Beagle Sound Home Studio3

FAQs

Q. I can't get my MIDI songs to play. How can I get them to play?

A. Most of the time people move from an onboard soundcard or a soundblaster soundcard and they can't get their MIDI tracks to play any more, or people just starting out that can't figure out how to get MIDI tracks to play. First, understand that MIDI is not sound. It's just data - data that is used to trigger sounds from a softsynth. Some people with the onboard soundcard will use the MS GS Wavetable as output for MIDI. This is OK for beginners, but there are much better sounds included with even the entry level DAWs these days.

TTS-1 comes with all of Cakewalk's Sequencer softwares (depending on the version, all new versions have TTS-1). To get MIDI to start playing, try inserting TTS-1. It's a General MIDI softsynth mapped to GM and GM2 sounds.

Insert TTS-1 by going to INSERT>SOFTSYNTHS>TTS-1. A window will pop up. If you already have MIDI tracks in your projects, then deselect INSERT MIDI SOURCE TRACK, if you don't already have at least one MIDI track, then leave it selected. Make sure you have ONE STEREO OUTPUT selected (unless you know how to use more advanced features, use these settings).

Make sure that the MIDI track's CHANNEL, BANK and PATCH pull down menus are set. If you only have one MIDI track, then just set the CHANNEL to 1 and then search through the different patches and banks to find the sound you're looking for.

try playing the MIDI tracks again.

How do I remove the vocal track from a commercial song?

There are some vocal remover free plugins available, and I've tried a couple of them, but have never been able to find one that really works. In order to remove the vocals (or anything) from a song that already is completed, you have to try to use the frequency of that vocal against itself using the stereo field as a center point and trying to phase out the difference across that center line. As you might guess, this doesn't remove just the vocals.

here's one that's fairly inexpensive:
http://www.elevayta.com/product13.htm

Here's a free one:
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/vremover.htm

here are some articles that Scott Garrigus wrote:

Eliminating the Lead Vocal
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/tip.asp?ID=4

Extracting the Lead Vocal
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/tip.asp?ID=5

I like Robomusic's quote on this, tho:
"You can't take the eggs out of a cake once it is baked."

I can't hear anything!

A. This could really be a multitude of problems. First we have to determine if you can't hear AUDIO or MIDI or both. If you can't hear AUDIO, however, then it's not likely you can hear MIDI either.

We'll assume at this point you can't hear AUDIO. Now we need to determine what soundcard you have and what driver mode you're using. Usually folks who start out with Cakewalk products and can't hear anything are starting out using their onboard soundcard. That's usually a Realtek, Soundmax or AC'97 compatible soundchip on the motherboard. Cakewalk defaults to WDM driver mode and if you're using the onboard sound chip, it doesn't necessarily work with WDM driver mode, so we'll change to MME/32 driver mode.

Go to: OPTIONS>AUDIO>ADVANCED>DRIVER MODE = MME
close Cakewalk
restart Cakewalk
let the wave profiler run

Now you should be able to hear your AUDIO files in your Cakewalk product.

Q. I have a USB mic connected but it's not working in Cakewalk. It works fine in Audacity.

A. Oh boy! My personal opinion is that USB mics are the worst things that manufacturers could have put on the market. Yes, you can get them to work, but my recommendation is to send it back or sell it and buy a traditional mic and preamp. Even an SM-58 or clone will work better than a USB mic, IMO.

But I'm always willing to help even if you don't take my advice. If you have the mic and want to use it, then you'll need to know a few things. First, it's a soundcard. Yes, it is. Don't argue with me. There are A/D converters in it and that requires drivers for windows and that constitutes a one way soundcard. Since it's a one way soundcard then there's no way you can use it without using ANOTHER soundcard at the same time so that you can play back or monitor (listen) while you record.

Using 2 soundcards will usually be problematic. You're trying to use 2 different clocks but one of them has to be the master and the other one isn't designed for the first one's clock! So that means you will likely have sync problems between tracks. If you only record short clips you won't notice, but if you record enitre songs you will very likely notice that the tracks will start to drift away from each other as the song progresses.

Ok, in order to use a USB mic, you have to set up cakewalk to use MME driver mode. OPTIONS>AUDIO>DRIVER MODE = MME. Click APPLY. A message will appear telling you that it needs to run tests on the soundcards. Let it run.

After the tests have completed, you'll need to make sure you're set up so that the USB mic is set up for recording and the onboard soundcard is set up for playback. In the same window OPTIONS>AUDIO, make sure that the USB mic is selected for the RECORDING DEVICE and that the onboard soundcard is selected for the PLAYBACK DEVICE. Click OK and you should be able to select the USB mic now as an INPUT for an AUDIO track and select the onboard soundcard as OUTPUT for the Master Bus.

How do I add the LAME MP3 encoder to my Cakewalk Sequencer?

Having an MP3 of a song is pretty useful for posting on websites, sending to friends, asking for advice on Cakewalk forums, etc. However, the trial version of the MP3 encoder in SHS is only for 30 days after installation unless you pay $20 for it. After searching a bit in the forums, the LAME encoder came up quite a bit, so I decided to try it.

Finding LAME executable, downloading it ([URL=http://www.free-codecs.com/Lame_Encoder_download.htm]http://www.free-codecs.com/Lame_Encoder_download.htm[/URL] ), and getting it set up on my computer wasn't that hard. unzip the files into the shared utilities folder of cakewalk's program folder (I put mine into a directory of its own to keep things neater).

The help file talked about the Tools -> Cakewalk Ext Encoder Config option on the menu, if it doesn't appear there, then find a file titled EncoderConfig.exe in the Cakewalk\Shared Utilities folder and run that.

Following the help file instructions for most of the process is straight forward, except for the command line. You can find all the settings on the LAME site, but here's what I used for 160k mp3s:
lame %I -b 160 -m j -h -c -V 2 --tt "%T" --ta "%A" %O
For the rest of it, just click New, type a name and description, and browse to the path where you have the LAME encoder. When you're finished, click Save. When you then reopen Sonar and export the song, this should now be available. Make sure and save it as something like "LAME MP3"

unzip the files into the shared utilities folder of cakewalk's program folder (I put mine into a directory of its own to keep things neater).

Next, in Cakewalk, open Tools -> Cakewalk Ext Encoder Confige option on the menu

Following the help file instructions for most of the process is straight forward, except for the command line. You can find all the settings on the LAME site, but here's what I used for 320k mp3s:
lame %I -b 320 -m j -h -c -V 2 --tt "%T" --ta "%A" %O

For the rest of it, just click New, type a name and description, and browse to the path where you have the LAME encoder. When you're finished, click Save. When you then reopen cakewalk and export the song, this should now be available.

NOTE: make sure you select YOUR saved name for mp3 export, NOT the "MP3" of cakewalks options.