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Where are the Cakewalk Studioware panels ????


lychee

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Hello !

I've been on Cakewalk since the days of Cakewalk Express and then Cakewalk Pro Audio 6, and I see that an interesting option of the program has disappeared.

Studioware panels were the ability to create on-screen interfaces to control some external MIDI devices.
You could put graphic elements, textures, create buttons, knobs ... and attribute them to what we wanted.

It seems that this option is hidden in the Bandlab version of Cakewalk, so that in "preferences/folder locations" there is always talk of Studioware panels.

It would be cool if Bandlab unlocked this option which was to my liking a good idea.

Edited by lychee
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The status of StudioWare has not changed since this post from 2009 where Noel wrote

Quote

CAL was deprecated some 10 years ago IIRC ? Hence its not in the documentation. There is basic functionality to execute CAL scripts only for backwards compatibility only but as such CAL is not supported anymore. Same with StudioWare.

 

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I believe the last version to carry Studio panels was Cakewalk Pro audio 9.3.  However, believe you can still use them in modern day Cakewalk by Bandlab. You just need to have Pro Audio to create them. They can then be transferred to CbB.

Please don't quote me on any of this, im only going by what I remember about using them in the past. The only fact I am sure of.. Is they are not in Sonar nor Bandlab anymore

 

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@chuckebaby is correct - Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.x was the last version that supported the creation/editing of StudioPanels.

I used to use them to set up multi-timbral performance profiles for the Roland MT-32 and JV1010 - it give them an interface pretty similar to TTS-1.

They kind of worked back in SONAR 8.5, but from SONAR X1 onwards (and including Cakewalk by BandLab), they're pretty nasty to use as they don't play well with the Skylight interface.  IIRC they end up as MDI windows behind the main Cakewalk project window. So what you need to do is un-maximize your Cakewalk project in order to access the panels.

That's how you can get access to their display... but I've no idea whether they still work or not.

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I'm obviously very late on the new (not really new) of the end of Studioware panels.
It's a shame because it was a really good idea for those like me who have external devices and who would have wanted to control them other than by their small screens.

I resucite my old synth (JV1080 and MU100R) set aside for a while and these panels would have helped me.
I had thought at one time that the fx chain were a new version of studioware, but obviously I was wrong.
There are solutions like Midiquest or Ctrlr, but Midiquest is in my opinion too expensive, and Ctrlr which is free, I did not have to operate it on Cakewalk.

Too bad for this step back, but if this tool exists somewhere in the bowels of Cakewalk, why not revive it and update it?

Edited by lychee
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5 minutes ago, lychee said:

why not revive it and update it

When BandLab purchased the Cakewalk IP from Gibson, there was a thread about updating scripting (to replace CAL). I suspect the same reasoning would applies to StudioWare Panels as well. Here is the new owner's reply from that thread

Quote

It's a very interesting question and I definitely understand how meaningful it is as a workflow tool and helpful to many members of the community.
 
Unfortunately I hope you guys don't mind me sharing candidly this is not something that we have planned or intended to put time into - scook's post is spot on - it's not write once and done and does create some complexity and introduces dependencies which creates some challenges on the go-forward. I know this may be disappointing to some power users, but rather than going back and forth whether people care about it (I guess if the question is asked, then they absolutely do!) I thought it would be helpful to clear up 

 

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7 minutes ago, scook said:

When BandLab purchased the Cakewalk IP from Gibson, there was a thread about updating scripting (to replace CAL). I suspect the same reasoning would applies to StudioWare Panels as well. Here is the new owner's reply from that thread

 

I know there was the ability to program CAL scripts to do complex things Cakewalk and in Studioware panels, but maybe a simplified version of the tool like FX Chain could be done, no?

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I explored Ctrlr a while ago, but decided I didn't want to invest the time to develop fluency with all the programming needed to build complex two-way panels (both to gear and from gear).  It was fairly easy to develop a one-way panel with buttons and sliders to control a few features of my E-Mu ROMplers. I never thought about it before, but it is a bit like a studioware panel. I used it in realtime, not with Cakewalk.  

From the panels I see posted there, it looks like users have been developing some sophisticated panels, some that even have skins that mimic gear!!!

It might be good to know if those panels could be used efficiently to interface with Cakewalk.

Just a thought in case anyone is interested.

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I use Studioware Panels and CAL scripts every day with my work flow in CbB.  I have created my own custom Studioware Panels and CAL scripts specifically for this purpose.   Hint to the Bakers:  Please don't ever remove support for Studioware Panels and CAL scripts from CbB.

In fact, if an update of CbB ever removed the use of Studioware Panels and CAL scripts all together, I would be forced to stop at the last version of CbB that supports Studioware Panels and CAL scripts.

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On 11/18/2019 at 2:23 PM, lychee said:

There are solutions like Midiquest

I have an older version of Midi Quest that no longer operates on modern Windows computers.

