William Osborne Bisset

Hi all! I must say I have encountered this horrid VSTi swap bug twice within 2 months! I wish I could recall witch other project acted up like this. The thing is, I could restore some information from a backup to copy paste the midi data in the other project, but it was not ALL up to date on that past project:-(. So last night on 2020, 1, 16 I encountered this again with a different project! All the project backups had this issue with VSTis being swapped! I have a very detailed order of what I did. I did change my MIDI config midway into having this project open! - The cause may have been the cause because I was fiddling with getting my Komplete keyboard to interact better with Cakewalk. IE removing a MIDI controller seems to trigger this VSTi / track swap issue based off of another's reported issue with this! I should mention I used a NEW creativity template I made a few versions back to avoid problems with setup when I made this new project. Here is the rundown of what I recall doing. I had my project open since I went to work to get back to later. All was well with it as I did not close it yet. I came back from work I continued to mess around with the project and the only thing I did when I got back was home was I copied a few bars to extend the song. I noted as played back the project that a track that had (Kontakt - Symphony Strings) was silent and the dynamics was ZERO! It's like it was ignoring the current cc value* on the mod wheel! UGH.... A thought came to me midway into some inspiration and I thought, "Hey... I wonder if I can set up my Komplete keyboard as a Daw controller to alleviate the defaulting CC issue???" With some help from here on how to set this up the Komplete S series as a MACKIE using control surfaces, it was a bit difficult as I could not find the Mackie DIALOG... lol... To get the ball rolling on the controller setup, I proceeded to disable all Komplete MIDI I/O but the Komplete DAW interface... I closed the project I was working on and reset CbB by closing it as per instructions. Pressed the save button for prosperity before doing so... Opening the project again I had found the Mackie dialog by double clicking on the control surface bracket (Green or red edge on console) Nothing worked on the controller yet (IE transport) I found the ignore handshake option... I reset the whole gig again and got the DAW control working ! Project seemed to be ok here! MIDI I/O disabled on Komplete still. Keys = no sound 😉 I was ready to tinker with my project as the VSTi dialog was up for Kontakt Symphony Series Strings and all seemed well. No odd sounds.. UNTIL the next step..... (No MIDI input yet) I had re added the MIDI control components of the Komplete keyboard in the MIDI devices under settings had saved the project yet again for prosperity. I closed it. When I re-opened the project I heard this WEIRD low tone floppy synth sound come from somewhere and it went away! When I tried to play the project it sounded all off! I was in a bit of panic by now. I try to investigate. I had figured maybe the controller & ECHO MIDI caused the parameters to become screwed up IE cutoff, volumes etc! Solved by removing Mackie controller, but that's not all. I close and re open yet again. I go and edit a particular track's instrument parameters and OMG the instrument is empty on particular tracks! I am like... Where did they go? Then it hits me.... SON OF A *BLEEP* lol.... I figured out what happened as that darn VSTi bug hit me again! Also it just seemed to DELETE what I had loaded in Kontakt! Scouring my backups in the project folder were all infected as well as Backblaze backups! No success in restoring order and I need to resort to manual repair. I have no clue why it is so difficult to manage what is wired to what in a instrument track. WHY!!!? I am not sure how to correct it other than copy pasting the midi and even saving the patches out to files to re-load them in correct order! I am still kind of noob to this but WILL NOT transfer to another DAW! MIDI CCs and how they get recorded so things are the same way they were inspired is of utmost importance!!! I hate to open a project only to find out it does not sound the same before it was saved and closed for the evening. So odd. So sad and frustrating as I love to experiment!! What is the difference between automation and CC anyway? They are together but separate!? Ugh.... Nothing works out of box so to speak and I keep running in circles. That's why I was desperate to try and integrate my Komplete controller they way I did. Time to ask you all for help on this, but that's for another post! Just had to vent it here as it pertains to the problem. I love to mess with hybrid setups as far as using loop MIDI to make midi cross between many tracks. Why cakewalk does not have this ability is BEYOND me.... One cannot hear the darn track if MIDI is not even echoing on a track using a virtual MIDI adapter as it is!? Too much to keep track of 😞 There is too much a risk of screwing delicate CC setups on VSTis by doing this! Uuuugh... Please tell me this makes some sense! Cakewalk is just too user friendly for any creative individual! I wish that where was better foldering too as things can become utterly confusing due to how the hierarchy is displayed. NESTING of folders please??? I don't know if it's just me, but at least I can talk with fellow Cakewalkers on what can be done! CbB seems to be catering to minor irritants and odd bugs of the past! It's in better development now free than it was paid! Where is the TIP JAR!? Heck I had always wondered in the past why one could not dupe a track's properties and instead had to do it thru a template! Well even that addition had a hiccup that was not transferring the MIDI automation segment. FIXED as far as I know, but this VSTi swap thing is a serious deal / project breaker! * This is another issue. The storing of MIDI CCs n the track escape my mind on how they work. I would think they send continuous but I find unless a value is touched (I/E a dial is moved that the value is defaulted to zero or a different value rather than stored as it was when recorded! This makes me want to pull my hair out.... I guess after all these years I need a MIDI 101 course lol.... Synth brass & strings - Demo VSTi swap project - 2020-01-17.rar