DAW Wars: The Fanboy Strikes Back

[Starship Krupa]

18 hours ago, Steev said:

Good write up on Mixcraft, sound to me like you have found your second DAW. 

 Noticing you use Presonus FirePods I'm kind of suprised it isn't Studio One considering it ships free, and their starter edition is actually quite impressive to say the least....

Ah, Steev, a thing to know is that I am very frugal, especially when it comes to my music hobby. The Firepod is ancient technology. Studio One was but a glimmer in the eye of Presonus when my interfaces were new. I got the pair of mine a few years back on Craig's List. 16 inputs for $200!

So I have no right to the copy of Studio One, at least as far as I know. And doesn't the starter edition omit support for VST's? Can't live without that.

Anyway, Studio One was one of the ones I tried a few years back before I settled on Mixcraft, and for whatever reason rejected. It may have been the limitation on VST's or the UI, but I preferred starting with something that wasn't a hobbled version of a "real" DAW anyway.

My main system is a Dell Optiplex that a neighbor gave me. He works down in Silicon Valley as a facilities manager, and one of the companies he works for was getting rid of some desktops that were no longer fancy enough for the executives. He brought some of them home, asked me if I had a use for this one. Um, yes, as a matter of fact.

Its predecessor, which is still in use, and runs Cakewalk with aplomb, was a hand-me-down Gateway Core 2 Duo that had been my friend's daughter's high school computer. When she got a Macbook for graduation, I got the Gateway, which was having trouble booting up. I cured that by reseating the IC's, upgraded the processor to a Core 2 Quad, and with a hand-me-down 125G SSD for a boot drive, it's running great. The young lady who bequeathed it was almost done with college last time I heard.

The Event 30/30's in my sig were obtained for free because one side had a blown chip amp, and the Monitor Ones were $30 at a swap meet.

I don't like to part with cash unless I have to. I hope we hear from LarryC soon! ?

[Starship Krupa]

9 hours ago, Toddskins said:

What you write is funny.  What's not funny is how many people defend those notation programs to the death, regardless of what you just acknowledged.

I cannot tell you how juvenile and hardheaded they get when you point out the obvious flaw.   I just gave up on those characters.  You can't fix stupid.

Thanks! I think it's good to laugh about this stuff that people take so seriously.

It's kind of odd the way people can be, but I guess it's a tendency we all have. These forums are communities, and what the community has formed around is this software that we enjoy using. Someone saying that it's not perfect can't help but seem like an attack to be defended against.

Just look at me on the old forum with my baiting of people who wanted to stick with SONAR long after CbB was (in my eyes) thoroughly vetted. It applies to me. I'll cop to that.

And with notation software, there might be snobbery about people not having music education but wanting to create notation.

[Tapsa Kuusniemi]

12 hours ago, Toddskins said:

I tried the free Bitwig version that came with a MIDI controller I bought, and cannot imagine anybody thinking it is good.  Horrible software, totally unintuitive, failed to recognize settings after being set, registration problems that could not get corrected.  And UGLY.  

Much of what you say here falls under personal preference. There are alot of people who say the same about the GUI of Sonar/CbB and I say about Ableton and ProTools. But those are my personal preferences and do not reflect on the software. 

Bitwig does not work for you, but saying that there is nothing good without knowledge of the software is rather, well, dumb.

There's a ton of stuff that Sonar/CbB does worse than Bitwig. There's also stuff that Sonar/CbB does better.

As for intuitiveness, that's usually a case of learning how something works. Like I said Bitwig is though up differently and if you were to jump from Bitwig to Sonar/CbB then the latter would feel very cluncky and unintuitive.

But both DAWs have their merits and strong points. Just as Cubase is different and has it's strong point. And just like Reaper, Studio One, Logic, Ableton, ProTools, Samplitude, Tracktion, FL Studio...

Edited December 27, 2018 by Kuusniemi
Typo

[John]

I am a Sonar user and though its name has changed to Cakewalk it is my "fall back will do it there if I am serious"  DAW.  Yet I too looked around I went with Cubase 9.5 Pro. I have Mixbus, Samplitude and Studio One 4. I have been keeping up with it . For me I am most interested with MIDI and only Cakewalk and Cubase have the MIDI chops. Though Studio One is coming on strong. I did upgrade to Cubase 10 Pro. I like it but in many ways Cakewalk is better for so many things. Cubase has a lot of power but it  also has bugs. Too many that are show stoppers.    

