Cakewalk by Bandlab is a free DAW that used to be called Sonar when it cost money.
And yeah, this actually used to be a paid DAW before the company that made it was acquired.
If you want to learn how to use this DAW in a practical tutorial, keep watching.
I won't be doing another one of those walkthroughs
where I go over everything in the order that they appear in the DAW
but instead, when they may appear in the process of actually making music.
ehh, kind of, just stick around :p
[How to use Cakewalk by Bandlab]
Hey everyone, Jake from Transverse Audio here.
Before I get into it, I want to let you know that this is a Windows exclusive DAW
however, I think this is an amazing DAW and I think you should check it out.
You'll need to launch Cakewalk from the Bandlab assistant once you've installed both.
I'll be using the Empty Project for this tutorial which can be found in the "New Project" tab
on the start screen.
Let's get started with setting up the DAW so you can record at the proper quality
and so you can use your own plugins and samples.
Go to Edit then to preferences at the bottom of the drop-down.
To set the sample rate, go to Driver Settings under "Audio" and down to "Default settings For New Projects".
This will affect the quality of your audio and for regular music, I would suggest using 44.1 or 48kHz.
Now, go down to Audio Data under File to set the bit depth.
16 or 24 bit should be fine for pretty much all audio.
Right above that, you can set up the folder locations for things such as your wave files (or samples)
and last but obviously not least, you can set up your plugins by going to VST settings.
Simply add the folders you installed your plugins to, then press scan.
Oh, and one last tip.
If you can't play videos or audio outside of the DAW when you have it running,
you'll need to make a small tweak in the playback and recording section under "audio".
Make sure the box is checked off for "Suspend Audio Engine When Cakewalk Is Not in Focus".
And once it is, you'll be able to playback media outside of the DAW
but not when it's open or in focus and that just means when the DAW is the last thing you clicked.
Now, I want to talk about a few things on the menu (or control bar)
so you can actually use this digital audio workstation effectively.
If you do need a bit of a hand, there's a helper window on the bottom right
that will tell you about what you hover over in Cakewalk.
This, of course, does not include third-party plugins and unfortunately,
it doesn't include plugins that come with the DAW either.
Now, back to the control bar.
The first thing you should know about this is that you can actually customize it.
You can move the entire bar to the bottom or have it float by dragging it from
a part that doesn't have any options (such as here... or here).
You can also do this by right-clicking then going down to these three options here.
Each individual section can be moved around by dragging them from the left of the module
(where the diagonal lines are).
With that, I'm going to move the export option to the minimized section as it's not gonna be used that often.
And with the minimized modules, you can still use them easily by hovering over them.
Now, the default layout of the DAW is pretty straight forward.
To the far left there's a quick access to the mixer,
displaying the track you currently have selected on the left
and the master track on the right.
This includes the effect plugins, options, and properties that belong to each track.
When you do have one of the three windows selected on the top (it's orange when it is),
you'll have to click it again to close it and to see the full mixer track again.
I'll talk about what all of this is when I get to the mixer rack [or console].
The middle section is the playlist or sequencer window.
Here you can create new tracks and arrange your song,
as well as automation envelopes.
On the right side, you'll find the directory for media such as samples, video, etc.
And a HUGE word of warning, I recommend you Don't delete anything from this window.
It will be gone forever and it won't go to the recycling bin.
Right next to that, you'll find your plugins and you'll be able to view your effects,
MIDI effects,
instruments (such as synths),
and your ReWire plugins.
Next to that, you'll find your notes and stats about the project too.
On the bottom, there is a section called the MultiDock,
which will hold a lot of the windows you'll need to make music.
Here you'll find the mixer (known as the console in Cakewalk),
the matrix view (which is kind of like a drum pad used to trigger loops and samples,
depending on what you drag onto each tile)
and of course, you'll also find the step sequencer, piano roll, and the Staff (or sheet music).
These there are used to arrange notes for your instruments to play.
As far as I know, you can move (and detach) every window in the DAW except for the playlist.
And if you minimize it while it's detached, it will go to the bottom left.
If you do end up closing a window, you'll have to go to Views to re-open it,
or simply use the hotkey for that window.
One last thing about the layout, you can use the Screen Module to save your own custom layouts as presets.
This could be one specifically set up for mixing and another dedicated to composing,
and so on.
Okay, let's move on to the playlist and piano roll,
including some of the things in the control bar that you'll be using when you're there.
First, we'll need a track to start working with.
Add one in using the plus icon on the top left
or by right-clicking on an empty section of the tracklist and choose one of the options there.
When inserting an instrument track,
you have the option to select the plugin and other things such as making duplicates of the track.
If you minimize a plugin, it will go to the bottom left corner
and you can re-open a closed plugin by pressing the piano icon right next to the track name.
Below the name, you can choose what is shown in the playlist section.
