Cakewalk needs new young users::.

[MisterX]

2 hours ago, Tezza said:

(...) Bandlab is like the first generation but on-line, which makes it new and interesting and captures a particular market. Cakewalk is like the second generation, very good for integrating hardware and recording real instruments alongside typical  DAW uses, however, there is lots of competition here between DAW manufacturers. But the third generation is mainly captured by FL Studio and Ableton Live, Bitwig etc. What on earth will the 4th generation be doing.

 

It'll be a self-composing, self-listening  and self-reviewing, fully autonomic iDAW.

[Craig Anderton]

Regarding updates, I think it's a binary decision - keep everything updated, or nothing updated. The eLicenser is indeed problematic, but just reinstall the software and you're back in action.  Same with iLok. Native Access and Waves Central update automatically, which is great.  When you open them, they often update themselves before proceeding.

Also be aware that you can roll back Windows updates...wait a week or two, and try again.

I know how frustrating it is to have something that once worked all of a sudden not work. 99% of the time, I just need to check for updates in whatever is causing the problem. It's also worth checking the drivers. For the other 1%, there's nothing I can do - like when it took forever for Propellerheads to develop a 64-bit ReWire library. I had gone from a 32-bit to 64-bit OS, and all I could do was sit around and wait.

A final piece of advice: getting frustrated makes solving the problem less likely. Take a deep breath, and think for a bit - if you're having problems with the eLicenser, re-install the eLicenser software. If an audio interface is acting up, check for new drivers. The solutions are out there, and finding them shouldn't be too much of a speed bump. At least it's less of a speed bump than aligning your tape bias and EQ every time you load a new reel of tape  

The reality is that recording systems always required maintenance. The big studios had techs, so the artists didn't have to think about it. Now, you have to be your own tech. That definitely interferes with making music, but it's the price you pay for having the equivalent of a $250,000 physical studio sitting on a hard drive.

 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Young people won't naturally gravitate to Cakewalk because the workflow doesn't support how kids are making thier music. 

[Larry Jones]

22 hours ago, mdiemer said:

I actually received death-threats because I dared to criticize windows 10.

Watch your back, man. Those Microsoft death squads are everywhere.

[Will.]

On 5/29/2021 at 4:50 AM, chris.r said:

Just took a short break from dealing with another forced Win10 mayhem and only came back to attest a disaster. The so called feature update broke too many plugins, my Steinberg plugins and apps are no longer working because probably e-licenser is now broken. Many plugins have got their authorizations cancelled, some of them crash Cakewalk now. A few apps suddenly not working and even hard to say where to start with repairing. Sandboxie broken, no more safe browsing. Also I've lost some tabs I'm used to keeping open for convenience along with some other info that's got lost as well. It's just proving this OS can only be stable for max a couple of months, not years as it used to be for me.

I have no idea how do you guys cope with it. I'm only several months on Win10 and already having enough of it. I really had it kept in default settings as much as I could, didn't help. It was fairly fresh install, still is. No way I'm the only one getting such trouble, am I? Ok, now back to jumping through hoops to get the e-licenser stuff and other plugins working again. This is all sad.

I sincerely feel sorry for every user that has to deal with similar issues now since Windows 10. And all devs that have to deal with fixes every couple month because of a new Windows 10 feature update, especially if they are trying keeping their software compatible win 64-bit AND 32-bit, Win10 AND Win7 (sometimes even XP), Win AND Mac OS (sometimes also Linux), intel AND now Arm processor, etc... they are heroes.

Lucky you who do not experience all that.

Wow! You have a lot of problems with your OS. Which build are you on? 

Try this: Click here

And definitely watch this video. A MUST!!! 

That windows defender? It's a pain in the butt! I've been disabling for 2 years now and smooth running here ever since. 

[chris.r]

7 hours ago, jackson white said:

9 hours ago, Tezza said:

What on earth will the 4th generation be doing.

Watching AI doing something called music creating my song ?

fixed it for you!  

Edited June 3, 2021 by chris.r

[Larry Jones]

On 5/29/2021 at 3:05 AM, Starship Krupa said:

...these youngsters who consider forums to be an outdated form of community information exchange, what platform(s) are they using in place of them?