I must say I enjoyed reading this thread because I learned a lot.  So many of you were candid and offer good reviews.  Thank you for this thread and the quality of the posts. 

[Øyvind Skald]

My first MIDI editor I had at home was Musikator. I don’t miss it. Going to Cakewalk 8 was a great upgrade. It was trouble with timing and no audio recording. So I’ve been on the cakewalk train since then. There were not so many using it back then. The DAW war was much harder and people just was fans of their system.

Now I have Studio One and Cubase 8,5 Pro, but still use Cakewalk/Sonar, now CbB.

[Steev]

Another thing Cakewalk reigns supreme in doing ROCK SOLID is recording multiple tracks at once. I have recorded countless live shows with SONAR though the years (8.5 and up, 16 tracks at once with my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 & Octopre on a RAIN laptop powered by a second or third gen Intel i7.

 I had recently recorded and flawlessly captured 28 tracks at once thru a Behringer X32 for FOH (front of house) mix, and using my X touch DAW controller for CbB mix on a Dell i5 powered laptop which really amazed me at a 6 msec latency ROUND TRIP through a CAT 6 Ethernet wire!

 So OK so that's a big props up for how far Behringer has come to rise to the top as cream of the crop, but it was Cakewalk that captured 28 tracks to an i5 Dell laptop which isn't exactly what I would call wimpy, but it's not really workstation grade powerhouse either. 

 The 2 things I've learned through that experience is;

1.) Cakewalk doesn't need a lot of computer power to do some pretty outstanding things. However Cakewalk scales and muscles  up robustly with high powered workstations.

 On my main AMD FX8370 (8 core) workstation with 16 gigs of RAM, both SONAR and CbB are as close to an actual multi million dollar recording studio you can get without actually going to one. 

 Also keep in mind AMD's FX series CPU's released with Win 7 are getting rather old and obsolete technology now with the rise of AMD's Rysen series. Same holds true with early Intel "i" series chips. I believe that new gen i5 had at least the same or more POP under the hood then my older gen i7.

Hard to say because CbB seems to noticeably run much more efficiently on Window 10 then SONAR Platinum ever did on Win 7. Stability was never an issue with SPLAT on Win 7, but it would become slow and sluggish sooner, the timeline cursor would start to get jerky, the first sign of trouble coming, the computer is starting to work harder then necessary and would require freezing tracks sooner before pushing it over it's limits.

2.) I really,  really, really, REALLY must get me an X32.. Perhaps start out with an X18 Air (I already have an X Touch), both have the same incredible bundle of plugins, and both can also be used as a USB computer audio interface, or an Ethernet/ WiFi interface that can be remote controlled by the computer of course, MIDI, or any type of  smartphone or tablet.

 Looks to me the possibilities are endless.

 

The only other DAW's I've ever used that can replicate a real true multi-track professional studio experience besides Cakewalk are Pro Tools of course, and now the new kid on the block Studio One 4, and in that order.

 Cakewalk being the clear leader with the built in ProChannel channel strip. With enough power to run input monitoring and super low latency audio interface it's the only DAW I've personally ever used that can not only reliably record high multiple track counts in real-time, it doesn't require high dollar boutique outboard gear to achieve pro quality exacting results completely ITB (in the box).

 I think most users don't really appreciate the power and usefulness of ProChannel. Maybe they discount and just overlook  it because it's free? There's all too many who discount anything that's reasonably priced, or God forbid  free, yeah? well obviously that's why we're having this conversation, right? It's not all about, eww, this DAW has icky colors, or that DAW hurts my eyes, nor is it all about trying to justify why you would spend hundreds of dollars on a DAW that can't do what Cakewalk by Bandlab does and offers for free for aspiring "Musicians" and actual recording artists who actually know or want to know what they are doing.

