What is the best way to ask questions?

Cantabile
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I’ve been using Cantabile for a couple of months now, and I have a few questions about how to use Cantabile optimally for my workflow. I want ask them in the most appropriate place, and in a way that may answer the questions for people in the future.

Is this the appropriate thread? Should I break my questions up into individual posts (ie stackoverflow/stackexchange style), or just blast them in one post?

Thanks in advance.

2

Hi Jonathan and Welcome,

I guess it depends on how many questions you have as to how to group them, since we don’t know the scope of the questions why don’t you just go ahead and outline them here. If they need to separated we can see then. Some may already be answered in the many posts here or in the online manual. The forum search function can provide a lot of answers. So have at it and we’ll see what’s up.

Dave

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Hi Jonathan,

welcome to the forum! This is usually a very well-behaved and super-helpful community, so as long as you are mindful of people’s time and attention (we all do this in our free time), you’ll be fine here.

Some recommendations:

  • when asking about specific Cantabile features, check @brad’s excellent videos and the guides section first - a lot of topics are covered there very well - and it avoids having people tell you to look there :wink:
  • Illustrate your issues / questions as well as possible (screenshots!) - it’s a lot easier for us to help you if we know your specific configuration
  • individual posts vs. single post: I’d recommend keeping related questions in one post, but creating separate posts for unrelated issues - threads can develop a life of their own…

Cheers,

Torsten

1 Like
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Ok. I finally came across something I’m having trouble figuring out on my own/docs, and I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I’m trying to start using backing tracks with Cantabile for live performance, and I am trying to achieve some of the flexibility with backing tracks that I am capable of in Ableton. The following is essentially what I want to do:

  1. Pull a backing track into a media player where the audio is in line with the tempo of the song so that the measure in the media player aligns with the downbeat correctly…check
  2. I want to define ranges within the track that correspond to intro/v1/c1/v2/c2/end…and so on with the start of each range being the measure beginning the associated section. The end of each range will be the end of the song. In Ableton, I do this with scenes…check so far as defining the ranges
  3. I need to be able to trigger a specific range (indexed would be fine) while a current range is playing. I would like the current measure to complete with the current range before starting the next range at the beginning of the next measure (either tie it to a controller button, or to a song part)…not check yet

This would enable me to jump back into a verse or rerun a chorus dynamically while performing then for the remainder of the backing track to play. This works smoothly in Ableton, and I feel like Cantabile should be able to do this since it is designed for live performance. I think I am just not connecting all the dots here. What can I do?

Thanks!

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Hi Jonathan,

Not sure if it will help but this thread by @humphrey sounds like it is relevant …

Dave

1 Like
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Wow. That will take a while to digest. Based on that post it sounds like @brad may be working on something for this as feature eventually, but there isn’t an established mechanism to accomplish what I want at this time?

I am a software developer so a more technical code based solution doesn’t intimidate me if there is some avenue for that, but I want to find a solution that isn’t going to be quite as cumbersome every time I need to use it as what the post that you linked to described.

Thanks for pointing me there. Has anyone else found a more streamlined way of achieving “dynamic” range “arming/triggering”?

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I would be happy with a less efficient alternative until that feature is available.
Other option ideas:
-Does anyone know if there is a way to use Ableton as a plugin or slaved DAW to Cantabile (ReWire maybe)?
-Is anyone familiar with a VST free or otherwise that would accomplish this?
-I don’t think it can, but Cantabile can’t be used as a VST right?
-FL Studio can be used like a VST. I may be able to pull this off with it.

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I’ve always found the best way to ask questions is to append question marks to the ends of my sentences.

Seriously, this forum has been extremely helpful through the years. There are a few folks here that really know their stuff.