Looking for something easy to use

[Joe Dun]

When I first purchased Cakewalk, perhaps 15 years ago, and then later upgraded, I was hoping for an easy to use MIDI editor. But, sadly it has never worked out for me.

My purpose is to use it to make some musical selections for puppet shows, when I want to do a scene change.  I can find plenty of great public-domain music, but generally must change the length of a segment, and perhaps modify the ending of a segment, so that it sounds like a proper ending.

Some examples of my recent difficulties;

I have a simple MIDI track that I downloaded, and wanted to change the instruments on one of the tracks. But, when I edit that track to use another instrument, it changes the playback of all the tracks. 

Another item that would seem to be an easy task, is to change the order of tracks. The instructions say to drag it, but it doesn't work, regardless of where I click and drag.   I imagine there is some setting buried somewhere, that is preventing me from reordering things.

I recently learned how I must go through the progress of inserting a special TTS track that does something which will permit me to export to a MP3 file.  But, for some unknown reason these TTS tracks keep multiplying every time I open a MIDI file that I had edited before.

Perhaps there is a simpler version of Cakewalk out there, or perhaps a "simple mode" setting that I can use, which will turn off a lot of the more advanced features.  Or failing that, some other program that you can suggest for basic MIDI editing.  Does Bandlab have a simpler program to choose from?

-Joe

[Kev]

5 hours ago, Joe Dun said:

...Another item that would seem to be an easy task, is to change the order of tracks. The instructions say to drag it, but it doesn't work, regardless of where I click and drag.   I imagine there is some setting buried somewhere, that is preventing me from reordering things...

Hold down the ALT key while dragging.

[Joe Dun]

Thanks for that tip Kev.  But, I should mention that the use of the ALT key is not in the manual.

Let me add to the mysteries of Cakewalk.  I want to trim a song... 

I select all the MIDI tracks., and then select the segment that I want to trim (in this case it is approx the first 10 seconds).  However, as soon as I select the segment, track #2 becomes un-selected.  But, it doesn't have any notation in it anyway.  So I proceed to "delete special" and have the "delete hole" option selected.  But, it only "deletes hole" for the currently selected tracks.

So, I try again, but this time after Cakewalk un-selects track #2, I re-select it successfully.  Now all the MIDI tracks are selected, and I do the Delete (Delete hole is selected) and I get the same bad results.  And now track #2 starts much too late.

Eventually, I try another approach. I select all the music after the portion I want trimmed, and then cut it.  Then, I paste it starting at measure #1.  This works.  But, over an hour was consumed trying to do this simple edit.  I need a program that works for simple things.

-Joe

[mark skinner]

Joe , if you have a midi track playing the instrument(s) you want , you can always use "bounce to tracks" and then have another regular audio track of the midi performance. This new track can easily be trimmed , copied and pasted, and be moved around anywhere you want. This then frees up your first midi track. you can then change the instruments for it and still have the audio from the first one. You can also edit the actual midi file in piano roll view to improve the performance with new instruments . You can bounce again and continue this process. You can then trim all of your new audio tracks to play , or not to play when ever you want.   This process is a lot quicker and easier than it sounds .  mark

[JoseC]

18 hours ago, Kev said:

Hold down the ALT key while dragging.

There is actually no need to click ALT. Just hover the cursor over the track´s header until it turns into a vertical double arrow and drag to reorder. About your "mysterious" TTS1 tracks, it looks like you are saving a MIDI 0 type track (all channels in a single track) into a MIDI 1 (each channel in a separate track). 

About your hole deleting problems, search for "Ripple editing" in the documentation,

There is nothing too complicated about MIDI editing in Cakewalk, most of it is pretty standard. Just take a little time to learn the basics.

[Kev]

8 hours ago, JoseC said:

There is actually no need to click ALT. Just hover the cursor over the track´s header until it turns into a vertical double arrow and drag to reorder...

Right.  Sorry, I was thinking of Console View rather than Track View.

[Kalle Rantaaho]

[I have a simple MIDI track that I downloaded, and wanted to change the instruments on one of the tracks. But, when I edit that track to use another instrument, it changes the playback of all the tracks.]

What do you use for producing the sound? In order to have different MIDI tracks with different instrument sounds you usually need to have each track using a different MIDI channel. You don't tell anything about your workflow.

Could some of your problems root back to the actual MIDI-files you're using? I've never used other MIDI than the one I've created myself, so I can't give real answers,
but could there be some settings embedded in the MIDI-files? Someone here surely knows more.

I've never experienced the kind of issues you describe.
 

[Joe Dun]

In my case, holding ALT did work yesterday for one time.  But, now even holding ALT will work.  Pressing and holding never worked, in spit of many attempts over the last few months.

If I were to re-name them, and could do it alphabetically, that may permit me to re-order them.  But,  have never been able to find a menu choice that permits ordering alphabetically. 

-Joe

Edited November 17, 2019 by Joe Dun

[Joe Dun]

On 11/15/2019 at 6:17 PM, JoseC said:

About your hole deleting problems, search for "Ripple editing" in the documentation,

Thanks for the Ripple Editing tip, that was the thing I was fighting in my edits.

-Joe