New To CW. How do i add a synth track? Does the addition figure out the key/chords and 'play along' a bass line (what i'm lookin for)

[rayray]

-- I have used it for mostly tracking and "fixing things"/mastering.   but never played with more than adding eq, splitting tracks, etc.

i guess i don't know how to use or how synths or how to apply them and what they do,

thx

RR

[User 905133]

2 hours ago, OutrageProductions said:

Start HERE  with an excellent series on the basics of the application.

Edited May 5 by User 905133
Deleted unnecessary wording.

[OutrageProductions]

Start HERE  with an excellent series on the basics of the application.

[JoeGBradford]

1 hour ago, OutrageProductions said:

Start HERE  with an excellent series on the basics of the application.

Excellent advice! 🙂 

[rayray]

really,  so i get advertisements for $79 dollar course just to figure out how to use a synth track.  

smh

[User 905133]

17 minutes ago, rayray said:

really,  so i get advertisements for $79 dollar course just to figure out how to use a synth track.  

I was under the impression that Mike has made his video series freely available to all.  

I edited out a rather lengthy post I did trying to explain about tracks.  Since I had to assume you were a "newbie," it was very wordy and left out a lot.  So I felt that Mike's Creative Sauce series would better meet your needs. 

Sometimes I save old posts when editing them (especially when I have spent a lot of time writing them up). Maybe I saved my original post and maybe that will meet your needs after all.  I'll take a look. 

GREAT NEWS [I hope]: I found it.  Since it is a pdf, I will have to edit it down to the way it looked as originally posted.  (BTW, if it turns out not to be helpful, I apologize in advance.) 

Edited May 19 by User 905133
added some "GREAT NEWS"

[John Vere]

Anyone who has to come on a user forum to ask how to use software that has a complete users manual built in and literally hundreds of free tutorials on you tube is obviously out of touch with how things work! Simply Google your questions and you’ll get 500 pages of instructions and answers. 
The forum is handy when that somehow fails to answer tricky questions but regular users get pretty bored by trying to answer questions that are searched for “How do I turn on a lightbulb “? So you will be directed to RTFM .  
So I apologize on behalf of the internet for not supplying you with a detailed explanation of the question. 
The AI. 

Edited May 19 by John Vere

[User 905133]

Quote

How do i add a synth track?

Assuming for the moment you are talking about adding a track to use software synths (as opposed to hardware synth), there are a number of ways to add a synth / add an instrument.  Let's also assume you have software synths on your computer (probably VSTs) and you have done a VST scan, mainly because autoscan is the default VST scan mode and you probably didn't change it to manual scanning.

Some people like to use the Menu Bar >  Insert > Soft Synth . method which calls up the list of the soft synths you have installed. From there its just a matter of following the steps, one of which calls up dialogs that let you set various options/choices for inserting the track(s).

If you've added FX plugins using the Browser [default shortcut key = B], you might want to use the Browser to add Instruments that way. Choose the plugins tab in the browser then the Instruments button to access the list of soft synths you have installed and scanned.

Personally, I automatically just right click in the TV [Track View], select Insert Instrument and the use the Add Track Wizard.

Obviously, I am leaving out steps, but since you seem to know how to chose FX plugins to insert, these three basic methods of Inserting a Soft Synth/Instrument should get you going.  There's more, but these will get you going to add Instrument Tracks.  As you explore, be sure to pay attention to various items in the menus/lists/dialogs.  For example, if you want to change to a different synth, there's a replace feature.

Standard methods to add Instrument tracks have both an Audio Instrument Component and a MIDI Component.  You can Separate the two and under some circumstances you can combine a "synth only" Instrument track with a MIDI track.  For multi-timbral synths with different sounds being played via different MIDI Channels, you could choose to have several MIDI tracks pointed to one multi-timbral instrument with a different sound on each channel.

There's a whole lot more but from the sound of it, once you get Instrument Tracks, you'll see tons of options.

Hope this helps.

Quote

i guess i don't know how to use or how synths or how to apply them and what they do

Read the manuals, watch videos, explore, ask questions.  Each synth is different. So how to use one and what they each do will vary quite a bit.

Edited May 19 by User 905133
(2) fixed typo (one --> once); (1) fixed a sentence that somehow got mangled

[JoeGBradford]

7 hours ago, rayray said:

really,  so i get advertisements for $79 dollar course just to figure out how to use a synth track.  

smh

You have dismissed the best free Cakewalk tutorials available because you got an advert for a (actually very good) course? Perhaps you haven't met the internet before?

Go back and watch those videos - they will bring you up to speed with the basics of what you need to know about using Cakewalk. Along with the advice here they will help you achieve your goals! 

[Starship Krupa]

Right click in the Track Header area on the left side of Track View and select "Insert Instrument" from the resulting context menu.

Be sure to check out the Bandcamp page in my sig as well as my YouTube channel. Don't forget to like and subscribe.🙄

[Starship Krupa]

On 5/19/2025 at 8:58 AM, User 905133 said:

I was under the impression that Mike has made his video series freely available to all.

Mike has MANY free highly useful and instructive videos about Cakewalk on his channel.

He also has a more in-depth course you can buy, and he (horrors!) mentions this fact briefly in his videos. He also pitches a music distribution service. This doesn't make his free videos any less useful. We all have to eat.

There are MANY other YouTube channels that feature instruction in how to use Cakewalk. There is a list of them in the Tutorials section of this forum.

[User 905133]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

Mike has MANY free highly useful and instructive videos . . . .

He also has a more in-depth course you can buy . . . .

There are MANY other YouTube channels that feature instruction in how to use Cakewalk. There is a list of them in the Tutorials section of this forum.

