Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 User's Guide

Cakewalk Professional User’s Guide

Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement or nondisclosure agreement. The software may be used or copied only in accordance of the terms of the agreement. It is against the law to copy this software on any medium except as speciﬁcally allowed in the agreement. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc.

Cakewalk is a registered trademark of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. Cakewalk Pro Audio, Cakewalk Professional, Cakewalk Home Studio, Cakewalk Guitar Studio, Cakewalk Audio FX, Cakewalk Metro, Virtual Jukebox, Virtual Piano, CFX, StudioWare, and the Cakewalk logo are trademarks of Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. Other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Registering Professionalª . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvi

Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvi

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Make a Performance Sound Great . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Improvise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Edit and Arrange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Orchestrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Work Efficiently . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Share Your Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Record Demo Tapes or CD Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Coordinate with Other Media and Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Produce Printed Scores and MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Professionalª Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Working on a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Other Types of Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Computers, Sound, and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Installing Professionalª . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Table of Contents

Starting Professionalª . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Learning to Use Professionalª . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Tutorial 1ÑPlaying a Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Rehearsal Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Opening a Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Playing the Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Restarting the Song Automatically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Changing the Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Muting and Soloing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Changing a Track's Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Playing Music on a Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Tutorial 2ÑRecording MIDI and Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Rehearsal Time, Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Opening the Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Recording MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Loop Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Punch-In Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Recording Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Recording Multiple Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Tutorial 3ÑAudio Editing and Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Audio Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Opening the Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

The Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Stretching the Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Adding the Announcer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Trimming the Announcer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Editing the Announcer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Making It Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Mixing the Radio Spot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Automating Your Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Saving the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

3 Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

The ÒNow TimeÓ and How to Use It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Displaying the Now Time in Large Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Other Ways to Set the Now Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Handling Stuck Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Track-by-Track Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Silencing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Soloing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Changing Track Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Setting Up Output Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Assigning Tracks to Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Choosing the Instrument Sound (Bank and Patch) . . . . . . . . . 98

Adjusting Volume and Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Assigning a MIDI Channel (Chn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Adjusting the Key/Transposing a Track (Key+) . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Adjusting the Note Velocity (Vel+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Adjusting the Time Alignment of a Track (Time+) . . . . . . . . . 105

Other MIDI Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Video Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

4 Recording a Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Creating a New Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Setting the Time and Key Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Setting the Metronome and Tempo Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Setting the Audio Sampling Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Setting the MIDI Timing Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Preparing to Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Recording Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Choosing a Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Arming Tracks for Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Auto Arming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Recording Music from a MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Virtual Piano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Recording Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Loop Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Punch Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Step Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Step Pattern Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Recording Channel by Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Importing Music and Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Importing Wave (.wav) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Importing Material from Another Cakewalk Project . . . . . . . 139

Importing MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Labeling Your Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

File Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

MIDI Input and Echo Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Table of Contents

Input Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

MIDI Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Local Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5 Arranging Tracks and Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Arranging Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Changing the Order of Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Copying Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Erasing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Arranging Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Displaying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Selecting Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Moving and Copying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Working with Partial Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Markers and the Snap Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Showing Gridlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Defining and Using the Snap Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Creating and Using Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Working with Linked Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Splitting and Combining Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Changing Tempos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Using the Tempo Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Using the Tempo Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Using the Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

6 Editing Events and Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

The Piano Roll View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Opening the View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Selecting and Editing Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Percussion, Drum Notes, and Note Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Controllers Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Selecting and Editing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Transposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Shifting Events in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Inserting Measures into a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Stretching and Shrinking Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Reversing Notes in a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Adding Crescendos and Decrescendos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Changing the Timing of a Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Fit Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Searching for Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Event Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Controllers, RPNs, NRPNs, and Automation Data . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Using the Controllers Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

The Event List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Event List Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Event List Display Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Editing Events and Event Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Additional Event Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

MIDI Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Quantizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Adding Echo/Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Filtering Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Adding Arpeggio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Analyzing Chords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Changing Velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

7 Editing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Digital Audio Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Basic Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

ExampleÑA Guitar String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Recording a Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

The Decibel Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Audio Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Managing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