I saw an episode of the Netflix series "Song Exploder" (a show where they pick a recording and document its evolution from first concept to finished production). The artist in this episode was Dua Lipa (25-year-old multiple Grammy winner), and in the first ten minutes literally everyone they introduced was identified as "co-writer." Later we meet her choreographer and her "vocal producer," who coaches her through the recording of the final vocal track. There were at least five co-writers and an even larger ensemble of producers, helpers, advisers and so on. Maybe the kids don't need forums, because they have a floating in-person forum surrounding them through the entire process, with everyone making suggestions and sharing ideas more or less continuously.

When I was starting to learn my craft, such as it is, there were some songwriting teams consisting of two people (Gamble and Huff,  Lennon and McCartney), and of course I knew about the Tin Pan Alley writing teams of the 1930s. But pop songwriting seemed to me to be primarily a solitary occupation, one person alone in a room with a guitar or a piano. So I found this level of group participation a bit odd. I guess the younger generations are more generous with their songwriting credits, or maybe they see the craft as a more collaborative thing. Good for them. Their productions are amazing, although the songs themselves seem a little, shall we say, unfocused.

Oh -- the computer screens in the background seemed to show they were using Pro Tools, a traditional DAW.

[chris.r]

Great advises guys, thanks for all kind and helpful words. I have solved some of plugin issues by re-adding their license information back or reinstalling, took a bit of time have to admit. Didn't have any time yet to check if any user data like presets is missing.

The eLicenser issue I seem to solve although not sure how, I just tried every function that had anything in common with words like "maintenance" or "recover" etc, LOL, didn't work straight away but a couple of consecutive starting Wavelab made it through, though I'm not feeling confident the way it worked. Only time will tell.

There are still some plugins left untreaten, from a lack of power or is it motivation, especially those that crash Cakewalk. I assume they are missing some dependencies or user data since the update. I will back to them after doing some treatment and recovery to myself first.

Edited June 2, 2021 by chris.r

[Tezza]

That soft e-licencer from Steinberg is terrible. I put my Steinberg authorizations on the Dongle to avoid that. Don't really like the Dongle either but it is the only option out of 2 bad options.

7 hours ago, jackson white said:

AI?

 

7 hours ago, MisterX said:

It'll be a self-composing, self-listening  and self-reviewing, fully autonomic iDAW.

Yes, there will be three options, choose key, choose style, press "Make Song" button.

[Craig Anderton]

8 hours ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Young people won't naturally gravitate to Cakewalk because the workflow doesn't support how kids are making thier music. 

Not all people under 30 listen to, or make, the same kind of music, nor do they all need the same type of workflow. Just because FL Studio and Ableton Live are doing well doesn't mean that Pro Tools, Logic, Studio One, etc. stopped selling. Part of this is because the overall market size increases over time. New people are getting into this world faster than old people are dying off :)

[Byron Dickens]

12 hours ago, Tezza said:

What on earth will the 4th generation be doing.

Playing vintage instruments and recording actual performances.

[Byron Dickens]

On 6/1/2021 at 3:10 PM, mdiemer said:

I actually received death-threats because I dared to criticize windows 10. 

Death threats? Really?

[RobertWS]

1 hour ago, bdickens said:

Death threats? Really?

I like Windows 10.

It is a fine product.

I am a happy content person.

 

[jackson white]

6 hours ago, Larry Jones said:

everyone they introduced was identified as "co-writer."

(I really really know better than to do this but,.. here's an extended bit on the topic from a few years back. )

From the BBC today.  

BBC: "How many people does it take to write a hit song?"

me: one.

BBC: "...it now takes an average of 4.53 writers to create a hit single."

me: ???

BBC:  " ...the music industry puts the infinite monkey theorem to the test, detaining dozens of producers, musicians and "top-liners" (melody writers) and forcing them to create an endless array of songs, usually for a specific artist."

me: hahahahaha. "infinite monkey theorem" indeed. the music industry has become a Planet of the Apes sequel?  i thought there were already enough of those.

me: (thinking....) the Brill Building/Motown/etc. might be considered the equivalent of their time, but they wrote some really good songs. what else you got? 

