[CLOSED] Cakewalk 2020.05 Early Access 1

[Morten Saether]

2020.05 Early Access installer now available!

We're pleased to announce the Early Access for 2020.054! This release introduces dynamic waveform scaling when changing clip automation, offline activation, enhancements to mono plug-in support , improved mouse wheel handling, lots of automation enhancements, optimizations, and over 50 bug fixes.

We'd love for you to check it out before we drop the official public version, which should be in roughly a week. This time we're also providing an easy rollback installer should you need to quickly revert to the last public release for any reason.

Please note that Early Access installers are update installers, which only update from a specific version. To install the 2020.05 Early Access build, you must be on the latest public release of 2020.04.

Download Cakewalk 2020.05 EA installer

Should you need to revert to the 2020.04 release, you can download the Cakewalk 2020.04 Rollback installer.

If you haven't already done so, please read about the Early Access Program before participating.

Thanks again for your participation!
The Bakers

 

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2020.05 Highlights

 

New features

Dynamic waveform scaling when changing clip automation

When Display Clip Fade/Envelope Attenuation is enabled in Edit > Preferences > Customization - Display, Cakewalk dynamically updates the waveform amplitude when changing clip fades, clip gain automation and clip pan automation.

The waveform display is pre clip FX Rack and only applies to clip automation, not track automation. Additionally, clip gain and pan envelopes are not applied to active Region FX clips. i.e. If you have a clip gain envelope on a Region FX clip, it will be ignored unless the effect is bypassed.

The Display Clip Fade/Envelope Attenuation option is now also available as a key binding (under “Track View”).

 

Offline activation

Note: This will be available in the next update of BandLab Assistant, which will be released soon.

Activation is the process by which Cakewalk validates that your software is genuine and being used in accordance with the license agreement. Cakewalk can now be activated by an online or offline process.

Cakewalk will operate in Demo mode until it is activated, and saving and exporting will be disabled.

A toast notification appears at the bottom of the screen to inform you if Cakewalk has not been activated yet. If your computer is connected to the internet, click the toast notification to open BandLab Assistant and activate Cakewalk.

If Cakewalk is installed on a computer that is not connected to the internet, you can use offline activation as long as you have access to another computer that is connected to the internet.

To use offline activation

1. In Cakewalk, go to Help > Offline Activation > Export Activation Request to open the Save activation request dialog box.
2. Select the folder you want to save the activation request file to, then click Save.
   Cakewalk saves a Activation request.crq file. This file is encrypted and machine-specific, and can only be used to activate Cakewalk on the machine that was originally used to create the Activation request.crq file.
   By default, Cakewalk appends a timestamp to the file name, using the following format: <Month><Day><Year>_<Hour><Minute>. For example: 052120_1157Activation request.crq.
3. Copy the Activation request.crq file to removable media, such as a USB flash drive, that you can transfer to another computer that is connected to the internet.
4. Using an online computer, open BandLab Assistant and sign in with your BandLab ID and password.
5. Click the Apps tab.
6. Under Cakewalk by BandLab, click the drop-down arrow next to the Open button, then click Process Offline Activation Request.
   If activation is granted, BandLab Assistant generates an Activation response.dat file.
7. Copy the Activation response.dat file to removable media that you can transfer back to your offline Cakewalk computer.
8. In Cakewalk, go to Help > Offline Activation > Import Activation Response to open the Import activation response dialog box.
9. Select the Activation response.dat file and click Open.
   If the response file is valid, Cakewalk is activated.

 

Early Access toast notification

Early Access availability is checked whenever normal updates are checked, and a toast notification appears if an Early Access build is available.

The Early Access Program provides pre-release versions of Cakewalk to the public for general testing and issue reporting. We provide Early Access builds to help us get better real world test coverage from users, which is useful to improve the reliability and quality of our releases. Participation is 100% voluntary. Please read this topic to learn more about the program.

 

Enhancements

Mono plug-in support changes

This release greatly improves the FX Rack handling with respect to mixing and matching mono/stereo plug-ins. These improvements are across the board and work in track/bus/clip FX Racks, FX chains and the ProChannel.

