Console Emulator rant

[Gswitz]

Just to point out, tube amps add nice harmonics. Mic choice adds character.  Preamp adds more. 

Turning up a nice amp in a good room does so much! Performing with your sound impacts your performance. Feeds back through the fingers. 

Nothing wrong with what you try after initial capture, but what you hear as you play matters a lot.  Your ears are like a console. 

[NokNod]

39 minutes ago, Gswitz said:

Your ears are like a console. 

prolific

[Craig Anderton]

On 9/5/2021 at 4:39 AM, chimkin2 said:

Good Tip thanks Craig ☺️

I tried it but unfortunately I got a Load Failure error! Not sure why that would be  ? 

I just tried it, and it worked. However, make sure you that you select all the channels into which you want to insert it before loading the Console Emulator.

I did run into quite a issues with old projects and Console Emulator weirdnesses when loading older (and I mean older!) projects into Cakewalk by BandLab. There were other regression problems involving FX Chains as well, but it seems to have been sorted out now.

[Craig Anderton]

On 9/5/2021 at 12:53 PM, Guerilla Genus said:

Got the book ! Thankyou sir

Thanks! I hope you find it useful.

[Noel Borthwick]

Regarding the "secrets" of the console emulator and what it does internally, I have no clue lol.
We purchased the technology many years ago for the prochannel. Only the original dev would know the technical details of circuit emulation are typically a closely guarded secret.  I personally think there is some degree of snake oil in all this analog emulation stuff but I'm no expert on analog consoles

[Craig Anderton]

25 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

I personally think there is some degree of snake oil in all this analog emulation stuff but I'm no expert on analog consoles

I think a lot of that depends on whether the transformers were modeled, they were part of the secret to "that sound." The waveforms in the article I referenced look suspiciously like what output transformers do to sine waves. And no matter how hard they tried, they did have non-linearities.

I visited Wendy Carlos many years ago when she was using the pre-ADAT Akai digital recorder (I think it was called the DR1200). I couldn't understand why it sounded so much better than other DR1200s, and it wasn't a subtle difference...better low end. warmer, didn't have that brittle digital sound, etc. She said it was due to her adding transformers at the inputs and outputs. She knows her stuff, so I wasn't going to doubt her!

[Starship Krupa]

On 9/3/2021 at 1:37 PM, Craig Anderton said:

There's also a workflow tip about using them on page 77 of The Huge Book of Cakewalk by BandLab Tips.

Finally belatedly pulled the trigger on the book, and within 5 minutes, mind blown.

This is from someone who has been using Cakewalk almost daily for 3 1/2 years.

I'd love to see an update or addendum with the Arranger Track and Articulation Maps.

[NokNod]

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

the original dev would know the technical details of circuit emulation are typically a closely guarded secret

 

 

[scook]

41 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

On 9/3/2021 at 3:37 PM, Craig Anderton said:

There's also a workflow tip about using them on page 77 of The Huge Book of Cakewalk by BandLab Tips.

Finally belatedly pulled the trigger on the book, and within 5 minutes, mind blown.

This is from someone who has been using Cakewalk almost daily for 3 1/2 years.

I'd love to see an update or addendum with the Arranger Track and Articulation Maps.

@Craig Anderton 's book is a great resource.

It  started as a collection of posts on the old forum.

There are more tips that came after the original SONAR book still on the old forum site http://forum.cakewalk.com/Friday39s-Tip-of-the-Week-167-Behold-Dual-Mono-Becomes-Stereo-m3074655.aspx

[Craig Anderton]

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Finally belatedly pulled the trigger on the book, and within 5 minutes, mind blown.

This is from someone who has been using Cakewalk almost daily for 3 1/2 years.

I'd love to see an update or addendum with the Arranger Track and Articulation Maps.

First of all, I'm glad you enjoy the book! As to the status of an update, unfortunately that won't happen unless BandLab gets behind it in some way (putting it in a Cakewalk Store, advertising it in the magazines they own, or whatever). Books take a lot of effort, and if they don't sell at least several hundred copies a year, they're not worth doing. Although it sold very well back in the day when Cakewalk put it in their newsletters and such, it's only sold about 8 copies in the last year. But you never know - I hope that someday, BandLab will open a Cakewalk Store so people can get their hands on all the cool stuff that used to come with Platinum. A revised version of the book could find a home there. 

[kzmaier]

I like the pretty meters!!

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

First of all, I'm glad you enjoy the book! As to the status of an update, unfortunately that won't happen unless BandLab gets behind it in some way (putting it in a Cakewalk Store, advertising it in the magazines they own, or whatever). Books take a lot of effort, and if they don't sell at least several hundred copies a year, they're not worth doing. Although it sold very well back in the day when Cakewalk put it in their newsletters and such, it's only sold about 8 copies in the last year. But you never know - I hope that someday, BandLab will open a Cakewalk Store

As I've mentioned before, Craig, I bought my first Craig Anderton book in 1982 and it literally started my career in electronics (first project: Tube Sound Fuzz, which I still have around somewhere). Which eventually led to me having my own stompbox company 20 years later when the boutique boom started (I still have parts purchased at Mike Quinn's!). I have a lot to thank you for. I'll start recommending your book more to newbies. There are so many things in there that aren't covered in the Ref. Guide.

I hear ya about the marketing frustration. I would love to be able to buy official Cakewalk t-shirts and stickers (for my laptop lid of course). Which are, of course, great advertising in and of themselves. Even just setting up a Zazzle store would be great. Takes less than an hour and you kick back and collect the earnings.

I suppose it's the price we pay for the awesome developer-driven path Cakewalk is now on. Bandlab having hired the cream of the engineering staff but none of the marketing staff. ?

