RexRed

I am thinking that if my microphone has inferior correlation of highspeed transients, it also has inferior correlation of formants.

Now, you might think that I am implying that this "wonky" sound might be due to Cakewalk's ability to record samples. Well the reason why I do not believe this is the case is because the exact thing happens when I record in 44khz 16bit as when I record 48khz 24bit. So the quality issue must be present in what is being fed to Cakewalk from the AI and the microphone. I am liking this microphone. https://smile.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT4040-Cardioid-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B0002D0BQ8/ref=sr_1_9 it's 300 bucks and it takes the effort to mention this: "Transformerless circuitry virtually eliminates low frequency distortion and provides superior correlation of high speed transients" I am not sure exactly what that means but it seems that the mic I have does not have that circuitry. So logically, my AT2020 has inferior correlation of high speed transients...

Oh yea, my AT microphone is a little over 10 years old and I have used it a lot in the studio, could it have just gone dead after all of these years of use? Maybe just getting an old reliable Sure or something might fix this problem. I assume I would need a large diaphragm because I like recording intimate up close kinds of vocals. This microphone thing I fear is not going to be an easy undertaking...

I currently use a Roland Quad Capture and I am changing my audio interface. I was on the Cakewalk page on Facebook and someone recommended this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YFH671V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00 I bought it for three reasons though I have one possible reservation. It has not come in the mail yet. Reason 1: USB 3.0 I figured USB 3.0 might add a little more stability to Cakewalk and its occasional lockups it has. I figure the lockups can't be my PC because I have 12 Intel cores 96GB of ram and a 3090 graphics card. For years I have had occasional lockups and I think it is the Quad Capture. Reason 2: It says it has a chip inside that allows for 0 latency even with effects turned on. (this seems too good to be true.) Reason 3: (I should mention the price is very reasonable!) But the preamps are reason 3. On the issue of preamps. I use Melodyne studio a lot and on almost all songs i make the vocal tracks have very poorly recorded wave formants. The beginning of words sound (i have no other way to describe it but) "wonky". Especially the beginning of sounds seem like they were not processed accurately. I like to drift up to notes and that part gets poorly reproduced. I am hoping the preamps in this device are better than the preamps in the quad capture and that it might be the preamps and possibly the lack of responsiveness of the recording chips that are causing this wonky distortion. If this does not fix this clarity issue... Then it has to be my microphone... I use an Audio Technica 2020 microphone. Any suggestions on a really really good microphone that would reproduce my voice with perfect clarity? I am looking for an upgrade without a lot of hype and brand recognition but something on the magnitude of this upgrade I am doing with my audio interface. "New technology" that is under $1000 bucks. I will test the new audio interface out tomorrow and get back to you if it clears up this problem. If my audio is still wonky sounding then I will be looking into a new microphone. Your suggestions are very much appreciated. And, BTW, thanks to whoever it was who suggested this new audio interface on FB, I have been looking around for years for an affordable 3.0 USB interface with what seems like exactly what I needed and always came up emptyhanded until now. As soon as I saw this I bought it. My one possible reservation with trading out my audio interface is losing the "audio sensor" feature that I relied on a lot with the quad capture. I will have to set my levels manually. No big deal if everything else works without a flaw. Anyone got any experience with this Steinberg AI? Thanks in advance for any comments on this.

New song Cakewalk peeps! Hope you like it!

It is officially done.

Hey Cakewalk peeps! I added some new oohs vocals in the background, a 12 string, a banjo and a pedal steel since you last heard it they are all very subtle. I got the mandolin solo left to do and the dobro maybe.

I added harmonies last night and plan to add a mandolin and banjo. Thanks for the comments Cakewalk peeps! ?

Thanks for the nice comments, I am so lucky to be a part of this community and to know the value of Cakewalk software. I have been using it since Cakewalk for MSDOS. The time signature is 7/4 a very odd signature and it took a while to get used to it. This song is still a work in progress it is a bit sloppy still and I will be fixing that. I am adding a mandolin solo in the solo parts and maybe a few more things here and there. David thanks for the big heart reference, I think that pretty much sums up my attitude in life. Live love to my friends and I try to find the good in things. Stay well and love and hugs! RexRed

Anyone want to guess the time signature of this song? Hope you like this song Cakewalk peeps! RR

It doesn't really do it on its own like the mouse is sending some odd data. It does it only when I am holding shift and dragging a take from one track to another.

I find that my ears tell me it sounds great then when I fix the correlation trace phase it sounds better. Then when when I A/B it, the unfixed part usually sounds boxy and artificially expanded and way too wide. I never trust my ears, I only trust the correlation trace. Once I know it is within the bounds then I use my ears. Just like I never use EQs that don't have spectrum analysis. I need to see it too, so I can verify for sure. That is like saying well, it looks like about a foot long, no, I get a tape measure and check it for sure... Also now I check my effects busses to see that they are traced. My effects are more often then not out of phase. I used to just put reverb and delay in the track bin, Now I use sends to buses and only use parallel effects so I can correct the trace on them too. Then my master mix bus does not go into the red at various odd points.

