jkoseattle

Thanks! I installed Midi Ox and it looks like overkill. So I tried yet again opening Cakewalk because I wasn't like I had already tested it 5 times in the last two days or anything... ...and I then remembered to try one more thing that is only rarely suggested but is probably the most reliable solution across all computer problems. And that is: Try doing the exact same thing you've already done like 5 times and maybe this time it will work for some unknown reason. ... and that's exactly what I tried, and it worked! I have to remember to recommend that next time comes to me with a computer problem. :-)

All this points to a problem with the physical piano itself. I had only moved it gently from one room and back, never dropped or bumped it. Is this something that happens with these, where the connectivity is fine but the keys themselves stop working?

To be clear, I did have Windows 11 on the machine for a long time before I did the reinstall. I has nothing to do with Windows 11. Go here: https://m-audio.com/support/drivers-search and choose Keyboard Controllers > Hammer 88 > Windows 11. You'll see "There are currently no drivers available for this product and operating system."

According to M-Audio, no drivers are needed, and I already have the most recent firmware loaded. I tried opening a Basic project, installed a synth, and on the standalone version of the synth it plays fine on the virtual on-screen keyboard. I thought I played a few notes successfully from the piano, but either it stopped receiving data or else it was my imagination. In any case, no difference. Yes I meant Cakewalk is not receiving Midi data from the keyboard. Or if it is, it's ignoring it. And yes, I meant the USB cable. Not only is everything plugged into the same ports, it is the exact same cables before I broke it all down. Input echo is enabled, But if it weren't I should at least see recorded Midi events in the project even if I can't hear them. But nothing. RANT: This is the EXACT reason I've been putting off remodeling my studio and doing the much-needed Windows re-install. Because I just KNEW this was going to happen and I was dreading all the stress.. It's a sad mark of the times that an entire album release (two, actually) is not happening because of this.

No Control Surfaces. I wasn't even sure what one was, then I found it in Preferences and it's empty.

I am trying to reset my system up after both a re-install of Windows 11 AND a remodel of the actual room. The room is done, and I'm plugging everything back in. I am unable to get Cakewalk to hear input from my Midi Keyboard though. This is an M-Audio Hammer 88 and before everything got taken apart, it had been successfully connected to this same computer and Cakewalk for years using the same Surface Dock. In Cakewalk Preferences > MIDI > Devices, the Hammer 88 is listed and checked for both input and output. When I create a new project, the template I am using points to the Hammer 88 already, and that pairing still seems intact for all three tracks in the template. The piano lights up when plugged in. When I unplug the Midi cable, Windows immediately complains, and when I plug it back in, it immediately recognizes the piano again. When I playback an existing project, it plays just fine, so my synths and soundcard are working. I also hear the metronome count-in when attempting to record. I have attempted this using both MME and UWP driver modes, with no difference. In short, everything looks and behaves exactly as expected. Yet playing the piano, nothing is heard and nothing recorded, on any of the three tracks. I dug out an old M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 which is the only other midi device I own. Cakewalk doesn't even see it at all though. What should I look at to fix this?

That fixed it! Wow, I wonder how long I've had that bug in there. Thank you so much!

No the Ctrl key is not stuck. Ctrl-S has never worked for me in Cakewalk. I do not have two Ctrl keys. When I unbind it, the menu still shows it as one of the two possible keystrokes for saving.

It's just a new thing. I'm talking a full 15 seconds. Used to be ~3

CW is the only application I use which does not have Ctrl-S as its default keystroke for saving a file. Arghh. So I went to Keyboard Shortcuts to bind it. But it does not work. It shows Ctrl-S (as well as Alt-S) for File | Save, but when I actually hit Ctrl-S, the default "Split Clips" dialog pops up instead. I restarted CW, problem persists. Why is this happening?

When I need to edit keyboard shortcuts, CW is taking about 15 seconds to bring that panel up. Once it's up everything seems to work fine. Also, if I close the Preferences window while on the keyboard shortcuts page, then simply hitting P makes it wait 15 seconds, because it has remembered that was the last page I was on. If I don't go to Keyboard Shortcuts, then the Preferences window opens right up normally. What's going on?

Long time CW user, I had to reinstall Windows and start over with everything, and finally I've gotten CW up and running pretty much. I opened an old project consisting of two piano tracks (different pianos). The weird thing is that whichever track is highlighted is slightly louder than the other. During playback I can click back and forth between the two tracks and merely moving to a track changes its output. I don't remember ever experiencing that before. I turned off effects for the tracks and it still does it. I rebooted and now it's subtler but still present. What's happening?

Thanks for the pointers. I got it now and that indeed fixed the problem! Whew. Now, since I've been using CW for literally 34 years (OMG) I have never run into this before. I just added a new synth to this project and lo and behold, Enable MIDI Output is checked by default. I've never had to deal with this before so I don't know why it's different all of a sudden. I poked around Preferences and am not seeing anything obvious. Can I disable this by default somewhere?