 As an owner and frequent user of boutique channels strip plugins specifically my all time 3rd party favorites the Waves Sheps Omni Channel, and Eventide's Ultra Channel, Cakewalk's ProChannel holds it own compared to both others. They are all great and perform exceptionally well in their own special and unique ways, and I will highly recommend either as I would recommend all be added to everyone's arsenal.

 Yep, but there's only one way to get ProChannel. LoL?

[Steev]

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 9:48 PM, Toddskins said:

1) You should seriously consider playing your song on your MIDI controller and record it.  Then you will have your song available as a MIDI file from which you can then EDIT it with Cakewalk's Notation Staff View.  Actually, regardless of what DAW you like, playing and recording your song on a MIDI controller is the fastest way to get your music into your DAW and be ready to edit it.

2) I own Sibelius and it's generally horrible.  And it's because all the notation software programs out there, save one (Finale'), are a bitch to work with.  I have written about this several times over the years on various forums, but I'll try to make this short:

Sibelius and others (not Finale'), force all the notes in a measure to add up to one (1).  Therefore, when you import the song you played as a MIDI file into these programs, it will force all your notes to be strange values because the measure must add up to one.  Nobody plays perfectly and your notes will be on either side of the measure when you record.  We are not robots when we play.  So then the notation software will assign strange values to your notes, because if you played a little fast and have a few extra notes in the measure (or even just one extra note) from which you set the tempo while recording, the notation software will force smaller values on your music in order to make the measure add up to 1.  You don't understand how horrible and infuriating this is until you read the next paragraph.

Now, you go into edit that score with all the notes assigned strange values, and as you attempt to push the notes into next measure to make it "right", the notes left behind will again be re-assigned new values.  Or, you attempt to change the 1/16 note into an 1/8 note, and it either will not allow you to or it will change all the other notes remaining in the measure so they all add up to 1.  It's a nightmare.

Finale' (which I do not own, but have verified), allows you to edit the music like a Word processor.  You can insert notes into the existing MIDI score, and Finale' gives you the option of pushing the notes to the right further to the right WITHOUT modifying the notes to the left.   And you can edit the value of a note without the program forcing changes on the other notes.  It gives you options on how you wish to handle the remaining notes.

That's the way notation software should work.  

When I wrote Sibelius about this issue a few years ago, they wrote me back and said they were not able to accommodate the need I wrote about because their core software is designed to be that way (adding up to 1).  So all their latest versions continue this inherent "flaw".  It's not a problem if you write music from scratch with a digital pencil, so to speak, but if you import a MIDI file that you played, forget all about trying to correct and edit it with Sibelius and the others.   Cakewalk does not have this problem due to its simplistic way of editing and not really being a notation software program.

 Maybe we are over thinking and complicating things here? I seldom if ever find the need for printed music these days, and usually find it much faster and easier to go old school Mozart with a pencil and paper and just scan it into a .jpeg or .pdf for easy storage distribution. ?

 Of course you don't have to go Mozart if you're too serious about it, you can also go Bach or Beethoven if you lack the sense of humor and playfulness of Mozart which doesn't always translate well in traditional print. 

Anyone ever try using Microsoft Word  for creating sheet music?? Very easy to arrange a composition that way, and it can be done with SnagIt Editor as well using printable lead sheets the Cakewalk MIDI notation window simply by hitting Ctrl P, and copying and pasting your way staff line by staff line into a neat condensed easy to read two or thee page document the way YOU want instead of doing the way Sibelius wants you to learn how to do it.

 Very easy to do now with Melodyne and Cakewalk's support for ARA technology which converts audio tracks to MIDI simply by dragging audio waves into an empty MIDI track. 

 Come to think of it, I remember "Band In The Box" was pretty easy and intuitive way to arrange compositions into sheet music, and did a rather miraculous job of playing it back in any style or genre you could think of.

 I haven't seen or heard of "Band In The Box" in years, but it was scary good years ago. I stopped playing around with it for fear of making myself obsolete as an actual performing musician.

 That's also why I dislike Ableton Live as well, as it always tries to correct my mistakes and spits out what and how it wants me to play a part.

I'm sorry, no disrespect to Ableton live users, but as a performer/composer/musician, I find that highly offensive.