The Audio View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Basic Audio Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Editing Event Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Setting Volume and Pan Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Moving, Copying, and Deleting Audio Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Splitting Audio Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Combining Audio Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Applying Fades with the Draw Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Scrubbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Basic Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Increasing or Decreasing Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Reversing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Equalizing Audio Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Advanced Audio Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Parametric Equalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Fades and Crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

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vii

Mixing Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Adding Parametric Equalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Adding Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Applying Delay and Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Adding Flanging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Applying Reverb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Shifting Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

8 Working with Notation and Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

The Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Opening the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Staff View Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Basic Musical Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Inserting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Selecting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Moving, Copying, and Deleting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Changing Note Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Working with Triplets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Beaming of Rests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Changing the Way Notes Are Displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Using Enharmonic Spellings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

MIDI Channels and Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Chords and Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Adding Chord Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Adding Expression Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Adding Hairpin Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Adding Pedal Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Working with Percussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Setting Up a Percussion Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Setting Up a Percussion Staff or Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Ghost Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

The Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

What Is Meter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

What Is Key? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Opening the Meter/Key View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Adding and Editing Meter/Key Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Working with Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Staff View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Opening the Lyrics View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Adding and Editing Lyrics in the Lyrics View . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

viii

9 Mixing and Effects Patching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

The Console View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Configuring the Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Mixing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Routing and Mixing Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Audio Track Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Aux Buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Audio Main Output Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Using Real-Time Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Using Control Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Using Remote Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Recording Automation Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Mixing Down and Distributing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Preparing Audio for Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

10 Using Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Assigning Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Importing Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Creating Instrument Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Creating Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Copying Name Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Assigning the Bank Select Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Assigning Patch Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Assigning Note Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Assigning Controller, RPN, and NRPN Names . . . . . . . . . . . 355

11 Working with StudioWare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

StudioWare Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Using Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Grouping Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Recording Control Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Control Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

StudioWare Panel Drawing Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

12 Using Layouts and Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Template Example: Three MIDI Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Table of Contents

13 Improving Audio Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Audio System Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

The Wave Profiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Configuring Your Audio Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Digital Audio Data Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Changing the Wavedata Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Deleting Unused Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Compacting Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Backing Up Projects with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Take Vault and Audio Data Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Imported Audio Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Improving Performance with Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

14 Using System Exclusive Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

What Is System Exclusive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Sysx Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Using the System Exclusive View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Send . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Send All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Receive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

More about Dump Request Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Edit Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Load Bank and Save Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Transmitting Banks during Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Real-time Recording of System Exclusive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Sysx Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Saving MIDI Files Containing Sysx Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Sysx . ini File Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

15 Synchronizing Your Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Synchronization Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Clock Sources with No External Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

MIDI Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Professionalª as the Slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Professionalª as the Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Using MIDI Sync with Drum Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Troubleshooting MIDI Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

SMPTE/MIDI Time Code Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Playing Digital Audio under SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . 414

SMPTE/MTC Sync and Full Chase Lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Troubleshooting SMPTE/MTC Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

MIDI Machine Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

16 Programming with Cal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Creating and Running CAL Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Sample CAL Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

SPLIT NOTE TO TRACKS.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

SPLIT CHANNEL TO TRACKS.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

RANDOM TIME.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

THIN CONTROLLER DATA.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

THIN CHANNEL AFTERTOUCH.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

THIN PITCH WHEEL.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

MAJOR CHORD.CAL, MINOR CHORD.CAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Writing CAL Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Recording CAL Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

Table of Contents

Appendix A: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

When I Play a File, I DonÕt Hear Anything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

I CanÕt Record from My MIDI Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

When I Play a File Containing Audio, the Audio

Portion DoesnÕt Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

I CanÕt Record Any Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

The Music Is Playing Back with the Wrong

Instrument Sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

How Do I Use Professionalª to Access All the Sounds

on My MIDI Instrument? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

My Keyboard Doubles Every Note I Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

I DonÕt See the Clips Pane in the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

Why CanÕt Professionalª Find My Audio Files? . . . . . . . . . . 432

Why Do I Get Errors from the Wave Profiler? . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Appendix B: Tips & Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Video Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Double-Clicking Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Playing Files in Batch Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

The Play List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Virtual Jukebox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Windows Taskbar Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Undo, Redo, and the Undo History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Screen Colors and Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Music Notation for Nonconcert Key

Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Appendix C: Advanced Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

Step 1. Install Windows 95 or NT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

Step 2. Install Cakewalk Professionalª . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452

Step 3. Read the README File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Step 4. Install a MIDI Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Step 5. Connect Your MIDI Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Step 6. Configure Your Audio Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Step 7. Set Up to Record Digital Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Step 8. Start Cakewalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Appendix D: MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Timebases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Supported MIDI File Meta-Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Features Not Supported by MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Other MIDI File Handling Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Special Handling of GM, GS, and XG MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . 471

If You Have Problems Playing MIDI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

If You Plan to Publish Your Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Appendix E: Initialization Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Initialization Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Initialization File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

CAKEWALK.INI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

TTSSEQ.INI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Variables in the [Options] Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Variables in the [MIDI Input Devices]

Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Variables in the [MIDI Output Devices] Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

AUD.INI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Variables in the [Aud] Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Appendix F: Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

FX Stereo Reverb and CFX Reverb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

FX Stereo Chorus and CFX Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

FX Stereo Flanger and CFX Flanger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

FX Stereo Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

xii

CFX Delay/Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

FX Pitch Shifter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

FX Stereo Parametric EQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

CFX 2-Band EQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Appendix G: Summary of New Features . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

MIDI Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Improved Audio Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Pan and Volume Envelopes for Audio Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Adjustable Audition Duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Audio View Display Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Video support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Zoom Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Event List Display Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Metronome Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Record Drop-down List in Record Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Tempo List in Tempo View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Patch Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Show/Hide Gradient Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Mixdown Audio Command Moved to Tools Menu . . . . . . . . . . 491

New Pop-up Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Snap To or Move By Snap Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

New Buttons in Markers and Meter/Key Views . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Loop and Punch Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Go to Folder in File Open Dialog Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

Double-Clicking on Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

Console View Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

MIDI System Exclusive Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Table of Contents

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

xiii

xiv

Preface

The Cakewalk Professionalª UserÕs Guide is designed to help you learn

and use Cakewalk Professionalª Version 8. In everyday language, this

Guide explains how Professionalª works and how to use it to create,

edit, produce, and perform. WeÕve made this and task-oriented, with lots of cross-references so that you can Þnd the information you need. The index that you can use to Þnd information on any speciÞc topic.

UserÕs Guide also includes a comprehensive

UserÕs Guide easy to read

About This Book

The UserÕs Guide is organized as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction , provides an overview of Professionalª and instructions for installing the software and setting up your equipment.

Chapter 2, give you some practical experience with Professionalª and some exposure to many of its capabilities.

Chapters 3 through 9 cover all the basic skills you need to use Professionalª to play, record, edit, arrange, and mix your projects. By the time you complete these chapters, youÕll know all about the different ways you can work with your projects, and youÕll know about most of the tools you need to create music and sound using your computer.

Chapters 10 through 15 cover the advanced features of Professionalª. By the time you complete these chapters, youÕll know how to customize Professionalª both to make the best use of all the MIDI and audio equipment you have in your studio and to be more efÞcient and productive in your work.

The appendices contain additional information you can use for troubleshooting, advanced installation and setup, use of MIDI Þles, and some tips and tricks for using Professionalª. If youÕve used earlier

Getting Started , is a set of three hands-on tutorials that will

Preface

versions of Professionalª, be sure to turn to Appendix G to see a

summary of the new features in Professionalª Version 8.

Registering Professional™

Please be sure to complete and return the registration card in your

product package or to register your product on our World Wide Web site

(www.cakewalk.com). If you do not register, we cannot provide you with

technical support.

Getting Help

In addition to this UserÕs Guide , Professionalª includes on-line help

that can provide you with quick reference information whenever you

need it. Simply press F1 or click the Help button in any dialog box to Þnd

the information you need.

If you need more information than you can Þnd in the

the on-line help, here are two great places to look:

¥ Check the Support page of our World Wide Web site

(www.cakewalk.com) for updated technical information and answers to frequently asked questions

¥ Post messages to the Professionalª user community using one of

the Cakewalk newsgroups. For more information about the newsgroups, visit www.cakewalk.com.

