Hey All -
Just getting back into fooling around. Used Cakewalk probably 15 years ago and haven't touched it since. Just found it is free and downloaded it. I have an Alesis QS 8.1 synth that I have hooked up thru a MIDIMAN 1x1 USB controller. After some driver headaches, I was able to get Cakewalk to recognize it in settings on Windows 10. Still trying to figure things out, but am stuck on MIDI instrument assignments. So far, I can only get a grand piano sound - even when opening generic MIDI files with multiple tracks, all tracks play on grand piano.
I have the studio instruments plugin installed, and watched several videos on how to "drag" over instruments to your MIDI tracks. However, I have none of the instrument options, even though I have installed the plugin.
I seem to remember form years ago always having to tell the DAWs specifically which synth you were connected to and installing bank profiles. I'm not sure if that is what needs to be done here, or how exactly to do it. I figured I could just use a general MIDI bank that would give me different instruments (realizing I wouldn't be able to use my onboard synth instruments).
Am I making any sense? Can anyone point me to some resources or tutorials or getting my synth set up and recognized correctly?