Listening to Play Head

[Gaseous G]

I am completely new to the world of DAW after being analog for 40 years. Is it possible to listen to the "tape" scrolling past the play head in a manual mode? Old school example: Play head is live and the reels are spun by hand to listen for that certain spot where the cut is going to happen. I think I've clicked and right clicked every menu and region of Cakewalk to no avail. What button am I missing?

[Eric Brad]

This is called "Scrubbing" in the DAW world.  Here's a link to the docs on how to use the "Scrub" tool.

CAUTION!  I just tried this and I get a "white screen" fail if the audio engine is running.  This has been reported in other threads here.  It seems to work for some and not for others.
 

http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Tools.17.html

Hope that helps.

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Eric Brad

[Jim Fogle]

@Gaseous G, thanks for asking the question.  I've often wondered about this myself.  As you mentioned it's a handy editing tool and very prominent in the analog world of reel-to-reel tape decks and hardware based DAWs.  But evidently not so prominent in the software DAW.  It's a shame you asked the question in the forum's Tutorial section instead of the forum's Question and Answer (Q&A) section. 

@Eric Brad, thanks for the answer and the documentation link.  I can't wait to try using it.  Hopefully Cakewalk by Bandlab has had enough "fixes" applied to not crash from my beginner effort.  However, Bakers beware!  I know how to capture a crash file and report it to Support. 

[slartabartfast]

On 5/25/2021 at 6:20 PM, Eric Brad said:

This is called "Scrubbing" in the DAW world. 

Actually, the term scrubbing was inherited from the analog world. The act of dragging the tape across the play head, usually requiring a back and forth action to locate the exact spot, was seen as analogous (no pun intended) to scrubbing to clean something.

[Roger Wicks]

slartabartfast - you're really showing your age

[John Vere]

If you even have a basic understanding of how a daw retrieves the audio playback data from your hardware you might expect it to freak out when you do that 

[slartabartfast]

On 5/25/2021 at 6:20 PM, Eric Brad said:

CAUTION!  I just tried this and I get a "white screen" fail if the audio engine is running.  This has been reported in other threads here.

I imagine scrubbing on a tape recorder with the transport running would also cause problems.