You can also get technical support directly from Cakewalk. In order to

obtain technical support, you must submit the product registration card

that is included with your Cakewalk product, or register your product on

our World Wide Web site. You can obtain technical support for this

product in the following ways:

¥ E-mail your questions to support@cakewalk.com. Be sure to include

your serial number in your e-mail.

¥ Call Cakewalk Technical Support at (617) 441-7891 on weekdays,

10:00AM to 6:00PM, Eastern time. Be sure to have your serial number ready when you call.

Technical support hours, policies, and procedures are subject to change

at any time. Check our web site for the latest support information.

UserÕs Guide or

xvi

Introduction

Cakewalk Professionalª harnesses the power of your computer so you can produce great music fast. It has tools to make you productive and efÞcient so you can make the most of your creative ideas. YouÕll use Professionalª as your musical scratchpad from the start of a musical project right through to a polished Þnal result.

With Professionalª, you can work in any musical style. You can produce demo tapes, music for multimedia and games, sound effects and music for the computer or the World Wide Web, printed lead sheets and scores, or accompaniment tracks for performing and improvising. Your music can combine MIDI music with digital audio recordings of acoustic instruments and vocals. Professionalª is ßexible Ñ whatever your musical goals, Professionalª can take you there..

In This Chapter

Professional™ Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Computers, Sound, and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Installing Professional™. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Starting Professional™. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Learning to Use Professional™ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Introduction

It doesnÕt matter whether you have a small home studio or a high-

powered, fully equipped professional recording studio. Professionalª

helps you make the most of the equipment you have. It acts like the

mixer, tape deck, and effects rack in a traditional recording studio. You

record tracks and adjust their levels. Your sound sources can be

synthesized sounds, or sounds you record yourself. Special control panels

let you control the other equipment in your studio. Any gear that accepts

MIDI commands can interface with Cakewalk, allowing you to

incorporate their settings into a mix.

Make a Performance Sound Great

With Professionalª, you can record a performance on a track and add it

to a musical composition. Once youÕve got the sounds into your computer,

you can apply advanced editing tools to turn it into the perfect recording.

You can process your recordings with EQ and sophisticated effects like

reverb and delay. You can apply fadeouts and cross-fades and you can

adjust volume to correct recordings that are too soft. You can Þx a

performerÕs mistakes by adjusting the pitch or change the musical

concept by adjusting the duration of a recording.

Professionalª provides plenty of visual and audio feedback so you can

work fast and accurately. You can see the audio waveforms and watch

audio meters. You can listen to single or multiple tracks in tiny segments

so that you can Þnd and Þx glitches and edit out unwanted sections.

Professionalª P

polishing your musical ideas without getting in your way.

ROFESSIONAL

provides the tools for capturing and

Improvise

Record your ideas a track at a time, building a composition even if you

donÕt have an ensemble to jam with. Professionalª can be your musical

sketchpad, holding onto ideas that you can edit later. You can record

MIDI tracks using your keyboard or any other MIDI controller, or you

can set up your microphone and record audio tracks.

Edit and Arrange

Apply ProfessionalÕsª editing tools to Þne-tune a performance. Fix

rhythmic problems or give a track a new rhythmic feel. Select and

rearrange phrases -- apply loops, adjust the timing between tracks by

dragging, double or repeat a phrase by cutting and pasting. Select and

edit the music note by note and event by event, or apply powerful editing

procedures to change any parameter of selected events.

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Orchestrate

You have access to the full palette of sounds on your MIDI synthesizer. You can add patch changes and double notes and phrases on other tracks until the music sounds right. You can identify sounds by name instead of remembering sounds by number.

Work Efﬁciently

Professionalª has many views so you can see the music at any level of detail. You can see MIDI tracks and audio tracks side by side so you can align and edit them. You can work on individual notes or on phrases and tracks. You can apply Þlters to the musical data, letting you work on one type of information at a time. You can label musical phrases and insert markers, making editing and arranging easy.

