What new updates would you like to see in 2020 to Cakewalk - CLOSED.

[winkpain]

I like all these suggestions!  We don't wanna overload the bakers, but damn good ideas!

[LarsF]

15 hours ago, Misha said:

Hide /Unhide all muted tracks and take lanes globally, with a single button...  perhaps even "freeze@archive"+hide / un-hide all non playing items.

So if you have a project with a lot of stuff that is "not playing",  but you want to keep it "in project",   this will make it cleaner to work with and reduce the usage of computer resources. 

I keep forgetting, but I think this might be possible in CAL scripting, if that is still there.

It was 15 years ago so don't remember it all, have to recapture a bit....

 

EDIT: think I had my hopes up too much finding these lines of code

; Un-mute the track
(TrackActive TRUE nTrk)

that I felt there were ability to scan tracks over all.

More midi driven language I'm afraid, but found the reference so I will see if possible in later versions of CAL.

Edited February 21, 2020 by LarsF

[Thomas Penna]

Hi - when any error messages are displayed, it would be REALLY helpful, to have a bit of additional information added to the error message text, to give us some help on understanding what track/plugin/function/etc.... is causing the error, so that we have enough information to help us know what needs fixing.

Example - I have a project, that when I open it in CbB, during the opening of the project, CbB displays the message I pasted below, but it tells me nothing about WHICH region of audio is corrupt and unreadable.  That means that I have to play Sherlock Holmes to figure out what track and/or audio clip is deemed to be corrupted.

I would think that at the point, internally, that CbB has decided that an audio region is corrupt, that it has the name of the associated audio clip that it cannot properly open/read/etc.

That information would be REALLY helpful, for me to know what needs to be corrected, because if this project has a large number of tracks, and the project is rather long, without me knowing which audio is corrupted, I am pretty much left in the dark, whereas if the file name is known, or that section in the project were highlighted, or even just knowing where on the timeline this corruption was detected, any or all of that would be quite helpful in my being able to correct the issue(s).

SO - please add whatever associated info is available, and relevant, to error messages in general - to include this one I have pasted below.

Thanks, 

Thomas Penna

[Robert Bone]

9 minutes ago, Thomas Penna said:

Hi - when any error messages are displayed, it would be REALLY helpful, to have a bit of additional information added to the error message text, to give us some help on understanding what track/plugin/function/etc.... is causing the error, so that we have enough information to help us know what needs fixing.

Example - I have a project, that when I open it in CbB, during the opening of the project, CbB displays the message I pasted below, but it tells me nothing about WHICH region of audio is corrupt and unreadable.  That means that I have to play Sherlock Holmes to figure out what track and/or audio clip is deemed to be corrupted.

I would think that at the point, internally, that CbB has decided that an audio region is corrupt, that it has the name of the associated audio clip that it cannot properly open/read/etc.

That information would be REALLY helpful, for me to know what needs to be corrected, because if this project has a large number of tracks, and the project is rather long, without me knowing which audio is corrupted, I am pretty much left in the dark, whereas if the file name is known, or that section in the project were highlighted, or even just knowing where on the timeline this corruption was detected, any or all of that would be quite helpful in my being able to correct the issue(s).

SO - please add whatever associated info is available, and relevant, to error messages in general - to include this one I have pasted below.

Thanks, 

Thomas Penna

+1 - GREAT IDEA, Thomas.  Thanks, Bakers, if you could add this.  I, too, have seen error messages pop up, (pretty rare for that, which rocks), where knowing some additional info would help me.

Bob Bone

 

[WepairWorld]

I use a Tascam DM4800 using control surface Mackie. Is There some way to control the Bus main and the ones I make like drum bus, I have to use a mouse to change everything on the bus. It would be great to control the Bus's with the Tascam fader.  The aux tracks work .  The control of the bus would make Cakewalk the best for me!

Thank you and keep up the great work. Johnny

[Agincourtdb]

I would literally kill for:

The pattern editor from Project 5, as a plugin. To be able to use that workflow in Sonar would make how I make my music soooo much easier. I wouldn't have to choose between easy creativity and easy mixing.

[Keni]

Please fix zooming lanes!

[Samet]

I would love to see VST2 plugins sort by operating system folder structure. It is pain in the a** when you got lots of VST2 plugins to get categorized in Plugin Manager, and I would love to see an universal freezable external instrument plugin like external effect plugin, and a option like MIDI Clip Export in right click menu on a MIDI Clip.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Samet

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

8 hours ago, Samet said:

and a option like MIDI Clip Export in right click menu on a MIDI Clip.

You know you can drag and export them right onto the desktop ?

[winkpain]

Staff View, Staff View, Staff View!!!!!

