Can’t wait to check out the latest building with all the new features !
Looks very promissing.!
That said, C3 is becoming a very complex tool.
And I know from many replies I got here that my setup is not in the best way technically (it does work however). Just curious with the new functions if it all will keep up.
I can imagine for other new C3 users it’s a steep learning curve. Although the program is setup to be super easy usable. But because of it’s depth it’s getting complicated.
So an idea:
If somebody would be so kind to start some typical setup guidelines.
C3 classes
I’m thinking of @Neil_Durant, @Torsten, or @terrybritton or other C3 friends who have been so kind to help me and others out.
You are totally right. Because there are so many options and opportunities for the same result (All roads lead to Rome ) it’s difficult to tell which one is “the best”. Also it really depends on your hardware setup I think. Do you have faders, encoders, etc. to assign them and navigate through C3 or do you just have one keybed?
Also it should be mentioned, that you have to decide for one way BEFORE starting building your setup which is hard, if you are new to Cantabile. Since I work with C3 (Nov. 2016) I changed the way I work about three times and every way has its (dis)-advantages.
The way I work now is the following:
I now have 14 different linked racks. Those racks are categorized. So one rack is named “Acoustic Pianos”. Another one “Synth Lead”. With the states of the rack I switch between the sounds.
The obvious advantage of this method is, that you can switch extreme fast between totally different sound-setups without loading time. The disadvantage: Everything needs to be loaded, which leads depending on your plugins to a high usage of RAM.
If a song requires a second synth-pad in the same Songstate, I add this to the song as separate and embedded rack.
BTW: On the C3 website it says, that it’s possible to switch between two songs seamless when using linked-racks. This is not the case! There is a short dropout for about half a second.
I really like to hear how other people are working!
Indeed, it’s because routes are disconnected and reestablished when changing song. I think the website is really talking about songs being preloaded, so you don’t have to wait for seconds each time you switch songs. You can achieve seamless changes across songs, with held notes etc, but you need to have your MIDI and audio routes entirely within the linked rack, so the routes are not affected by the parent song change. It’s fiddly but it works if you need it.
Hi! I am using the solo version of cantabile and built up songs which contains different instrument or instruments for layering and splitting, it is ok but the loading up process takes some time from one instrument to the other one, for example if I change for Scarbee EP-88 or Vienna Imperial piano, the loading time is between 5 to 10 seconds . The background rack contains the bindings for changing the instruments(songs) from Roland fc300 or from the laptop keyboard. I am thinking to use cantabile with Windows 10, is there any cons?
I know, I know! But this workflow doesn’t fit my needs. That’s why I look for alternatives. The website says clearly:
If you switch between two songs that use the same linked rack, that rack will be kept loaded and continue to process uninterrupted.
This was discussed in another thread, and many suggestions were made. Terry Britton was also taking suggestions in order to make some videos, BUT, in Terry’s defense, that would have been quite some undertaking. Cantabile is an ever changing marvel, and keeping up with it would be difficult at best. I suggested sticky notes, but, even those would have to be updated frequently. There are so many ways to set the program up, and there are so many different inputs, and instruments, plus every individual wants something different. That is the beauty of C3, and the curse of learning guides. I place bookmarks on anything I think that might be of use to me at some time. Of course, they now number into the hundreds. The best thing we have is the search engine, which very few use, according to repetitive threads (of which I am guilty also) . God bless the newbies…the learning curve has increased since I started. I got through the initial stage eventually, but still feel like a newbie on many other things…and I like it !!
I think it would be a good idea - the hard part would be making it generic enough to be applicable to a wide range of users, with different hardware and configurations. Some “quick start” examples for common scenarios, and best practices (how to decide if something goes in a song, a rack, or the background rack, that kind of thing) could be really useful.
Or how about simply a FAQ?
But for anyone who hasn’t yet, I’d strongly recommend reading through @brad’s Cantabile User Guides carefully, because they’re a treasure trove of information about all the features.
