I know it may seem redundant to purchase an application that more or less replicates a lot of built-in functionality for a program, but if you’re a user of Cakewalk’s Sonar or, especially, Project 5, you will probably be well served by Agitated State’s forthcoming MenuMagic v1.0.

MenuMagic extends your control over plugin organization in both of Cakewalk’s flagship sequencers in just about any way you might care to have them extended, from global renaming to cross-application synchronization to intelligent categorization and beyond.

This has been in development for quite a while - I think it was first announced shortly before Sonar 6, and to be honest with you, not only had I forgotten about it, once Sonar got the plugin manager I thought it would probably go away.

Fortunately, it did not. The built-in Sonar plugin manager is quite handy, but even it has its limitations. This appears to address most, if not all, of those.

What really sold me on this is that it takes care of a major oversight in the Project 5 v2.5 update. Hey, swell, we got the plugin manager, but for some odd reason there is no plugin organization in the program itself. Being that the primary focus of Project 5 was as a softsynth studio this is a rather bizarre omission. And since that update was, what, a year ago? one wonders if once again Cakewalk doesn’t really have any idea what to do with the program and that sooner or later, when they milk the last few dollars from it, they’ll retire it for good. Which leaves one wrestling with absurdly messy plugin management.

Anyway, MenuMagic will now take care of this, one of my two biggest gripes about the program (non-configurable hardware outs being the other; seriously, if I’m not using outs I should be able to not have them cluttering up my workspace). So even if/when Cakewalk lets Project 5 wither on the vine I’ll be able to squeeze a few more years of life out of it.

And now is the time to act. Agitated State is extending the pre-release price of $24.99. Which is about the perfect price for such software.

If you’ve gotten in on the Project5 2.5 bandwagon, point your browsers here: Alesion Arp presets/patterns. These invaluable tools, authored by the venerable user “b rock” (Tom Brockway), expand the capabilities of P5 immensely.

As labeled is a set of arpeggiator patterns and their attendant construction kits for Project5 2.5’s very useful in-line arpeggiator. To get the most out of ‘em, and for install info, go to the handy Project5 wiki.

Basically, these two downloads are two of a piece. The Arps are just that, and expansion of the arp preset patterns provided with P5. By themselves these would be a great gift. It would take many, many hours to begin to explore them, considering all the variation you can already squeeze out of the P5 arp.

But, b rock, genius that he is, went a step further and provided us with 500 .ptn files that he used to create the arp presets, and a tutorial on how to utilize these. I’m just starting on it and already they are immensely helpful.

I assume if you have Project 5 2.5, you’ve already downloaded these. If you don’t have P5, come on, it’s a $99 download these days.

Without going too deeply into it, I don’t like ReWire. Perhaps since I don’t use Reason, or I just don’t have the patience for it, but in the end, the amount of time it takes to get P5 into Sonar is almost not worth it for my purposes. Add to that the recent P5 update added a whole level of complication to just setting up a project if you have a multi-out audio interface (I do). So I’ve been puzzling over a working alternative while I plug along in Project 5.

The reason I need to get a project started in Project 5 into Sonar? Mixing mostly, but at some point I hit a limit in what I can manage in P5. While I can sculpt a complete track in P5, its limitations to my way of working eventually get in my way. Even with the improved busing structure of the recent update, it’s just not as easy to get really get a complex mixing structure. Of course, I never sequenced an Atari or used a tracker, so what do I know? But there are also cases where I need to take a track to the next level and its faster for me to work in Sonar, where I can render and manipulate audio files much more fluidly.

If you are looking to bring a track into Sonar via ReWire - and it works for lots of people - there’s a couple of things to keep in mind, and over at the P5 Wiki there’s a really well-plotted method. There’s really nothing I can add to that.

For me I’ve got it down to two methods:

The first is similar to my Slick Trick for Mixing BFD Groups: Basically, bouncing down solo tracks of the various elements of the mix. Solo, say, the kick track, and File \ Export Audio to a working folder (I use a newly created project folder in my projects structure. These tracks can just be imported into Sonar. This is basically how I would prepare audio files were I ever to need mixing them in a studio other than my own. But with Sonar, achieving this much more simple in that you can basically sculpt the audio output in the “Export Audio” dialog and get a folder full of 24-bit audio files all cued to the project start at once. In Project 5 2.5 it’s a pretty manual process. But this would be a pretty fool-proof method if you have an arrangement you’re very committed to.