BBC: "People don't make albums any more."

me: what does that have to do with monkeys? 

BBC: "They make 11, 12 songs and put them out as an album, but they feel like a greatest hits, or a playlist."

me: the "record" industry was initially built on 45s/singles. perhaps we're just seeing the turn of the digital worm? 

BBC: "And then there's the issue of homogenisation. ... A strong identity (is) something you can't say (about) a record full of co-writes."

me: with the notable exception of iconic voices (Frank, Barbara, Adele, etc.) the difference between a one hit wonder and an artistic identity used to be a body of work anchored with some strong hits. the 'album' cuts were often the substance of some deeper social commentary (e.g. Stevie Wonder/Inner Visions). 

BBC: "Crucially, an artist needs to stamp their identity on an ...'endless arrays of songs' "

me: how do they do that when it's all monkey work? 

BBC: "(It's) a skill..."

me: really? all an 'artist' has to do these days is pick through a pile of songs written by a bunch of monkeys to decide which one is -their- identity? 

David Byrne: "Same as it ever was." 

me: in the days before relentless visual overload, songs were in many cases selected by a producer to match a singers voice/image and a market for -record- sales which could potentially sustain a career. (again re Brill/Motown/etc)

however... music became meaningful when it went deeper than 'pop' platitudes and socially mandated norms. the engagement was strong enough to inspire people to make a difference. Not accept things as they are.

me: noting that shilling for some commercial product has become acceptable these days, perhaps even desirable whereas in the not so distant past, an artist would have been roundly disparaged as a "sellout"

me: the issue for a musician becomes, 'Are you an entertainer or an artist?'

me: an "artist" uses their medium to connect with a sentinent audience, enrich their existence and inspire a deeper contribution to humanity. 

me: an entertainer serves to distract an audience from a life of shallow expectations and provide some relief from the unfortunate crush of reality

me: so what about the money?

BBC: "If you have 13 writers on a song, each of them gets a slice of the royalties"

me: monkeys get paid??!!

me. makes music sound like disposable designer goods. streaming has pretty much done an ISIS on album concepts. and along with it the royalties for "album" cuts which were part of the price of an album with the potential for an income to sustain a career in music.  and here i was thinking the recent retro/lumbersexual trend was evidence that what music sounded like counted at least as much as looks.

me. so... the bulk of the "music industry" is dominated by designer goods, marketed via visual channels?

David Byrne. "Same as it ever was." 

me. if music has devolved to designer good/commodity status, it's lost it's magic/value for me

me. and for a vast number of musicans, the dream of a sustainable career has been reduced to chasing the elusive cash cow of social media

me. or am i confusing the difference between "entertainment" and "art"?

me. so what about the monkeys?
 

(Link to the original article so you can see things were quoted out of context. 
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39934986)

[Starship Krupa]

Ecclesiastes 1:9 "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

The Buggles "There's no technology to make up a song."

When I was born in 1961, the musical entertainment industry was ruled by singers who were told by their handlers what to record and perform, these "A&R men" as they were called at the time controlled every aspect, hiring the musicians, choosing the studio, choosing the songs, hiring the arranger(s). There was no assumed correlation between being a great singer/performer and songwriting or even musical ability beyond voice. If the performers managed to become successful enough to exert leverage, they could negotiate choosing their own repertoire

Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland and Elvis Presley had supreme mastery of one instrument, which was voice. All of them could sit down at a piano and make it work, but virtuosos none. Sinatra and Garland never (to my knowledge) wrote a note. They hired the people who were the best at it. Presley has songwriting credits, but his manager was famous for buying songs outright and including the clause that the writers would give all credit to Presley, so who knows how much he actually came up with.

Nobody gave a crap about where the particular input came from, good singing was good singing and the writing and arranging and playing was good and it didn't have to all be the same person doing it. My favorite pair-up from this era is probably Sinatra and Gordon Jenkins with all the great songs on September of My Years.