Haha BitFlipper! I would never name names, lol, one day I may end up panhandling samples as well... It would be nice if samples were ready to go though and didn't need to be unwrapped from all the fluff.

I am constantly having to zoom back in on the track view. I am usually holding shift and dragging clips from one track to another and it seems to happen every few minutes the tracks simply zoom out all the way all on their own. I am sure this feature is nice for some but I can't seem to figure out why it is happening and it is very time consuming having to zoom back in every couple minutes... especially when you have dozens of takes... What is causing this and how do I avoid it? Thanks for any responses to this.

I found a loop for a song, it is gorgeous sounding and I looked at it under a correlation trace and it was deep in the red hugging the bottom of the meter. I tried to raise it up into the proper area above the mid line and it suddenly lost all presence and practically disappeared, it became so distant and tinny. I could not figure out how to reverse polarity. Then I remembered the polarity toggle on the track, when I switched it, it did not work, the line was still solidly in the red. So, I duplicated the track and panned one track to the right and the other track I panned to the left . Then I toggled the Cakewalk track polarity on only one track. I sent both tracks out to a master bus and put my stereo correlation trace on that. This fixed the wave it was above the line and retained some semblance of quality. My question is, do loop makers do this to sell loops? Are they aware that this is happening and that a loop like this will completely disappear from a song in mono? On the surface it sounds great but it is unusable in such a state. Do they do this to make creating music harder for novices? lol Another question, would you use a loop like this as is a in a song if it simply sounded great? Is there any kind of benefit using a loop like this? The tutorials I have seen say NEVER to use a loop or track that is out of phase. I have to agree, out of phase loops or samples seem to throw the mix off in ways that over time my ears have been trained to dislike. I might go further and say that a song with out of phase samples is unmixable. Any thought on this topic? Your opinions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Wow, I come back here to write a thread and find all of these really wonderful comments left by you awesome people whom I humbly admire so greatly! THANK YOU! Have a lovely New Year Cakewalk by Bandlab peeps! 2021 here we come!!!! Best to you all! ?

New song, I hope you like it Cakewalk peeps!

I have a very powerful machine, an Intel I9 with 24 threads and it is really good at running all kinds of latency rich effects almost boundless but I still need to shut off most of my latency hogs to record a track. All 24 threads barely register at 3% usage when under full load. I can run tons of effects with my PC only occasionally dropping out but latency is another thing. It is still a major issue. Mostly my bus effects need to be disabled, Izotope and FabFilter every time I need to track and set my latency to 6ms or less. I may be wrong but recording latency is something that really should have its own dedicated engine to handle that process. If the effects were dedicated to GPU then the processor would be free to handle tracking. But I am not really that knowledgeable about this kind of thing other than experiencing latency when my effects are on. Would the CPU be better for handling effects or tracking? I really have no idea other than the fact that my RTX 3090 graphics card is nearly completely idle when I am using Cakewalk.

The hard drive that seemed to be busy all the time has turned out to be a wobbling case fan. It is loud and sounds like a hard drive constantly clicking. I will be replacing it soon...

I am not sure what the problem was but I plugged it into a different USB port and the crackles went away. Quad-Capture is fine I guess. (I love this audio interface)

My computer has several sound devices i.e. integrated sound, sound on graphics cards, ASIO, and virtual cables etc. Lately my Roland capture audio interface has developed a crackle.... It sounds like a record playing with slight scratches on it. Like digital speckles. I have disabled most other devices and tried updating my drivers. It goes away when I monitor my sound on my integrated sound. It only happens in my Roland Quad-Capture. I rendered down a song in Cakewalk on my Roland Quad-Capture and it is not in the sound file it is only there in the playback when monitoring in with the quad-capture.. When I play the file on my other computer it is not there. The crackle is in Windows media players when I use them also and in Cakewalk when I play audio only in the quad capture. The Quad Capture's buffer size is set to nine out of ten. I might expect crackles it if were set to 5 or 6. I am running an I9 with an rtx 3090 Could the Quad-Capture be on its last leg it is about 8+ years old. It sounds like maybe a driver conflict and one of my hard drives seems to be busy all the time. I disconnected the internet and it still kept clicking away. It is not onedrive because it is up to date. Not sure where to go next to fix this. I will try plugging the Quad Capture into my other PC Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Thanks for the answers here! I also use Izotope Neutron 3 and Ozone 9 and I use FabFilter with oversampling at 32x and my 12core 24 thread I9 rarely complains but I would REALLY like to achieve better latency when recording. I get about 6ms and there is a bit of a doubling sound and it does throw me off when recording and I do have to shut off most bus effects to get decent latency as is. It would be nice to have a master list where I could check a box and send what ever resources I wanted to CPU or GPU. CbB works like a charm but my GPU is sitting idle and especially during renders of files I imagine my graphics card would speed through them though they are not that time consuming as is. Please consider GPU assisting the CPU mostly with the aim at improving latency.

Copy and paste is broken in Melodyne Studio in Cakewalk, it hardly ever works.

When are we getting GPU acceleration? My Nvidia 3090 is starved for things to do. :)

Hope you like Cakewalk peeps!