• Bypassing or removing plug-ins in an FX Rack, Rack bypass or global FX bypass operations will now revert any mono/stereo interleave changes caused by the plug-in, and recalculate delay compensation properly.
• Changing the mono/stereo interleave from the track strip button now updates the FX Rack routing correctly. (Note: this is dependent on whether the ProChannel bin is pre FX Rack and if it contains mono plug-ins)
• Pitch shifted audio and distortion were symptoms of issues that are fixed in this release. This could occur under multiple scenarios, such as moving plug-ins, bypassing, deleting or undoing.

Improved mouse wheel handling

• Console view vertical scrolling via mouse wheel is less prone to inadvertently adjusting parameter values if there is a brief pause during the scroll gesture (for example, while vertically scrolling with the mouse wheel, suddenly it starts scrolling the volume slider instead). The internal timer that waits for inactivity before treating the next mouse wheel movement as a new operation has been increased from 500ms to 1,000ms. This ensures that the current scroll operation doesn't change mid-gesture.
• In the Console view, tooltips dynamically show values when changing parameters via mouse wheel.
• FX Racks for tracks, buses and clips can be scrolled via mouse wheel.

Increased contrast of ghosted envelopes

The color contrast of ghosted automation envelopes has been increased, making them easier to see against the dark Clips pane background.

Clicking on the bus pane now automatically sets the bus focus strip

This facilitates copying and pasting bus envelopes by clicking and pasting.

Scrollable Clip FX Rack in Inspector 

Clip FX Racks in Inspector now display up to 10 plug-ins and are scrollable using both mouse wheel and the scroll bar.

Improved support for recording automation via numeric input

• When recording automation, envelope nodes can now be recorded by typing a value in the pop-up edit controls in the Inspector, Console view, Track view, ProChannel EQ, and EQ fly-out module. The numeric input will be recorded as a Jump during automation recording.
• To show the numeric input pop-up, give focus to a control or its value display, then press F2, or double-click the value display.

Improved recording automation of synth parameters

Multiple synth parameters can be recorded in a single record pass and all envelopes are now retained. While loop recording, in order to avoid clutter the automation preview only shows the last loop record pass. All recording envelopes will be displayed when you stop playback.

Improved support for copying and pasting automation envelopes

• Automation envelopes can now be easily copied and pasted from tracks to buses and vice versa. To copy track automation to a bus, first select and copy the envelope from the track, then click on the target bus or lane and paste. You can also copy and paste bus automation to tracks the same way.
• Moving or copying arrangement sections now properly manages copying and pasting the associated bus and synth automation envelopes.

Bus delete stability improvements

Bus deletion can now be performed while the transport is rolling without stopping the audio engine. Also an intermittent crash and app shutdown on undoing bus deletion was solved.

 

Optimizations

• When using workspaces, projects now open with the correct initial UI layout, rather than opening with the project layout and then visibly switching to the workspace layout. This is faster and prevents unwanted flicker.
• Many improvements and optimizations for editing mono effects in FX Racks
• Improvements to drag and drop between clip and track FX racks
• Solved multithreading race condition leading to latency when using Aggressive thread scheduling model 

 

Bug fixes

Stability

• Crash on undo and redo of automation recording of synth parameters
• Deleting or undoing bus delete operation can crash
• User reported crash in 2020.04
• Waves OVox plugin crashes on project load
• Crash when using SmartSwipe gesture in Piano Roll view track list
• Potential crash on startup unless specific Windows DPI settings are used
• Memory leak when using the Aggressive Thread Scheduling model

Automation

• Unexpected envelopes created when moving section in project
• Bus automation copies to tracks unexpectedly with (Arranger) Section move
• Duplicate automation lanes can be created for unedited automation 
• Draw Tool draws random points when drawing automation outside of lane
• Draw Tool not working as expected on bus automation in user project
• Stop at Project End not respected in projects with automation after deleting buses or replacing synths
• Automation behaves incorrectly after manually typing in a value
• Automation not fully removed when deleting bus
• Pasting bus automation should not rely on Copy/Paste Special
• Pasting bus automation doesn't change the edit filter leading to hidden envelopes
• Automation envelopes appear out of scale
• Cannot copy synth automation to buses
• Draw Tool does not update envelopes preview during playback
• Adding nodes by typing values during write automation over existing envelope causes unexpected results 
• Synth automation gets discarded unexpectedly while write recording multiple parameters

