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Author Topic: cakewalk pro audio 4.01 (1995?) for 486/Pentium computers  (Read 3794 times)

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Offline chrisNova777

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cakewalk pro audio 4.01 (1995?) for 486/Pentium computers
« on: December 06, 2014, 02:51:37 PM »
cakewalk pro audio 4.01 www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/jun96/cakewalkpro4.1.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20140915133102/http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/jun96/cakewalkpro4.1.html
see also http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=506.0
windows 3.11 compatible


Quote
How often have you found yourself imagining how good it would be to add a live vocal or instrumental to the sequenced tracks you're working on? How often, after going through the rigmarole of setting up the mic, cueing tape or setting up a hard disk recorder, do you find your inspiration gone -- leaving you dissatisfied and frustrated? Yet again, the means have overwhelmed and destroyed the end -- that of creating and recording your music.

Today, however, we are witnessing the metamorphosis of our old friend the MIDI sequencer into one of the most powerful aids to musical creativity and recording ever known. The addition of digital audio tracks running alongside MIDI presents us with an astonishing range of recording and editing tools. Yes, computer music is finally coming of age. It can't be long before sequencers without audio are regarded as quaint and old-fashioned.

Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 is one of these new wave of MIDI + Audio recorders, and describes itself as 'the MIDI and Digital Audio Workstation for Windows'. It features digital audio recording and editing, MIDI recording and score printing. But with such a modest price tag, can it deliver the goods?
OVERVIEW

Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 is a 256-track recorder. Audio track size is limited only by the spec of the PC: as ever, 'the faster, the bigger, the better' is the rule. Any 16-bit Windows MME soundcard can be used. However, you will need a DSP-based card for simultaneous record and playback. Sample rates are soundcard-dependent, but 11kHz, 22kHz and 44.1 kHz are supported. Special provision is made for Digidesign Session 8. A great plus is that as Audio-MIDI synchronisation is internal, you can avoid the cost of a SMPTE timecode unit, unless you wish to lock to external devices. The program will run in Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, and installation is hassle-free. The printed manual is comprehensive, indexed, clearly laid out and supplemented by Windows Help.

Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 marks a giant step forward from previous versions, including Drag & Drop editing throughout, and an improved front page -- minus the blobs! Song structure editing is vastly improved. The program also uses a multi-screen approach, and has a timebase of between 48 and 480ppqn (pulses per quarter note). Colours can be customised -- I went for a gentle-on-the-eye look, essential for prolonged use. You can save to disk without closing editors, and user-assignable keybinds enhance mouse activity, to make getting around fast and efficient.
FRONT PAGE

Track View consists of the Track pane and the Clips pane. The Track pane list contains the default parameters for each Track. The Patch Name parameter is especially impressive. Double-clicking the field connects you to Instrument Definitions -- an onboard database from which you can select any voice in any MIDI instrument by name or program number. Right-clicking on the Track pane calls up the Track Inspector menu. This enables you to add, delete, solo or edit tracks, alter the appearance of Clips and set Snap values for the Clips pane. Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 uses the Windows Clip to cut and paste text between Track, Patch and Clip names, and you can even import text from your word processor into the Information box or Lyric View. All very cool!

Notably absent from this latest version of Cakewalk Audio is the Track Loop function, which (in Cakewalk Pro 3) enabled cycling during Play and Record. Indispensable for the style of techno/rave that builds a song by muting or playing changing combinations of 8 or 16-bar loops, its absence will be a crushing blow to some, and a blessed relief to others...

The Clips Pane displays groups of MIDI and digital audio events as coloured rectangular blocks, which scroll horizontally during playback and record. A Clip may contain either MIDI or Audio events, and can be copied, moved, split, combined or renamed. Split Clips is well thought-out, with options including multiple splits at definable intervals and split to Markers. All rather splendid, and a great improvement on Cakewalk Pro 3, but more power would not have gone amiss. A Clip Parameters tool would be welcome, embedding the basic parameter and MIDI controller changes that typically distinguish song sections. A Clip mute tool would also be helpful.

The double-headed arrow icon next to the Clip selection tool is used to select by time. All events within the time range drawn are selected, unless excluded by clicking on the Track numbers. Above the Clips pane is the Measures ruler. This can read Time or Bars, and can also contain Markers. These are static text flags used, for example, to indicate cue points or song sections.

