[CLOSED] Cakewalk 2020.07 Early Access

[msmcleod]

2 hours ago, Hell_O.G. said:

I have the same problem with Behringer X-Touch One. 

When I using buit-in Mackie Control Plugin and function "Select Highligts Track" it works only for selected bank, but when I select track not in 8-track MCU bank, I need to change bank first.

With Behringer X-Touch One that have only one fader it's so uncomfortable to change bank regularly, so the function that automatically changes MCU bank when I select any track would be so cool for me.

I guess this is technically possible, but would it not put unnecessary wear on the faders, constantly changing bank?

There's also the fact that you might not be using control surface on a %8 boundary.... it's possible to shift through tracks one at a time (e.g. go from 1-8 to 2-9 etc).

[EnglandBross]

I love Channel Tool Plugin, I wait for L-Phase Series Plugin
great job , I will say here in Italy

[Hamid Reza Heidarolad]

Thank you engineers

Please improve the Groove Quantize ! how to simply introduce Midi to set Quantize  Pattern like Cubase or FL studio .

+989354880818

[Vhp Records Australia]

Thanks for the update. Unfortunately I am finding a big problem whereby the Control Surfaces are being removed when you close Cakewalk and you have to set them up again and again each time you run Cakewalk. Can you please fix this thanks

[Jim Gosselin]

Downloaded and installed this Early Release version.  ("Early" = BETA, despite what they say!)
Buggy, buggy, buggy.
Trying to work with the Multiple Arranger Section made Cakewalk freeze and had to be restarted.
Could not see any Channel Tools Plugin, or Classic Creative Suite Effects. Checked my VSTPlugins folder, and the Cakewalk Core folder, but those files were not found after installation. Glad I was able to go back to the previous version.
I have been a Cakewalk user since the TwelveTone's v.1.0 in the 80's, while a lot of you people at Bandlab were still in diapers or in your mother's tummy.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Jim Gosselin

[Olaf]

Hi,

Very happy about the update.

I'm waiting for these like a kid waiting for his mom to come home with chocolate, not necessarily because I don't have a life, but I'm really pushing my patience for the day when I could work in Cakewalk without anger, disappointment, stress or the feeling of having to walk around on eggshells, for fear it might crash, or reset my plugins, or that I would have to redo the same tedious operations that I've done 40 times (literally) for the 41st time, for the simple reason that Cakewalk doesn't store my settings, menu choices, or plugin states.

I'm afraid to change playback to a new selection of the song timeline, because it's gonna reset all my tapes, and I have to reload them all. I'm afraid to click on Back to Start while it's playing, for the same reason. To toggle a track between stereo and mono, because it might crash. To press delete on a plugin in the FX box, in the Console, because it's not gonna delete the plugin (like in does in the Track view, and like it would be normal everywhere on Earth), but it will delete my last selected wave clip in the track lanes, even though I'm in the Console view - that's happened to me - lucky thing I was able to undo it - and then have to redo all the other operations. To reopen a project, and have to redo, for the one millionth time, all the settings for the track meters, the window order and size in the docking bar to the right, that I can't even open to begin with, because the open double arrow has disappeared (SEE PHOTOS). To have to reselect the patch for a synth, because it didn't load it on start, and I've rendered my last version with a sine wave instead. To have to redo the Dry/Wet setting on a Send Delay every time, because it never remembers it on save. For my Waves plugins, that I've just bought, to never save the "Configure as tempo based effect" box unchecked. For my second soundcard to never be loaded as native 24 bit, even though EVERY OTHER program (Reason, Audition, Reaper, Windows, Winfast PVR, .nfo reports, hardware diagnostic utilities) sees it as 24 bit.

I'm so tired of all of this.

This month I've installed the Reaper Trial, to look for a replacement. Still far from Cakewalk, interface and options wise, although on some things it's better. I didn't even test the sound, I don't like the interface, although some of the custom skins might work well on a bigger monitor.

