this program is NOT User Friendly.

[msmcleod]

On 4/14/2021 at 5:30 PM, InstrEd said:

I do think that every Junior High school student should now have to pass a basic course in coding in say Python.  Just so they have an idea of what goes into programming an application. It would be good for them.  

They should then get them to reimplement what they've done in C++, then they'd have a better idea of what goes into programming a DAW ?

[InstrEd]

9 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

They should then get them to reimplement what they've done in C++, then they'd have a better idea of what goes into programming a DAW ?

Now you're asking too much. Plus you don't want to lose your job to a young whipper snapper do you Mark? 

 

[Terry Kelley]

I vote for Forth!

Pop

Push

Dup

Swap

Word

Take that C!

[Xoo]

Forth is useful if you want to write CAL ?

[msmcleod]

1 hour ago, Kevin Perry said:

Forth is useful if you want to write CAL ?

I think you mean Lisp, which CAL is loosely based on.... although some time using Forth is useful for making you feel relieved when you go back to writing CAL.

[Xoo]

Doesn't CAL use RPN which Forth also used?

[Cristiano Sadun]

12 hours ago, msmcleod said:

They should then get them to reimplement what they've done in C++, then they'd have a better idea of what goes into programming a DAW ?

Every time I go back doing something in C++ (last week, it'd been a year since last time) I'm stumped on how the language makes even the simplest thing so incredibly complex and error-prone. What seemed so good in 1992 definitely no longer does! Bit like tape  Still fast as hell though, so occasionally worth it.

[msmcleod]

1 hour ago, Kevin Perry said:

Doesn't CAL use RPN which Forth also used?

Yes is does, but then so did old HP calculators.  The syntax of Forth is very different to Lisp . In Lisp the expressions use RPN, but Forth is completely stack based so everything is RPN including all the statements. 

I used Forth for a bit in the early to mid 80's. It was near impossible to do anything of any size, and every change affected the whole program as it would change the push/pop balance. You could write modules, but everything had to be done bottom -up. With the exception of a few neat graphics routines, Forth made assembly language programming look like bliss.
 

[Xoo]

I dabbled with Forth about then too - I don't think I ever achieved anything of note in it!

[User 905133]

5 hours ago, msmcleod said:

With the exception of a few neat graphics routines, Forth made assembly language programming look like bliss.

This brings back long-forgotten memories.  I had both the HESWare Forth cartridge and the C-64 Macro Assembler and you are 100% right! For me MIDI data processing in C-64 asm was straight forward and very doable; trying to do anything  in Forth required greater skills than I wanted to develop at the time.

5 hours ago, Kevin Perry said:

I dabbled with Forth about then too - I don't think I ever achieved anything of note in it!

Yup!!

[reko tomo]

On 4/10/2021 at 6:29 PM, msmcleod said:

...

 

Dear Sir msmcleod,

Now I learn new things in the new Cakewalk from you.
I will watch the video link from you.

To be honest, this new Cakewalk is addictive for me.
It made me sleep so late many times because I try this try that, what is this & that button and what it will do, what is VST - how to use it, etc etc etc... there are soooo much things I'm eager to know. 

After a week, at least some of the "old" things which I'm used to do in the old Cakewalk - now I know on how to do those in the new Cakewalk. Still many things to learn.

Thank you very much for your patient, explanation, pictures and times to help me.

Edited April 17, 2021 by reko tomo

[reko tomo]

On 4/12/2021 at 8:22 AM, John Vere said:

But the---  I was told to not waste my money on Movie studio and try the Free Resolve video editor. I spent a good 3 hours before finally giving up. I couldn't get anywhere and I watched tutorials which were not ever about what I wanted to do.. and tried the help files. I could not  add new tracks , add texts edit anything.

? .... I'm sorry, I'm out of topic, just want to share that what you experience is similar to me.
I'm used to use Adobe Premiere, then I read in the internet everybody say Resolve is much better and free.
So I downloaded it, after spend hours and hours, I give up. Resolve's UI made me headache ??.

[jzznup]

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

[Cookie Jarvis]

If you're going to make music with a computer you should -

1 Have some idea how music works

2 Have some idea how a computer works

If you have these basic DAW skills you're well on your way!

Bill

[Jerry Gerber]

On 9/9/2020 at 10:47 PM, thatoneXman said:

I'm a New User, and I have been screwing around with cakewalk for the past 4 hours, and so far, I hate it, mostly because the Interface is Incomprehensible. is this the case for Other Users? it is for me. sorry.

"To Each His Own" seems to be the maxim when it comes to DAWS.  I've been composing and producing in Cakewalk for 30 years.  I've worked also in Digital Performer, Cubase and have studied Reaper and Pro Tools.   I've yet to find a DAW that is as great as Cakewalk.  It has features that no other DAW has (color coded event list, instrument definitions, incredibly flexible docking) and on my i7 Windows 10 machine it's solid as a rock.  