Markers are edited as a list in the Markers view. The Now marker is special, as it acts as the Current Position flag, and is moved by clicking on the Measure bar or through the use of various Go To commands. Horizontal and Vertical Zoom controls (magnifying glass icons) allow the resizing of the Clips pane.

The Control Bar contains the main transport functions, and runs in 'always on top mode' (cf. the missionary position). It can be placed anywhere on screen. The Current Position is displayed in Meter and SMPTE time. Tempo, SMPTE/MTC format, Step Time, Record mode, Loop points, Meter and Key signature are set by double-clicking on their respective fields. When looping passages containing digital audio, there is a short pause whilst the audio is re-cued from hard drive. Unforgivably, there are no MIDI activity indicators: these are essential in a multi-port system.
AUDIO

Any signal from CD, tape deck, instrument or microphone (via the mixer) can be quickly recorded and edited in glorious CD quality (soundcard permitting). With a digital card you can clone DAT, CD or CD-ROM. Audio is recorded as stereo across two Tracks, or as a mono Track. Windows .wav files can be imported through the Insert Wave File command.

Selecting Audio Meters from the View menu brings up the Input meters used to optimise incoming audio levels. Typically, there will be two meter bars, but more appear when working with supported hardware such as Digidesign Session 8. Audio Meters also contains a handy Available Disk Space indicator that informs you of the remaining hard drive capacity. File Menu Utilities contains soundfile management tools, to allow the deletion of unwanted Cakewalk Audio soundfiles -- these may include temporary edit buffer files and rejected takes. Here too is the means to convert between proprietory Cakewalk wavefiles and the standard Windows .wav formats.

The Audio Editor can display multiple Tracks, and is accessed via the Track or Clips Inspector menus. The vertical axis represents amplitude, and the horizontal axis represents time. Time may be expressed as Bars or Samples. In the lower left corner of the graph is a rather neat velocity level control. Audio events respond to MIDI volume and pan controller messages. Real-time MIDI control, although possible in theory, may in practice be inhibited by the processing power of your PC. The Audio toolbar contains Select options, cut, linear fade and scrub tools. Further tools are found in the Audio Editor Inspector, which allow audio parts to be split, combined or deleted. The Inspector also contains an excellent array of Wave editing tools. Here Cakewalk Audio excels, presenting an array of sophisticated functions, including graphic and parametric EQ, noise gate, normalisation, crossfade, fade envelope editing and Extract Timing.

Extract Timing is an advanced Audio-to-MIDI function. On the PC, it is unique to Cakewalk Audio, and similar to that found in Opcode Studio Vision (currently Mac only). Using pulse analysis and timing synthesis, Extract Timing will generate MIDI notes with velocity information from audio, and can create a tempo map for use as a Groove Quantise file. This can then quantise (or rein in) MIDI parts -- even those originally recorded at a different tempo -- by configuring the MIDI tempo to that of the audio events. I have had some simple initial success with Extract Timing, but I get the feeling that it will take practice and patience to realise its full potential.

A less precise but quicker method of sync'ing audio to MIDI can be used, which works with rhythmically simple material such as short drum patterns. Record the drum pattern as an Audio Clip, and then top and tail it so that it starts on the beat and contains the complete bar measures. Next, set the Tempo in the Control Bar to the estimated bpm of the audio, and position the clip at the first tick (000) of the first beat of the bar in the Clip pane. Adjust the Tempo until your audio clip is the same length as the bar. The audio and MIDI will then sit on the beat, and, as if by magic, run in sync.
EDITORS

The Cakewalk graphical editing screens are generally the most attractively designed that I have encountered in any sequencer on any platform. They are entered from the Track or Clips Inspector menu (right click) or via the View menu. Most MIDI edit commands can be carried out in real-time, during playback. On slower PCs, real-time editing can cause momentary breaks in playback continuity.

The Piano Roll, Controllers, and Lyrics views show the whole of a single track; the Event, Audio and Score views show multiple Tracks. In the Piano Roll editor, notes are displayed as coloured horizontal bars. Pitch is represented by the vertical piano keyboard and the Time line, as in all Cakewalk editors, runs horizontally from left to right. Above the edit pane is the Measure rule, and below it is the Velocity pane. Note velocities are shown as vertical columns: the taller the column, the higher the velocity. The panes can be resized using the Zoom tools. The Piano Roll tool bar includes Select, Draw, Erase and Scrub tools, and the Snap Value button. Select is used to prepare for editing a single note or a group. The selection, just as in the Clips pane, can then be edited. Draw is used to resize or enter new notes, and to rescale velocities.

