piece of software, they are less likely to view many issues are problematic or showstoppers than when they spend $550-750 on a piece of software. I didn't think anyone could argue that, but alas... There is always an exception.

I didn't ask about Ableton, I asked what you were referring to when you stated Cakewalk does "tons of things" better than Ableton. It's nice to write these things, but some people want something a bit more objective. You still haven't provided any examples. I'm sure you could rattle off a few out of those "tons of things," no? Or did you just exaggerate that because it sounds nice and rings well in the specific environment in which you're posting these comments? No, it isn't. It's priced just right because it's the best tool at what it is designed to do, just like Pro Tools. If competitors were as good at Ableton at producing the type of music it's dominates, and live performance, then their prices would get naturally pushed down due to competition. As it stands, they are so dominant that they almost never even have a discount promotion. They don't need to, either. The fact that you are unwilling to pay $750 for Live Suite does not make Live Suite overpriced de facto. That is your opinion, so it's not exactly "plain and simple" - or anything even close to that. Cakewalk used to be $400 and failed as a commercial product. GarageBand is not a professional product. Logic Pro X is, and I'm pretty sure there are a LOT more professional users on that DAW than SONAR or Cakewalk by BandLab. I think you're overrating how much "Free" matters in the music production market, where a $400 DAW investment is really a drop in the bucket. Most money is invested elsewhere. DAWs are not the huge consideration you think they are when it comes to pricing. That matters mostly in the Hobbyist communities, but many of those people eventually move up to industry standard solutions, anyways (when they can afford them). I think this is widely understood as fact. Why am I being told this? You're going to find out what I mean when people start replying to this point (having no issue with anything else you wrote, of course).

1. Who on this forum insinuated that this was the case? No one, so I don't see the point of this, and I don't see how this can even factor into any "disagreement." The point is that bugs in Free software are a lot more "acceptable" than bugs in a piece of software that cost you $560 -750. I don't think anyone can disagree with that, because we see this play out all the time. 2. Yes, but if it malfunctions, you lose less money. So bugs bother you less. I didn't say bugs are always ignorable just because it's free - particularly when you are using a free product, but are more than capable of paying for a potentially better paid product. I simply stated that people are less likely to view issues as showstoppers when they pay little to nothing to obtain it, because they have little to no skin in the game - and very little to lose if the software doesn't work properly. SONAR oldies are bringing their commercial mentality to a free product. That is not how the hobbyists and prosumers are thinking when they try Cakewalk by BandLab. You are acting like you paid for it, simply because you paid for a previous version ? 3. Issues with software are not worth discussing as this can be due to hardware, drivers, and other components installed on the system. 4. Cubase 10.5 has no issues on my machine. I don't get any crashes, but you pointing out the complaints on that forum - many of them exaggerations - is proving the exact point I posited in my earlier thread! Compare to the Cakewalk forums (both old and new). Paid users on the Cubase Forums are much more apt to complain, largely due to the disparity of [monetary] investment in Cubase as a production platform. 5. There is no ROI on Free because there is no investment needed. We're referring to monetary investment. Money talks... This is why people like free <anything>. There is already a fairly extensive comparison between DAWs available on the internet, by Admiral BumbleBee. Unfortunately, Cakewalk was not reviewed favorably there, so very few people here will prefer to link to it ?

MixCraft is a DAW for hobbyists and prosumers, so those people are going to be content with it - the way the vast majority of GarageBand users are content with that DAW. Generally, it doesn't take much to please them. When you raise the price, however, people become a lot more critical and discerning. This is why the phrase "You can't complain about free" was coined. Free things usually garner few complaints, because the user didn't have to invest anything to acquire and use it. This is also true re: cheaper things vs more expensive things. I mean, we see this retort being used on this very forum when people complain about things. People act as if they should be sending gifts to the bakers for providing them with something for free. "Why are you complaining?" Professionals who want a say in product development are going to, generally, bias towards paid products with reliable support channels. That way, product development and evolution is beholden to the users - not simply the whims of the developers (because "no users upgrading" is NOT a good thing for that business model). As far as support goes... well, I think "Linux on the desktop" taught us a lot about that ? If you pay $80 for a DAW, then a bad UI is more acceptable than if you pay $560 for a DAW. People who use cheap DAWs are also likely to make excuses for the developers more than people who use more expensive DAWs. This is why the Cubase user base is generally a lot more critical of Steinberg than the Cakewalk or MixCraft userbase... or the ACID Pro user base, to give another example. People using Cakewalk are going to be okay with the feature disparities vs. other DAWs, because Cakewalk costs nothing. If they were asked to pay $550-599 for it, they'd quickly start asking "why so much, it's missing <100 features> that <5 other DAWs> have." Perspective is everything ? DAWs like Cubase are heavy weight DAWs used by heavy weights of the industry. Those people tend to be a lot more exacting WRT their requirements, and they tend to be a lot more vocal about their complaints. Their patience is shorter, because the DAW costs $560 and has paid yearly upgrades. Additionally, their livelihoods often depend ono that piece of software. They want return on investment. There is no such thing as return on investment for a free product. There is no risk in trying it, or using it (except maybe it disappearing with no way to continue using it - since online validation is apparently A.O.K., even for "Free" software). MixCraft's Audio Engine was complete garbage up until at least v8, but their user base was more than okay with it. They'd say it was totally fine, up until MixCraft improved it. Then, suddenly, they could all hear the difference and how much better it had become. Polls for <best anything> are nothing more than a view of which DAW's online community cares enough to waste their time going around reddit, gearslutz, and other forums rounding up votes for their preferred DAW. Everyone knows LMMS is garbage compared to Pro Tools. The results expose just how worthless those polls (always) are. It basically polls which DAW's communities are most activist on the internet.

