Starship Krupa Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 (edited) Quote Pro Audio 9 was the previous record for ancient, obsolete versions. I remember one poor soul who was seeking help with a precursor to Home Studio that used to come with some audio interface or other. Despite having gone through the whole process of registering with BandLab and coming to the forum, which process, IIRC, has popups pitching Cakewalk by BandLab, he was gobsmacked to learn that he could just download this whole new advanced program and use it for free. I'm not baffled by the affection for SONAR 8.5.3, and even wanting to still run it, I know that old workflows die hard, and SONAR users included many people for whom 8.5.3 was not broken, whereas X1 did not make the best first impression. I'm baffled by how people who have been using a program for that long come to this forum looking for help. And who sometimes aren't aware that what had once been the mighty SONAR is now the even mightier freeware Cakewalk by BandLab. How do you get as far as being able to post on this forum without learning that? I never ran 8.5.3, and I started up again with CbB after my last dance with Cakewalk Pro Audio/SONAR being in 2002, a 16 year hiatus. I do know that whatever version of SONAR I was running at the time was rock solid on Win 98SE, whereas the initial release of CbB on Windows 7 was....not. Noel and Jon and Morten and Ben proceeded to hammer that code until 3 months later I could leave it running overnight. In that 16 year break, I got some experience with Mixcraft and Pro Tools and FWIW, had little trouble adjusting to the UI and workflow paradigms of CbB. Despite the initial implementation, the industry was heading in the direction of take lanes, and IMO, the Skylight UI is still brilliant (and imitated, look no further than Studio One). It scaled wonderfully to the advent of multiple monitors. 5 hours ago, Kevin Perry said: customisable PRV (shift/ctrl/alt+mouse clicks+regions all configurable so no need for switching tools ever). I'd love to see that make a comeback (and equivalent for the smart tool in track view) Once I figured out right click for marquee select?, I don't ever manually switch tools in PRV. I have the two thumb buttons on my Logi 705 configured to Ctrl and Alt, so I only go to the keyboard for Shift, in the case of constrained moves and copies. Similar with Track View regarding manual tool switching. I set the Smart Tool so that the Comp function is turned off unless I'm actually using those features and it's good to go. The current Cakewalk PRV is my favorite of the ones I've tried, which now also includes Ableton Live and Studio One. What am I missing? Is there a feature request or two that could restore what you liked about 8.5.3's PRV? Edited June 7, 2022 by Starship Krupa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xoo Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 9 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said: What am I missing? Is there a feature request or two that could restore what you liked about 8.5.3's PRV? I can try reinstalling and showing you the config page - it was truly awesome ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 17 minutes ago, Kevin Perry said: the config page - it was truly awesome I do loves me some flexible configuration ability. One of the reasons I drifted away from Mixcraft when CbB dropped was its lack of keystroke assignment ability. It's very mouse-y. I like not having to hit the keyboard if I don't want to; the advent of the context menu in Windows 95 was love at first sight. But not to a fault. I've even feature requested the addition of some keystroke commands in CbB (fit horizontal was one that was fulfilled). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Tim Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 I have pretty fond memories of 8.5.x, in fact I would often use that for drum comping over SONAR for a while there because the workflow just felt better. The super compact track view was good too when I had a smaller screen, but I tell you what, even going back to SPlat now feels like a massive step backwards compared to CbB now. I couldn't imagine going to pre-X SONAR or earlier now. If I needed something super lightweight, I'd likely throw in Ubuntu Studio and run one of the MIDI editors on that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Tim Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 On the other hand, CWPA9.x was... well, it was a workhorse in the studio that we recorded our A Rise to Power album but drum editing was horrific. Slip editing wasn't brought in until SONAR 1, so if you cut out a bit of audio, it was simply gone. Need to cut a bit off of the end of something? You deleted it. Gone. Clip fades? Nope - destructive or you had to draw an envelope in. Cutting together a multi-mic kit where the drummer was not exactly accurate and doing multiple takes of sections was something I absolutely don't miss. We've come a long way...! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xoo Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said: I do loves me some flexible configuration ability. Here you go. 3 PRV tools: And for each one, you have 5 hit zones on the note, plus background ("nowhere") and controller value, can use 3 mouse buttons and 3 key modifiers (all combinations allowed so 8 * 3 * 5 commands doable without changing tool!): or if you clicked on a note: A thing of beauty and power. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 (edited) 7 hours ago, Lord Tim said: going back to SPlat now feels like a massive step backwards compared to CbB now It doesn't seem that way to us old dudes due to time compression, but 4 years is a healthy bit of time in the software development world. Back in the day, that could be a product's entire life cycle. If Cakewalk were being given numeric releases, IMO it would be up to 3.0 at this point. I wouldn't want to use the first release of CbB. It didn't work too well on my system (to me, the audio engine was like a balky lawnmower that would poop out and I'd have to restart), and there are so many "smaller" features and fixes that I now take for granted because they made so much sense. I have shiny spots on Ctrl-Alt-F. CbB used to scramble up my takes if I recorded with the lanes closed (which I always do). Being able to use Aim Assist without the numerical readout obscuring the Ruler tick marks. Persistent note names in PRV. Right click and rename clip, for heaven's sake. Ripple Edit Indicator! Configurable Smart Tool! Select, right click and Process in the Staff View. The new amazing Export dialog. By themselves, maybe minor or less flashy improvements and fixes, but taken together, holy crap. Think of this: BandLab has now owned the Cakewalk brand longer than Gibson did. People who started using CbB in college are now graduating or already have. I wonder how many people can now say "I used Cakewalk by BandLab throughout college." Yet we still get people who are dubious about whether the program can "survive" as freeware. It's already "survived" better and longer under BandLab than it did under the last owners. ? Quote A thing of beauty and power. No argument there. I haven't completely parsed it, but it looks like you could set up your mouse buttons to do just about anything. Edited June 8, 2022 by Starship Krupa 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 I wrote an MT32 editor back in the day. Ran under DOS and required ANSI.SYS! But hey, it worked! I converted it to Cscape at some point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbognar Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 On 6/5/2022 at 1:14 PM, Lord Tim said: If you just want to run Cakewalk for DOS then the easiest thing is to grab Virtual Box and FreeDOS and run it all in a VM. Then go play Doom I checked out Virtual Box - it's very cool. I was thinking of all the old software which could be brought back to life and then I realized - I'm into making music with best tools possible - why would I even consider going down that rabbit hole? I remember longing to be able to use Logic PC again, but when you look at it objectively, we have it so much easier today, even with free and almost free DAW software available to us. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Duncan Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 This solution worked. I did have an issue with the setup, I unzipped a previous install and it worked without an issue. CPW30.rar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 So you joined the forum just to necromance a year and a half old dead thread to boast how you accomplished something pointless.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user 905133 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) I re-read all the posts in this thread (didn't watch the videos, though). It did bring back memories. I haven't used Dr. T's KCS or my Commodore 64 (used for the KCS) in multiple decades, but re-reading the thread was nostalgic. No desire to run KCS or Cakewalk for MS-DOS, though. I think a filmmaker wanting to recreate scenes from bygone eras might want to make use of the software to run ancient software. Someone wanting to open a museum (or do a historical you tube video) to showcase ancient music software could also use it. I know Cakewalk for MS-DOS came on 5 1/4" floppies, but vaguely recall either CPW 3.0 or 3.1 came on 3 1/2" hard-cased floppies. If so, I could try to run it just for the sheer fun of it since I do have a usb 3 1/2" drive. Not a top priority for me, but I'd be mildly curious to see how much CbB's Staff View and Notation Printing has changed since then. (CPW had them both, right?) HISTORICAL NOTE: Just found my boxed up Cakewalk Professional 4.0a Sequencer. It has two 5 1/4" floppy floppies (1 program disk, 1 utilities disk) and one hard-shell 3 1/2" floppy disk. The mild curiosity has passed--no desire to even see if I can make a backup copy with my 3 1/2" usb drive much less to try to see if I could run it. Edited January 30 by User 905133 to add a historical note about the Cakewalk Pro 4.0a floppies 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckebaby Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 This post hurt my brain. I began recalling all this old information like cheat codes to Atari Frogger. Anyway, the last version I was able successfully run on present day Windows was Pro Audio 9. I was fun for nostalgia purposes but nothing more than that. I wouldn't be able to work in an environment like that anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 (edited) Are you mad!!!!!?????? Edited January 28 by Terry Kelley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 2 hours ago, pwal³ said: why not just try to help a user? User of what? Drugs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Byron, I think what he is requesting is to help make this forum better, not worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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