The 2nd method, is similar to this, but on a more micro level: It would be handy if Project 5 2.5 were set up to export both audio & midi clips with one or two clicks. Alas, this is not the case, though this is a minor inconvenience at best. If you are reasonably comfortable with re-assembling your project back in Sonar, or whatever host you’re using, this is by far the most versatile method.

• First save all your synth presets and effect settings, or any multi-sample instruments. If if you’re using an out of the box preset don’t assume it will carry over, so name and save a preset of each plugin with the project/song title. (If you’re really anal you can save them into the project folder, but for me that’s too much navigating for what’s a simple step.)
• Re-save the P5 project, being sure to check the “Save audio in project folder” business in this dialog. If you’ve already built the project in a unique folder this is already taken care of. If you haven’t this is where you’ll find the audio clips that make up your project.
• Next export your MIDI, or .ptn files. Sonar can read either, and since there’s a dedicated keyboard shortcut (Shift+S) for the latter there’s no reason not use this, unless you think you might need the MIDI clip at some other point for some other context. If so, or you can only work with the MIDI file, you’ll find the menu item when you load the clip into the Edit window. So, save out each pattern used to the same folder with the audio clips.
• Create you new project, match the tempo up, and start dragging in the bits and bobs.

I’ve done each, and each works well depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. I can definitely see where you might want to do both, or a combination of the two: a few complete tracks that you’re more or less happy with, and a few that you would want to tweak and edit further.

Of course if you have complicated tempo changes, in which case the whole process would become that much more difficult.

Even with the new movement on the Project5 front, I find the actual appearance of energyXT2 very appealing. It seemingly offers a lot of what I want P5 to do, and brings some pretty nice features to the table as a sequencer/host. I haven’t yet tried the demo, but the seemingly nice integration of REX2, presets, and VSTs is impressive, as is the modular nature of it all. (Check out the Comps view: nice.) I’m sort of loath to give up the Groove Matrix as a way to quickly develop tracks, but this seems to offer a lot of integration, and is hugely forward-looking for something that seems more a labor of love than a business proposition.

As you can see from the new website, Cakewalk have updated their recent Project5 2.5 update. This mostly augments a lot of the features that were introduced with v.2.5, squashes some bugs, and give them a reason to roll-out the new website and the store, making it a download-centric product with a very competitive price point ($99!). Good stuff indeed.

That said, just work-flow wise, for how I want to use P5, there are still some shortcomings. I’m not even talking about multi-core support. (And why are some of the people that are complaining about this most loudly aren’t even running duel-core systems?) There are definitely clunky work-arounds involved in using P5 as a live composition tool as opposed to a more traditional sequencer. I’ve got Sonar if I want to record a song or sequence more complicated MIDI parts. What P5 is great at is trying ideas on the fly and using what works and assembling them into a track. And yes you can use P5 soup to nuts, but chances are you’re going to want something more flexible when you go to record/edit audio & mix.

A lot of the features from the upgrade are hugely welcome and enhance to program greatly; a lot feel halfway there or marginally useful. No custom VST organization? Multi in/outs only serve to make it yet more tiresome to reWire (if you have a multi-out card). Multi-out instruments are still cumbersome, esp. with a control surface.

And, though I’m apparently alone with this, think that ditching Cyclone is too bad. I don’t know how other people doing it, but chopping up loops and playing the results with a control surface isn’t possible in the same way as with Cyclone; sure it was a little long in the tooth but it was a fairly economical interface, pretty easy to get to grips with, and can be used in conjunction with the Groove Matrix for really complete control of your “beat” creation. Hell, give it REX support, the ability to audition loops & chop non-acidized audio, along with some further drag-n-drop flexibility and it could easily compete with any of Cake’s current offerings. RIP Cyclone.

Don’t get me wrong, I find the two recent updates encouraging and exciting. To me it shows that Cake believes there is a future for Project5. That is, beyond the cult of users that have stuck with the program; cause, let’s face it a couple of thousand users, of which a 100 or so are vocal advocates, is not enough to support the software development costs for a company like Cake. The $99 price-point is also a shrewd move and will hopefully bring some new advocates into the fold.