The Drum Editor has a list of drum voice names rather than the piano keyboard, and drum notes are displayed as diamond shapes. Otherwise, it looks and behaves much the same as its alter ego, the Piano Roll. Sadly, the lack of a comprehensive drum edit environment lets Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 down. All that's needed is the ability to select Solo and Mute for each drum voice, so that individual drums or groups of Drums can be heard in isolation. Similarly, edits in the Drum Editor Velocity pane should follow Select and Solo. An overall Velocity boost/gain for each drum voice is also required, and a Cubase-style drum mapper would enable drum sounds from different instruments to share the same drum editor page, and be assignable to a single keyboard layout. One gremlin I encountered in the Piano Roll and Drum editor panes was that in high magnification, notes of short duration (drum sounds, for example) are displayed as vertical black lines, which, when selected, appear to vanish completely!

The Event List view is a simple, time-based list editor that can display multiple channels. MIDI events are displayed by Track, Start time, Channel Type and Values. You can cut, paste, delete, insert and so on, but there is a need for a View Event-type filter, to select by event type. For soundtrack work, the Event List also acts as the Audio EDL (Edit Decision List) playlist.

The Staff View will display and print multiple staves, adding song lyrics and traditional expression and dynamics markings. Performance advice text can also be added, as can guitar chord tablature. Surprisingly, there is no chord recognition, but the familiar range of Cakewalk edit tools can be used, and non-concert key transposing instruments are catered for by using the Track Key+ function.

The 'open surface' design of Cakewalk Pro Audio v4.01 means that it is not necessary to close the editors in order to save or move to new editors. Editors can also be minimised as icons, and restored later. There is even a multiple-level undo edit capability, with a 128-step history that lists your edit changes. Très chic!

Additional tools can be found in the Edit menu, home to the Transpose, Slide, Length, Retrograde, Audio and Quantise functions. Groove Quantise lets you create or import Quantise templates, which apply preset tempo and velocity characteristics. Select by Filter and Interpolate allow edit commands to be applied to events fulfilling predefinable criteria. Fit to Time enables you to shrink or extend whole songs or sections to a specified time. Fit to Improvisation takes MIDI events not recorded to clock, analyses their timing, creates a tempo map and presents the events as regular bars and beats. Regrettably, there is no Delete Doubles function, to search for and erase duplicated MIDI events. The Velocity Scaler ramps note velocities to create crescendi and diminuendi. This would be a good place to put an Add/Subtract Velocity -- currently only available as a CAL (Cakewalk Application Language) -- sub-routine.

Tempo is edited graphically. This is great for drawing in tempo curves, but a list-based tempo editor is far quicker for certain tasks. Also, it can take ages to review Tempo changes, as Zoom out can only display a maximum of 15 bars at any one time. A nearly-wonderful related feature is found in Insert Tempo: Cakewalk will analyse mouse clicks as bpm. Impressive, but I wish it was possible to use a note from a MIDI keyboard, which typically has far more accurate switching than your average rodent.
CONTROLLERS

The Controllers View displays controller information for the selected Track, and is switchable between controller types. Controller events can only be viewed in the context of the channel in which they originated. If you have created parts by cutting and pasting between Tracks, you may have controllers across many channels on one Track. In this case, the lack of a View All Channels function makes editing difficult.

The Faders view -- the virtual mixer -- is best avoided, in my opinion! At best, it's a good idea in need of further development. A strange omission is Real Time Controller mapping, to re-route messages in real time between controllers, such as using the Modulation Wheel to input MIDI volume.
CONCLUSION

In a word -- thrilling! The shortcomings of Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 are forgivable in the context of its superb audio handling and low price. Costing little more than a second-hand Portastudio, it represents tremendous value for money.

Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01's wave editing power gives it the edge over Cubasis Audio, which admittedly has a lower price tag (£250). To find a better MIDI + Audio package for the PC, you will have to pay twice the price of Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01, and go for Cubase Audio (£699). If more sophisticated digital audio editing is required, then look towards more expensive dedicated programs such as Steinberg Wavelab, or SAW (see my 'Living With...' feature in SOS January 1996).

Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 is the quickest, most intuitive method of recording and editing live audio tracks with MIDI that I have used. It offers a viable, low-budget route to high quality music production. As an audio/MIDI sketchpad and demo maker, it excels. With DAT and a digital card, you could even master your tracks for CD if you were on a limited budget. And where to from here? Pass me that mic while I plug in my guitar, I feel a tune coming on ...

Many thanks to Mark and Colin at Etcetera for their help during the writing of this review.
 
CAKEWALK PRO AUDIO DELUXE

This CD-ROM release consists of Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 and the Cakewalk Musician's Toolbox, containing Lotus Cam video tutorials, Roland Sound Canvas editor, and Lyrics hyphenation dictionary, together with a weird and wonderful bunch of MIDI files and .wav samples to get you started.

There are very useful MIDI drum patterns from House of Drums, audio drum loops from Charlie Morgan & Steve Gadd, DNA Groove templates from Sly Dunbar & Armando Borg, gobsmacking Native American Indian .wavs, super TC500-treated guitar samples, brass stabs and some of the most humorously surreal MIDI files ever recorded, in Dr Solo's Outrageous Rhythm Tracks (what is this guy on?).

All this and more -- including Route 66 Jam, your very own glue-together Friday night covers band. Great fun!
 
AUDIO RECORDING & EDITING

Recording is a doddle. Once your input routing is in place and you have set your Track's input levels, simply mute the monitors, switch on the mic or CD, hit 'R' on the computer keyboard, and you're on! When done, save or delete.

MIDI and audio tracks play back in sync as you overdub the new audio track. Be careful with record levels, because each track you add accumulates, until the maximum headroom of the soundcard's output DACs is exceeded. This is evidenced by the presence of audible distortion. To avoid this, either attenuate the track levels or, better still, record tracks at a lower input level where possible. And remember that Cakewalk Pro Audio will only support a single common sample rate throughout each song.

To edit: select the take in the Clip pane. Enter the Audio Editor and select the event. Adjust Snap, and with the Scissors tool, top and tail. Next, select and delete unwanted audio segments, then return to Track view, name and save the song. To record your next audio part, select a new Track and repeat.
 
SMPTE MADE SIMPLE

Cakewalk Audio will now lock up to and control external devices such as ADAT, VTR or analogue multitrack. However, when a song contains audio events, SMPTE sync places an additional burden on the computer CPU. MIDI+Audio sequencing systems take audio timing information from the clock on the soundcard. MIDI timing is derived from the computer's clock, unless the program is running in external sync mode (from MIDI Clock or SMPTE/MTC). If the external clock drifts, Cakewalk Audio will stretch or shrink the audio to stay in sync. This will cause slight pitch changes which, Cakewalk developers 12-Tone assure us, should be negligible.
 
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• MINIMUM CONFIGURATION

486SX33 PC/8Mb RAM/8Mb drive space.

• RECOMMENDED CONFIGURATION

486DX2-66 PC or better, with VLB or PCI bus/minimum16Mb RAM/a large, fast E-IDE or SCSI hard disk (hard disk audio requires 11Mb for each minute of stereo at 44.1kHz sample rate).
 
pros & cons
CAKEWALK PRO AUDIO 4.01

PROS
• Excellent audio recording and editing.
• Quick and fun to use.
• Multi-MIDI port operation.
• Superb value.
• Patch/Instrument database.

CONS
• No MIDI activity indicators.
• MIDI drum and controller editing underspecified for professional use.
• Limited MIDI loop handling.
• Front page could make better use of colour.

SUMMARY
Great integrated MIDI and audio sequencing package, capable of producing impressive results despite lacking some MIDI editing facilities.

 
info

£ Cakewalk Pro Audio 4.01 £339; Cakewalk Pro Audio Deluxe CD-ROM (contains program plus multimedia tutorial, Wave samples, MIDI sequences) £399. Prices include VAT and UK delivery.

A Etcetera Distribution, Unit 17, Hardmans Business Centre, Rawtenstall, Lancs BB4 6HH.

T 01706 228039.

F 01706 222989.