I'm oversimplifying the evolution and leaving out but when the massive boom of teenaged kids came along, they got interested in music that "spoke" to the experience of being a teenager, with the usual feelings of confusion, anger, rebellion, and aimlessness. Jazz, Blues, and their descendant, Rock then came to the forefront and elbowed everything else out, became "the music industry."

The kids wanted to see young-looking people who wrote songs and played instruments. Bob Dylan, who wrote lyrics vague enough that you could make them take on a meaning personal to the listener. The Beatles, who started out being very direct, then started listening to Dylan and adopted his lyric sense.

All this started to be considered "authenticity," and artists who happened not to also be songwriters were considered somehow less authentic. There were plenty of artists in this rock era who still operated in the earlier fashion, but they've been relegated in music history (see Three Dog Night). The discussion we're into now is shot through with our (I have them, too) ingrained prejudices about "authenticity."

The thing is, as Pink Floyd pointed out " It's alright we told you what to dream. You dreamed of a big star. He played a mean guitar...." The image and presentation of these rebellious rock heroes was just as crafted as that of the artists who preceded them, maybe more so because "authenticity" is more difficult to fabricate and maintain.

Brian Epstein took the leather-jacketed rockabilly ***** Beatles and gave them the ***** eye for the straight guy makeover, early 60's London style. Cute moptop haircuts, tailored collarless suits. 50-odd years later, my favorite pair of shoes is my Chelsea boots, the style that Epstein customized to turn into the famous Beatle Boot. Their iconic drummer, who has probably inspired millions to take up the instrument (including me) was replaced on their first couple big label sessions. (NOT by Bernard Purdie)

Dua Lipa's job is to be the best singer and dancer she can be, and presumably to be smart about hiring the other talent (or she's hired a smart person who can do that). It's not her job to write lyrics and music or learn how operate any part of the studio other than the mic. More power to her if she does.

The songwriting credits is because musician/producer/songwriter A has a cool set of changes, m/p/s B comes up with an awesome breakdown (I have two songs right now that have been waiting for months for my 60-year-old brain to come up with breakdowns), m/p/s C has a great suggestion for a bridge, the lyrics may have multiple authors, etc. Also, songwriter credits are often given out as pure compensation these days (which is not new either) because there's no other mechanism for people in certain critical roles to get paid. It's like actors and crew taking "points" on a film in lieu of cash payment. It also helps them get work with other artists. So if you're capping on multiple people getting songwriter credits, you might be capping on hardworking/talented people getting compensated. The thing is, it's hard work to make money in music these days, and it takes a lot of people to put together a package that the masses are going to like.

In the past, the multiple people involved in recordings got onetime payouts as "work for hire." Session players who had more musical chops than the artists they were backing would come up with hooks and melodies during the sessions that made the songs (see Carole Kaye on "California Girls"), pick up their check for a few hundy and be pleased when they heard themselves on million-selling singles. Clare Torry improvised for the length of a song over a set of chord changes on Dark Side of the Moon and got paid 30 pounds. There is no "The Great Gig in the Sky" without her performance. She had to fight for a writing credit and royalties, and only got it 30 years later. (interesting story: she did her thing, the band and Parsons were awed into near silence, and she figured that their lack of spoken approval meant that she had botched the gig)

One more thing: about whatever good old days we may be comparing today's pop music to, our brains tend to filter out things that we didn't like from the past because, hey why hang on to "Havin' My Baby," "You Light Up My Life," and "Muskrat Love?" But those hits from my childhood sold way way way more than anything put out by Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, or Pink Floyd. They even beat Fleetwood Mac in terms of sales of a single. I've noticed a musical cognitive error of comparing today's mainstream to the underground of our youth. Sure, cognoscenti music from 50 years ago sounds better than bubblegum pop of today, but there was bubblegum pop 50 years ago that sucked just as bad. And there's plenty of great new music out there today for those who aren't too lazy to dig it up. 40 years ago I was putting effort into digging up great obscure cognoscenti music, ordering Japanese imports of stuff you couldn't get in the states, etc.. Singles? Nothing under 12" thanks. If I turn on some TV awards show and the wind-up doll singer-dancers look like a joke compared to my favorites from back then, well, TV awards shows have always been like that and likely always will.

