The only tool missing in cakewalk now. (Visual clip gain)

[Will.]

The only update I would like too see in Cakewalk this year, is the ability to "visual gain" the selected region without having to go up to process, and guess how much gain you need to add on the selected waveform.

Edited January 24, 2020 by _Will_

[Gswitz]

You can automate clip gain and then bounce to clips to materialize. If you like what you see you can ctrl z to return to the clip gain envelope in case you want to change after listening.

I leverage clip gain A LOT.

It is useful for gain staging into fx.

And when mixes get hot on a bus, you can back down the bus gain.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Gswitz

[petemus]

I'd like to see a non-destructive normalization function as well. I guess it shouldn't be too hard to calculate the right amount of clip gain increase to set the level curve to the right height...

[Craig Anderton]

15 hours ago, Willsa said:

The only update I would like too see in Cakewalk this year, is the ability to normalize the waveform without having to go up to process and guess how much gain you need to add on the waveform itself at softer parts within it.

Why not just use the Normalize command instead of guessing at the amount of Gain? However if what you're asking for is non-destructive changes and the waveform follows along, I agree that would be an improvement.
 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Craig Anderton

[Will.]

17 hours ago, Gswitz said:

You can automate clip gain and then bounce to clips to materialize. If you like what you see you can ctrl z to return to the clip gain envelope in case you want to change after listening.

I leverage clip gain A LOT.

It is useful for gain staging into fx.

And when mixes get hot on a bus, you can back down the bus gain.

The idea for my topic is to skip as much volume riding with automation.

My idea would cut the working process in half if this gets introduced. Though it wont eliminate the process of volume automation in general, but with create a far powerful method in getting those gaining levels as close as possible.

[Will.]

3 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

Why not just use the Normalize command instead of guessing at the amount of Gain? However if what you're asking for is non-destructive changes and the waveform follows along, I agree that would be an improvement.
 

Craig Anderton non-destructive yes. It's a hassle to go up and select normalize or gain, and many times you don't want rely  fixing these critical edits in melodyne. It brings out some phase issues on certain instruments on a note, samples or vocals.

[Will.]

A lot of DAW's come with this feature these days. I have been using the cakewalk brand for many years and I'm not going anywhere. #ImStaying

So, let's rather bring cakewalk up to date and help the developers create a better DAW.

[Craig Anderton]

3 hours ago, Willsa said:

Craig Anderton non-destructive yes. It's a hassle to go up and select normalize or gain, and many times you don't want rely  fixing these critical edits in melodyne. It brings out some phase issues on certain instruments on a note, samples or vocals.

I set up a keyboard  command for normalize, and I have another one for gain...speeds things up a lot. But usually, I just normalize to 0 using the shortcut, and then if needed, use the trick I've described previously for lowering clip gain. Granted it's a workaround, but the process is very fast, and was always very helpful to me when doing vocals or narration, where a consistent level is helpful.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Craig Anderton

[Will.]

1 hour ago, Craig Anderton said:

I set up a keyboard  command for normalize, and I have another one for gain...speeds things up a lot. But usually, I just normalize to 0 using the shortcut, and then if needed, use the trick I've described previously for lowering clip gain. Granted it's a workaround, but the process is very fast, and was always very helpful to me when doing vocals or narration, where a consistent level is helpful.

I never thought of creating their own shortcuts. I'll have a look at it and see how that works for me. I still prefer the Non-destructive "waveform slider" I spoke of to rise to the surface this year in Cakewalk.

 

Thanks for the shortcut idea Craig.

[Starship Krupa]

Non-destructive normalize is surely at the top of my feature request list.

The fact that it's destructive in the first place seems kind of weird, like why normalization out of all the things that you can do to audio in Cakewalk? Do anything you want to do to your sound except....normalize its level?

[msmcleod]

Just now, Starship Krupa said:

Non-destructive normalize is surely at the top of my feature request list.

The fact that it's destructive in the first place seems kind of weird, like why normalization out of all the things that you can do to audio in Cakewalk? Do anything you want to do to your sound except....normalize its level?