New and better functioning, all around!

[Jonathon Barton]

On 2/20/2020 at 8:21 AM, Chappel said:

You can use the 'Bounce to Clip' feature to join multiple clips into one clip.

any clear reply to this would help me too,, bounce to clip is correct ,tho, this I find only splices

selected parts of  your clips all only working within the loop region ,,re my post RE SPLICE  THE CLIPS,

and this origin post ,I think want to re-splice the clips into a single long track lane ,as this type of clip 

recording has a different purpose,, to create a fast single song take  (verse's chorus mid breaks ++)with

usefull pre made clips related to whatever the loop pattern was . then begin song arrangment

referencing that live  take or "jam".. Jon,,

point being FAST  is as A above the loop you are playing or jamming to ,,regularly gets changed,

so it gets booooring loading and trying loops each time having to copy out screen and loop, to an,

as  yet ,,unknown song length ,,Jon...

Edited February 25, 2020 by Jonathon Barton
to be understood

[Starship Krupa]

On 1/25/2020 at 11:14 AM, User 905133 said:

Two of the things I thought about asking for with regard to my use of the staff view (i.e., formal feature requests as opposed to points in discussions) are: (1) to have the tools back within the Staff View window/pane/multi-dock and (2) a split multi-dock (or separate/multiple floatable docks/panes) so we can have both the Staff View and the Event List visible/accessible at the same time instead of having to jump from tab to tab in the multi-dock.  I imagine that some people who also use the PRV extensively might benefit from these abilities, too.

For me, I tend to enter note data in with a midi/usb keyboard and edit them, though sometimes I enter notes directly on the staff.

So, I am wondering, what things would help you editing with the Staff View?

 

User, I'm not 100% certain because I don't use your workflow and only open EL for troubleshooting and only open SV for printing, but I think what you want might already be there (classic Cakewalker answer to a feature request, I know ?).

I tried your request and right now on my 2nd monitor I have separate floating Staff View, Event List, Piano Roll and Console windows.

I had a hunch that you, as I was until several weeks ago, may not be aware that you can drag Multidock'd tabs out onto the desktop and they'll be free of the dock. You'll still need to click on their headers to switch to them (or Ctrl+Tab to cycle), but they're all visible. Just open your views and drag their tabs out. Voila!

One view will still be Multidock, and if you want the rest back in there, drag them back. The independent ones may be dragged on top of each other without re-docking.

Or did you mean something else?

[Starship Krupa]

(tl/dr in parens)

#1 by a long shot: Non-destructive normalization.

(Why is this one process destructive? Like @Craig Anderton, I'm used to normalizing dang near everything so that my FX gain staging is simpler, etc., etc., but I don't want destructive processing. At. All. I know, it's probably a throwback to Ye Olde Cakewalke. But for heaven's sake CbB can shift pitch, reverse entire bars, replace my entire drum performance so that it's perfect and played on a Roland 808, all without touching a single 1 or 0 of the audio. Yet if I want to normalize a clip to -1dB, bang, churn, grind, whole new audio file. YAAARRRRGGGGHHHH)

Next, setting up Drum Maps could be made a lot easier and more intuitive with some menu additions, documentation additions and maybe wording changes.

(For instance, there is currently no way to start the process of applying a Drum Map from the PRV Drum Pane. Once the user has called up the Drum Pane in the Piano Roll, they must leave it to go to a MIDI Channel Strip or Preferences to invoke the Drum Map Manager, then go back to the MIDI Channel Strip and apply the Drum Map. There is no indication in the program, no prompts telling them they must do this, they just have to know it. The documentation does not lay out a step-by-step process.

There should at least be a menu item in the PRV for "Drum Map Manager" when the Drum Pane is showing and a right click menu item in the Drum Pane for "Drum Map Manager." In lieu of a larger overhaul of the Drum Map, a "wizard" or prompts or something similar could help. There could be tooltip help in the Drum Pane or in the Drum Map Manager indicating the user's next step. As it stands, the user is "stranded" at a few points along the way.

It literally took me months before I got the process "down" to the point where I could start from scratch and get a drum map to work right away, reasonably understanding what I was doing at each step. It pains me to say it, but more than one promising beat got lost while I was flailing about trying to set Cakewalk up for drum editing. Beats are important, yo.)

Last, what others have already said about the potential of the Matrix.

(I don't have a "Morpheus" around to explain it to me, but if it has the ability to become integrated as a compositional tool (which the similar feature in Mixcraft is), that seems like it could be a killer feature for EDM composers/producers. My understanding is that these audio/MIDI loop grids are meant to give Ableton Live-esque functionality, and I would love to have that to mess with. Sounds inspiring.)