All I want is for Cakewalk to work like a... normal program. So I'm waiting anxiously for these updates, hoping that at least part of the more pressing issues will be solved, so that we can move on to the next ones, only to find that they haven't, still, and yet again.

I am happy to participate in the Early Access to throw in my two cents in solving that. I'd be happy to pay for the software (provided it's a reasonable amount, and keeping in mind the purchasing power in Romania is maybe around 9 times lower than it is in the US, by a rough calculation) only to have those solved. And I know you guys want to get to a point where you can actually restart selling this DAW, and have it bought. And it really and truly deserves to be, in concept and intentions, but not so much in materialization - and not because it doesn't provide a ton of value, but because the associated frustrations almost match that.

So, without further ado, here's my first experience with 2020.07.

• Show and edit MIDI automation on Instrument tracks. Brilliant. For the first time, I am able to delete the orphaned automations on my MIDI Drums track, that I didn't even know why they were still there. I've even asked for a solution to it, here in the Forum, and on the Facebook groups, and a few guys gave me a solution that worked limitedly, but didn't cover this problem. Now it's solved. Finally!

             You now have an easy reassign to a different parameter, including via the dropdown menu in the automation lane, which I've also asked for myself. Awesome! I don't understand why this wasn't there from moment one. It's just so intuitive. Now enough with the sweet talk.

            Downside: I can't move the automation to a different track - for instance, from the MIDI Drum track, to the Drum AUX track. Why can't I? Why do you have to make everything so uselessly complicated? Here's a thought.

            Select automation. CTRL+C. Select whatever automation lane you want, in the project - or any other project. CTRL+V. Brilliant, right?

            Additionally: Select automation. Right click. Copy automation. Go to the desired automation lane. Right click. Paste automation. Starting with the first node of the selection, at the cursor position. These two options both need to exist. Why is it so hard?

It's not hard, man. It's not hard at all. Just need a little perspective - what do I need to do with this? And not how do we make the operation "elegant,  proper, complicated, and pretentious", but how do we make it easy, fast and intuitive, with the minimum resource usage possible - mental, nervous, CPU, RAM, everything. A little American spirit, for crying out loud.

For now, I can't move the orphaned automation lanes, I will have to redraw them anyway. But at least I got rid of them on my clip. That's a plus.

            Downside: How do I delete the orphaned automations on Audio tracks, that are not listed in the Filter Edit Menu? That's still not possible. It doesn't work on Instrument and Audio Tracks ?. See below.

            BUG

           Double click on an automation node. Node is reset. Undo (either CTRL+Z or via the Edit Menu). Then the automation lane gets collapsed and hidden. Why does that happen?

            BUG

           Click on the "-" (Remove Automation Lane) button in an automation lane. It toggle closes the automation lane, but does not remove it. Why? What does "remove" mean?

           We already have a different button to toggle/close the automation lanes. Want to have a separate button to toggle close A SINGLE SPECIFIC automation lane, while leaving the rest open? OK, subtlety, refinement. Completely unnecessary, in my view, but anyway. Nothing against it. Make a new button on each lane to toggle close it specifically, and let the one called "Minus/Remove" actually REMOVE the lane. It's easier than scroll through the project, precisely right click on node, then select Delete Envelope from yet another menu, plus the button would do what it says, for a change.

            BUG

            Why doesn't the automation envelope affect its designated parameter if no Audio Output is chosen? What's one got to do with the other?

 

• Multiple Arranger Lanes

            Don't see the need for it. We already have the possibility of multiple Arrangements to choose from, in the Arrangements Section, doing the same thing, from what I gather. I might be wrong. To me it seems like time spent avoiding correcting the essentials. It's not because it doesn't have multiple Arranger tracks that Cakewalk can't go back to being a main commercial DAW in the market, it's because it crashes, resets plugins, doesn't recognize hardware, and doesn't remember saved states.