 At least with Cakewalk if what I'm doing sounds like crap I know it's ME sounding like crap and vise versa..?

 

[Wibbles]

On 12/27/2018 at 7:12 AM, Starship Krupa said:

...

I don't like to part with cash unless I have to. I hope we hear from LarryC soon! ?

cclarry can be found here: http://beyondmydaw.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=6

[Cookie Jarvis]

I've been a Cakewalk user for years...everything is still installed and using CBB right now. I picked up Samplitude Pro X3 Suite last year but never really gave it a good look until recently. I found the audio engine to be superior to Cakewalk's but everything else is awkward and obtuse to use. Maybe I'll get used to it but I'm thinking Cakewalk will be my go to for a long time I also tried Reaper. It seems a decent app but I'd rather spend time writing music than creating scripts and buttons.

My routine is to record in Cakewalk, mix in Mixbus...well Mixbus 32C for the new album, then Sound Forge for the mastering. Not only do these applications excel at these functions they also create a serious of psychological separations so that I have to finish each step in the process. I don't master in Cakewalk, record in Mixbus, etc. It's a great way to force yourself to make decisions and finish your projects

Bill

[Starship Krupa]

On 12/27/2018 at 2:31 AM, Kuusniemi said:

But both DAWs have their merits and strong points. Just as Cubase is different and has it's strong point. And just like Reaper, Studio One, Logic, Ableton, ProTools, Samplitude, Tracktion, FL Studio...

That's the thing. This is my viewpoint: "horses for courses," and everything else is really a matter of personal preference. Track in CbB, mix in Mixbus, master in Pro Tools, whatever. I'm told that REAPER rules for live work due to all the routing options, and I don't doubt that at all.

I have a best buddy of 30 years and his son staying at my place for the holidays, and his kid (22 y.o. college student) is in the midst of composing/assembling a dubstep piece using Ableton (never call it "Live," ?) his preferred platform. His dad, who used to own a studio in SF is a Pro Tools man through and through, his current rig is a Mac Pro tower with a couple of UAD cards in it. He considers anything else "hobby" grade, but has done some good work in my studio with Mixcraft and Cakewalk.

I, of course, am a Mixcraft veteran who is now in the process of learning Cakewalk, which I consider a great-sounding DAW with great-sounding plug-ins and some quirks I'm getting used to. I like it better than the demos of other DAW's I tried a few years back.

Dad is using my instruments to record a pop song, and jumped right in with Cakewalk, but would of course much rather be using PT. He was just going to record drum tracks, but the project snowballed, and he wound up staying up 'til dawn a couple of nights in a row and now has an almost finished mix with guitar, bass, and vocals. It sounds freaking killer and he took to CbB pretty easily. Unfortunately, I'm having troubles with my CbB installation because I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10 a few days ago upon learning that BL were emphasizing 10 as the preferred platform. ? The playback engine keeps quitting, and it takes about 3 seconds to start when you hit the spacebar. Separate thread.

Anyway, after looking over kid's shoulder and chatting with him, enjoying watching him work, watching his song come together, I am certain that each of us could do what the other does using our preferred DAW, but it would be clunkier and take longer.

Trevor would probably flail using Ableton to record and comp 20 tracks of audio, including the simultaneous 4 tracks for the drum kit. I'm not sure Ableton can even do  comping.

Sample management and the handling of the built-in FX rack in PT and Cakewalk is nowhere near what it is in Ableton, and neither CbB nor PT have integrated phrase samplers, so Geoff and I would be like "eeble-beeble-beeble" first trying to learn how to use a 3rd-party phrase sampler (which I have already done due to Cakewalk not having its own). Trevor would have his dubstep piece circulating amongst the hot DJ's while Geoff was still trying to find a phrase sampler compatible with AAX, and it would probably cost a fortune.

Even with the excellence of the FX that come with CbB and the ones I have acquired, I can't touch what Geoff has with his UAD cards and Ocean Way and Abbey Road whatevers and the way that he can freakin' fly over the keyboard doing comps due to his years using the Industry Standard DAW with its really slick management of lanes and takes.

