Tips Thread.

The place for general discussion of Cakewalk Pro Audio.
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andychap
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Post by andychap » Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:43 am

Right we've started a self promotion thread to promote your music.

Now it's time for people to put info back into the forum, hence a tips thread. If you are given or read about a good tip, whether you think it's already well known or not then post it here. We all read magazines and not necessarily the same ones so tips form articles in mags can be circulated.

Links to other music based websites with tutorials etc are always good tips.

Let's give it a try. One tip per post so it doesn't get confusing and explain what software it is for.

If we keep this thread near the top of the page it will be a valuable resource for newcomers.


andychap
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Post by andychap » Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:50 am

Tip for any sequencer software with audio recording.

When doing a live take of audio ie. a vocal or guitar track always arm 2 tracks and record to them both at the same time. When you have finished recording, archive one of the tracks while you work on the other one. If you mess up big style and think I wish I could start again, you can do, just unarchive the spare track and start again.

In the same way if you are recording audio from a synth or keyboard that also has midi capabilities, why not arm a midi tack and capture a midi version of your audio at the same time. It could come in handy for numerous things like adjusting by an octave or two for a nice harmonic feel. Chopping it up and offsetting parts of it to give different effects to your audio. Experimentation is the name of the game.

This tip was published in Computer Music Magazine.

andychap
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Post by andychap » Sat Oct 25, 2003 10:54 am

Tip for Sonar 2 and 3 users.

When trying to edit the velocity of notes in a midi track, instead of using the control pane in the piano view try outputting your track to a drum map so that all your notes are displayed as drum hits in the piano roll. These all have velocity tails on them and can be edited one at a time for accurate velocity rendition.

This tip was published in Computer Music Magazine.

blinduncledallas

Post by blinduncledallas » Sat Nov 15, 2003 12:01 am

Instead of the time sapping way of opening sonar, then opening a song, just put a shortcut to the song on your desktop or where you can easily access it. Click on it and sonar will open directly to the track.

GretscGuy
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Post by GretscGuy » Thu Nov 27, 2003 10:04 pm

After you record your drum tracks, use a CAL script to break down hits into individual tracks.

Example:
A drum part with Kick, Snare, Hi Hat and Ride (4 parts for this example)

Many of us play the Kick and Snare parts, then overdub the fills and cymbols. I split the drums onto seperate tracks so I can record them into seperate audio tracks adding different ammounts of Reverb, compression, delay, etc...

Once processing is done, make a stereo mix of the seperate parts if you need the resources.

This gives you much more control over your drum kits.

Also, if you're into CAL, you can modify the provided script to group like instruments (different variations of a kick or snare) to be grouped togetehr on the same track).

GretscGuy
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Post by GretscGuy » Thu Nov 27, 2003 10:06 pm

For fat guitar parts, record your part onto two mono tracks. un them through different amplifier simulators (example a Plexi and a Soldano) and pan them hard left and right. Add a short (7ms) delay to one side. This fattens things up and gives you a bigger sound.

kentothink
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Post by kentothink » Thu Dec 11, 2003 7:28 pm

here's one
having trouble getting that snare to crack through your sludge-y Foo type guitars?

if you have waves plugins, load in an RComp on the snare track, but gate it first. so, gate THEN RComp. go to the preset "decompression bends". Lower the threshold and turn up the gain and hold your ears. its bad ass. make sure you put that gate in first though otherwise youll hear far too much undesirable stuff in the background!

kentothink
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Post by kentothink » Thu Dec 11, 2003 7:32 pm

oh...and in the new Sonar 3 Sonitus fx, the "drum destroyer" preset in the compressor tends to work nicely on overheads to smoothe them out if need be.

GretscGuy
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Post by GretscGuy » Mon Dec 15, 2003 6:44 pm

Make sure you do your windows updates and driver updates regualrly!

andychap
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Post by andychap » Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:44 pm

I always add a small amount of reverb to my drums, something like a small room preset. It just sits them back in the mix as if on stage.

GretscGuy
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Post by GretscGuy » Tue Dec 16, 2003 8:25 pm

Save often!

andychap
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Post by andychap » Sat Jan 24, 2004 2:46 pm

I have started using the key bindings feature in Sonar 2.2XL. It is ideal for repetetive tasks like bouncing to tracks, inserting tracks and solo/unsolo, archive and hide tracks. It really speeds up the navigation around the screen.

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