• Classic Creative Suite audio effects

            Appreciate the thoughtfulness, I'm not probably ever gonna use them. I get that they were part of FX chains, so they were needed. It's a nice gesture, no doubt. Doesn't solve the essentials, though, and that's what's killing me, and should be priority number 0, before any creativity, and nice gestures, however welcome. I'll try the Chorus, probably, although I already have a few very good ones, most of them free.

• Channel Tools plugin

            Love the stereo options. It's doing that stereo narrowing trick that might prove useful, especially on group buses, and that signal width trick that I usually get done on CLA MixHub, but I understand most people probably don't have that one.

            Want to make it even greater? Add a volume fader, and a signal RMS and Peak value indicator. This way I can monitor my signal through the chain, and automate my track volumes using it, instead of Sonalksis Free G, which does that easily, but I believe colors the sound. Don't ask me why I don't use the main track fader.

            IDEA

            Want a really good idea? Take the VU meter that exists in the Console Emulator, and put one on each track above the Input Gain, just like on a real console. This way you can watch your signal without the Console Emulator engaged (if you use something else) and the PC being open. Besides, it would look darned pretty.

           Make it toggle Pre/Post track FX and PC. One button, not yet another menu. That would be a great enhancement. It's not hard to come up with them. Like the PC settings being copied from one module to the other, which we've talked about, but, in my view was accomplished a bit clumsily. As you know, I've got about 75 more enhancement ideas, beside these ones. But I think you need to fix the essentials first.

• ‘Apply Workspace on Project Load’ option

            Very happy about this one. This way I can hope to load up projects already set up exactly the way I want them, instead of having to redo stuff every time. I would have been happy if it just automatically saved any modification, once made, in the default "None" workspace, to be loaded on every project - unless you specifically saved it with a different Workspace loaded. That would have been the better solution. Cakewalk just seems to like solving things by making them more uselessly complicated and unintuitive. Anyway, as long as it solves the problem, I'm happy. Unfortunately,

            Downside: It doesn't solve things. So not only it complicates things, it also doesn't work. Here with me, at least.

           1. The collapsed states of the One Knob PC plugins do not persist. I have to scroll through each PC and collapse everything down again, ON EVERY PROJECT LOAD, to be able to easily access the top PC modules. Problem since forever.

          2. The Show Velocity in Tracks View > MIDI unchecked option does not persist.

         3. The Side Docking Bar open/close toggle double arrow does not display at all, on load.

         4. The Show Aim Assist Time setting sometimes persists, sometimes it doesn't.

• Track view View and Options menu settings are not saved in workspaces. The Track view View and Options menu settings are global, and no longer saved in screensets or workspaces.

            Why not? How am I supposed to save these global settings, so that I don't have to redo them over and over? I haven't seen anything in the Preferences, and I've looked.

• Key binding to open soft synth on current track

            This is awesome. Seriously. Already assigned key. I've been asking for a way to Open up Synths in the Console View since forever. Great to see it finally implemented.

            This does not eliminate the necessity for my initial request though, which is open synths by clicking on the track icon, in all views. I need to be able to do this without looking for a key in the dark, or taking my hand off the mouse. Leave the key binding, it's great, also implement this feature.

            You do not need to have two ways (left click, right click) to change track icons. One is enough. Besides, they're not a priority. You DON'T change track icons every five minutes. You may need to open up synths while you're mixing every five minutes, though. Priorities. Leave the icon change for the right click, put the open synth on the left click. Easy. It takes a few program line changes.

And, by the way, it needs to do that in ALL Views, in the Track View as well, in the left side dock, and whatever other views that you may appear in the future.

Cakewalk is the only program I know where you do something one way in a a view, and an entirely different way in another. I don't get the point, don't understand the utility, and it's completely unintuitive.

Like drag and drop to reposition track, in the Track view, but ALT+drag'n drop, in the Console view. Why? Why do I need to remember all these different ways? And what's the point of those differences? What's the ALT for, when I move tracks around in the Console view? At least, I hope it's the ALT, I'm not even sure if I remember it right. And if it's needed (it's not), why is it not there in the Tracks view?