It seems like all Bandlab do to promote Cakewalk is give the bakers rein to keep making it a better program, which is AWESOME for people who are already hip to it, but not so great for getting the word out. Such a mystery why they don't do any of the things you mention which seem simple. Publishing music magazines and not advertising your own products in them seems so odd. Noel himself maintains the KVR page. Just having someone on an intern level to do a newsletter or whatever.

[bitflipper]

9 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

I hope that someday, BandLab will open a Cakewalk Store so people can get their hands on all the cool stuff that used to come with Platinum. A revised version of the book could find a home there

Me, too. I sadly broke my favorite Cakewalk mug. My extensive collection of vintage 12-Tone t-shirts all have holes in them. I know I'll never have another V-Studio shirt, and it was a sad day when I added it to the rag box.

Plus it's a shame new users can't enjoy the Adaptive Limiter or Z3ta+. Not sure what else they're missing out on - the percussion strip? VX-64? What about Rapture and Dimension Pro? Can those be purchased today? 

At least Craig's book is still available.

[Starship Krupa]

12 hours ago, bitflipper said:

it's a shame new users can't enjoy the Adaptive Limiter or Z3ta+. Not sure what else they're missing out on - the percussion strip? VX-64? What about Rapture and Dimension Pro? Can those be purchased today?

None of those things are available to users who started with CbB. I got lucky, I happened to have an old Cakewalk login from when I registered to get my free CA-2A license. I did some aggressive digging and found the free Cakewalk SONAR Home Edition that apparently was magazineware at some point. I downloaded it and got all the DXi effects before they were included with CbB, also Rapture Session and some loop libraries (from Big Fish?). and FINALLY at that point, a pdf copy of the SONAR manual.

I think the Linear Phase EQ's would be nice to have, the rest, whatever. Xpand!2 probably covers everything I'd use Rapture for. The CA-2A in VST form with the full GUI would probably make some people happy. I only ever use mine as a ProChannel module.

[SVSX]

VX and PX 64 are still included, but you have to unlock them manually in the plugin manager. They are under  the hidden plugins menu.

[bitflipper]

 

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

The CA-2A in VST form with the full GUI would probably make some people happy. I only ever use mine as a ProChannel module.

Ah, yes. CA-2A. I knew I was forgetting an important one.

I'm just the opposite - a contrarian who never uses ProChannel plugins. They're great, of course; I just like the tidiness of seeing  all effects neatly listed there in the fx bin. CA-2A - as a VST - is my second most-used compressor. Nothing's better on vocals. 

I'd also like to see Dim Pro make a comeback. I always liked it but was unable to re-authorize it after replacing my stolen DAW. If it was reintroduced as a BandLab product, they'd likely change its goofy licensing scheme and I could use it again.

Sorry, OP. None of this has anything to do with console emulators. What's the tie in here, besides Craig's book...um, yes, I've got it: CW has some excellent goodies in the vault that would help your mixes more than any console emulator. You just can't have them. OK, that's better, now we're back on-topic.

[Craig Anderton]

17 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It seems like all Bandlab do to promote Cakewalk is give the bakers rein to keep making it a better program, which is AWESOME for people who are already hip to it, but not so great for getting the word out. 

Based on this forum, though, it seems more people are getting hip to it. I used to come to the forum and look for threads with 0 or only a few replies to see if I could help out, but those are few and far between these days. I assume that increased forum activity means an increasing user base. Eventually Cakewalk will be free from the Gibson stigma, people won't expect it to blow up and go away, and then there will be new users to whom Cakewalk is a "new" program. 

As to the "bring it back" movement...Rapture Pro! I live in fear that one day, it won't load anymore. I ported the Gibson Bass collection (which I use on almost every project) over to the TX16W free software sampler, but I have a lot of presets that I haven't ported yet. Some are impossible to port, because nothing has the same capabilities as Rapture Pro. Despite its flaws, it remains my favorite software synth.

[John Vere]

@Starship Krupa   I remember that free deal from I think it was Computer Music Mag. Even though I had Splat I grabbed a Copy of Home Studio and put it on a Laptop creating a 3rd set up. I was blown away with how much you could do for free. Sort of the pre-cursor to CbB I guess. I still have that license in CCC. That deal is still there if you go to the old forum and follow the links I posted in the deals sub forum. But then You come to a dead end when you get to the old Cakewalk site. 

Back to the topic. I find it sort of annoying that the emulator gets added to the Pro Channel by default with most of the templates. I have to delete it. 

I use my own "snake oil" the BBE Loudness Max and Sonic Maximizer. They ruin your perfect recording nicely too. 

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, John Vere said:

That deal is still there if you go to the old forum and follow the links I posted in the deals sub forum. But then You come to a dead end when you get to the old Cakewalk site. 

Ah, so that was you! Thank you so much, John, all the goodies that came with it, especially the manual, were great to have. It was unusual in that unlike most CM software, you didn't have to answer a question. I guess the idea was to get people to create Cakewalk accounts.

There's some sneaky stuff you can do by also downloading the full SONAR demo. Since it comes with Dimension and Rapture, although they are demo versions, the sounds may be copied off and installed in Rapture Session (which you can get with Home Studio). That Cakewalk account turned out to be very valuable once I started using CbB.

Around here, it seems like everyone with a Cakewalk login also has a SPlat license anyway.

[John Vere]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

Around here, it seems like everyone with a Cakewalk login also has a SPlat license anyway.

Well, all is long time users for sure. But I think the new comers outnumber us now. But that said on the form here most are still the same folks from the old forum. The newcomers ask questions and leave. They don’t hang around anymore.