Neither of them can deny the fact that the cost-to-performance ratio of my home studio flattens EITHER of their setups. VST support is excellent and mature in CbB, and that gives me a cornucopia of other great inexpensive and freeware FX to choose from. PT is AAX only, which limits what PT users have access to. We've all seen LarryC's deals, it's like trying to drink from a firehose. The EDM synths I use, Hybrid 3 and Vacuum Pro, cost me $1 each, at the same time snagging free licenses for iZotope Neutron Elements and Ozone Elements. Okay, so those all have AAX versions, but still, there are plenty I use that don't due to Avid charging (WTF?) developers to distribute in that format.

Mr. Pro Tools/UAD thinks that the ProChannel with its console and tape and compressor emulations is hot schnit, BTW.

Our direct access to Noel and Jon and Meng is amazing given how Digidesign and now Avid (who are somewhat better) treat Pro Tools users, and given the magnitude of really nasty bugs that have persisted over so many major revisions of Pro Tools. Geoff related how there was one known bug where the PT transport would just refuse to go into playback! And even the support people at Digi knew about it. It persisted across at least two MAJOR product releases. I've watched the current dev team beat the snot out of bugs in CbB. The progress is tangible. As a veteran of a couple of prominent software companies, this really matters to me. If I were on a platform that was getting whiz-bang features while bugs like that persisted, it would bring me down. I'm also fascinated by BandLab's vision for integrating CbB with their collaborative platform. It's cool to be around for that.

We all have our reasons for liking and using this DAW or that DAW. It's probably more to be celebrated that we have so much choice than to be argued over, but it's in our nature to argue over it. Fords suck and Chevys rule or vice versa, when they are both excellent American automobiles. Or Mercedes suck and Ferrari rule when they are both excellent European Formula One racing teams. A baseball pitcher is evil incarnate when he is playing for the Dodgers, but a hero after he is traded to the Giants.

I only WISH CbB had Pro Tools slick handling of takes and lanes and Ableton's handling of phrase samples and FX rack. Oh, also the playback engine that doesn't fall down on my 'puter. ?

[InstrEd]

Erik really nice thoughtful post.

I wish more people would think of the DAW as a tool instead of some reverent piece of software that they most defend to the end of time. All DAW's have pluses and minuses to them.  With Gibson sale of Cakewalk Sonar it got me to get a couple different DAW's to learn and I'm glad I did. But you are right it is really good to learn one DAW's deeply.

[Tapsa Kuusniemi]

44 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

That's the thing. This is my viewpoint: "horses for courses," and everything else is really a matter of personal preference. Track in CbB, mix in Mixbus, master in Pro Tools, whatever. I'm told that REAPER rules for live work due to all the routing options, and I don't doubt that at all.

I have a best buddy of 30 years and his son staying at my place for the holidays, and his kid (22 y.o. college student) is in the midst of composing/assembling a dubstep piece using Ableton (never call it "Live," ?) his preferred platform. His dad, who used to own a studio in SF is a Pro Tools man through and through, his current rig is a Mac Pro tower with a couple of UAD cards in it. He considers anything else "hobby" grade, but has done some good work in my studio with Mixcraft and Cakewalk.

I, of course, am a Mixcraft veteran who is now in the process of learning Cakewalk, which I consider a great-sounding DAW with great-sounding plug-ins and some quirks I'm getting used to. I like it better than the demos of other DAW's I tried a few years back.

Dad is using my instruments to record a pop song, and jumped right in with Cakewalk, but would of course much rather be using PT. He was just going to record drum tracks, but the project snowballed, and he wound up staying up 'til dawn a couple of nights in a row and now has an almost finished mix with guitar, bass, and vocals. It sounds freaking killer and he took to CbB pretty easily. Unfortunately, I'm having troubles with my CbB installation because I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10 a few days ago upon learning that BL were emphasizing 10 as the preferred platform. ? The playback engine keeps quitting, and it takes about 3 seconds to start when you hit the spacebar. Separate thread.

Anyway, after looking over kid's shoulder and chatting with him, enjoying watching him work, watching his song come together, I am certain that each of us could do what the other does using our preferred DAW, but it would be clunkier and take longer.