Normalize by its nature is a look-ahead process - in fact it has to look at the whole of the clip before deciding its level.

While this doesn't make it impossible to make it a VST, it would add an incredible amount of latency.

The easiest workaround for this is to either:

1. Tracks: Make a copy of your track, normalize the copy and archive the original; or
2. Lanes: Flatten your comp, normalize the comp clip and mute the other lanes

[Starship Krupa]

I don't mean having it as a plug-in. It can still behave like an offline "process," just one that doesn't mess with my audio file. Other DAW's do it that way.

The same way that volume automation, edits, phase invert, EQ and most other processing is handled: the audio file sits unaltered on the disk and the DAW applies the processing during playback/mixdown.

[marcL]

14 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

Why not just use the Normalize command instead of guessing at the amount of Gain?

The only reason why I don't use normalize to approximate the level of multiple clips is because in many cases there are spikes that lead to a very different loudness result of the clips. Therefore I measure the LUFS integrated value of each clip (I use HOFA 4U Meter Fader, where I can just drag and drop the clip) and then adjust the volume with 'Process > Apply Effect > Gain...'.

This is the way I do it, but surely there are many ways to come to heaven! ?

[Victor Trotter]

 Also a big playlist need...  the next song needs to be loaded and ready to play before the OK play next song message comes up. 

This is so you can see the lyrics / notes for the song you are about to play before starting the song.

An option to load next song before star msg is needed...

This is so that queues like song key or other notes are visible before song starts...

[Will.]

14 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Normalize by its nature is a look-ahead process - in fact it has to look at the whole of the clip before deciding its level.

While this doesn't make it impossible to make it a VST, it would add an incredible amount of latency.

The easiest workaround for this is to either:

1. Tracks: Make a copy of your track, normalize the copy and archive the original; or
2. Lanes: Flatten your comp, normalize the comp clip and mute the other lanes

but with a gain staging ability in lowering or increasing only a letter or single word in the waveform. Surely it wont bring latency as you would have the ability to bounce your gain edit. 

I mean isn't that what happens when you apply the effect after you're happy with your increase/decrease in volume only on that specific area within the waveform?

[Will.]

13 hours ago, marled said:

The only reason why I don't use normalize to approximate the level of multiple clips is because in many cases there are spikes that lead to a very different loudness result of the clips. Therefore I measure the LUFS integrated value of each clip (I use HOFA 4U Meter Fader, where I can just drag and drop the clip) and then adjust the volume with 'Process > Apply Effect > Gain...'.

This is the way I do it, but surely there are many ways to come to heaven! ?

That's why my suggestion on this non-destructive ability to normalize/gain only the word, letter or spike, will focus only on that area you want to edit fix/edit.

[msmcleod]

7 minutes ago, Willsa said:

That's why my suggestion on this non-destructive ability to normalize/gain only the word, letter or spike, will focus only on that area you want to edit fix/edit.

That is exactly what clip gain automation is for.

[Will.]

Targeting a specific area/word/letter/breath to increase or decrease the clip volume, will be happening in real-time with a little slider or knob popping up on keyboard command. Is that the non-destructive normalization we're talking about?

[Will.]

On 1/24/2020 at 1:16 AM, msmcleod said:

That is exactly what clip gain automation is for.

I here what you say, but why not eliminate some of that automation ride and add the slider or knob with the ability to only even out or decrease a spike? 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[msmcleod]

Just now, Willsa said:

I here what you say, but why not eliminate some of that automation ride and add the slider or knob with the ability to only even decrease a spike. 

I get what you're saying.

Normally I just hold control then left click & move the mouse to move the clip gain up & down to alter the clip gain automation level.

I thought there was the ability to select just a portion of the clip and use the method above to only change the clip gain for the selected area... but it doesn't.

I'll suggest it to the team.

BTW - what I've done in the past is split the clips at the various points I can see problems, then normalize each clip individually. The times I've done this was when my daughter was 5, and I was recording her vocals... needless to say the levels where all over the place!

In the end I gave up and bought Waves Vocal Rider.

But if I could have just made a selection, then used CTRL+click and move, this would have made life a lot easier.