Recording Silence at the end of an Instrument Track clip

[Anthony Kyle]

Hello people, Sorry is this has been addressed before but I did try searching. I'm wondering (and I don't know if I'm going about this the best way possible but...) is there a good way to make cakewalk continue to record silent space at the end of an Instrument clip for the sake of keeping a loop accurate in it's timing? [e.g.: from the last beat/note back to the first in the loop] I'm not currently using any external equipment, just my computer keyboard with VSTs.

What's currently happening is, once record is activated it'll start recording once it picks up a note/beat/keypress. This is desirable at the beginning of a recording since you don't need a bunch of nonsense silence and you want to record precisely when you want to "drop in". However my issue is at the end, when you want your current recording to loop, it is desirable to punch stop recording precisely when the first beat/note/keypress in a loop would be played again. Much like a loop station would start the beginning of a loop again once stop record is punched. A lot of times this means that you need to record rests or silence at the end of the last beat/note/keypress however if you hit stop record after your last keypress and there's any amount of silence between the last recorded note and the end of the clip it automatically gets cut off.

The best remedy I've found for this so far (besides having to meticulously stretch clip or loop bounds) is to play the first beat of the loop again at the end of the clip and just cut it off afterwards, otherwise it's just really annoying to get timing precise between the last and first beats of the loop. There's another way, which is to hold the key for the duration of the rest, but both this method and the previously described one cause some inconveniences in creating more complex recordings and keeping the workflow smooth and quick. 

I know, get a loop station right? I would love to, can't afford it. I do pretty well with what I have but just thought I'd throw this out there if anyone has any ideas or methods they use. I could've sworn at one time it did keep the silence at the end of my instrument tracks, but I don't know what I did. I can see how that could be an undesirable effect but I kinda wish it was an option to easily enable and disable.

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Anthony Kyle

[reginaldStjohn]

Can't you just set the loop point after the end of the clip to where you want it? I must be missing something but I think you just set up a loop and or an auto puch region if desired and hit record. It will record anything you play during the loop and not loop back until  it hits the end of the loop.

 

[sjoens]

You can:

1. Set loop start/stop points

2. Extend end of clip to desired position after recording

[Anthony Kyle]

16 hours ago, reginaldStjohn said:

Can't you just set the loop point after the end of the clip to where you want it? I must be missing something but I think you just set up a loop and or an auto puch region if desired and hit record. It will record anything you play during the loop and not loop back until  it hits the end of the loop.

 

 

6 hours ago, sjoens said:

You can:

1. Set loop start/stop points

2. Extend end of clip to desired position after recording

Yes both or your suggestions seem like the most obvious suggestions for sure, I understand that. However, they imply that I already know the exact duration that I want the loop recording to be. I only technically know the exact duration of the loop after I record the first track then like you said for every subsequent recording I'll only be recording within my established loop bounds so that's not really a problem, although it would still be nice to hang onto blank space at the end of a clip after the last keypress for the sake of duplicating or groove clipping the clip.

I'm sorry if this isn't very clear, but it seems so intuitive to me that this should just BE how things work. So for example when I record my very first instrument track in a project, what I'll do is drop the first beat/keypress in whenever I feel comfortable starting the recording (so it isn't ever going to be at 0 point on the time ruler). Then I'll record the whole beat or melody whatever I want to do and then I'll slap the spacebar or hit 'R' to stop the recording (which is exactly when the first beat of the loop should play all over again). There SHOULD be empty space at the end of that recording if there's naturally space between the last and first beats of the loop. It doesn't, it automatically crops the clip to the last recorded keypress. 

I guess for the sake of the purpose of my explanation forget about the loop feature altogether, because I'm just using it to try and explain what I'm doing. I'm solely concerned with silent space being cropped off at the end of a clip. Trust me I know this sounds ridiculous, but it makes so much sense. Forgive me for not being a master in the technicalities if musical timing, but this works for me. I like to just click the track after I lay it down and then the selection region is already set and then I can just say set selection as loop points and it so nicely sets the loop region the same as the selection region, just the problem once again is it doesn't keep blank/silent space at the end of a clip when I hit stop recording.

[Anthony Kyle]

Is there any direct messaging area to contact cakewalk developers because I personally feel that this would be a very useful feature if there isn't already a way to do it.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Anthony Kyle

[scook]

Feature requests go here

MIDI clips stop when there is no more data. 

it is possible artificially extend a MIDI clip by placing a MIDI instruction that will not be interpreted into sound by whatever is receiving the MIDI data.

This could be a note with 0 velocity, or some CC not used by whatever is receiving the data.

A note is probably the easiest.

During recording hit any key to mark the end of the clip then edit the note setting its velocity to 0. 

Or after recording drag the clip out to where it should end and add a 0 velocity note.

[abacab]

I thought that there was a way to let a virtual instrument continue to play a reverb tail after the final midi note in a clip, without cutting that off abruptly? Or maybe I'm losing it...

[scook]

When the transport stops plug-ins and instruments continue to play what is in their buffers as long as Always Stream Audio Through FX is enabled.