Top 2 Most Wanted Missing Features of CBB

[Xoo]

There's not necessarily routing with a VCA - so your 3 tracks controlled by the VCA could all have different outputs, but their relative levels are controlled by the VCA channel/slider/envelope.  I've previously suggested what @Base 57 has, which feels like the "Cakewalk" way of doing this to me.

As an aside, these two requests are so far down my list as to be insignificant.

I mainly want to see a "hybrid audio engine" (cf. Reaper, Logic, Samplitude, Cubase - all have something similar that improves performance on non "live" tracks) to bring CbB's performance up to match theirs.  And support for more control surfaces "natively" (ie. not via ACT or the excellent AZCtrl, but with Cakewalk working with the hardware manufacturers to integrate the devices).

Note: neither of these actually benefit me as I don't max out my CPU and don't use a control surface - I just think these are the key missing features that means CbB can get overlooked.

[Jim Fogle]

True mono external input selection so a single input audio interface does not take up two input assignments.

[Jorge Tata Arias]

16 hours ago, Mark MoreThan-Shaw said:

From Google  " VCA stands for Voltage-Controlled Amplifier. VCA faders were originally found on hardware mixing desks. They allowed the user to control the volume levels of several mixer channels with only one fader. To assign channel faders to a VCA fader, the respective channels must be physically connected with the VCA fader."

I've never had a desk or a DAW with VCA faders so I genuinely dont get how this is any different from a bus ?  

in principle a VCA fader does not receive or send audio to any output. It only controls the levels of the faders it is routed to. Nor does it modify the position of them physically

[pbognar]

On 12/10/2021 at 2:32 PM, Mark MoreThan-Shaw said:

In case anyone mistakes this for an awful photoshop joke, this was built for Pat Metheny.  I'd hate to have tune this before every show, let alone change the strings.  ?

Edited December 17, 2021 by pbognar

[Jack Cat]

Not that I use these, but I do think the Lyrics view, Staff View and the Playlist seem outdated. I remember complaints about these on the old forum. 

[Olaf]

On 12/11/2021 at 6:41 PM, Base 57 said:

If Control Groups would follow automation envelopes written on a single grouped track there would be no need for VCA 's.

Currently you have to write (and edit) automation on all of the grouped tracks. 

why don't you route everything to an aux track and automate that one? that's your vca fader, for you, and it's been around since forever, in any daw.

[Xoo]

Because you may not want to mix the signals (eg. You want different downstream effects).

[Base 57]

3 hours ago, Olaf said:

why don't you route everything to an aux track and automate that one? that's your vca fader, for you, and it's been around since forever, in any daw.

This for one...

1 hour ago, Kevin Perry said:

Because you may not want to mix the signals (eg. You want different downstream effects

And because Control Groups have relative offsets. 

And because Control Groups work on controls other than volume, such as sends and pan.

There are other reasons. 

[Light Grenade]

Aux tracks and busses are an option, but not ideal, sometimes I like to send my channels and FX returns to different places, so routing them to the same aux/bus doesn't work for me unfortunately.

For example, I like to have a single fader controlling my snare bus, snare verbs and snare parallel compression, this way I can make sure that reverb levels and compression levels stay consistent as I dip and raise the snare level throughout a mix. However, sometimes I'll route my drum FX returns to a drum FX bus, and channels to a standard drum bus. This lets me compress/saturate the drum submix without affecting the reverb.

VCA's give you control without altering the routing. 

I agree with @Base 57, if Cakewalk groups followed automation, everything would be sorted. 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Light Grenade

[Olaf]

8 hours ago, Base 57 said:

This for one...

And because Control Groups have relative offsets. 

And because Control Groups work on controls other than volume, such as sends and pan.

There are other reasons. 

You can use inserts for the FX, plus, even if you use sends, you just select all the tracks and adjust one, holding CTRL - you don't even need aux tracks, let alone vca faders - and the effort for doing that is lesser than setting up a vca track.

For the pan part, again, aux tracks do that - they do have pans, you know. Not to mention automation - copy-paste. But why would you ever want to move several pans at once?

3 hours ago, Light Grenade said:

This lets me compress/saturate the drum submix without affecting the reverb.

If you use a send for the reverb you can accomplish the same thing. Personally I like a little saturation on the reverb, though, just as much as I use on the dry, enough to make it more brilliant and less harsh - which is always a good idea. Besides, since the reverb is fairly low leveled in relation to the dry it's not gonna saturate that much anyway.

[Base 57]

54 minutes ago, Olaf said:

just select all the tracks and adjust one, holding CTRL - you don't even need aux tracks,

Quick Groups cannot be automated either. 

Clearly from your last 2 posts you have not explored the use of Control Groups. Specifically "Relative " and "Custom " Groups. 

