Sridhar Raghavan

Starship Krupa Thanks for the above note. Sorry to know that you too have vision issues and hope to pick all you insights about how you have customized Cakewalk for dealing with related issues. Wonderful to know the names of Themes you and Colin have created. I will take a good look, pun intended, at all of them. I have already downloaded the Primer to Theme, as Matthew or Colin pointed me to that. I am going to hold reading that for a bit to catch up on the Themes you all have already created, and also few other Task Idioms I want to get ironed out. I got introduced to Cal by SCOOK and I am eager to get user-level grasp of a few programs there. I just downloaded ~8 themes in a Zip file from your drop box. I am finding that .sth and .clr and .txt files are nicely packaged one level nested below. A quick question about CLR files. Should I just go and install them, following your instructions? rather than worry about possible backtracking issues? Thanks again for the pointers and look forward to any other tips you may have developed of mutual interest for vision challenges of Cakewalk. Sri.

SCOOK/BDICKENS I was able to navigate to running that Cal program. Ran it and got the tracks created. So nice for further actions. I now have to figure out why these tracks are not playing same thing as the original. I will look in the usual places, as I have faced similar things before in other situations. Possibly Drum/Percussion channel numbers and GM/Midi initial sequences. If you have any ready pointers it would be great. Thanks again Sri.

Thanks Matthew - these are very helpful pointers. I will pursue them. Sri.

No worries Matthews. You have covered lot of ground already for me. I am going through your themes. I switched to your Orange Theme. It has made a nice difference to the ease of reading, by putting Orange Background behind some of the texts. But not all. I am going through other Themes of yours, hoping to see others which do bold white Text on Darker Background for all the Menu Bar items. So they all standout nicely with better contrast. May be you can point me to one, or give me some tips for which I can use as a Base and some directions for the kind of edits I should be doing. The background to the text should also be different from general background -- and black is very nice for it - as it keep the amount of light/glare to the eyes to a minimum. Thanks and regards Sri.

SCOOK you hit the bulls eye for me. That is precisely the thing I was looking for. Since I am still new in terms of installing running such CAL files, appreciate your doing a bit more handwaving for me, to get to the point of running it. I assume this would be a simple step/procedure but I have not navigated to it to yet. Also curiosity is there a utility which will do the opposite? I will add possible reasons at the end. BDICKENS I agree that this would work. That was also what I was planning to do. Make those tracks and set them up Midi In/Out and use them for [such] Projects. I also have other utilities which can take a Format-0 Midi files and create Format-1 Midi files. I can do the export/import process. These were the approaches I was calling brute force method. Thanks both for the quick responses. Sri. P.S. SCOOK/BDICKENS one thing I want to be able to do is to switch between 2-3 external keyboards and iPad (coming via RTP). I want to do this SIMPLY and RELIABLY rather than having to change midi in/out device in each and every track. I like SEIKAJU DAW for many things, especially for this ease of switching MIDI IN/OUT device for all tracks [and of course selected tracks]. May be Cakewalk would do this as well, but I have not gotten there yet.

I wonder which of these C drive locations I can move/point to a location on my D drive? I can create those D drive locations and copy the original/current contents from their corresponding C drive locations. I have already DONE this now. I will not try to do anything with THEMES given the known issues -- it is working fine now. It is taking about 260MB of storage. Not too big but not small either. "Cakewalk Content" is the large one ~1.86GB. Thanks in Advance. Sri.

Some Screen Shots...

Matthews/Colin et al. Thanks for your attention and actions.. they were a great help in ways you would never know.. I uninstalled and reinstalled, and this time used the Advanced Custom Install procedure, so I could customize the locations wherever possible. Thereon, I copied all the Custom Themes [unzipped form] downloaded from Matthews into the C drive Themes location. Started Cakewalk and Viola... I can see all the Custom Themes and laying with them right now. So the problem has Vanished. My feeling is that I might have used Preferences to change the Location of Cakewalk Projects and Video location(s). I did not touch other locations, as I had little understanding about them, and as a precaution left them as-is and did not dare to change them. Somehow this had some side-effects on Themes and Probably on some other things, which I can no longer create/reproduce. Something can investigate using "Clean Room" techniques. But some points of observation with Custom Installing: a) Only some folder locations can be changed. I think this should be updated so all folder locations can be customized, for the reason that C drives typically have far little space than other drives. Also it is left with plenty of space for System, Page Sys, Logs and O/S Caches. Here is what I was able to change/customize for installation: D:\0CakeWalk <--- I was able to change this. I think this is some kind of main location? I use a zero prefix for simply pushing it ahead in sorting order. VST Plugins: D:\AAMusicWork\VST64 <-- obvious. I was able to change this. This is where I keep all my VST64. I wonder whether is for all VST types: 32, 64, VSTi, VST3 etc. Shared Components: C:\Program Files\Cakewalk <-- did not give me an option or was predefined. Content & Projects: C:\Cakewalk Content <- same here. C:\Cakewalk Projects <- same here. Interestingly Themes folder is buried one level below the above location(s). I might try changing some of the C drive folders to D drive under 0CakeWalk folder using Preferences -> Folders. I am seeing that it has many more Location Names, that was presented to me during Custom Install. I will not tamper with the Themes Folder here, as Matthews had forewarned me that Cakewalk may that location somehow hardwired and will not look at other places. Thanks again as this can make things easier on my eyes and usage and ramp up faster. regards Sri.