Share Your Music

YouÕll want to share your music with other people, whether theyÕre your clients, your band members, or other composers. Your results can be recordings, computer Þles, or printed scores.

Record Demo Tapes or CD Masters

When the music sounds just the way you want it, you can hook up your cassette or DAT recorder to get a recording that you can share with your band or send to the CD mastering house. Or, if your studio doesnÕt have a high-end synthesizer with great sounds, you can take your Professionalª Þles into a bigger studio with more gear. If they have a PC running Cakewalk, you can make your master recordings there with great-sounding MIDI synthesizers.

Coordinate with Other Media and Hardware

Cakewalk synchronizes to other recorders with most popular SMPTE and MIDI time code formats. If you work on multimedia projects, you can use Professionalª as the master controller. Commands you insert in a track can trigger other multimedia applications such as animation and video.

Produce Printed Scores and MIDI Files

You can produce printed lead sheets and small scores with lyrics, or share the projects in digital form. Cakewalk will save your music in audio or MIDI formats that you can put on a web site or share with others.

Introduction

1-19

Professional™ Basics

Professionalª looks and acts like many other Microsoft Windows

programs. The

features of Professionalª. Some menu choices and tools display

boxes

that let you choose among various options or type in the values you want. If you click in most views, in time rulers, or on certain other items with the right mouse button, you see a pop-up menu that provides quick access to many common operations.

The

project is the center of your work in Professionalª. If youÕre a

musician, a project might contain a song, a jingle, or a movement of a symphony. If youÕre a post-production engineer, a project might contain a 30-second radio commercial or a lengthy soundtrack for a Þlm or videotape production. By default, every project is stored in a Þle (known as a

work Þle ). The normal Þle extension for aProfessionalª work Þle is

wrk .

menus and toolbars give you quick access to all the

dialog

Professionalª organizes the sound and music in your project into tracks, clips, and events.

Tracks are used to store the sound or music made by each instrument

or voice in a project. For example, a song that is arranged for four instruments and one vocalist would normally have 5 tracksÑone for each instrument and one for the vocals. Each project can have up to 256 tracks. Some of these tracks may be used in your Þnished project, while others can hold alternate takes, backup tracks, and variations that you might want to keep for future use.

Clips are the pieces of sound and music that make up your project. A

clip might contain a horn solo, a drum break, a bass or guitar riff, a voice-over, a sound effect like the hoot of an owl, or an entire keyboard performance. A track can contain a single clip or dozens of different clips, and you can easily move clips from one track to another.

Events are the individual bits of sound and music that make up a clip. A

note played on a piano or bass is an event, as is the pressing of a sustain pedal on a keyboard or the turn of a pitch wheel. Each continuous piece of digital audio in your project is an event.

Views

Professionalª displays your project in windows on the screen that are known as same project. When you edit a project in one view, the others are updated automatically.

views . You can have many views open at once, all showing the

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The Track View

The Track view is the main window that you use to create, display, and work with a project. When you open a project Þle, Professionalª displays the Track view for the project. When you close the Track view for a project, Professionalª closes the Þle.The Track view is divided into two sections: the size of the two panes by dragging the vertical splitter bar that separates the two panes.

Each row is a track

Track pane and the Clips pane . You can change the

The Clips paneThe Track pane

The Track pane lets you see and change the initial settings for each track. One trackÑthe current trackÑis always displayed in color or marked by a rectangle around one cell. To change the current track, move the highlight using the mouse or the keyboard as follows:

Key… What it does…

Arrow Moves one cell in any direction

Page Down Displays the next page of tracks

Page Up Displays the previous page of tracks

Home Moves the highlight to the ﬁrst track in

the project

Introduction

1-21

End Moves the highlight to the last track in

the project

The Clips pane shows the clips in your project on a timeline that helps you visualize how your project is organized. Clips contain markings that indicate their contents. The Clips pane lets you select, move, and copy clips from place to place to change the arrangement of music and sound in your project.

