A DAW newbie.

[Biggles]

Since I have been here there has been a lot of threads and posts on DAWs and MIDI.

I have also unsuccessfully dabbled with a MIDI keyboard and different trial versions of a few DAWs.

Well I have bit the bullet and downloaded Cakewalk from the BandLab site and bought a Behringer UMC204D, connected by Kross 2 up to everything and how I managed it I do not know but some how I have actually got it all to work.

Now I need to learn more.

Can anyone recommend a specfic Cakewalk tutorial series, preferrably one that does not start with ..... hey wassup.

 

[happyrat1]

Bandlab kept all the IP of Cakewalk when they bought them out and maintained the Cakewalk Websites.

Here's where you'll find the official tutorial videos from Cakewalk themselves.

https://www.cakewalk.com/CakeTV

They've also kept the Cakewalk Forums up and running and you can get all sorts of great answers there.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/

Gary

 

[Biggles]

Cheers Gary, links are just ideal.

Eventually found

which is a Series of 5 Tutorials by the same guy.

 

[happyrat1]

Happy to oblige Biggles. Cakewalk was very good about supporting their products up until the bailiffs closed the doors...

All's well that ends well though. Bandlab to the rescue...

Gary ;

 

[Herman Kappen]

And to add to that: Bandlab is doing a great job of developing Cakewalk further.

 

[Biggles]

Been playing around and I can now see why some of you guys are so great at all things MIDI.

Its taking my old grey matter some getting going but it is quite addictive, getting to really like Cakewalk.

Set about creating a backing track, all went well and it even sounds pretty good, then exported it as a WAV.

Loaded the WAV into the Kross > error message.

Went back to Cakewalk to change the WAV parameters > error message again

Third time lucky and the settings worked, the Kross started to load it, then playback was good but at way to loud a volume compared to that from the keyboard.

Hunted in the work of Klingon non-fiction that is the Korg manual only to find out that you have to fiddle with menus and to take a guess at the amount of dB reduction to apply.

Why on earth could the Korg designers not include a volume control knob or slider for file playback in the brand new Kross 2?

 

[happyrat1]

Once you get all of your hardware properly speaking to a DAW you'll find it will rapidly become an essential part of your workflow.

Here's a fun trick.

Record the same track simultaneously on 2 or more tracks and then assign the output each to different channels on your keyboards so the sounds layer up.

Then play around with the assigned voices to each layer and you will turn an ordinary melody into a phantasmagorical journey.

Building on a simple bassline, or melody or even drums in this manner will end up blowing your mind.

Gary

 

[Biggles]

OK so its been while since I played around with Cakewalk but its now a frustrating time.

Updated Cakewalk to the latest version, installed Korg’s plug in editor.

Started the plug in editor and connected up the Kross 2 via USB, powered it up and it as seen OK.

Started Cakewalk, went into Preferences and pointed Cakewalk to the Korg VST Plug in folder.

Started plug in manager and it showed up OK.

Started a black project, created a MIDI track, set the Kross to a Strings instrument voice and started recording a backing track, recorded four bars, stopped recording and edited the 4 bar clip to get timings spot on, trimmed clip to precisely 4 bars, then set up loop and dragged it to 52 bars in length.

Played back and all was great.

Created new MIDI track changed to an organ and started to record the melody only to find that what was the strings in the previous is now also an organ. So after reselecting the strings and selecting the looped clip I tried locking the data

Went back to the New MIDI track and after changing the Kross to organ started recording only to find the looped track again only producing organ sounds.

What am I doing wrong, I currently do not know.

Then tried to use inbuilt Cakewalk VSTs as per an online tutorial only to not find any.

Getting miffed.

 

[happyrat1]

I can't say what you're doing wrong exactly since I don't run the latest Sonar but rather an ancient cakewalk under Linux.

However, have you set up an INS file for your Korg so that it points at the correct voices when you choose them in Cakewalk?

Also check if there is a patch change in the MIDI messages at the beginning of your track.

And finally, the VST plugins that were originally included with Sonar Platinum were third party plugins that are no longer supplied with the Bandlab version.

Gary

 

[SeaGtGruff]

It sounds like you may have the two tracks going to the same MIDI channel. Check their MIDI output settings to make sure you're sending them to different channels, otherwise if you change the voice used to play one track it will most likely change the voice used to play back the other track.

There are exceptions, such as this if you've got Bank Select and Program Change events embedded within the tracks. Usually they would be placed at the beginning of the track, as Gary/happyrat1 said. But if you're going to loop part of a track then you might need to make sure to put a Bank Select and Program Change at the beginning of the looped section.

The simpler solution is to just have each track going to different MIDI channels.

 

[Biggles]

Many thanks for the advice I will give them a try tomorrow.

The system seems that the Korg Plug in Editor is used to transfer data to Cakewalk.

Before your replies were posted, I did some button pushing and got the strings playing on one track, I then added the melody line using tubular bells and it worked, strings played on its track and tubular bells played on its track.

Added another track and selected a Bass and started to record and found the two other tracks were now Bass as well

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Tomorrow is another day.