It's not just about adjusting controls up and down. They can be set to move at different rates or even opposite directions. 

You can group unlike controls so that (for instance) dragging down the fader pushes up the reverb send.

Control Groups is one of the most powerful features of CbB but the inability to write the automation to only one track for ease of editing seems half-baked to me. 

YMMV 

[Olaf]

41 minutes ago, Base 57 said:

Clearly from your last 2 posts you have not explored the use of Control Groups. Specifically "Relative " and "Custom " Groups. 

It's not just about adjusting controls up and down. They can be set to move at different rates or even opposite directions. 

You can group unlike controls so that (for instance) dragging down the fader pushes up the reverb send.

I haven't, I'm not gonna lie. But I cannot imagine any scenario where you'd want to do that with bulk ranges. And if you start individually adjusting the ranges for each, it defeats the entire purpose.

[Base 57]

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

And if you start individually adjusting the ranges for each, it defeats the entire purpose.

Exactly 

 

1 hour ago, Olaf said:

I cannot imagine any scenario where you'd want to do that with bulk ranges

It's not always about bulk ranges. It can be about subtle nuanced changes that add space and dynamics to an otherwise static mix.

The way I currently do it is to remote control one of the group members with a midi track routed through LoopBe. That way I can use a single envelope to control the group. But it should not be necessary to use a third party app to do this. 

[Light Grenade]

15 hours ago, Olaf said:

For the pan part, again, aux tracks do that - they do have pans, you know. Not to mention automation - copy-paste. But why would you ever want to move several pans at once?

One example would be putting rhythm guitars and/or keys 100% wide once a track hits the chorus to open things up. It's a bit tough to envisage if you don't use grouping, but once you see the benefits control groups brings, you quickly encounter the irritation of automation not following the group

Back to the original question, nested folders and enhanced export feature were two of my main asks and they have been implemented which is great. The only other bigger ask is an update to external insert functionality, I'm aware this isn't easy though.

Other nice to haves would be

• bounce in place function
• a consolidated way of enabling/disabling/removing plugins when opening a project, especially in safe mode.  

Edited December 23, 2021 by Light Grenade

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

25 minutes ago, Light Grenade said:

One example would be putting rhythm guitars and/or keys 100% wide once a track hits the chorus to open things up. 

I never use automation for this , I find it easier to just mult the chorus guitars to their own separate tracks and buss those separately to the verse guitars as it's often mre than just panning , they often need different EQ & FX too.

28 minutes ago, Light Grenade said:

Other nice to haves would be

• bounce in place function
• a consolidated way of enabling/disabling/removing plugins when opening a project, especially in safe mode.  

Yes both of these are needed I agree.

[Promidi]

1) A visual routing diagram for a given project.
2) The ability to rename controllers in the PRV as they appear in the Track Pane.  (Currently, this is only possible globally, not per instrument)

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

13 hours ago, Promidi said:

1) A visual routing diagram for a given project.

Said nobody ever. ?

I'm not even sure what purpose that would serve, can you expand ?

[Promidi]

6 minutes ago, Mark MoreThan-Shaw said:

I'm not even sure what purpose that would serve, can you expand ?

A single diagram that shows the following.

Which track(s) route(s) to which bus.
Which track(s) route(s) to an Aux track.
Were sends are being send to. 
What effects are on which tracks/busses/aux tracks,
Where MIDI data is being routed to.
Where synth's MIDI outs are going.
etc

See where I am coming from?

(Feel free to ignore if it's ever implemented)...

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

1 hour ago, Promidi said:

See where I am coming from?

Yes I understand , although this thread was meant for very popular requests that had been repeated multiple times - I don't think I have seen this one before.

Personally I have never seen signal flow diagrams in a DAW ( maybe in some modular type synth plugins ) and I doubt I would find them useful for me or my workflow as I find the existing labels are good enough, but maybe start a new thread and see what others think. 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Mark MoreThan-Shaw

[Starship Krupa]

There are some "little" ones that would help me every day, in the "driving me nuts" category:

1. A "replace effect" in the context menu like we have "replace synth." (I made this suggestion on the old forum almost 4 years ago and Noel liked it)
2. The option to have new synths' property page automatically open when you replace another synth with them. Who doesn't want to immediately see the new synth's UI when they replace another synth? (this would also apply to #1 above)

As much as I'd like having a built-in sampler (I don't know what chord tracks and VCA faders are), having these 2 would make me happier and impact my use of the program over and over in every session.

I know that many people work the way I do, swapping multiple plug-ins and synths in and out looking for the one that best suits the song. Especially with creative FX like delays, I'll go through 3 or 4 of them before I find the right one.