But since I rarely use external MIDI hardware any longer, I could not see paying the  upgrade fee for the latest version.

But if I was a serious external hardware power user, it would probably still be my first choice. It offers a feature set that would eliminate the need to develop StudioWare Panels. Big time saver! https://squest.com/Products/MidiQuest12/

Quote

Midi Quest supports over 830 of the most popular MIDI hardware and instruments from over 50 different manufacturers including Korg, Roland, Yamaha, Dave Smith, Kurzweil, Alesis, Waldorf, Kawai, Akai, and E-mu.

You can store, organize, and edit banks and the individual patches, combinations, multis, performances, drums settings, and other SysEx data loaded from your MIDI hardware. Midi Quest is a true multi-instrument editor/librarian designed from the ground up to effectively support multiple MIDI ports, multiple manufacturers, and multiple MIDI devices - including multiples of the same hardware.

Midi Quest "talks" to each MIDI device individually so you can simultaneously send SysEx to as many as 250 different instruments and still edit another instrument - all at the same time. Try doing that with any other editor/librarian...

That said, I have not used it in many years, so have no idea how well it integrates with the recent versions of Sonar Platinum or Cakewalk by BandLab.

Demos available.

 

Edited by abacab
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18 hours ago, abacab said:

I have an older version of Midi Quest that no longer operates on modern Windows computers.

But since I rarely use external MIDI hardware any longer, I could not see paying the  upgrade fee for the latest version.

But if I was a serious external hardware power user, it would probably still be my first choice. It offers a feature set that would eliminate the need to develop StudioWare Panels. Big time saver! https://squest.com/Products/MidiQuest12/

That said, I have not used it in many years, so have no idea how well it integrates with the recent versions of Sonar Platinum or Cakewalk by BandLab.

Demos available.

 

As mentioned above, if I did not opt for the Midiquest solution, it is because I find that the software is far too expensive for the poor person That I am (399$).
But it is true that it seems to be a powerful tool and I admit to being charmed by the vst option.
It must be cool to control the hardware via a plugin as if it were a vsti, and with an interface more user-friendly than the small LCD screens of my machines.

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On 11/19/2019 at 12:19 PM, Promidi said:

I use Studioware Panels and CAL scripts every day with my work flow in CbB.  I have created my own custom Studioware Panels and CAL scripts specifically for this purpose.   Hint to the Bakers:  Please don't ever remove support for Studioware Panels and CAL scripts from CbB.

How do you created custom Studioware Panels when they are not accessible?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/2/2019 at 9:27 AM, twelvetone said:

I am currently doing a Custom installation of Sonar X3 and under Libraries it includes 

StudioWare Panels

 

Yes, you can open and use them (even in CbB 2019.11 b59). You just can't edit or create your own with the later versions of Cakewalk.

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I know it's really too late to ask this question, especially as the CAL/Studioware has been abandoned for a long time ago, but I don't understand why it all remains hidden if it's functional?
It's just a line in the menus, why not hand over the Studioware editor to those to whom it's useful?

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When it's "hidden", someone finds it and asks what's this then it is much easier to reply "a function that is no longer supported".  When it's out in the open, more people will ask what is this .  When the response is "a function that is not longer supported" then more questions like "Why not?", "Why not take it away?" or "Why not hide it?" are asked.  If you want to leave the functionality available to those that know how to use it and make practical use of it this way sort of hits the sweet spot.

By the way, Reaper supports Lua and Python scripts and there are some online classes that will guide a person in how to write scripts. I took one of those classes out of curiosity.

When I first asked about Sonar's scripting capabilities in the old forum a few members told me CAL existed.  In the hands of a creative programmer that has a burning desire for a new function CAL makes sense but for a non creative person like me, not so much.

Edited by Jim Fogle
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  • 2 months later...
On 12/8/2019 at 11:45 AM, lychee said:

I know it's really too late to ask this question, especially as the CAL/Studioware has been abandoned for a long time ago, but I don't understand why it all remains hidden if it's functional?
It's just a line in the menus, why not hand over the Studioware editor to those to whom it's useful?

I also was searching for something like that...

Looks like midi programming can be much easy with thing like it was

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  • 4 years later...

This zombie thread from 2019 is all very FASCINATING as the latest 2022 CbB manual says this on page 1405:

Cakewalk includes a wide variety of StudioWare panels for popular MIDI devices, with new panels constantly under development
here at Cakewalk, by equipment manufacturers, and by Cakewalk users.

It lists 19 panels.  I have 34 installed all dated 12/30/2011.  They open in Sonar 8.3 but nothing happens in X1, 2 , 3, SPlat & CbB/Sonar.  What's the trick to open them?

[I zombied this thread because it seemed the most appropriate one for this post.]

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