Harley Dear

Hi John, thanks for replying. Yes the reason is we send multiple tracks to a Ui24R and that allows us ( or the sound guy ) to change levels if need be. Also thanks for your advice on Playlist. We use TTS-1 - so that's why it crashes huh! Harley

Thanks John. Playlist causes Cakewalk to crash every time unfortunately. Actually, if there was a way the you could clear ( close ) the last track that was just played, that would make Playlist work without crashing. I think it's because it stacks up track after track, that this is what causes it to crash. Harley

Thanks Outrage Productions. Some good tips there which I'll have a good think about. I didn't have a problem with straight forward CWP files, which all consist of MIDI tracks and no audio. I could copy them anywhere and they would work without referencing any audio files. It's when I froze the MIDI tracks I ran into this problem. So it's that part of the problem I am trying to get my head around and understand plus come up with a fix for. Harley

Hi all, Our band uses Cakewalk backing tracks going into a Ui24R Digital mixer. A while back I had trouble with some tracks freezing or CbB crashing altogether. People here suggested freezing the MIDI tracks, which I did and that has helped. The problem I have now is that when I go to make up a new set list, I normally copy the CWP files over to the various sets, prefix them with a number and I can easily go through the list at the gig. An example is below. However with frozen tracks, some of them when opened are looking for audio ( I guess the audio saved when freezing ) and that's impossible to go find where the audio is at a gig. If I skip the loading, most, if not all the tracks in the file are silenced. Some files however, there's no trouble with and I don't get asked where the audio is So I am wondering why some give trouble, others don't and its probably something I am doing wrong freezing the MIDI tracks, or when I save the frozen file. I can't work out what it is. Ideally, I'd like to be able to swap folders at will ( like I can easily do with CWP files ) and not have the frozen file wanting to look for audio and going into silence if I skip the steps. Does anybody have some suggestions or know what I am doing wrong? Harley

Solved! Silly me - I had the tracks frozen....DOH! Hi all, I must have left the 'Save changes for next session' checked after viewing the drum track and selecting numbers. Now when I go into a MIDI track ( in this case Bass for example ) I've lost the piano on the side and when I use configure, I can't work out how to get the piano back. There's a trick to it obviously. I don't have any MIDI device attached at present, and didn't really intend to as I just write the correction notes onto the track. Any clues how to get the piano back please? Thanks - Harley

Thanks for that information Bitflipper.

@Noel Borthwick At the risk of sounding real thick, is this is what you mean by "Also run with MMCSS enabled in Cakewalk." Just wanting to make 100% sure 😁

OK< one of the things I did not realise until now ( and several people here and on the Ui24R users group have alerted me ), was that whilst a MIDI file might look small in total, it's the actual processing with the various VSTs that can tax the system. It's sort of like they're the bottom part of the iceburg under the water. Compared to audio, these could well outweigh the amount of processing power required. So, I now have a mission to bounce down all the MIDI tracks to audio. I've never done this before. Is it a simple process?

Thanks Michael. I think I tried that before last year ( Uncheck Allow this computer to turn off this device to save power. I did this for all the USB items listed.), but this is a timely reminder to check again.

Thanks Noel, that's extremely helpful.

Thanks for taking the time to respond I think you've misunderstood due to my poor explanation of events. At a recent gig, the charger ( which I always have ) had become disconnected and it went un-noticed. We had two dropouts and it was after that I went trouble-shooting and found that I was at 50% battery already. I immediately plugged the charger back in and the rest of the night went smoothly without any glitches. In order to eliminate all the things that could go wrong and cause a dropout, I asked the question about "would the laptop working purely on battery be a culprit?", before looking at any other culprits. To this end everyone has been very helpful and I've picked up some really hand stuff I can apply.

Thanks a lot Erik. Much appreciated

Thanks Starship Krupa. Wow, that's way OVER my head. Are there any videos or written instructions on how I achieve all of that which you suggest? Many thanks.

Thanks and yes, already have one which I use

Thanks for the suggestion Byron. That would be such an easy solution BUT There are two reasons we have set up like we do; 1) I can visually see queues on my screen. We have drums on all tracks ( no drummer ) plus other instruments and I queue my bandmates as need be. We have hundreds of songs and at my age (70's), remembering every little thing isn't an option, and ( more importantly ) 2) Our interface with the Soundcraft Ui24R allows us ( or our sound guy ) to mix nearly all the back track instruments on the fly if need be. So, we're looking for a solution that would allow us to keep our modus operandi if at all possible, It may be that we have to go with what you suggest in the long run, but hope not.