My Feature Wish List for 2020

[Creative Sauce]

Hi folks! I want to thank the Cakewalk community for telling me all about the features they would like to see improved. I've made a video with my suggestions, and have highlighted some that the community suggested. Let me know what yours are!

WATCH HERE: https://youtu.be/BsogIvcVOf0

[msmcleod]

@Creative Sauce - Thanks for putting this together, there's some great ideas here.

FWIW, there's a couple of things that are more or less there already:

Adjusting Clip Gain

This can be done by holding down control, left clicking, then moving the mouse up & down. It currently doesn't change the waveform display, but this is in our to-do list:

VCA's (Grouping)

You can obtain similar behaviour to VCA's by using control groups:

 

[martsave martin s]

buss templates...

[Noel Borthwick]

Clip envelopes are completely non destructive and can be used to change clip gain or other per clip plugin properties with clip based plugins.
The usage of VCA's as demonstrated, can be done using control groups, and using absolute, relative or custom grouping of parameters. VCA's can be convenient but grouping will do a large segment of what they do for most people.

[Base 57]

23 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

VCA's can be convenient but grouping will do a large segment of what they do for most people

I'm having a problem with this.  Automation of a grouped control is not affecting the other controls in the group. It works great for manual adjustments. Is this by design or am I missing something?

[Noel Borthwick]

Grouping applies to widget fader movements not automation envelopes. i.e automation is independent of any widget grouping set up.
 

[Base 57]

7 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

automation is independent of any widget grouping set up.

OK thanks. I guess linking automation to widget grouping will have to be a feature request.

Merry Christmas

[GreenLight]

8 hours ago, msmcleod said:

@Creative Sauce - Thanks for putting this together, there's some great ideas here.

Adjusting Clip Gain

This can be done by holding down control, left clicking, then moving the mouse up & down. It currently doesn't change the waveform display, but this is in our to-do list:

What?! How long has the CTRL + left click shortcut been around for clip gain?! It's brilliant, thanks for pointing it out @msmcleod!

[msmcleod]

2 hours ago, Base 57 said:

OK thanks. I guess linking automation to widget grouping will have to be a feature request.

Merry Christmas

If you set the other tracks to automation write, you can use the control VCA to record automation:

[User 905133]

8 hours ago, msmcleod said:

FWIW, there's a couple of things that are more or less there already:

Adjusting Clip Gain

This can be done by holding down control, left clicking, then moving the mouse up & down. It currently doesn't change the waveform display, but this is in our to-do list:  [For mini-tutorial, see msmcleod's post directly]

VCA's (Grouping)

You can obtain similar behaviour to VCA's by using control groups: [For mini-tutorial, see msmcleod's post directly]

Is there a way for Staff to mark individual posts with consistently used generalized keywords/phrases, like "Did-you-know . . . " [DYK?] or maybe "Tips-and-tricks . . . " [TnT?] or "Often overlooked feature . . . " [OOF?] or "Mini Tutorial" [MiniT?] so users can do a search for whichever keyword/phrase is designated and go through on their own to find these kinds of gems  (something sort of like an updated, forum-based "Did you know . . . " series of tips from the old SONAR line)? Just a thought.

 

[InstrEd]

5 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

Is there a way for Staff to mark individual posts with consistently used generalized keywords/phrases, like "Did-you-know . . . " [DYK?] or maybe "Tips-and-tricks . . . " [TnT?] or "Often overlooked feature . . . " [OOF?] or "Mini Tutorial" [MiniT?] so users can do a search for whichever keyword/phrase is designated and go through on their own to find these kinds of gems  (something sort of like an updated, forum-based "Did you know . . . " series of tips from the old SONAR line)? Just a thought.

 

Nice idea.  Of course you're having me learn more acronyms

[Base 57]

2 hours ago, msmcleod said:

f you set the other tracks to automation write, you can use the control VCA to record automation:

Yeah that's the way I've been doing it. But it can be real fiddly if you need to edit later. To me this is the difference between a Group and a VCA.  