I’m not a Live user myself, but will P5 ever be a “Live killer”? No, and the reason (hee hee) is very simple: cross-platform support. But as a very capable alternative for Windows users at this point it is hard to beat.

I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Project 5 2.5 update has been bequeathed upon us.

I’m reserving judgment until I’ve lived with it for a while, but early reactions seem fairly positive. Save of course the usual “Why didn’t they include this?” some of which are valid points. And VST naming is just outright broken - I mean, it’s great they integrated the plugin integration tool but to put in the Plugin Manager and then not turn it fully on is huge pain in the fuckin’ ass. I have a lot of plugins, and device chains only go so far into allowing you to load up what you need. There’s a 3rd party solution in the works but frankly I’m up to my neck in 3rd party solutions and updates right now, and if this works in Sonar it should work here. (I suspect the culprit is the custom synth and fx menus and they probably need to be rewritten in order to work.)

Also, the Project5.com website is still fallow. I mean, it doesn’t even have anything about the update. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But I’m hoping that with this update, beyond the benefits of the improvements, shows that Cakewalk has plans for Project 5 and will bring it to at least one more version.

Note: I started responding to this thread but though better of it, so I’m dumping it here for no particular reason other than this is shit I think about a lot.

Okay, I should probably stay the hell out of this, but, come on people. I know we’re all enthusiasts in one form or another but… Hey, look, it’s my navel!

If you are actively using a different sequencer/host(s), then, really, why are you denigrating P5 for features that you have elsewhere? Um, don’t you have that? There must be something in P5 that keeps you using, something that you are unable to use in said other program(s). Are you berating those users for those things that P5 offers that you are unable to get in that program? Do people really frequent multiple boards and compare/complain perceived shortcomings of competitors? Hey, I’ll drop by the ableton forum and gripe about MIDI editing for a while then go over to Cakewalk and rag on [insert name of bug/feature request]. Really, are you using a tool to do a job or just playing with software?

If it’s a tool, then you figure out how to make it work for you. There are sure to be work-around, and things that make you roll your eyes, but you figure out how to do what you need and hope for the best. If not, you begin looking for a tool that is more to your liking. If you’re a carpenter and your belt-sander doesn’t have X feature you figure out how to get your hands on a belt-sander that does. It doesn’t mean your present belt-sander doesn’t still sand, just that your perceived wants/needs have changed. Granted, this is an imperfect analogy, but, really, who wants to hang out a hardware store and argue with other belt-sander users about the differences between Black & Decker &… uh, some other belt-sander?

Tool or toy. Seems to me it pretty much depends on the user.

Of course, if you’ve invested a lot of time in developing in P5 and have hit the wall with it’s resources, well, yeah, kinda sucks. But it doesn’t really mean Project 5 has become less useful just that your needs have changed. And chances are they have changed because of the steep curve of technology. But Four Tet composed his first 3 albums on ACID, like, 2.0; N. Cook used an Atari for most (all?) of his composing/sequencing; Sgt. Pepper was recorded on 8 track tape machines; et cetera. You think these people didn’t have cludgy work-arounds? (For me, half the fun is trying to get it to do one thing and finding something completely different.)

Absolutely P5 can be improved upon, and there are things that are commonly agreed to be broken. I don’t think anyone bothering to post would argue otherwise. But, likewise, there are a lot of dudes (let’s be honest, we’re all boys here) using P5 to do some creative work, or at least stop us from watching so much TV. I like to think that the up-coming update shows a certain degree of good faith on the behalf Cakewalk that they plan to continue development. Ultimately, we can all speculate about what Cake should do and when but as I’ve said before, it’s all just speculation. Really we have no idea.

Anyway, blah blah… oh, there’s my navel again.

Heh, heh… I said “tool.”

Just had an insightful discussion in official Project 5 forums as to the differences between Project 5 and Sonar, and specifically what P5 offers that Sonar does not.

While there are arguably a number of perks native to P5 that are not on offer in Sonar, for me it comes down to the Groove Matrix and MIDI audition.
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Two announcements out of Boston (strange a city I live right next to and try to avoid is the home of my favorite music developers). For Sonar it’s the annual, buy-now-upgrade-free for Sonar. And for Project5 2, a free update at some point in “Q4 2007.”

Of the two, I am much more intrigued by the later. (more…)