Cakewalk's Robin Kelly passes on some hints and tips designed to help users of the popular Cakewalk Pro Audio PC audio sequencing package get the best from their software.
Cakewalk Pro Audio v6.01 is the most powerful version of Cakewalk to be released. It has Active Movie effects, both in real time and off‑line, StudioWare and new audio edit commands. With all this technology, it's easy to become slightly overwhelmed, so in this article I'll take you through a basic recording process and show you how to start becoming a Cakewalk power user.
Setting Up And Recording
Almost certainly the first thing you'll want to do is record some tracks. Whether you're preparing Cakewalk to record MIDI or audio, you'll need to follow very similar steps. For recording MIDI, go to Settings | MIDI Devices and make sure you've selected the In and Out ports you wish to use. For recording audio, go to Settings | Audio Options and select the correct Playback and Record Wave devices from the drop‑down list.
Once you have your I/O devices selected, you need to assign a Source for each track you wish to record. To select your recording source, you can double‑click in the Track View's Source column and use the Track Properties box, or you can Shift‑Click to scroll through your choices (which is a much quicker method).
If you're recording a MIDI track, you will also want to assign a Port, Bank, Channel and Patch. If you do not have the correct Instrument definition selected for the Port the track is using, you can change it by going to Settings | Instruments. Once you assign the right instrument definitions, your gear will be seamlessly integrated with Cakewalk, and all future recording and editing sessions will work more smoothly.
From the Instruments dialogue box you can click on the Import button and load the Instrument Definition that matches your make and model of MIDI gear. If you don't see the Instrument Definition you need, Cakewalk is constantly updating its web site (www.cakewalk.com) with new ones. You can also create new definitions from scratch, or use existing definitions as templates that you can modify to your satisfaction.
Once you've imported the Instrument Definition, you need to assign it to the correct MIDI Port. (If you're using a single‑port MIDI interface, the choice is simple.) You can do this by first selecting the correct Port and Channels from the left column and then selecting the correct definition from the right column. Click OK and you're ready to go. This is a global setting that Cakewalk saves for future use, so you won't have to go back and change it every time you run Cakewalk. If you wish to attach a SoundFont bank to your file, you can do this by selecting File | SoundFonts. Then simply choose the bank you wish to use and select Attach.
Automation is as simple as everything else in Cakewalk... you can automate virtually every widget in the view.
The next thing is to choose a Record Mode. Cakewalk allows you to record in Sound on Sound (Blend), Overwrite (Replace), or Auto‑Punch In and Punch Out modes. You choose by clicking on the Record Mode button located next to the Clock Source button on the Control Bar, or you can go to the Real‑time | Record menu. Then set your sample rate, which can be up to 48kHz, press record, and you're off.
Editing
Now that you've recorded the first track of your next hit single, you may need to do some tweaking to get things just right. Cakewalk lets you work with MIDI and audio data as 'clips', which you could think of as building blocks that can be of any length you wish. Some people like to break up clips on measure boundaries. From the Track View you can drag and drop clips based on a Snap resolution, or even copy and paste clips as linked clips. Linked clips allow you to make a change to one clip and have that change applied to all other clips that are 'linked' to it. This is great for pattern‑based sequencing. For detailed edits you can use the Event List, which is accurate down to the 'tick' level (pulses per quarter note). For edits where you don't need tick‑level accuracy, you can use the more graphically based views, such as the Piano/Controller or the Notation views.
The Piano Roll view now contains both MIDI note information, in a player‑piano type grid (displaying notes on a pitch+time grid), and MIDI Controller information, displayed in an adjacent window. To extend a note's duration in this view, simply click on the right end of the note, using the Draw tool, and stretch out or shrink the note to the desired length. If you wish to insert a number of notes with the same attributes you can click on the first note and all subsequent notes you enter will have the same velocity and duration. If you have one note you wish to repeat, you can use the Paste Repeatedly command from the Paste dialogue box. Transposing a series of notes is easy in the Piano Roll view. Let's say you have a snare drum note you want to change to a rimshot: simply double‑click on the snare drum from the list on the left to select the notes; if you're not using an instrument definition mapped to drums, double‑click on the note on the piano keyboard. Then, with the selection tool, click and drag any of the notes to the new instrument or pitch. It will take you longer to read these steps than to do it!