For example, I have two guitar tracks playing similar parts. I have the track pans and the track FX send pans in a custom group.  Track 1 is panned hard left and it's echo send is panned hard right. Track 2 is opposite. Using the method you describe I can automate some cool synchronized pan movements. However it would be easier to edit the automation if it were in one track acting as the VCA.

[Elena Kolpakova]

I have a bunch of feature requests for track handling.

1. Turn Folder tracks into Aux tracks so that FXs/ProChannel can be applied to the Folder output. When a Folder track is created, make sure a corresponding audio patch point is created. New audio tracks created in the Folder track are routed to the corresponding patch point automatically. Audio tracks moved in the Folder track should keep their current output assignment.

2. Introduce MIDI patch points and advanced MIDI routing. Sends from one MIDI track to other MIDI tracks should be possible, so that MIDI events of one track are put to the outputs of multiple MIDI tracks at the same time and there's no need to copy paste events from one track to another.

3. Make sure current MIDI effects have good modern UX/UI to cover the basics in real time: transpose (quick +/- octave buttons), delay (or time offset), velocity increase/decrease, humanise - this is gonna be used heavily for creating double tracks and layered sounds.

4. MIDI events on the MIDI track should take precedence over the events received via the patch point when there are duplicates, e.g. same note with the same timestamp or mod wheel with different values. I'm unsure whether the MIDI-related automation should be sent via the MIDI send at all, perhaps only clip-based automation.

5. Folder tracks should only affect the audio tracks in terms of routing, i.e. when audio tracks are created within the Folder, they get routed to the audio patch point of the Folder by default, but when MIDI tracks are created within the Folder, they are not routed to the MIDI patch point of the Folder.

6. Nested Folder tracks - this is self-descriptive enough I believe.

I'm sure I haven't thought all of this through properly and would probably need to test it after the first iteration, but you get the idea, I hope, and should be able to develop this further yourselves.

I also kinda really like the non-destructive MIDI editing per clip from Logic for velocity, quantisation, etc

Edited December 24, 2019 by Helene Kolpakova

[paulo]

13 hours ago, User 905133 said:

Is there a way for Staff to mark individual posts with consistently used generalized keywords/phrases, like "Did-you-know . . . " [DYK?] or maybe "Tips-and-tricks . . . " [TnT?] or "Often overlooked feature . . . " [OOF?] or "Mini Tutorial" [MiniT?] so users can do a search for whichever keyword/phrase is designated and go through on their own to find these kinds of gems  (something sort of like an updated, forum-based "Did you know . . . " series of tips from the old SONAR line)? Just a thought.

 

I think I see where you're coming from......maybe they could go a stage further and move all the DYKs to a specialist section called Attention Really Serious Enthusiasts?

[John Munday]

This is non-technical: I am a legacy user so I have a lot of .dlls from Sonar etc that work still.

But it would be great if you guys could build up a 'app store' of goodies we could purchase on demand or even possibly rent?

There have been times when I could have done with access to say a really good mastering suite for a month to finish some current work and then 'give' it back without having to buy the whole thing?

Some Prochannel goodies to buy would also be good ?

[User 905133]

5 hours ago, Helene Kolpakova said:

5. Folder tracks should only affect the audio tracks in terms of routing, i.e. when audio tracks are created within the Folder, they get routed to the audio patch point of the Folder by default, but when MIDI tracks are created within the Folder, they are not routed to the MIDI patch point of the Folder.

A few months ago, someone suggested something similar. While it might work for people who have audio/instrument tracks in the same folder all following the same audio path, some users have workflows where audio goes to different paths. So, if this suggestion is implemented, I hope (1) it would be optional to have all non-exclusively midi tracks routed to one audio path and (2) it would not be the default behavior. Perhaps there could be different types of folders? Or "folder options" within one folder type?  If so, it might be nice to have a "nestable" folder system so some sub-folders can have all tracks (of any type) routed through one path and other sub-folders routed differently. The best of all possible workflows!  ?

[User 905133]

5 hours ago, paulo said:

I think I see where you're coming from......maybe they could go a stage further and move all the DYKs to a specialist section called Attention Really Serious Enthusiasts?