The Track view makes it easy to select tracks, clips, and ranges of time in a project. These are the most common selection methods:

To… Do this…

Select tracks Click on the track number, or drag over

several track numbers

Select clips Click on the clip, or drag a rectangle

around several clips

Select time ranges Drag in the time ruler, or click between

two markers

As with most other Windows programs, you can also use the Shift-click and Ctrl-click combinations when selecting tracks and clips. Holding the Shift key while you click adds tracks or clips to the current selection. Holding the Ctrl key while you click lets you toggle the selection status of tracks or clips.

1-22

The Console View

The Console view is the place where you mix the sounds on all the different tracks to create the Þnal version of your project. You use the Console view to adjust the levels of sound for the different tracks in your project, to change the stereo panning, and to apply real-time effects to an individual track, combinations of tracks, or the Þnal mix.

The mixing console contains several groups of controls. There is one module for each track in your project, and one module for each output

device. You can use auxiliary sends (or aux sends) to direct certain tracks to special modules that are known as submixes.

Audio module

MIDI module

Patch point for real-time effects

Aux Sends knobs and on/off buttons

Mute, Solo, and Track Arming buttons

Pan and volume fader for each track

As in the Track view, you can change track settings or record new music or sound in the Console view. You may choose to use one view or the other, or the choice you make may depend on which project you are working on.

Other Views

Professionalª has a number of other views you can use to display and work on your project. To display these views, select one or more tracks and:

Track settings

Master volume faders

Introduction

¥ Click the icon for the view

¥ Choose the view you want from the View menu

¥ Right-click on a selected track and choose the view you want from

the menu

1-23

The Piano Roll view shows the notes from a single track as they would appear on a player-piano roll. You can move the notes around, make them longer or shorter, and change their pitches by just dragging them with the mouse. You can also use the Piano Roll view to display and edit MIDI velocity, controllers, and other types of information.

1-24

The Staff view displays the notes from one or more tracks using standard music notation, similar to the way the notation would appear on a printed page. You can add, edit, or delete notes; create percussion

parts; add guitar chords and other notation markings; and print whole scores or individual parts to share with other musicians.

The Audio view displays the sound waves that make up one or more audio tracks of your project and provides tools to edit, arrange, and apply effects to audio events.

1-25

Introduction

The Event List view displays the events in a project individually, so that you can make changes at a very detailed level.

Professionalª has several other views that are used for very speciÞc purposes:

View… How you use it…

Meter/Key To change the meter (time signature) or

key signature or to insert changes in the meter or key signature at speciﬁc times in a project

1-26

Big Time To display the Now time in a large,

resizable font that you can read more easily

Markers To add, move, rename, or delete labels

for parts of your song that make it easier to move from one point to another

Lyrics To add and display lyrics for a track

Video To display a loaded video ﬁle

Sysx To create, display, store, and edit

System Exclusive MIDI messages used to control instruments and other gear that are MIDI capable

StudioWare To use custom software interfaces to

control your MIDI gear

Tempo To view and edit the project's tempo

changes

Zoom Controls

Many of the views contain Zoom tools that let you change the horizontal and vertical scale of the view:

Lasso zoom Vertical zoom fader Zoom out vertically Zoom in vertically

Horizontal zoom fader

Zoom in horizontally

Zoom out horizontally

The zoom tools are used as described in the following table:

Tool… How you use it…

Zoom out Click to zoom out incrementally, or press

Shift and click to zoom all the way out

Zoom in Click to zoom in incrementally, or press

Shift and click to zoom all the way in

Zoom fader Click and drag to zoom continuously

Lasso zoom Click to arm, then click and drag in the

view to select the zoom area

Lasso zoom is automatically disarmed after use. Double-click the lasso zoom button to make the selection stick.

You can also zoom with the keyboard:

Key… What it does…

I Zoom in vertically and horizontally

O Zoom out vertically and horizontally

G Go to (center) the Now time, without

zooming

Z Arm lasso zoom

U Undo the current zoom

Introduction

1-27

Layouts

You may spend a lot of time making sure that all the views are laid out on the screen just the way you want. When you save your work, you can save the screen layout along with it. You can also save the layout by itself and then use the layout with other projects.

