Should I use Cakewalk, and how?

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Oldstyle Guy

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Hello to All

I just discovered this group last night and signed up. It seems like someone here will have answers that I haven't been able to find.

I'm writing a musical comedy. For better or worse, I've written the first songs in Encore, my old notation program. They are complex songs with a full orchestra accompaniment. Everything has been done in traditional notation. I save them to MIDI and they sound fine played back on my Live sound card with Big Merlin fonts.

Now I need to add the singers. My plan was to bring the MIDI files into Cakewalk, record the singers singing their tracks into the Cakewalk files, via my sound card, and then (later) adjust balances etc and burn a demo CD of the songs. Commercial quality is not needed at this point. My largest use now is to get the CDs to potential producers of the show.

No one I know here in Lincoln Nebraska uses Cakewalk or can answer a couple of basic questions, so here they are:

1) Is what I suggested above the best way to do what I need?

2) Is the Cakewalk 8 program that's on my computer a good thing to use? I don't need the highest possible sound quality, but I do need a reliable program that's easy to learn. Every hour I spend learning the program is another hour I'm not spending writing the remaining songs. Are there better programs for my needs? (I'm poor, but not totally broke)

3) If I use Cakewalk, how can I learn what I need to know as easily as possible. I have the Scott Garrigus Cakewalk Power book, but it seems like overkill for me, and seems aimed toward uses which are way different my needs. Is there some simple publication, or is there someone out there with lots of experience doing the sort of thing I'm doing?

Thanks for reading my rather long post. If you have suggestions, I'll be grateful.

Oh yes, If anyone knows a Cakewalk user in Lincoln or near, please let me know.

Peter
 
Oldstyle Guy said:
Hello to All

I just discovered this group last night and signed up. It seems like someone here will have answers that I haven't been able to find.

I'm writing a musical comedy. For better or worse, I've written the first songs in Encore, my old notation program. They are complex songs with a full orchestra accompaniment. Everything has been done in traditional notation. I save them to MIDI and they sound fine played back on my Live sound card with Big Merlin fonts.

Now I need to add the singers. My plan was to bring the MIDI files into Cakewalk, record the singers singing their tracks into the Cakewalk files, via my sound card, and then (later) adjust balances etc and burn a demo CD of the songs. Commercial quality is not needed at this point. My largest use now is to get the CDs to potential producers of the show.

No one I know here in Lincoln Nebraska uses Cakewalk or can answer a couple of basic questions, so here they are:

1) Is what I suggested above the best way to do what I need?

2) Is the Cakewalk 8 program that's on my computer a good thing to use? I don't need the highest possible sound quality, but I do need a reliable program that's easy to learn. Every hour I spend learning the program is another hour I'm not spending writing the remaining songs. Are there better programs for my needs? (I'm poor, but not totally broke)

3) If I use Cakewalk, how can I learn what I need to know as easily as possible. I have the Scott Garrigus Cakewalk Power book, but it seems like overkill for me, and seems aimed toward uses which are way different my needs. Is there some simple publication, or is there someone out there with lots of experience doing the sort of thing I'm doing?

Thanks for reading my rather long post. If you have suggestions, I'll be grateful.

Oh yes, If anyone knows a Cakewalk user in Lincoln or near, please let me know.

Peter


1) If you already have the MIDI-files, then yes. Otherwise I would use Cakewalk (which program? I suspect you're using Pro Audio 9) from the beginning.

2) Ah. Pro Audio 8. Well, yes. You'll get by fine. If you want to use virtual instruments and such, you need to upgraded to e.g. HomeStudio 2004.

3) The quickest way possible? I don't think there's a quick way... Trial and error is the most used and common method. Read the manual and the help file. The Power!-books by Garrigus are usually pretty good (but I haven't read Cakewalk Power!). We all basically do what you do: Record music with our computers. This is the place to get help! :)


Good luck!
 
Welcome to the board, Oldstyle Guy :)
Cakewalk product is one of the easiest yet powerfull to reach your goal. We're here to help if you need some. Be sure to post your PC spec, general info about your setup, and your problem (if any). Cakewalk 8 is a bit outdated, so please bear with us.

Anyway, do you have any difficulty converting soundfonts to audio (wave) before burning to CD?

;)
Jaymz
 
And of course: Read the Cakewalk FAQ!


(Note to self: Hmmmm... I need to update them. The avatars don't work no more...)
 
Thanks for responding. I'll check out the FAQ. I guess I need to print out the manual as well. At 300 pages, that's a lot of printing, but maybe it will pay off.
 
Thanks for your response to my post. At this point I've had now problems converting my midi files to .wav. I've got a little program named Midi2Wav that's amazingly simple to use and has worked fine so far. However, the files I've converted have no tracks other than Midi. When I add analog tracks of singers, I assume that Cakewalk will need to make the conversions. Is that a source of problems?

Thanks Again
Peter
 
You did read the Cakewalk FAQ? It's all there! Click here for direct link...

:)
 
Oldstyle Guy said:
When I add analog tracks of singers, I assume that Cakewalk will need to make the conversions. Is that a source of problems?
The problem is, internal conversion can only be done in higher version of Cakewalk. Homestudio or Sonar does this, I'm not sure Cakewalk Pro 8 would. Anyway, it still can be done using the old fashioned way. Once you're done with MIDI tracks, insert audio track, arm it, open Creative's mixer (you use Creative's card for soundfonts, right?) and select MIDI (or whatever refers to internal MIDI synth/soundfonts) as recording source. Back to Cakewalk, solo one MIDI track, and hit record. If you do it right, you'll have the MIDI track recorded into wave track. Repeat the procedure untill all your MIDI tracks "converted" into audio track. Then you can mix them with vocals audio track, and export into one stereo file mixed project. Read moskus' Cakewalk FAQ for detailed info.

;)
Jaymz
 
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