Trevor would probably flail using Ableton to record and comp 20 tracks of audio, including the simultaneous 4 tracks for the drum kit. I'm not sure Ableton can even do  comping.

Sample management and the handling of the built-in FX rack in PT and Cakewalk is nowhere near what it is in Ableton, and neither CbB nor PT have integrated phrase samplers, so Geoff and I would be like "eeble-beeble-beeble" first trying to learn how to use a 3rd-party phrase sampler (which I have already done due to Cakewalk not having its own). Trevor would have his dubstep piece circulating amongst the hot DJ's while Geoff was still trying to find a phrase sampler compatible with AAX, and it would probably cost a fortune.

Even with the excellence of the FX that come with CbB and the ones I have acquired, I can't touch what Geoff has with his UAD cards and Ocean Way and Abbey Road whatevers and the way that he can freakin' fly over the keyboard doing comps due to his years using the Industry Standard DAW with its really slick management of lanes and takes.

Neither of them can deny the fact that the cost-to-performance ratio of my home studio flattens EITHER of their setups. VST support is excellent and mature in CbB, and that gives me a cornucopia of other great inexpensive and freeware FX to choose from. PT is AAX only, which limits what PT users have access to. We've all seen LarryC's deals, it's like trying to drink from a firehose. The EDM synths I use, Hybrid 3 and Vacuum Pro, cost me $1 each, at the same time snagging free licenses for iZotope Neutron Elements and Ozone Elements. Okay, so those all have AAX versions, but still, there are plenty I use that don't due to Avid charging (WTF?) developers to distribute in that format.

Mr. Pro Tools/UAD thinks that the ProChannel with its console and tape and compressor emulations is hot schnit, BTW.

Our direct access to Noel and Jon and Meng is amazing given how Digidesign and now Avid (who are somewhat better) treat Pro Tools users, and given the magnitude of really nasty bugs that have persisted over so many major revisions of Pro Tools. Geoff related how there was one known bug where the PT transport would just refuse to go into playback! And even the support people at Digi knew about it. It persisted across at least two MAJOR product releases. I've watched the current dev team beat the snot out of bugs in CbB. The progress is tangible. As a veteran of a couple of prominent software companies, this really matters to me. If I were on a platform that was getting whiz-bang features while bugs like that persisted, it would bring me down. I'm also fascinated by BandLab's vision for integrating CbB with their collaborative platform. It's cool to be around for that.

We all have our reasons for liking and using this DAW or that DAW. It's probably more to be celebrated that we have so much choice than to be argued over, but it's in our nature to argue over it. Fords suck and Chevys rule or vice versa, when they are both excellent American automobiles. Or Mercedes suck and Ferrari rule when they are both excellent European Formula One racing teams. A baseball pitcher is evil incarnate when he is playing for the Dodgers, but a hero after he is traded to the Giants.

I only WISH CbB had Pro Tools slick handling of takes and lanes and Ableton's handling of phrase samples and FX rack. Oh, also the playback engine that doesn't fall down on my 'puter. ?

What I always say is that the tools don't really matter, only what you do with them.

I mean if the music is good who cares what it is made with. And if it's shit, then who cares about it.

[Starise]

@Todskins, @Starship Krupa

Thanks for your thoughts on Sibleus. I will be sure to stay away from that one.  Lots of composers are using it so I figured it might be ok.

When making notation I use midi played in with few corrections. No piano roll input. This is easiest for the way I like to work.  I still find myself going back to CbB in almost every project I make. 

I had time off over the holiday so I decided to familiarize myself better with Ableton.  I am impressed with the way you can put things together in it so fast and they all lock together in perfect time. It's more like two DAWs really. Arranger view makes it easy to navigate to the sounds you need or make loops with a midi keyboard on the fly. Arrangement is drag and drop. One you have an arrangement arm all tracks and hit record. This is where the magic happens. You then record everything to the tracks view all ready to be mixed like a more standard DAW. This part of it really impressed me. What didn't impress me was the work it takes to try and round up all of my plugins. Ableton defaults to one folder for plugins. You may select another folder. This is very limiting. This all resulted in me only getting maybe 25% of my plugins and instruments scanned including a big one for me ...Kontakt. That's really the only thing about the program that bothered me.  I comped a mix in it with no problem and sent the individual tracks to CbB so I could use all my plugins and mix it a little better. 