Well, truth be revealed, my video recording setup in the studio is finally back in place (lights and everything!) - a two-camera setup using OBS as the hub. Things became discombobulated when I decided to dedicate a computer to the video end of things - so, audio routing became a biggie.
However, that is no real excuse, as I could have been using the main computer to do camera-less videos, but hey - I got caught up in the process of doing this change!
Yes, Cantabile has been a moving target, but now many videos can reasonably be made, as I think the big changes have been done. So, sure, let’s crank out some videos!
Brad has already covered the basics with his videos, and the Guides are fantastic. Hmmm… what to do first???
I think it would help if everyone just shows his way of working with Cantabile… tutorials could be made separately and is another topic. But if it comes down to workflow examples, such videos would be great.
I’ll join this… but not yet, because I’m planing a next revision of my cantabile-keyboard
I have no set workflow. I just figure out what I need for particular song and go at it. So far I’ve only using C3 to set up live versions of pre-existing songs though.
I’d be quite happy to do a few “guided tours” of my setup and explain how I use Cantabile’s features to keep things easy to manage, configure and debug, even in more complex setups.
BUT: I’ve never done a screencast / tutorial video, so I’ll need a bit of advice on a pragmatic set of tools to capture and edit these clips, including the typical bits like mouse highlighting, zooming, annotating, etc… Also I guess combining audio from my voice-over with Cantabile’s output will require a bit of fiddling with Voicemeeter, which I have avoided so far.
So: @terrybritton, as our resident voicemeeter guru, and @brad, Mr. Tutorial amongst other things, can you give me some suggestions on a basic toolkit?
CamStudio is the easiest screen recorder out there.
Here is the download to the version that does not require you use the ad-supported installer:
I have a ton of videos on using it, but the topmost one is my most popular:
The default audio is only your microphone. You need something like Voicemeeter to do a mic and the Cantabile audio properly.
If you want to just use Hangouts on Air to record for you, follow this video on using Voicemeeter and Cantabile with that:
HOA’s record the stream while you talk, and you can easily share the screen from the tool on the left side. You end up with a video automatically appearing in your YouTube channel.
I use Bandicam for screen/audio capture. It has the ability to capture from two different audio sources at the same time and write to two different files. I usually set Cantabile to WASAPI shared mode which Bandicam is able to capture from and an external mic for voice.
Bandicam can also add mouse recording/highlight and mouse click animations.
Once recorded I use VirtualDub to “fix” the video into something the Adobe tools like. Not sure why but without this H264 video from Bandicam ends up with weird tearing artifacts.
I use Audacity to clean up the vocal recording. Some eq, noise gate etc…
Then I composite everything together with AfterEffects (CS5).
It’s not the most elegant workflow but its what works for me. @terrybritton obviously has a lot more experience with this though.
As for zooming and annotations - I’ve never really done this, but I would recommend leaving zooming to after you’ve recorded. There’s enough to think about while recording without fiddling with the recording tools. In AfterEffects (and presumably other video editing tools) it’s pretty easy to zoom sections later. (The only time I’ve done this is with this video).
With Cantabile there are many ways of doing the same, or similar tasks. This is very much a strength of the software, but it requires the user to try a few things, make a few mistakes, travel a few cul de sacs and ultimately arrive at a way that works for them.
One of my most recent ‘Doh!’ moments was when I finally realised that naming my MIDI inputs generically would have saved me a fair bit of re-work when I changed keyboards. Now my MIDI inputs are called ‘Left Upper’, ‘Right Lower’ and the like. If I swap out my A100 for my System 8 for my ‘Right Upper’ keyboard, the software doesn’t miss a beat. Brilliant!
Why did it take me so long to figure that one out!?
Thx for the input guys.
I’m asking this because i learned allot from Thorsten his setup and also some other guys pointed me at wrong setup in my rack so that some functions didn’t work. I need to check what it was.
But overall the learning curve was quite steep, so i think for this kinda program it should be easier or some templates pre configured?