Now, I can go on Bandcamp and be overwhelmed by the amount of great music currently being produced. South American Acid Cumbia, anyone? There's too much of it for me to take in! An overload of excellent, innovative, wildly creative music in so many genres.

[Jesse Screed]

OY Vey

[Craig Anderton]

14 hours ago, bdickens said:

Death threats? Really?

I think it may have been a misinterpretation of "death thread," as in "Windows 10 threads have been beaten to death"

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

16 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

Not all people under 30 listen to, or make, the same kind of music, nor do they all need the same type of workflow. Just because FL Studio and Ableton Live are doing well doesn't mean that Pro Tools, Logic, Studio One, etc. stopped selling. Part of this is because the overall market size increases over time. New people are getting into this world faster than old people are dying off

 

[Larry Jones]

15 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

All this started to be considered "authenticity," and artists who happened not to also be songwriters were considered somehow less authentic.

 

19 hours ago, jackson white said:

an "artist" uses their medium to connect with a sentient audience, enrich their existence and inspire a deeper contribution to humanity.
me: an entertainer serves to distract an audience from a life of shallow expectations and provide some relief from the unfortunate crush of reality

Haha. Bob Dylan in 1965:
Do you think of yourself primarily as a singer or a poet?
Oh, I think of myself more as a song and dance man, y’know.

I'm with Bob: If you're not entertaining, no one will know (or care) if you're authentic or an artist.

 

[Starship Krupa]

All right, 45 years ago, how many of the top 10 songs were disco? Let's take a look at the year end Billboard chart:

1"Silly Love Songs"Wings

2"Don't Go Breaking My Heart"Elton John & Kiki Dee

3"Disco Lady"Johnnie Taylor

4"December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)"The Four Seasons

5"Play That Funky Music"Wild Cherry

6"Kiss and Say Goodbye"The Manhattans

7"Love Machine"The Miracles

8"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"Paul Simon

9"Love Is Alive"Gary Wright

10"A Fifth of Beethoven"Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band

I'd say about half, not necessarily by "disco artists," but I'm going to count the veteran acts on the chart that were there with dance tunes.

Dang, that's cool that "Love Is Alive" made the top 10. That is such a great song. How many of the others would you change the station on if they came on the car radio? If I never hear "Silly Love Songs" "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart," or "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" again, it would be fine with me. Not that they're bad songs, I have just heard them more than enough to last me.

Anyway, did this mean that the young musicians of the day were all striving to become disco artists? I don't think so. Young musicians were listening to and emulating the kind of music they always do, which is underground cognoscenti stuff that gets nowhere near the charts and older fundamental artists. I can tell you that for my part, I was into Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, and just a few years from getting into Talking Heads, Buggles, Joe Jackson, X, and the like.

If the bakerzoids had the prescience to predict what kind of music kids were going to want to buy in a year or two, they would be running record labels. They're not, though, I daresay. All they can do is listen for what people want most, keep an eye on the other DAW's to see what features seem hot, and then decide which ones will be the most useful to the widest number of people, or give Cakewalk the most prestige, or whatever is driving feature development.

I think the hip hop crew have SPOKEN when it comes to the #1 feature that would help Cakewalk be useful for producing those styles of music: gotta have that built-in sampler or sample track or similar. I suspect that most of us who work with samples would love to have such a thing. Having used Mixcraft, which has 2 flavors of built-in sampler, I can say it really makes things go faster and more smoothly. Select some audio, right click, Send To Sampler, bang.

A long, hard look at drum composition workflow in the Piano Roll is in order, too. I can make beats in PRV, but it always feels like I'm using a tool that was really designed for something else. It's a pain the neck to get it displaying drum instrument names, the wheel zooming features don't work in the drum pane, etc.

(haha, I just noticed that the forum algo bleeped out an abbreviation for "want to be" and a reference to the great Brian Epstein's orientation)

Edited June 4, 2021 by Starship Krupa