You know that I and plenty of others here know all this, but IMO it is very well worth repeating in this thread for the benefit for others who might be new to Cakewalk and who might get a little frustrated when figuring out how to start getting up to speed. 

[rayray]

On 5/19/2025 at 12:15 PM, John Vere said:

Anyone who has to come on a user forum to ask how to use software that has a complete users manual built in and literally hundreds of free tutorials on you tube is obviously out of touch with how things work! Simply Google your questions and you’ll get 500 pages of instructions and answers. 
The forum is handy when that somehow fails to answer tricky questions but regular users get pretty bored by trying to answer questions that are searched for “How do I turn on a lightbulb “? So you will be directed to RTFM .  
So I apologize on behalf of the internet for not supplying you with a detailed explanation of the question. 
The AI. 

well thanks for your valued input, but, i didn't quite grasp the concepts in the tutorial.  it doesn't explain a lot of stuff like "how it works if  you add a synth track" and a lot of other holes in the documentation.

you don't have to be bothered with my asking questions and since you want to belittle those t rying to find out information NOT a course that costs money,  you can consider yourself out of touch and stay in your little corner of hell ok?

[rayray]

On 5/22/2025 at 5:54 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Right click in the Track Header area on the left side of Track View and select "Insert Instrument" from the resulting context menu.

Be sure to check out the Bandcamp page in my sig as well as my YouTube channel. Don't forget to like and subscribe.🙄

oh i will and thanks for the answer so difficult for others to provide,

[rayray]

On 5/19/2025 at 11:58 AM, User 905133 said:

I was under the impression that Mike has made his video series freely available to all.  

I edited out a rather lengthy post I did trying to explain about tracks.  Since I had to assume you were a "newbie," it was very wordy and left out a lot.  So I felt that Mike's Creative Sauce series would better meet your needs. 

Sometimes I save old posts when editing them (especially when I have spent a lot of time writing them up). Maybe I saved my original post and maybe that will meet your needs after all.  I'll take a look. 

GREAT NEWS [I hope]: I found it.  Since it is a pdf, I will have to edit it down to the way it looked as originally posted.  (BTW, if it turns out not to be helpful, I apologize in advance.) 

just a newbie to some certain features of Cakewalk.  My goal was to add a bass synth track to see what my songs (that i have produced on cakewalk for 2 years but never needed this feature) and see what the song in question would sound like with a Prog Metal version

[User 905133]

47 minutes ago, rayray said:

just a newbie to some certain features of Cakewalk.  My goal was to add a bass synth track to see what my songs (that i have produced on cakewalk for 2 years but never needed this feature) and see what the song in question would sound like with a Prog Metal version

Thanks for the clarification.  Hope my original post was helpful in getting you up to speed with adding a synth / instrument track.

49 minutes ago, rayray said:

On 5/22/2025 at 5:54 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Right click in the Track Header area on the left side of Track View and select "Insert Instrument" from the resulting context menu.

Be sure to check out the Bandcamp page in my sig as well as my YouTube channel. Don't forget to like and subscribe.🙄

[emphasis added]

oh i will and thanks for the answer so difficult for others to provide,

Not sure what you mean by this ^^^^.  Not sure if you noticed that my response included three of several possible ways to add a synth track.  Those three were not difficult at all to provide. 

On 5/19/2025 at 12:16 PM, User 905133 said:

Some people like to use the Menu Bar >  Insert > Soft Synth . method which calls up the list of the soft synths you have installed. From there its just a matter of following the steps, one of which calls up dialogs that let you set various options/choices for inserting the track(s).

If you've added FX plugins using the Browser [default shortcut key = B], you might want to use the Browser to add Instruments that way. Choose the plugins tab in the browser then the Instruments button to access the list of soft synths you have installed and scanned.

Personally, I automatically just right click in the TV [Track View], select Insert Instrument and the use the Add Track Wizard.

[emphasis added]

The difficult part was trying to write it in such a way that it would be accurate and helpful (1) depending on your level of knowledge and experience  (and those who might come along later and have a similar question), and (2) without running the risk of appearing to be insulting. snooty, snarky, etc.   

Peace.

Edited Monday at 08:04 PM by User 905133
fixed typo "is" --> "in"

[John Vere]

On 5/26/2025 at 12:12 PM, rayray said:

well thanks for your valued input, but, i didn't quite grasp the concepts in the tutorial.  it doesn't explain a lot of stuff like "how it works if  you add a synth track" and a lot of other holes in the documentation.

you don't have to be bothered with my asking questions and since you want to belittle those t rying to find out information NOT a course that costs money,  you can consider yourself out of touch and stay in your little corner of hell ok?

I was trying to be polite so sorry if it comes across rude. Im very very old and being truthful about things sometimes seems rude. 
My point is it is really easy to get answers to questions now if you simply type them into Google Search. You would be shown the AI quick answer as well as a list of a lot of different tutorials. Often the forum also will be in the results. 
I speak from experience because over all of last year I tried a lot of different Daw’s. 

I learned how to do all the basic stuff in only a few hours. Some Daw’s are very intuitive and easy to, some are not.
 

Cakewalk/Sonar is possibly the hardest to learn out of the majority of Daw’s commonly available. And sadly they have not made any official videos for almost 10 years now. So be patient with seeking out the ones that are good for your style of learning. Many are terrible because they are amateur presentations. 
 

But text based answers work best for me so I just look things up. 

Example of a question “How do you insert an Instrument track in Cubase?” would result in a brief explanation and a bunch of videos I could watch. I would have my answer almost instantly.
 

In my experience asking these questions on a user forum is the slowest way to learn. So if you find that rude so be it. Only trying to offer advice on how to go about learning how to use software. 

Edited 20 hours ago by John Vere