If I'm building tracks I won't hesitate to use Ableton again for that. Studio One 4 has nothing over Ableton concerning arranging IMO.  On the notation front, if I can get deeper into the  connections in Rewire I should be able to hook Notion to any rewire equipped DAW. Many possible ideas for this including  Mixing midi in CbB, exporting to SO4 and making my notation. My preference  would be SO for that since it is so much easier to do.

I have Mixcraft 8. Didn't realize it also supports some form of notation. I plan to check that out.

 

 

[Phil The Fleshdemon]

I'm pretty much a CbB guy all the way, I was a cakewalk guy on Windows XP, and I'm probably going to be using Cakewalk for a long time. I just want to know, anyone who can point me to some new Prochannel Modules? I only have mainly whatever comes stock but I want to browse for more. I love the prochannels man, I probably don't even need more. I just want to see what else is out there. Anyways, if you happen to have some good recommendations, please send em my way.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Phil Balliet

[msmcleod]

14 minutes ago, Phil Balliet said:

I'm pretty much a CbB guy all the way, I was a cakewalk guy on Windows XP, and I'm probably going to be using Cakewalk for a long time. I just want to know, anyone who can point me to some new Prochannel Modules? I only have mainly whatever comes stock but I want to browse for more. I love the prochannels man, I probably don't even need more. I just want to see what else is out there. Anyways, if you happen to have some good recommendations, please send em my way.

The only ones available were here: http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/By-Category/ProChannel-Modules , but unless (or until) BandLab start selling the ProChannel modules again, you're out of luck.

However, don't dismiss the FX Chain functionality. 

You can effectively build your own ProChannel modules by creating an FX Chain preset from existing VST's.

[Steev]

Oh man, I believe have  all that add on modules and love them all Hopefully Meng will start selling them in the Bandlab store soon.

 I'm pretty sure you can get the Cakewalk version of the Teletronix LA2A called CA2A from Propellerhead in their Reason store and it still  will run in either ProChannel module or standalone modes.

 I also believe you can get the Softube tube saturation module from Softtubes.

These are 3rd party plugins so naturally Bandlab can't legally offer them for free.

 And yes The FX Chain module it a great way to create "Insert" points anywhere in the channel strip for any FX plugins that you do NOT want running though FX Rack because your FX rack signal is being sent pre fader directly to an aux. or buss channel.

 

[mdiemer]

22 hours ago, Starise said:

@Todskins, @Starship Krupa

 

"I have Mixcraft 8. Didn't realize it also supports some form of notation. I plan to check that out."

Mixcraft only lets you see and work on one instrument in their staff view. I would assume printing would be the same.

For notation, I recommend Notion. It has decent sounds and is very easy to learn. Also priced far below the big guys like finale and Sibelius.

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by mdiemer

[Blades]

On the old forum, I recently "ranted" just a bit about coming back over to Cakewalk after using Studio One for a while - with the complaint that there are a LOT of things that are far easier to do in Studio One for me.  Unfortunately, I placed that rant square in the middle of a thread of a different color and got shot down more for my behavior than for my opinions (and maybe rightly so, as I veered WAY off topic and got the thread locked! ?)

And it's not like I am not familiar with Cakewalk and how it works.  My observations were made from the perspective of someone who knew Sonar pretty well, defended it commonly among non-Sonar people, and STILL found Studio One superior in a Lot of ways, especially after the 4.x update brought in Drum Maps, which I really missed in 3.x after using Sonar for SO long - even having done video tutorials on using Drum Maps.

In the end, as many have stated, there are great a terrible things about Any DAW.  

I personally don't really care that much for the ProChannel.  I like the Fat Channel (with the added EQ and Compressor emulations that were recently released for free for a short period.  Still don't have all of them, but a decent selection - and they sound good.

I think I could probably create something very similar sounding in either CbB or Studio One at this point, but I think I find the process more enjoyable S1.