 

[Xoo]

8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Next, setting up Drum Maps could be made a lot easier and more intuitive with some menu additions, documentation additions and maybe wording changes.

(For instance, there is currently no way to start the process of applying a Drum Map from the PRV Drum Pane. Once the user has called up the Drum Pane in the Piano Roll, they must leave it to go to a MIDI Channel Strip or Preferences to invoke the Drum Map Manager, then go back to the MIDI Channel Strip and apply the Drum Map. There is no indication in the program, no prompts telling them they must do this, they just have to know it. The documentation does not lay out a step-by-step process.

There should at least be a menu item in the PRV for "Drum Map Manager" when the Drum Pane is showing and a right click menu item in the Drum Pane for "Drum Map Manager." In lieu of a larger overhaul of the Drum Map, a "wizard" or prompts or something similar could help. There could be tooltip help in the Drum Pane or in the Drum Map Manager indicating the user's next step. As it stands, the user is "stranded" at a few points along the way.

I'd settle for the DMM view to be non-modal at least (with changes reflected in PRV immediately).  That *feels* like it might be an easier change (famous last words!).

[David SG Ferringer]

I wish there a way to mark the chords, something like this:

[MikeyT]

Have used Cakewalk for many year, so many thanks to Bandlab for keeping it going. My suggestions for additional features are:

1) Sub-folders (somebody previously suggested this) - would come in handy for decluttering. For example, I frequently put all the guitar takes in a folder. It would be great to have a sub-folder to then hold all the guitar takes that didn't get used.

2) A better notes facility, i.e. notes about the project. In particular, the ability to add notes to a track - I'd note things like when it was recorded, who the person was, what microphone position was used, etc. At the moment, I have to try to keep all this in the project-based notes facility. The ability to then export these notes to a file would be useful.

3) I'm finding that even with an 8th generation i7 with 16GB of RAM, Cakewalk still crashes on me on projects where I am using a lot of busses with effects processing. It would be great to be able to freeze a bus - which would of course then freeze all the input tracks as well.

4) It would be great to be able to reset a track - the reset would involve setting all faders to default values, deleting all effects, deleting all automation, etc. You can sort of do this by duplicating a track and deleting the original, so just a nice-to-have really.

Many thanks,

Mikey

[Starship Krupa]

9 hours ago, MikeyT said:

the ability to add notes to a track

Annoying "You Can Already Do This" Man to the rescue!

As you have said that you're a longtime Cakewalker, forgive me if you already know this, but you can already add notes to each Track down in the Lanes. It's not immediately obvious (I found it by accident one evening), but open your Take Lanes and double-click in the empty black rectangle on the right end of the header and start typing. I use it all the time to make notes about just the things you mention: which mic I used, places I might have blown a phrase or note, which synth patch I used or what alternate synth patches might sound good if it's a MIDI track, etc. Since each Take Lane has one, you can make really detailed notes on every take, not just the track. If you want to have global notes about the track itself, you could add an empty take lane for that purpose.

[LarsF]

26 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Annoying "You Can Already Do This" Man to the rescue!

As you have said that you're a longtime Cakewalker, forgive me if you already know this, but you can already add notes to each Track down in the Lanes. It's not immediately obvious (I found it by accident one evening), but open your Take Lanes and double-click in the empty black rectangle on the right end of the header and start typing. I use it all the time to make notes about just the things you mention: which mic I used, places I might have blown a phrase or note, which synth patch I used or what alternate synth patches might sound good if it's a MIDI track, etc. Since each Take Lane has one, you can make really detailed notes on every take, not just the track. If you want to have global notes about the track itself, you could add an empty take lane for that purpose.

Am I halucinating - there is a field in lane panel to just insert notes - just doubleclick and off you go. Really nice.

Also in Inspector - track tab - there is a field for track level notes.

Also in browser tab - usually on the right - key 'B' - there is overall notes for project.

Edited February 29, 2020 by LarsF

[Will.]

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Annoying "You Can Already Do This" Man to the rescue!

 I use it all the time to make notes about just the things you mention: which mic I used.

It became second nature in my workflow - especially when I take a break to return later. I always make a few notes on idea's before rebooting my ears or head in the creativity world for a couple of minutes or full day for that matter. Extremely helpful.

[petemus]

I'd like to see a feature where you could set permanent export settings per project: export source (track selection), destination (tracks/buses/whatnot), export folder, start and end markers and all that you now need to set every time. The feature would allow you to have everything set so that you only edit the export file name and start exporting. You could have many different settings for WAV, MP3 etc.

Another one would be the non-destructive track/clip normalization. mentioned many times here already.