UI

• Scale for Synth automation not displaying correctly
• Clip FX in Inspector does not display more than 6 plug-ins
• Hit zone for Draw Tool on buses does not match
• Insert Soft Synth Options dialog should remember the checked/unchecked state of the Enable MIDI Output option
• User reported issue with zoom fader control becoming stuck
• [Chinese version] Overlapping text in Preferences > Customization - Display
• Tooltips for controls in the Console view do not update when changing values by mouse wheel
• Incorrect Track view tooltips when creating a new project with the Basic workspace
• Console view control tooltips show incorrect value and obscure value label when adjusted via mouse wheel
• Track view horizontal zoom slider window is shown in wrong position on secondary monitor
• Now Time cursor draws incorrectly 

Arranger

• Arranger options in Keyboard Shortcuts should specify “Arranger Track”
• Arranger Section time-format needs to be backwards compatible
• Bus Edit Filter changes unexpectedly after moving Section
• Section operations do not always move/copy track/bus automation
• Duplicating Section won't duplicate MIDI envelopes for Instrument tracks
• Double-click rename of Arrangement sections should not rewind to start of section during playback

Misc.

• Moving mono Waves plug-in forces track into mono unexpectedly
• Eventide VST3 plug-ins hang when changing interleave
• Hitting Play fails to start Play List when no project is open
• Make Instrument track not working with multiple split instrument tracks
• MIDI Chase not working as expected with 2 tracks assigned to single synth
• Delete Track can fail unexpectedly with MIDI tracks
• Mackie C4 does not respond to modifier keys in plug-in mode
• Markers/Meters do not ripple as expected when pasting special with meter/key changes
• Duplicate does not Ripple Edit in the Piano Roll view
• Duplicate Clips should respect Select Track Envelopes with Clips setting
• Race condition when closing a project before a workspace has been loaded
• Cancelling Bounce causes first play attempt to fail
• Unexpected latency when using the new thread scheduling model
• Select by Filter key binding not working as expected

 

[chris.r]

Dynamic waveforms, offline activation, mono plugins, scrolling... are you kidding me? GUYS, YOU'RE ON HIGH FIRE!!  Can't express how much I thank you.

A question, is offline activation periodically needed, same as the online way?

Edited May 20, 2020 by chris.r

[Noel Borthwick]

Yes its same requirements as online activation - every 6 months or so an activation is required.
If you haven't updated in 6 months you are probably missing out on a lot at our pace so its a minor inconvenience 

[chris.r]

5 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Yes its same requirements as online activation - every 6 months or so an activation is required.

?

5 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

If you haven't updated in 6 months you are probably missing out on a lot at our pace so its a minor inconvenience 

Hard to deny ?? 

Edited May 20, 2020 by chris.r

[Esteban Villanova]

You guys are on fire!!!!

[User 905133]

Quote

When using workspaces, projects now open with the correct initial UI layout, rather than opening with the project layout and then visibly switching to the workspace layout. This is faster and prevents unwanted flicker.

When I started testing this early access release, it seemed to me that the UI stabilized more quickly than previously (1) upon opening a project and (2) when switching Workspaces.  I was very glad to see I wasn't imaging it and that it is indeed an improvement.  Thanks!!!!!!!!!

Edited May 21, 2020 by User 905133

[Keni]

Lots of good stuff here. Thanks...

One problem I'm experiencing... I'm getting audio device disconnections every minute or two. Anyone else?

 

Win 8.1 running under BootCamp on Mac Pro 64G

Presonus 1818 VSL

 

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Edit: Exploring a possibility.

I just disabled the "suspend audio engine when Cake loses Focus" and I'm experimenting to see if this fixes it.

 

Minutes later.... This appears to have stopped the constant resetting of the device driver....

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Keni

[RBH]

 

Installed and operating fine on  WIN7 system here. I'm starting a new mix and hope to put it through it's paces over the next few days.

[Heinz Hupfer]

HI:)

 

Dynamic Waveforms!  ?

Superb!

Plus all the bug fixes and automation improvements ..........

 

Thank you very much;)

 

Bassman.

 

[Skyline_UK]

Wow, this was a happy surprise!  Many thanks and well done to all involved!

My eye was immediately drawn to these:-

"Solved multithreading race condition leading to latency when using Aggressive thread scheduling model" 

"Memory leak when using the Aggressive Thread Scheduling model"

"Unexpected latency when using the new thread scheduling model"

I wonder if these will help my 14 core PC run CW better, and solve my problem with IK's Lurssen Mastering plugin which hasn't been working in CW for a while now unless I ramp my Aio's sampling rate up to 2048?

