Play from start and play after reset button sound different

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RFacter

Post by RFacter » Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:21 am

I've been writing music for years with Cakewalk, never having used any advanced features with the way I compose. Recently I began writing a new song and found that when I start it, the pan on one of the instruments is way off. I reset my keyboard, closed and reopened Cakewalk, and even played with various sysx settings. I just can't get the instrumentation to balance from the start. I know it's not a problem with the instrument I'm using as it doesn't have a pan problem in the other song I use it in. This led me to hit the reset button after starting other songs I've composed. In every single case there are volume and pan variances in the play sound before and after hitting the button.
In a nutshell here's how it works. I start a song and it sounds ok, but not exactly perfect. I hit the reset button (!) and every sound is suddenly centered and louder (lets just say it sound's 'richer' for the rest of the argument). If I stop the song and restart from the same place, the song still sounds richer. If I restart from the beginning the song sounds dull again. I'm my own worst critic and have always been somewhat disappointed by my compositions, but at the same time I've always wondered why my MIDI songs never sounded as rich as simply jamming on the board.
Is there a way to insert a 'reset all' signal at the beginning of a song or is there a different solution to this problem?
Should I resort to a different program?


jack_the_ex-cynic
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 1:52 am

Post by jack_the_ex-cynic » Fri Jul 09, 2004 2:42 pm

not sure which program you are using, i have sonar 3 producer myself. the reset button is setting all midi controllers to their default values. however, there are some events or console automation in your song (set in the beginning) that have the values set to a specific number (say panned way off to the left) and when you start the song from the beginning, cakewalk reads those events and changes the pan back.

what you need to do is look at the event viewer for each track and delete any non-note data: anything that says pan or volume, etc. these are hard values that will always change your song back to the way you don't want it every time cakewalk sees them (in this case, i assume at the beginning of your song). if you right click on the track one of the views should be event viewer.

rfacter

Post by rfacter » Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:14 am

Nothing is listed in the event view. That's why I've been having so much trouble with it. I've checked every view I can think of and nothing contains any information that would indicate additional pan settings. (Yes, I even checked the controllers - pan view in the piano roll view). As I was playing with the settings tonight I tried messing with Track -> Property -> Pan and was finally able to balance it from there. I still don't understand why the track didn't reflect the pan changes before or after using the menu option. At least the playback isnow balanced.

Thanks for trying.

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