I think it is, if you use Windows. But there are a lot of functional and workflow shortfalls for different types of production that make paying for a DAW attractive to a lot of people. So, it's hard to push Cakewalk even with its price tag, as people are quick to hit those "roadblocks" and start looking at the competition [again]. I also think that the price of DAWs has come down a lot over the years, and the frequency of discount promotions for a lot of vendors really make "Free" look a lot less attractive (as most DAWs bundle content which justifies the price tag to a fairly large degree - SONAR used to do the same). Tons of things like... what? One thing I see [when I read the old Cakewalk forums] is lots of fans saying it does "tons of things" better, but almost none of them actually saying what it does better. Someone who searches "best DAW for Windows" kind of wants to see a bit more usable information - something a bit more objective. It's also useful to know what type of music you produce. If you're Live Tracking Bands or Recording Guitars and Vocals, then Live is simply not the optimal platform for that - and neither is FL Studio, or Bitwig. Those DAWs have a specific bias for the production of certain genres of music. This is like saying you chose Cubase Pro over Live because it does "tons of things better." ... Except, you're a Film Composer. EDM, Trap, or Hip Hop producer aren't going to care that much about a lot of the things that a Film Composer cares about. They have their own feature and workflow requirements, suitable to their type of production (i.e. Hip Hop producers won't care too much about Expression Maps, but people composing Classical music may not care that much about the Sampler Track).

Steinberg Groove Agent 5 is 50% off for a while. AIR Strike 2 is also a good beginner Drum plugin. I don't find SI-Drums to be good. I don't even bother installing the Studio Instruments stuff, as they all sound pretty bad to me. But in the absence of other options, beggars cannot be choosers ? Native Instruments KOMPLETE START also has some drums in it ?

Been thinking of getting Falcon and Halion, but I think I'm going to wait until Black Friday and pick up Halion if it goes on sale. Unfortunately, I missed the last sale ? The lack of a trial doesn't help Falcon, either, since I heard it was a massive Resource Hog and didn't support Multi-Core CPUs. Also, Steinberg has a better/more diverse Factory Library - good for when I'm on the go and want to do some sketching on my laptop. I'm pretty minimalist when it comes to these things. I don't want 15 redundant pieces of software on my PCs; especially my laptop (cause I don't really want to invest more cash in doubling drive space - again - considering it's an all-SSD system) ?

The problem is less the money pit and more the fact that they barely add anything while charging these upgrade costs. I wouldn't pay anything to upgrade from SFP12 if you have that, personally. There isn't enough there to justify it, and I don't really need those value-adds. The recent Samplitude was a pretty small upgrade off of X4, and certainly not worth the $199-250 that they are selling it at. Basically, the only reason to get that is if you want one or two of the bundled applications (SFP13, SLP7, Convology). iZotope Elements... who hasn't gotten them all for free? They were all given away multiple times this year. IMO, the only thing that would have gotten me to upgrade Sound Forge Pro in lieu of jumping on the WaveLab Pro Anniversary Sale would ahve been them making SFP an ARA2 Plugin that you could use from other DAWs. But, I'm not going back, now that I have finally purged MAGIX's software from my DAW. ----- ACID Pro would have been more useful if it had a full ReWire implementation. As a standalone DAW, it's anemic. But it could have been very useful as a secondary if you could pipe each track in ACID into your main DAW via separate ReWire channels. Unfortunately, only the Master Bus can be ReWired into the host, so it's less useful than Ableton Live Lite in this capacity ?

Not giving MAGIX another dime. I'm not seeing it invested back into the development of the products. I've replaced them with Steinberg, pretty much. Also, when you've heard good sample libraries, Independence just doesnt't cut it. The orchestral Samples sound awful, not to mention it practically unusable on a HiDPI display.

I didn't need to denoise a clip. I need to use the Spectral Editor to remove a noise from the people upstairs doing work while we were recording ? If I needed a DeNoise, I'd have just used the RX De-Noise Plugin, instead... In other DAWs, the DAW just knows how to send only that clip to the Audio Editor. It does a "bounce in place" automatically and then replaces that clip with the edited clip when you're done.