People keep saying "they are only tools".  I don't really agree.  Just a tool could apply to a hammer or nailgun - does that mean "just pick one and learn it and you'll get the same results"?.  I think not.  I believe that there are other factors about them:

1. The plugins that are native to each and only available there.  This isn't something you can just swap around and it changes the usage, the enjoyment, and the end result, all significantly.  Each can do their thing, but there is a difference.

2. The look, feel, and interaction can definitely assist or interfere with the recording, mixing, mastering, and even playing when they have an effect on your MOOD.  Music is SO tied to mood, it's hard to believe that "just a tool" would have an effect.

And many more - the price, the stability, the latency, the performance (on each hardware combination and each different interface, etc.

And as I said on the other forum - this Forum has a lot to do with why I am still here.  CbB being ALIVE at all certainly matters too, as if it were just Sonar, I wouldn't be using it at this point.  But the community here is stronger.  Even just getting feedback on a mix - even when created in Studio One got me more interaction here than on the Presonus forum.  I got exactly one reply there.  I got 8 here.

That's all for now.  And now I'm back to deciding which old project I should finish over here in Cakewalk, over there in Studio One, or which new one I should attempt.  Thanks for listening.

 

[Tapsa Kuusniemi]

6 hours ago, Blades said:

People keep saying "they are only tools".  I don't really agree.  Just a tool could apply to a hammer or nailgun - does that mean "just pick one and learn it and you'll get the same results"?.  I think not.  I believe that there are other factors about them:

They are only tools in the same sense that the hammer or the nailgun as neither of these will make you a better crafter. They just make the job different from the other. A carpenters skill is the thing that matters not the tool. Sure learning the tool will make things easier or smoother or faster but if you're a bad carpenter then whether you use a nailgun or a hammer doesn't really matter.

Also why I prefer to call them tools is simply this: you rarely attach emotion to tools. And DAWs tend to get people's emotions riled up. In the end you can use any DAW to create fantastic things. Hell there are still people using such advanced things as a pen and sheet paper to create music (those troglodytes, sheesh).

There have been a good number of assesments in this thread about good and bad things in different DAWs and that is great.

Quote

1. The plugins that are native to each and only available there.  This isn't something you can just swap around and it changes the usage, the enjoyment, and the end result, all significantly.  Each can do their thing, but there is a difference.

Again, these make very little difference to me. In the end a compressor is a compressor and if you don't know how to use one it doesn't really matter which one you use. And if you know how to use one then it makes very little difference what you use. Most of the plugins that are unique are not stock plugins (for the exception of Logic's Alchemy) and these you need to acquire separately. The ProChannel is native and unique to Sonar/CbB but alot of those plugins are available as VST as well. Personally I've never quite liked the ProChannel, but that is my personal preference.

What's different about most DAWs is the usability and that is a matter of personal preference. Again I can not understand how people think ProTools is in anyway a usable software but that only means that is does not suite me. It doesn't make it worse or better.

Quote

2. The look, feel, and interaction can definitely assist or interfere with the recording, mixing, mastering, and even playing when they have an effect on your MOOD.  Music is SO tied to mood, it's hard to believe that "just a tool" would have an effect. 

But those are personal preferences. Sort of like do you prefer a yellow or a black hammer. It makes you feel better but it does not make you better, you just prefer the yellow hammer. It's still the same tool. What the GUI looks like is just a coat of paint on the cover. You're still dealing with the same things underneath. I'm not saying this doesn't matter, of course it does. I still loathe how Ableton looks like with it's grey minimalist washout look. But some like it. I've heard people loathe Sonar/CbB for how it looks and avoid it because of that. It still doesn't mean that their preferred tool is better when the music is out.

What the music sounds like is and should be a reflection of your skill as an artist and not your skill at using a computer program. And that's why DAWs are tools.

Edited December 31, 2018 by Kuusniemi
Typo again.

[Gswitz]

On 12/23/2018 at 4:38 PM, Phil Balliet said:

Anyone ever try the Harrison Mixbus 32c? I know there's a trial, never tried it but I think it looks really cool.

Yes. ?????

It's ok. I use it sometimes and i have used it for live field recordings successfully. That said, I can go months without launching it.