If you're blessed with the ability to read notation, you may be more comfortable working in the Staff view. This view can display notes being recorded in real time, so you can see your notes appear on screen as you play them. You can also use the percussion notation for all of your drum lines. If you click and drag a note, it will move diatonically; however, if you click on the note and then press the right mouse button, you can move it chromatically.
If you find yourself doing the same type of edits repeatedly every time you run Cakewalk, consider creating a CAL macro to handle regular tasks. CAL (which stands for Cakewalk Application Language) is a powerful way to create your own commands within Cakewalk. CAL is not for the faint‑hearted (in fact, we recommend you have some programming background if you plan on writing CAL routines from scratch), but if you can press a button on the screen, you can create a CAL macro. Cakewalk will record your keystrokes, and save them as a CAL routine that you can map to a single keystroke. You can also view and further edit the macro in the CAL view.
- Select View | CAL and press record.
- Now perform the task you want CAL to record.
- When you're finished, press stop.
- You can save this file so that you can call it up when editing other sequences.
- To run the CAL program, press the Run button or go to Edit | Run Cal Program and select the CAL routine you wish to use.
StudioWare can give you virtual control over any MIDI device...
What if you've recorded audio? Cakewalk Pro Audio v6.01 has many new features you'll find extremely useful. If you open the Audio View you'll notice that there's a new tool option located next to the Snap button. This is the Snap to Zero button. With this button depressed, you can cut recorded audio directly on zero crossing points, which means that you won't get that annoying click after you cut a piece of audio. If you're using the Scrub Tool and you've found the perfect edit point, don't risk losing it by selecting the scissors tool and performing a cut — instead, just right‑click on the audio event and select Split from the Inspector menu.
Using Audio Effects
By right‑clicking on selected audio events you can activate an off‑line CFX or other third‑party DirectX audio plug‑in. Remember, you may have to wait for an effect to process, but once it's done the CPU is free to do other things, such as playing more audio tracks! You can call up an Audition from within any DirectX plug‑in window in Cakewalk. Cakewalk Pro Audio v6.01 does have real‑time effects too, which have true stereo support in this version. If you want to run a real‑time effect, you'll need to set it up as an effects loop from the View | Effects dialogue box. If you want to change the volume of clips, you can do this by rotating the volume knob in the lower left corner of every clip. If you select the Line Draw tool you can draw in fades over a clip.
Mixing
Once you've edited your opus, it's time to do a mixdown. Select all your tracks and open the Panel view. The StudioWare Panel may look like the Faders view from Cakewalk v5.0, but that's where the similarities end. StudioWare can give you virtual control over any MIDI device and can be bound to Cakewalk Key Bindings and MCI commands. You can use the default Panel or the ones shipped with Cakewalk. New Panels are available at www.cakewalk.com, and you can even create your own. If you're going to create a Panel, it's a good idea to have the manufacturer's MIDI implementation chart handy for the piece of gear you want to support. Most of us have rack gear that sounds great, but the problem is that most rack units have tiny screens and four buttons to get through numerous menus. StudioWare lets you create the interface you want for your gear, so you can get to the functions you need, fast. You can design the Panel so that only those commands that you use the most are displayed. To get an idea of how powerful StudioWare can be, check out the Roland VS880 and Yamaha ProMix01 Panels shipped with Cakewalk. They also come with the free demo version of Cakewalk that is available at our web site.
Once you have the StudioWare Panel loaded, you're ready to automate your mix. Automation is as simple as everything else in Cakewalk and, as you would expect, you can automate virtually every widget in the view. Press the Record button within the Panel view, then press play in Cakewalk. Now start to mix; if you make a mistake you can use Edit | Undo. Cakewalk has 256 levels of Undo so don't worry about making mistakes. To play back the automation in Cakewalk, select the Update button and press play in Cakewalk. If you like a fade but want to edit it graphically, go to the Piano Roll view for the track in question. From there you can draw in Controller 7 (volume) data. Snapshot allows you to take a picture of the Panel at a given point in time. To make a Snapshot, simply press the Snapshot button — it has a camera graphic on it.
You're on the way to becoming a Cakewalk power user. If you'd like to find out more about the topics discussed here, visit our website, where you can check out the newsgroups or grab a tech document to study at your leisure.