The Blades.Technology Blog

 This post is about the room I play in.  I only ever play by myself and this is completely a non-pro hobby for me.  I created a video for this post to show around the room and the equipment I am using.  I don't know if anyone really care, to be honest, but wanted to post something and was inspired by some recent posts on forums like "show us your room", a little new video from Rick Beato, and another from Justin over at 65 Drums going over his kit.  So I decided a video is worth at least a few extra words, so pulled this together real quick this morning.  Hope you enjoy - welcoming your feedback in reactions or comments below the post.

It has been a little over a year since the announcement that Gibson was sending Sonar to its grave.  But it's been exactly a year since I took advantage of the cross-grade pricing from Sonar over to Presonus Studio One and while it hasn't been the most prolific year, I've learned a lot, moved on successfully, and have learned that Studio One IS still my preferred DAW over the (now) Cakewalk by Bandlab offering.

This is a post about the Presonus Faderport 8 and how to use it in Cakewalk by Bandlab.  There is a video below that you can watch where I go through at least some of the basics of the use of the hardware in the software.  There are a LOT more features, but this is as far as I have documented in Cakewalk.  In Presonus Studio One, the unit definitely goes deeper and is more intetgrated. 

 After thinking through a number of things, and having gone back to using Cakewalk last night to revisit and old tune/mix, I was asked on the Cakewalk forum why I felt as I do, so I wrote a post that I thought would be worth repeating here.  So, here is most of that post, edited only for context in my Blog:

I used Sonar through Platinum including lifetime updates, so I was even up to date until right when Gibson tanked the brand. I understood how to work the application. Even if not a Full-time professional power-user, I definitely knew the ins and outs of getting things recorded and mixed and dealing with the hardware and software, drivers, configurations, system tweaking, etc.

But when I came back yesterday and opened up an old project, it left me wanting. Yes, I changed my audio interface, so there were things to adjust, but even that was painful, even being experienced at the same. I also added the FaderPort 8 device since I left, but I wasn't even trying to use that in CBB.

Here are a few things that are quite simple in Studio One that were a pain for me yesterday:

So along comes Bandlab - to resurrect the software previously known as Sonar.

By now, I'd selected the option of looking at Studio One, even though it didn't "check all of the boxes".

Why? Because.  Really - that's the best I can come up with.  Yeah, there are a lot of things that I really like about the way that Sonar worked and I was very familiar with it, but after trying out Studio One, I have found it to be VERY responsive to my needs.  It doesn't feel like it's going to crash at any moment, which is something that has really plagued Sonar for a while now.  I just didn't feel like I could depend on it.  As someone who doesn't get a lot of time to "play" in the studio and also someone who does computer troubleshooting for a living who also doesn't really want to do it while trying to get a part down, I really want reactive software that doesn't crash, doesn't feel like it's going to crash, and just behaves "like an appliance" to a certain degree.  Studio One does that.

So now what?!?

I am a hobbyist.  I don't get nearly enough time to spend on music making.  I am a drummer for the most part.  The rest of my musical endeavors have been around playing around with other instruments, learning how to use the technology side of the recording process, and having to play the other instruments well enough to be able to do that, which means trying to write some songs, doing my best to cover some songs I like to the point of not being embarrassed to play them for others, and just generally enjoying the process.

November, 2017 - somewhere in the middle of the month.  I was "forced" to make a decision about what DAW software to use. Why?  Let's start there with this Part One in a series.  I'll get to the details of where this goes from here in later posts, but this is a good starting point.

Gibson owned the software Sonar for several years.  I took a long break from updates to the Sonar system due to lack of time to dedicate to the hobby and lack of funds to go with it - I simply couldn't justify spending the $15/month for a hobby I wasn't really spending any time with.  I'd been using Cakewalk/Roland/Gibson Sonar for many years, updating pretty much every year until the X-series came along, where I got X1, din't like it, skipped X2, got X3 and saw as an improvement, but couldn't get with the program on the Platinum releases.  I wasn't really convinced that the monthly updates would amount to much or at least not often.  So I stopped updating for about 2 years.

This video covers the basic uses of the BCF2000 in Sonar. I will cover the basic modes that the BCF2000 can be put in, how to use those modes in context within your Sonar tracks. This will also include the very useful EQ mode 3, though this is not as useful in X1 and X2 like it was in Sonar 8 and previous. 

This video covers the Behringer BCF2000 and how to install and configure it for use in Sonar. This is a somewhat older video, so no doubt the Behringer website has changed since I made it. You should still be able to find the appropriate drivers on their site, including 64-drivers now, so that part of the video may be out of date, but I believe the rest is still relavant.

Please note: If you are using Vista or Windows 7, you do not need the drivers from the Behringer site. When you plug it in, Windows will automatically detect it. There's still some other useful information in this video, so don't just skip it. 

This video was created several years ago (in Sonar 5) but this information still applied in Sonar 8.5.3, so if you are having an issue with a drum map or you just want to learn a little bit more about them, please watch this video. I show how to create a drum map from the notes that are on a midi track, how to assign different notes within the kit to different hardware or software synths (VST), and a few practical applications where drum maps have helped me.