Make clicking on the large icons open synths, in all Views, and the small Track Type icon do nothing, instead, in the Track View, to make it consistent with the Console view, and not have three exclusive different ways of doing something in three different views, and need to remember all of them.

Another - why can I delete an FX plugin by pressing DEL on my keyboard, in the Track View, but I can't in the Console view, where I use them the most?

And what kind a program has you pressing DEL on a Console FX, and deleting clips in the Tracks, without even knowing? I'm not interested in an explanation - just in how that shouldn't be possible.

My conclusion so far: Lots of good intentions and thinking about some necessities, very poor accomplishment, though, and other than deleting two orphaned automations on my MIDI Drum track, and giving me a key to open Synths in the Console View, which I'm gonna use a lot (meanwhile I have found a way to bring up the Synth Rack - and the Browser - in the Console View side dock - still waiting for the click on icon option, though), it hasn't helped me with all the rest of the problems. I couldn't even delete all my orphaned automations on other tracks, including Instrument tracks.

 

So that's it for me. I've put some time and effort into this comment, as usual, as you can guess, I know you've put even more effort in the changes. I just want them to go somewhere good, reliable, easy, consistent - not just uselessly imaginative - and INTUITIVE.

You know how you know an interface is intuitive? I need to be able to do ALL the basic operations without knowing the first thing about CW, if I've worked on a DAWs before. And those operations need to be identical with the established and useful conventions, where they exist.

Like DEL. Like selecting MIDI notes with the LEFT click, not the right click, which no one does, and is clumsy. Let the right click on note/selection open up a Transpose, Stretch, Quantize, whatever, menu for that note/selection, and not have to go through three submenus to do it, like now. This is basic stuff, that is required often, and should be done effortlessly.

I know the tone might be a little harsh, that's not my intention. It's just direct. I want to see Cakewalk work, without having to worry about everything all the time. And it should.

Thanks for all your efforts.

Waiting for better updates - ones that actually solve stuff, not just purport to.

Take care.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Olaf
Random bug fixes. :)

[Vhp Records Australia]

5 hours ago, Vhp Records Australia said:

Thanks for the update. Unfortunately I am finding a big problem whereby the Control Surfaces are being removed when you close Cakewalk and you have to set them up again and again each time you run Cakewalk. Can you please fix this thanks

fixed once I rebooted Windows

[Olaf]

Addendum: while I was up in CW to document the print screens and delete those two orphaned automations, it reset all my tapes. Again. I use tapes on all the tracks, including the Master Bus. I need to reload all of them. And I need to make sure I save everything, every tiny variation I make, to have something to load. Sometimes it happens several times a session, and sometimes, when it happens on just a few tracks, and I'm tired, I might not even consciously notice it, although I usually notice, but naturally think I made a wrong move somewhere, and start modifying, only to realize all the changes I make need to me redone, because the tape was reset.

So I need to navigate like a thief at night through the various sections of the project, avoiding to change selections or mess with the transport as much as possible, because they're gonna get reset again.

Is that so hard to fix?

Please. Find out from Softube which set of instructions resets the plugin. And then look for the way CW sends those instructions to it, across different tracks at different times. This also happens, in a more limited way, to Analog Obsession Konsol.

Thanks.

[Noel Borthwick]

@Olaf thanks for talking the time to document your issues. We are definitely concerned with the essentials more than anything else so would like to work with you to get to the bottom of some of your problems. Some of them appear to be third party issues since they are not the norm.

Contact me via pm and we can look at some of these problems in more detail.

[Will.]

On 7/24/2020 at 9:43 AM, reevant said:

Well I spoke too soon.  It worked for about 30 minutes or so.  Then it froze, went belly up and now I cannot get a Vienna Smart Orchestra to work.  It might play a few bars the crashes Cakewalk big time.  It seem to actually lockup my pc for a minute or two.

Strange. It works fine by me. 