Clip will show everything,
notes will show the MIDI information (which you can edit just like in the piano roll),
and the last two will let you write automation for various parameters.
When you have an automation clip open, you can set points (or nodes)
by clicking and/or dragging from the automation line.
You can right click on any of these points to either reset all of them by using "Clear All"
or completely remove the automation clip using "Delete Envelope".
A color will be displayed next to any parameter in this menu that has an automation clip.
Below that, you'll find the input and right next to that, the output of the track.
Above the output, you'll find mute (which silences this track on playback),
solo (which silences every other track),
record (which lets you record a MIDI instrument in the case of an instrument track),
but would be any other instrument or a microphone if it's on an audio track.
And Input Echo, letting you hear the track through its output during playback.
Which in this case, would be the master track.
Now below that, we have some pretty cool options.
Automation Read (which will let you turn on or off all of the track's automation)
and Automation Write (letting you change parameters manually during playback to write automation
- like this).
There's also two ways to help reduce the amount of CPU being used,
both disabling the plugin and both can be undone.
Freeze will render (or bounce) the track to audio and Archive will disable the entire track,
kind of like mute, but it won't use any CPU.
Last, there is the effect rack, which oddly enough, you can put instruments in.
Again, just right click on the empty section of the effect chain or use the plus icon to add a plugin.
You can bypass individual plugins by using the power button next to it
or all of them by using the power button on top.
This just means the plugins in the effect rack will not be applied to the track.
An alternative to add plugins is to simply go to the plugin browser and drag an instrument or effect
onto the playlist to create a new track or add it to the effect chain of an existing track.
You can replace an instrument by right-clicking on the track and going down to "Replace Synth".
One of the main things in the control bar to help you in the playlist would be the transport module.
This is used for the obvious controls of the playback and for the position of the play head,
which is this thing here.
This is where the song will play from.
You can snap it to the end of all your patterns,
to the beginning,
and use the slider to move it from bar to bar.
The next section of it will tell you the current position in the playlist
and you can click on it to change what this is based on.
You can just read the help module to know all about that.
Right below that you'll get a quick view of the sample rate and bit depth,
the Beats Per Minute (which you can click and change),
and the key signature (which you can click to change as well).
And right next to that, there is the metronome settings.
Okay, let's open up the piano roll and start writing some notes and this is where the tools module comes in.
By default, the smart tool is selected,
which is a combination of all primary tools depending on where and how you click.
I recommend setting the Draw tool to Pattern and the Erase tool to Mute
as the smart tool doesn't include these as far as I know.
The pattern tool is used to draw out the selected pattern in the playlist
and will repeat notes as far as you drag it out.
To draw a note you can click and drag to the length you want
and double click to make the same note as the last one you drew.
When hovering over the left or right sides, you have the option to resize the note.
When your mouse is over the middle, you can move the note around
and when over the top edge of the middle, you can change the velocity by dragging up or down.
To delete a note, simply right-click
and to delete multiple notes, right click on a note and drag over the others you want to get rid of as well.
And finally, when not hovering over any notes, you can right-click and drag
to make a selection of multiple notes.
Everything I previously mentioned will now affect the entire selection such as velocity changes and resizing.
As a bonus tip, you can middle click on the playlist, staff, or the piano roll to bring up the tools menu.
Finally, I'm going to talk about the mixer rack and it's quite easy to understand.
I'll start from the bottom up and skip over most things that can also be found in the playlist track view.
First, we have the track number, then the name
(which, when changed, will also affect it up here, and vice-versa).
This also applies to any other option you have selected or changed on the track
- it will carry over to both.
Here we have the decibel or dB fader which will control the volume of the track
and above that you can pan the volume to the left or right.
You can double click on any parameter in the DAW to reset it to its default value.
Above the options I've already gone over, there is the Sends router which is too much for this video
but the basics of it is that you can send a track to a mix bus which would be docked over here to the right.
You can add one in by right clicking and you can also view these in the playlist by pressing this option here
or by dragging up from the edge right above it.
Back to the mixer, there is the same effects rack as the one in the playlist,
and above that is the ProChannel which can be opened using the arrow here.
This is a suite of essential effects such as an Equalizer, Compressor,
and others that can be added by right clicking on the empty space above them.
Each effect can be turned on or off independently, or all together. Just like the effects rack.
You can also open up an even bigger version of the EQ by pressing the two sideways arrows.
Okay, the last thing is the pre-gain (or input-gain)
which is kind of used to intercept the volume of a track before it hits the rest of the mixer
and is different from the main volume fader.
That's it for this Cakewalk tutorial for beginners.
If you liked the video, it would mean a lot to give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more content like this,
very supportive and I really do appreciate it.
If you're left with any questions, please, let me know in the comments below.
As always, thanks for watching. [share with a friend!]