DAWs are complex software.  Recording and editing audio and MIDI and handling VSTs is what we're asking and expecting DAWs to do well, and it's amazing to me, even after 30 years of daily use, how well they work.  But there's a learning curve; it's not like downloading a web browser and learning how to use it in 15 minutes.   DAWS handle copying, cutting and pasting music, tempo and meter changes, dealing with large audio files and volume envelopes--to download a DAW and expect to understand it in a few hours is a bit unrealistic.

That being said, I have never found a DAW that A) looks as beautiful as Cakewalk's interface, and B) handles complex operations while at the same time making it seem simple for the musician using it.    All I can suggest is read the manual, use Google search for help and continue to post on this forum.  Above all, take some deep breaths and be a bit patient.  If you do those things, you might discover the elegance and power of Cakewalk.

Jerry

 

 

 

[Byron Dickens]

The OP is long gone, and this thread was long dead until some necromancer brought it back to life.

[JoseC]

1 hour ago, bdickens said:

The OP is long gone, and this thread was long dead until some necromancer brought it back to life.

The Walking Thread! ??

[Starship Krupa]

On 4/16/2021 at 12:21 AM, Kevin Perry said:

Doesn't CAL use RPN which Forth also used?

 

On 4/16/2021 at 1:55 AM, msmcleod said:

Yes is does, but then so did old HP calculators.

Ah, RPN calculators. They were my first introduction to the way (many) engineers think about things vs. regular people. It was 35 years ago, when HP still made them, of course, and I was just getting started in the hardware electronics industry (incl. Orban and Nady).

I was (among other duties) a draftsman, and one day I needed a calculator to perform some simple multiplication and trig problems, and had left my trusty TI-30 at home.

I asked an engineer friend if I could borrow a calculator and he handed me his HP. Imagine my surprise. I brought it back to him and told him I had no idea how to get any useful results out of the thing. He swore up and down to the Earth and stars that HP calculators with RPN were "way better" than TI's with their algebraic entry.

I was bemused for years about this, and similar exchanges took place between me and other engineers. Finally, an engineer colleague, upon my asking him why engineers would think that calculators with input systems that were impossible for at least 99% of the population to grasp were "better" than ones that almost any grade schooler could get results from. He explained what I had suspected, that for figuring out certain things (I think he referred to calculus), they kicked butt, but you also had to first have an understanding of the advanced math they were made for. I still can't get my head around "base 8." A friend of mine who became a nuclear power teaching engineer for the US Navy gave me a way to get myself through the tests by counting on my fingers, I think.

This whole thing helped me a great deal in most of the disciplines I entered after that. It helped me as a software QA engineer dealing with programmers, with electronics engineers dealing with them, as a musician dealing with differences in taste between me and other musicians, all over the place.

With a lot of things, due to the great variety of people and their great variety of needs, there is no "best" or sometimes even "better." There are people with a variety of needs and there is a variety of solutions.

As much as I dig Cakewalk, I might not recommend it to a young person who wants to learn how to produce EDM. Ableton Live! or FL Studio might be better, if they could afford them. Obviously, if someone wants to work on the Mac platform, Cakewalk is not in the picture at all, and they have access to Garage Band.

[Michael Vogel]

I thought CAL was deprecated quite a while ago and Cakewalk would only support the few scripts that came in the installer. 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Michael Vogel

[Clovis Ramsay]

Cakewalk is a virtual mixing mothership built for an engineers list of things one may desire if one found a lamp with a genie inside.  However, Cakewalk is no longer a fast intuitive platform for songwriters with minimal knowledge and comfort using a mixing board and outboard hardware.   There is nothing worse than needing to remain in a constant flow state when writing a song and it all comes crashing to a halt because we spend so much time looking under every rock in the canyon for a feature that intuitively makes since, maybe you have seen other platforms in for other creative sectors utilize very intuitive processes that make Creating so much more productive and exciting.  

Im sorry to say that I write music outside of Cakewalk but when it comes to mixing and mastering, I wouldn't succeed without Cakewalk.  It use to be creator and songwriter focused back in late 90s-2005 as it wasn't common for everyone to have home recording studios.  As soon as Roland acquired Cakewalk, they were trying to take the success of their digital recording consoles and offer a DAW that was already superior to their rather clunky and stone aged "VS" mixing software.  It was built into every VS console and IT WAS THE DOWNFALL of one of the best small factor digital recording consoles every made.  

SO they pumped a ton of cash in a redesign of SONAR which is still what it looks like today 10 years later.  And it became super engineer "audio school" student with a BS degree in "Audio Production" centric that only someone who would spend $50k to learn how to copy and paste and quantize and where to stick that one funny looking plug at, could properly utilize SONAR.    

So once Cakewalk was no longer a Cakewalk for the songwriter to use, DAWs such as Studio One came up and thats where they really excel at doing.  Providing drag and drop, user intuitive functions that eliminates the need for a patient and technical brain.