Working on a Project

Much of your time in Professionalª is spent recording and listening to your project or song as it develops. The Transport toolbar, shown below, contains the most important tools and other pieces of information youÕll need to record and play back your project.

Every project has a current time, known as the Now time. As you record or play back a project, the Now time shows your current location in the project. When you open or create a project, the Now time is set to the beginning of the project.

You control recording and playback using tools on the Transport toolbar, which work a lot like the ones on your tape deck or CD player:

Play RecordGo to Beginning

Go to EndStop

Reset

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Play RecordGo to Beginning

Go to EndStop

As you work with a project, you can use ProfessionalªÕs mute and solo features to choose which tracks are played, or you can create loops to play a particular section over and over again. You can also create markers, which are named time points you add to your project to make it easy to jump to a particular location.

Other Types of Files

Professionalª lets you create and work with several other types of Þles, in addition to the work Þles that store your songs and other projects:

File type… Purpose…

Playlist To play a series of Professional™

projects and standard MIDI ﬁles, one after another

CAL To write, edit, and run CAL programs

that extend the capabilities of Professional™

StudioWare To control external MIDI devices from

Professional™ Professional™

Computers, Sound, and Music

This section provides some background on the different ways that computers store and play sound and music. Computers work with sound and music in two different forms: MIDI and digital audio.

MIDI

MIDI (short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the way computers communicate with most sound cards, keyboards, and other electronic instruments. MIDI refers to both the type of cables and plugs used to connect the computers and instruments, and to the language those computers and instruments use to talk to each other. The MIDI standard is accepted and used worldwide. Almost any electronic instrument you buy today will have MIDI connectors and can be used with other MIDI instruments and with your computerÕs MIDI interface.

The MIDI language conveys information and instructions, both from the computer to the instrument and from the instrument to the computer. For example, if your computer wants your keyboard to play a note, it sends a MIDI ÒNote OnÓ message and tells the keyboard which note to play. When your computer wants the keyboard to stop playing that note, it sends another message that stops the note from playing.

The MIDI language has many other instructions, such as messages to change the sound that is used to play the notes (the bank and patch), messages used to work the sustain pedal and the pitch-bend wheel, and others. By sending the right messages at the right times, your computer can control your electronic instrument and make it play music.

Introduction

1-29

MIDI information can be sent on 16 different channels. You can set up your MIDI equipment to listen for messages on all channels or on only a few.

MIDI Þles contain all the MIDI messages and timing information that are needed to play a song. MIDI Þles can be read and played by many different programs, including Cakewalk, and can even be played by programs on other types of computers. MIDI Þles have the extension .

MID.

There are several important advantages of the MIDI format:

¥ Large amounts of music can be stored in a very compact form

¥ Different parts of a piece can easily be assigned to any instrument

you can imagine

¥ The music contains information on notes, tempos, and key

signatures that makes it possible to display and edit the piece using standard musical notation

The primary disadvantage of MIDI is that the quality of the music a listener hears will vary depending on the MIDI equipment the listener is using. For example, MIDI usually sounds much better on an expensive synthesizer than it does on an inexpensive sound card.

Digital Audio

Digital audio is a simple way to record and play sounds of any type. It works like a tape recorderÑyou record something, then later play it back. Digital audio stores the sound as a long series of numbers.

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Sound Waves

Sound waves are vibrations in the air. Sound waves are generated by anything that vibrates; a vibrating object causes the air next to it to vibrate, and the vibration is passed through the air in all directions. When the vibrating air enters your ear, it makes your eardrum vibrate, and you hear a sound. Likewise, if the vibrating air hits a microphone, it causes the microphone to vibrate and send electrical signals to whatever it's connected to.

These vibrations are very fast. The slowest vibration frequency you can hear is about 20 vibrations per second, and the fastest is around 16,000 to 20,000 vibrations per second.

Recording Digital Audio

To record digital audio, your computer monitors the electrical signal generated by a microphone, an electric guitar, or another source. At equal intervals of time (for CD-quality sound, this means 44,100 times a

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