Thanks, I went into the help to figure out where I could see the Enable Midi Output option. It tells me it's in the dialog when I go to insert a new soft synth, but I don't get a dialog at all. I choose Insert > Soft Synth... > and then I choose Opus and am taken directly to the Opus plugin. Otherwise though, it sounds like the culprit all right. Where is this Enable Midi Output found? https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=SoftSynths.19.html

Been away from CW for at least 6 months. Now I'm needing it to do some really simple demos. But weirdness prevails... The first time I went to record, I was getting duplicate Midi notes on the track. So I just recorded my stuff on a different track and moved it to the track I needed, but I never figured out why it was doing that. Then today, I had one track recorded, and needed to record a melody on a second track. Each track uses a different Opus instrument. But when recording track 2, the existing notes from track 1 were also getting recorded on track 2 along with what I was playing. The inputs for both tracks are my M-Audio keyboard "Omni", which afaik is what it has always been. In any case, I've never had to deal with any of that. Any idea what's going on here?

Thanks for the reply. I am using a Focusrite Scarlett and the drivers say Focusrite USB ASIO, and in Cakewalk the Driver Mode is also ASIO. The only thing I can think is that I switched to the newer Surface Dock, but I thought that was just a throughput device. What else might be in play?

I don't think anything has changed in my system. Now suddenly any time I switch away to a different application, when I come back to CW, I get maybe 5-10 seconds delay when hitting R to record, where the cursor spins, then recording proceeds normally. After that, as long as CW stays the active application, when I hit R to record it starts right up like it's supposed to. Then after I go away and come back, the delay and spinning cursor returns. What might be causing this?

I have been asked to contribute some music for a stage musical. Lyrics will be by someone else, so music only. I will only need to produce demo recordings and piano-vocal score. I'm taking over for a composer no longer working on the project. Some of the songs will be from scratch, while some will be fixes of the other guy's work. All of it is work-for-hire, as I am not asking for any ownership of the show or songs. The show is being written in hopes of a production (as opposed to a commission by some theatre) and I have no idea what the actual life of it will be. It is still being polished, and there will certainly be a long workshop process. Again, without my ownership in the show, I won't be involved in that. Knowing the fallow fields that are the musical theatre world, I don't have any hopes there will be wads of cash pouring in that I'll never see, which is why I want it to be work for hire. However, these people seem to be pretty experienced professionals, and while the show isn't my taste, for people for whom it IS their taste, it's decent work. They want to know what I should charge for this work. The previous composer worked hourly, which I know is a terrible idea, and they agreed it was wrong. It's a very open and honest relationship so far, so I trust they want it to be as fair as I do. There are two tiers as I see it: Songs from scratch and fixes of existing songs, which there are a lot of. Does anyone have any idea of the ballpark I should be asking for here?

Something happened to my PC and Microsoft support had me create a new user profile to supposedly fix it (which it didn't, but that's beside the point), and also copied user data over so that all my apps would run on the new profile. Somehow CW doesn't run at all on the original user profile, just the splash screen and then it exits. On the new profile, it runs, but it doesn't recognize me and opens up the brand new user wizard. I assume some critical user data was not moved over successfully. Does anyone know what this data is, what files I need to move where to get so that I can run CW with the original user settings? Or, if the better route is to reinstall CW from scratch, what data I should save off so I don't lose all my settings? I am aware of exporting and importing keyboard shortcuts, but I assume there's more to it than that.

Wow, that's interesting, because I think Michael at EW was the very same person who told me it wasn't supported at all, I believe that thread may have taken place shortly after, so he might have gotten new information which I wasn't exposed to. Thanks! Looks complicated and scary, but I'm game.

This may partly explain why you read the whole article. To many nowadays, that post was "long-form".