Disable your firewall, reinstall it and see how that works.

Try these steps too. 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Peter Stiens]

Strange behaviour on 2nd screen, sometimes:

I use a notebook and separate 2nd screen. 

Under at the moment unknown circumstances there is no contextual menu when I rightclick on an arranger section to remove it. Instead the frame of the contextual menu appears with no contents. Couldn't remove the desired arranger sections, so I tried dragging them back to the source pool above.  They stayed hovering over the source section. They looked transparent. Even after having closed cakewalk, they stayed on the screen for a moment before disappearing.

Unfortunately I am not able to reproduce this behaviour.

Maybe this explanation helps you finding a bug.

 

EDIT: reproduceable when adding (dragging) arranger sections from source to arrangements. Then, the dragged section is duplicated - optically - and remains. From that time, the menu, when invoked, does nor work or disappear. See screenshots.

When trying to drag the duplicated back to the source, they stay there. See last screenshot for menu behaviour. It stays over all windows applications.

A big "Thank you" to the whole cakewalk team for your good work.

Best regards

 

Peter

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Peter Stiens

[chris.r]

9 hours ago, Olaf said:

selecting MIDI notes with the LEFT click, not the right click, which no one does, and is clumsy. Let the right click on note/selection open up a Transpose, Stretch, Quantize, whatever, menu for that note/selection

Agree on this (and same with clips), don't hold my breath to see it changed, though. But an option to let you choose whether you like to select/lasso with left or right mouse click, in Preferences, would be great.

After I finish working in Cakewalk I always end up making a selection and getting a menu pop-up instead in Windows or other application. Always! ?

[Matthew Simon Fletcher]

Hi guys!

Thanks as always for a great update.

With regards to the improvements to VST loading - how is it better to load the plugin and sample seperately?  e.g is this quicker/more stable or just better in that you can more clearly see where the load is up-to?

I'm getting a strange crash which happens if load a track template, make some changes, save these as a new track template and then close cakewalk. Would you like a the dump log? I believe this was happening before hand but just wanted to draw attention to it because it's strange... the track template update does save correctly and it seems weird to crash when attempting to close the program normally. Limited impact but potentially an indicator of something not quite right.

Best wishes,
Matthew

[Mario Branchi]

13 hours ago, Olaf said:

1. Cakewalk is the only program I know where you do something one way in a a view, and an entirely different way in another. I don't get the point, don't understand the utility, and it's completely unintuitive.

Like drag and drop to reposition track, in the Track view, but ALT+drag'n drop, in the Console view. Why? Why do I need to remember all these different ways? And what's the point of those differences? What's the ALT for, when I move tracks around in the Console view? At least, I hope it's the ALT, I'm not even sure if I remember it right. And if it's needed (it's not), why is it not there in the Tracks view

----

2. You know how you know an interface is intuitive? I need to be able to do ALL the basic operations without knowing the first thing about CW, if I've worked on a DAWs before. And those operations need to be identical with the established and useful conventions, where they exist.

Like DEL. Like selecting MIDI notes with the LEFT click, not the right click, which no one does, and is clumsy. Let the right click on note/selection open up a Transpose, Stretch, Quantize, whatever, menu for that note/selection, and not have to go through three submenus to do it, like now. This is basic stuff, that is required often, and should be done effortlessly.

I agree with you on both points.

I can't understand, for example, why the smart tool works differently in the PRV and the Staff View. To delete a note in the PRV you have to right-click on it, while right-clicking in Staff View brings up the Note Properties window. To show the Note Properties Window in PRV, you have to double click on a note, which does nothing in Staff View.

In 2020.07, despite the advancements in Staff View, to create a note in PRV you have to double click or click-drag with the left mouse button, while in Staff View you just have to single click, which, by the way, doesn't clear the selection as it does in PRV.

Right-clicking should be reserved to the context menu, since it's standard Windows behaviour and lasso-selecting should be done with a left-click.