Something like this would work, too! Or perhaps a special thread in the Tutorial section for a Topical Table-of-Contents with links to the embedded miniTutorials would work; that would save having to move them. 

BTW, I don't think ***** is an appropriate label to use. ?

EDIT: The auto-censoring feature of this forum didn't appreciate your acronym - Attention Really Serious Enthusiasts . Evidently it didn't have the ability to detect your hidden message. ?

Edited December 24, 2019 by User 905133
to clarify what was censored by the forum software. (I hope this thread is not closed because you tried to call me an *****.)

[Creative Sauce]

3 hours ago, John Munday said:

This is non-technical: I am a legacy user so I have a lot of .dlls from Sonar etc that work still.

But it would be great if you guys could build up a 'app store' of goodies we could purchase on demand or even possibly rent?

There have been times when I could have done with access to say a really good mastering suite for a month to finish some current work and then 'give' it back without having to buy the whole thing?

Some Prochannel goodies to buy would also be good ?

I really like that actually!

[Creative Sauce]

On 12/23/2019 at 8:05 PM, msmcleod said:

@Creative Sauce - Thanks for putting this together, there's some great ideas here.

FWIW, there's a couple of things that are more or less there already:

Adjusting Clip Gain

This can be done by holding down control, left clicking, then moving the mouse up & down. It currently doesn't change the waveform display, but this is in our to-do list:

VCA's (Grouping)

You can obtain similar behaviour to VCA's by using control groups:

 

20 years - I'm still learning! Thank you. I guess id still like to see the clip gain adjusted with the same ease as fade in/out. 

With VCAs, yes I'd seen this kind of solution before - and its good we have that work around, but it doesn't feel as slick as I've experienced elsewhere.

But thank you for your reply, have a great Christmas and New Year!

[Elena Kolpakova]

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

A few months ago, someone suggested something similar. While it might work for people who have audio/instrument tracks in the same folder all following the same audio path, some users have workflows where audio goes to different paths. So, if this suggestion is implemented, I hope (1) it would be optional to have all non-exclusively midi tracks routed to one audio path and (2) it would not be the default behavior. Perhaps there could be different types of folders? Or "folder options" within one folder type?  If so, it might be nice to have a "nestable" folder system so some sub-folders can have all tracks (of any type) routed through one path and other sub-folders routed differently. The best of all possible workflows!  ?

Yes, I think this depends on the workflow which is probably different for many of us. This is probably the reason why Logic has two types of Stack tracks - those where audio routing is implemented and those where it is not (used purely for organising tracks).

On the other hand I don't really see how having my proposal should affect you tbh. Imagine that ONLY WHEN NEW audio tracks (or the audio part of the instrument tracks) are added to the Folder track, THEN they are automatically routed to the Folder patch point where they are summed together. IF you use the Folder track purely for organising other tracks in your project, THEN you're not going to add any FXs to the Folder tracks's FX bin/pro channel, and that will essentially output the sum to the Master bus or the bus set up in your project as the default output. Which is practically the same as it is now except the fact that it goes straight to Master/default out.

EXISTING audio tracks when moved to the Folder should not change its output, so that the rest of your project routing is not immediately f**d up when you move the track into the folder. Although I could see two menu options in the Move To context menu:

1. Move To Folder & Route to Folder Output,
2. Move To Folder & Keep Current Output

And OF COURSE you should still have the option to change the output of the track within the Folder to a different output if needed. If you ever worked with NI MASCHINE, it's the same there. By default, Sound (Instrument) is routed to a Group (Folder), which is rooted to Master (Bus). But you're free to change the output port of the Sound to any other available destination, so that, say, 15 sounds are routed to its group, while the 16th is routed somewhere else.

Also, as I mentioned, MIDI track outputs (and MIDI parts of Instrument tracks) should not be affected by the Folder - it doesn't make a lot of sense. I only mentioned MIDI patch points above because having those is something I wanted for a while now (for MIDI Sends), but it really is a different feature.

Or perhaps I didn't understand you.

Anyway, I hope bakers will find the best solution to this as they have resources to properly think it through and test it.