Matthews thanks for the forewarning tip. Very timely and handy so I can keep away from known/Phantom issues. I cannot wait to explore and use your Themes!! to make things easier for usage and for eyes. br Sri.

All I was able to connect my Korg PA600 Arranger keyboard, and receive/record all the 16 channels to a Track in Cakewalk. I can play these back on PA600. All working nicely. I am now trying to figure out how view/edit the midi channels events on the track on the Piano Roll? Including Show/Hide filters for specific channels etc. Also, is there a way to take the track contents and create/generate separate tracks so each track is for a Single Midi Channel? I know a few general non-Cakewalk ways to do this, and so I am not looking for those solutions. I just want to get educated on features/capabilities of Cakewalk for doing these tasks. As my goal is to migrate to Cakewalk as my main staple. Thanks in advance Sri.

Colin Appreciate your taking the time to post and offering to help. I will spend some time creating screen shots and post them for you here asap. But I might uninstall and reinstall, with all the default locations pointing to my D drive. I know I can configure things via Preferences, but it might open me to the risk of being on less travelled paths and potential of lurking issues. D drive is where I have lot of space; the default C location is usually a NO-NO, as like most people, I have formatted/partitioned as smaller drive for System/DLLS etc. and not for large amounts of Data. This is not an issue for now, as I still have plenty of space there as well - just do not prefer to have it there for too long. regards Sri.

Starship Krupa The tone of your comment is INTRIGUING. It is not a question of how long I have been with Cakewalk, it is how long I have been with DAWS, how long I have existed on this planet, what all things I have done in my career. I will restrain myself from going further on that Self-Glorification speech. As a piece of advice, this may sound uncalled for, but is necessary for me to say this, as you are posting on a community forum. Do not mindlessly condescend and denigrate others based on your judgmental skews, however sound it might feel to you. It does not bode well. By default, assume that everyone is very intelligent, rigorous, respectful of others, especially value everyone's time. Treat them accordingly until you have accrued other substantiated reasons to diverge from it. All I would say is, I am extremely rigorous, detailed oriented and immersed in advanced technology development in very deep and broader ways. People like me, and I do not consider myself anything exceptional, just a norm, can surface issues in a jiffy just because of their experiential heritage. The reason I need to change colors, fonts, contrast etc.. is because of cloudiness in my eyes and the need for better contrast. It is not for "let me surface what flaws are there". I have already said that I have done thorough diligence on my side, driven by the need, and also explained them clearly, including reasons for my inference. I have also expressed by inability, at least for now, for diagnosing this problem, and seeking other wisdom. I understand and respect Voluntary Labor of Love, Goodwill orientation of this forum. All help is on an free will and optional basis. But operating with personal and professional collegiality, courtesies are not optional. Sri.

Matthews Thanks or your note and expressed thoughts. As I mentioned this does not make any logical sense. I am convinced that this is some kind of "buggy behavior" originating in the Cakewalk code and naturally defies sound logic. Black box testing, like the one you are suggesting cannot take me/you much far. Some one familiar with Cakewalk code, should accept this behavior and postulate a theory to drive testing and confirmation. Yes, I am storing all the *.sth files individually. The file system is seeing/showing it without any issues - and any new theme I create using the Theme Editor also goes into the SAME directory and shows up later in the drop down list. In Fact, I am even able to open one of your *.sth file from that directory in the Theme Editor. BUt those files just do not SHOW UP in the Preferences Panel. I hope you are able to find a pathway for diagnosis and redress. regards Sri.

Hi I just started with Bandlab/Cakewalk and needed to immediately change the colors/fonts etc. I came across your themes on Internet Search. I downloaded, unzipped it and put them in the Themes folder. But the Preference UI and Theme Editor are not showing them. I open Mercury Theme and made some trivial changes and saved it under a different name - Test1. When I close and reopen Cakewalk, I can see Mercury, Tungsten and Test1. I can go that location under File Explorer (I am on Windows 10) and I see all the M*.sth files but they Cakewalk is not picking them up. I am on Cakewalk Free 2021.12 Build 102, 64 Bit Version). Any tips on what I might be the issue. It should be something small I am not catching it, or Cakewalk is doing some checks on these *.sth files and decided not to open. Appreciate your help. Sri. P.S. This is my first post in this forum and 1-day with Cakewalk.