In my opinion, a good choice for both editors could be:

left double click: create note/delete note

left click on a note: select the note

left click on empty space: clear selection

left click and drag: lasso select

right click: show the context menu

The Note Properties window could be an entry "Properties" in the context menu or bound to something like shift-double-click

It's debatable and maybe there are better choices than my suggestions, but I think that the mouse actions should be rethought to be more standardized and consistent between the two views.

 

 

[chris.r]

Apologise in advance cause I realize we're getting off topic with this, but...

1 hour ago, Mario Branchi said:

left double click: create note/delete note

you want to create a melody the dirty quick and simple way so inserting a note *SHOULD* be a single click

[Cédric Lawde]

I wanted to modify a detail in the system preferences, and looking for where the appropriate checkbox was, I found a bug that closes CbB.

It's happen only in French, not in the English version.

Here are the screenshots:

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Cédric Lawde

[user 905133]

On 7/23/2020 at 2:45 PM, Morten Saether said:

Track view View and Options menu settings are not saved in workspaces

The Track view View and Options menu settings are global, and no longer saved in screensets or workspaces.

This change prevents global settings from being overwritten when applying a workspace.

I want to make sure I understand this.  (1) Are you are saying that Workspaces are no longer as flexible as they were? (2) Are you saying that the new Worskpaces mean previous Workspaces will no longer give me what I want? (3) Are you saying that (among other things) these will no longer be saved and/or restored via customized Workspaces (all areas boxed in, not just Meter Options):

In other words, for example, if I have some Workspaces that use vertical track meters and other that use horizontal track meters, I will no longer have this flexibility after 2020.05?

 

[Michael Wells]

I can't thank you enough for fixing both the "stoppage" when I copy FX from one channel to another and assigning outputs while the DAW is running.  Not only that but you also fixed the problem that while the DAW is running I could  not get it to stop when hitting the space bar. It would run until the graphics caught up with the stop command and sometimes it wouldn't stop until the song was finished playing. GOD BLESS YOU !!! Keep up the good work because I do this professionally (28 years) and I've used Cakewalk Sonar since 1994 and these past problems had me looking at other DAWS to replace you. I currently use Cakewalk exclusively for all my projects because of the way it sounds and functions. You should research the article regarding Terry Howard and Ray Charles. He wouldn't use digital recording because he didn't like the sound and he had very critical tastes when it came to making his records. HE could hear the difference and chose only Cakewalk (Sonar) to work with after audutioning All of the major DAWS available. Again, Thank you so much

Michael Wells

Engineer/Producer/Musician

[Will.]

On 7/23/2020 at 8:45 PM, Morten Saether said:

Classic Creative Suite audio effects

The Classic Creative Suite is made up of powerful and easy to use Cakewalk effects including Alias Factor, Classic Phaser, Compressor/Gate, HF Exciter, Modfilter, Multivoice Chorus/Flanger, Para-Q, and Tempo Delay.

 

Channel Tools plug-in

The Channel Tools plug-in provides easy and powerful channel processing for gain, Mid-Side decoding, delay and stereo panning.

Channel Tools is ideal for enhancing and adjusting stereo separation for stereo tracks and full mixes.

 

Great to have these visible again. ?

Awesome seeing the Channel Tool again. Would love to see an update on the UI's of these though. It's extremely hard to use them from a far on a bigger screen/monitor. 

Maybe a resize option for now on all UI's?

Great job on the updates team.?

[Xoo]

17 hours ago, chris.r said:

Agree on this (and same with clips), don't hold my breath to see it changed, though. But an option to let you choose whether you like to select/lasso with left or right mouse click, in Preferences, would be great.

After I finish working in Cakewalk I always end up making a selection and getting a menu pop-up instead in Windows or other application. Always! ?

There is some logic: in Track View, the assumption is that the default selection is via time, so left drag does time selection and right drag does clip (touch) selection.  This trickles down to other views.

But I do agree in principle that left-drag should be select (and right click properties) by default, as these are Windows standards.