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Skyline_UK

[Matthew Sorrels]

Aggressive thread scheduling model still doesn't seem viable with this version.  When I enable it and playback a project I just finished the output constantly studders.  Switching back to model 2 and everything plays perfectly smoothly.  This is with a 16 core/32 thread i9-9960X.

[JL]

woo hoo dynamic waveforms, another one off the bucket list

[Noel Borthwick]

1 hour ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

Aggressive thread scheduling model still doesn't seem viable with this version.  When I enable it and playback a project I just finished the output constantly studders.  Switching back to model 2 and everything plays perfectly smoothly.  This is with a 16 core/32 thread i9-9960X.

Interesting, that mode isn't a panacea for all performance issues since it only improves scheduling efficiency. We are continuing to research performance improvements and this was one experiment. What latency are you running at when you see this - does it improve if you raise the latency? Contact me via PM and we can try and triangulate it.

[chris.r]

5 hours ago, Skyline_UK said:

I wonder if these will help my 14 core PC run CW better, and solve my problem with IK's Lurssen Mastering plugin which hasn't been working in CW for a while now unless I ramp my Aio's sampling rate up to 2048?

Yes I have same problem with Lurssen in Cakewalk, have to run it standalone.

[Noel Borthwick]

4 hours ago, chris.r said:

Yes I have same problem with Lurssen in Cakewalk, have to run it standalone.

Is it only in Cakewalk that you have this issue or do you see it on other DAW's as well?

[winkpain]

On 5/20/2020 at 10:00 AM, Morten Saether said:

Duplicate does not Ripple Edit in the Piano Roll view

In relation to this particular fix, I am finding that my Ripple mode now does work for me with the Duplicate command ('tho @msmcleod mentioned you guys are aware of continuing bugginess with it), and I'm very happy about that. However, now regular copy-paste and drag-drop actions are not honoring Ripple Edit mode in the full PRV.

Just offering that up towards final release fixes.

But WOW! Just to add my WOW to you guys' non-stop bad-assedness!  WOW!

Way to go with the constant improvements!

[Bapu]

11 hours ago, Skyline_UK said:

I wonder if these will help my 14 core PC run CW better, and solve my problem with IK's Lurssen Mastering plugin which hasn't been working in CW for a while now unless I ramp my Aio's sampling rate up to 2048?

 

6 hours ago, chris.r said:

Yes I have same problem with Lurssen in Cakewalk, have to run it standalone.

 

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Is it only in Cakewalk that you have this issue or do you see it on other DAW's as well?

Lurssen seems to need 2048 is all my DAWs (CbB, Studio One Pro 4.x, Reaper, Mixbus 32C etc.)

[Noel Borthwick]

1 hour ago, Bapu said:

Lurssen seems to need 2048 is all my DAWs (CbB, Studio One Pro 4.x, Reaper, Mixbus 32C etc.)

Thanks for the update. Plugin load balancing might help a bit assuming that you have more than one plugin in the bus where Lurssen is but it sounds like its processor heavy and starving the realtime threads.

[chris.r]

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Is it only in Cakewalk that you have this issue or do you see it on other DAW's as well?

So you made me curious and I've been through some tests. The thing started with that on my laptop at latency 128 just a single empty track with Lurssen and I can't even start the Play head to move, it just stops immediately. In standalone Lurssen I can make it start to playback a file at 128 but I get dropouts and need to raise the buffers at least 256. What's interesting I checked in Wavelab and it didn't have any problem playing a wav file with Lurssen at 128...! That was on my laptop 4 cores @ 3.20 Ghz.

Now I have another pc 8 cores @ 4GHz and there I was able to play a single audio track in Cakewalk at 128 but I noticed the first core hard sweating at average 50-70% often crossing 99% and collecting tons of late buffers, adding a second cpu demanding plugin is a dropout. In standalone Lurssen it was similar with the difference that it put the sixth core into spin instead first and no spikes. Then I checked with Wavelab, Ableton lite and Mixbus and they all could play easily at 128 without a sweat, what they do is they share the load across the cores and all stay low.

Hope that helps.

[chris.r]

Ok checked one more thing. In addition to what I said above I thought to check if plugin balancing is enabled in cakewalk and indeed on the desktop pc it was off, must have been switched off with an update at some point probably as I usually like to have it on. But on my laptop balancing is on and I have to raise buffers to 512 so yes, wavelab makes it somehow to play smoothly at 128.