msmcleod

The 18i8 allows for two headphone mixes (one being identical to the stereo mix), and the other which is separately configurable. What I suggest: 1. In Cakewalk, set the output of the metronome bus to a separate audio output (e.g. DAW 3/4) 2. In the Scarlett MixControl application, set the headphone routing to DAW 3->Headphone Left / DAW 4->Headphone Right. One of the headphone outputs should now only contain the click, and the other headphone output everything else. This tutorial may help:

The Deer Hunter - Cavatina by (the other) John Williams:

The Sting - The Entertainer by Scott Joplin:

In Preferences->MIDI->Playback And Recording, there's a "Always Echo Current MIDI Track". This causes MIDI input echo to be enabled on the active (focussed) track - you'll see an "A" on the echo button to tell you it's enabled because it's the active track. It this is unchecked, you'll have to manually enable input echo. There's nothing stopping you manually enabling MIDI echo for all of the tracks yourself of course, but this will cause all of those tracks to respond to MIDI input. Also be careful that no other tracks are transmitting MIDI data, as this will also cause it to play on those tracks (this can happen when MIDI output is enabled on another VSTi). Enabling MIDI echo on a track will cause them to react to those MIDI messages too. Although you can change the input filter on each track only to respond to a particular device/channel, most users find this inconvenient, as it requires you to change the MIDI channel on your controller keyboard to match the track you want to echo. The default setting is to have the MIDI filter set to "None", with "Always Echo Current MIDI Track" checked. MIDI echo will be enabled and the filter set to "Omni" when the track is the active track.

If you use the Append Instrument Track function, you don't need to force the MIDI channel - it's done for you. In fact, altering the forced MIDI channel will confuse the Per-Output Track functionality, and will likely not allow you add new tracks using that method. To use Per-Output Instrument tracks, you need to configure your VSTi so that the MIDI channels are ascending from 1 to 16, and they match (in the same order), the audio outputs for those channels. In other words, the sound listening on MIDI Channel 1 goes to Stereo Output 1; the sound listening on MIDI Channel 2 goes to Stereo Output 2 etc. The batch functions in Kontakt do that for you. Other VSTi's will require you to map them yourself. Once you understand the concept more thoroughly, you can create more advanced setups - e.g. layering sounds by ensuring the MIDI channel / audio output of more than one library are the same... but if you're just starting out, stick to the basics.

FWIW - I have used the following control surfaces with Cakewalk (and of course the new Sonar), without issue: Mackie Control Universal / XT / C4 Presonus Faderport 16 Yamaha 01X Behringer BCF2000 Korg nanoKONTROL Studio Korg nanoKONTROL 2 The Presonus Faderport 8 is essentially an 8 fader version of the Faderport 16, and works fine with Cakewalk/Sonar. A fair number of users use the Behringer X-Touch (the big one), which is basically a full clone of the Mackie MCU. For surfaces that claim to support the Mackie Protocol, but don't specifically support SONAR/Cakewalk, you can usually get it working by checking "Disable handshake" in Cakewalk's Mackie Control surface dialog. You may also want to check one of the compatibility modes such as Cubase or Universal. The control surfaces that seem to cause the most issues are the single fader type, so unless you know it works with Cakewalk, I'd avoid them.

Everything is converted to either 32 bit float or 64 bit float internally for mixing, so as long as the 16 bit files sound good to start with, you'll not have any quality issues. The only thing you lose with 16 bit is dynamic range - but even with 16 bit, the dynamic range is huge.

The only consideration is that Sonar 8.5 doesn't support VST3, only VST2. So if RipX is VST3 only, then it's not going to work with Sonar 8.5.

sorry I meant ports... I'll edit my original post.

This is the easiest way to do it: If you add additional libraries in Kontakt later on, just re-run the batch function in Kontakt, then use "Append Instrument Track" to add the new tracks. You can do this for up to 16 libraries - after that, you'll need to add a new Kontakt instance.

It depends on what you mean by performance. It will take longer to open 3 input ports than 1 input port. If you have "Always open all devices" checked, this is done once, otherwise it's done on demand when you arm a track. Once the ports are open however, there is no difference in performance.

Yes - this is to get them set up for writing to when recording. A reasonably sized file / buffer for each audio input port is needed to ensure glitch-free recording. The earlier this is done, the better really - waiting until you actually hit record would be problematic if you wanted to manually punch in for example.

I wonder if the blank areas are simply notes that haven't got a corresponding entry in the drum map? Might be worth sliding open the PRV, and seeing if there's any extra notes unaccounted for.

I'm not aware of any limit as such. I use 32 ins / 34 outs without issue (RME Digiface USB using USB 2.0), however the more input ports you have open, the slower some operations will be such as arming tracks on the fly. You can mitigate this to an extent by enabling "Always open all devices", which will open them all on project start up, but that's doing is moving the wait to the start. This is the best option however (IMO) if you always use a lot of inputs. Really, the best thing to do is only have the inputs checked in preferences that you actually need. Quite often I leave mine at around 8 inputs, and only enable the rest if I'm actually using them. TLDR : Opening each audio port for recording takes a up to a second or so (depending on the interface/driver), so think about which time is least of an issue for you, and set the options accordingly. I've never found the number of outputs to be an issue or cause any additional delays. FYI - I've recorded 32 simultaneous tracks on a 2GHz "silent" PC (it's around the size of an old audio cassette case), through USB using the RME without any dropouts or glitches. It was a USB 3.0 port, but the AFAIK device is only using USB 2.0 speed.

FYI - Markers are always added to the active arranger track, and will overwrite anything that is there already. If you've already got arranger sections marked out, create a new arranger track first.