A few months ago I declared officially that I was abandoning Cakewalk after 32 years of its being my sole DAW. Lack of EastWest Opus support was the deciding factor, though there were some other reasons as well. I chose Studio One as my new DAW, (and also spent a few weeks trying out Cubase which is very similar), and have been working with it for these past six months or so. Well, guess what, I'm coming back. Sort of. Here's where I tell you why. Turns out, despite the numerous jaw-droppingly clunky things in Cakewalk, there are some features which are MUCH better in Cakewalk than Studio One. (And vice versa of course). WHAT I LOVE ABOUT STUDIO ONE Compared to Cakewalk, S1 is jam packed with features, and an astonishing number of them are actually useful. While new versions of Cakewalk would invariably tout their exciting new support for SynthyLab's Scoopy-doopy X32 version 5.5 Belgian Edition as if it was the greatest feature everyone absolutely had to upgrade to get, Studio One was actually adding things that make song production more convenient. In fact, there are so very many of them I couldn't begin to incorporate them all. Daily multiple cries of "Oh wow, it never occurred to me that could be this easy", and I was off and running and so long Cakewalk. (I have long suspected that the present day developers for Cakewalk at Bandlab have inherited fragile spaghetti code which prevents them from re-engineering a lot of things that are obvious places for improvement, but I have no way of knowing if that's true.) These include things like: *** The MIDI velocity editing features are so cool and fun. For example, BY DEFALUT, when you select notes and slide the velocity up and down, it does so proportionally. Duhh... *** Latency correction features cater to those of us who never remember what buffer size means and all that. It's trivial to say "less latency please" or "latency is ok, give me CPU power". CW makes you frickin' LEARN it. Ugh. *** S1 has an amazing Projects feature where you can take a whole bunch of completed or even not completed songs and assemble them into a "Project", where entire songs become like tracks, at which time you can add effects, envelopes, etc., and export a single project as a folder of audio files, and you can double click on any song to open the entire song for a quick edit, after which S1 syncs it back up with your Project. It's like magic. Thrilling! *** S1 has a concept of "Scratch Pads", in which you can try out ideas in separate windows without messing up your real song, and copy paste things around between scratch pads. No more adding a marker at bar 50,000 to do that. S1 has a rich array of keyboard shortcuts for windows and tools which is not nearly so clean in CW. Their system for which windows to display when and how and the docking functionality is far superior, and was an immediate joy to behold. (I've always hated CW's docking window stuff, way too complicated and confusing.) Similarly, though it has many more doodads available from icons and menus and toolbars, it is pretty well organized and easy to navigate. That was also a big improvement for me. S1 also has a more streamlined UI, and while it resembles a page of Egyptian hieroglyphs at times, they don't have this big crush on gradients the way the CW UI designers do. That's been refreshing. (If there is a way to remove color gradients from the Cakewalk UI, I'm all ears.) HOWEVER..... WHAT I REALLY MISSED ABOUT CAKEWALK As it turns out, there are features in Cakewalk that I was completely accustomed to and had no idea CW was the only DAW I knew of that did things that way. I had no idea how good the Cakewalk PRV really is. 1. MIDI SCRUBBING The biggest missed feature is Midi scrubbing in PRV at the speed of mouse dragging and for multiple tracks simultaneously. Who knew that Cakewalk is the only DAW that offers this? (Well, probably a lot of people, but I didn't.) Cubase does have a little, but it's one track at a time and not as snappy. And after six months without it, I've just never gotten so I don't still miss it every 35 seconds. 2. THIS: Who knew that something as obviously useful as this is not available in the other DAWs. I can't solo and mute multiple tracks from within the PRV AT ALL much less organize them into filtered groups. WTF!!!??? 3. EVENTS EVENTS EVENTS Like Cakewalk, Studio One employs the concept of "Events", blocks of material which are represented as discreet rectangles in Track View. But S1 retains that concept within its Midi Editor view, so that there are constantly visible event borders indicated by different background colors, and you can be in the Midi Editor and actually have places in the track that you are unable to record or edit at all because there's no event there yet, and worse, if events overlap, there may even be notes audible in the track that YOU CAN'T SEE. Everything has to be in thrall to an event. CW understands that while events may be important in Track View, if you are editing Midi you probably don't care about events, so it ignores them. Bravo. 4. TAKE LANES S1 and Cubase are allergic to the idea of multiple takes in a track. You can do it, but it's not a default, and it's more limited. Apparently, recording ten takes of a phrase and having ten take lanes - which you can mute and solo and audition as needed, and then can drag around freely like real grown up tracks - is not something Studio One thinks would be useful. You have to select the takes one by one, then deploy a function to convert them into regular tracks, and then audition them that way. You want six unison takes for BG Vocals? You'll need six separate tracks. It's confusing as <swear word>. CONCLUSION However, I have a lot invested in my EastWest Composer Cloud subscription, and I love it and know it. I couldn't lose it. So going back to Cakewalk would mean finding all new instruments for everything. Deal breaker. Here's my new solution: I'm going to do all my composing and editing in Cakewalk, where the Midi editing features are robust and keep me in the flow. I'll just use lower quality instruments. Once the piece is "done" (-ish), I will export as Midi and import into Studio One, where I can attach Opus instruments to it. I'll still be able to do last minute Midi editing in S1 of course, and I will. What this means is that there will have to be a rubicon crossing moment where I decide I'm done with the piece and am departing Cakewalk with it. This might be good for me, because it will prevent me from second guessing myself too late in the game, and also prevent me from getting too deep into mixing and effects while the piece is still being composed. Anyway, it's going to take me a week or three to re-learn my Cakewalk habits, but I'm looking forward to it. I know this post was long. In college when I wrote long term papers I would often throw in non-sequitur sentences just to see if the professor was actually reading it. I like strawberries. Thanks for reading.

I kept messing around with it, and at some point managed to get a file with data in it. Not sure what I did, but the urgency is off for me. If you'd like to reply, it may help someone else in the future, or me even, next time I have to do this. But for now, not sure what I did, but I'm moving on.

I am trying to export a cwp project as Midi to work on in another DAW. I am getting an empty .mid file every time. I have tried manually selecting clips I want included, as well as trying selecting no clips at all, but no matter what I've tried, I get an empty file. The tracks themselves are listed correctly, but there is no midi content in those tracks. What am I doing wrong?

It does nothing at all. No screen appears. It indicates in the taskbar that the program is running. That's all