Got it to work after reading this thread:
My Master Output Bus was set to <Realtek Digital Output>, so clikked on that tab, selected <New Stereo Bus>, found <Speakers> and now off to the races. Thanks guys. BTW, found the solution right off by web search after no luck with the search bar here. Heck, I couldn't even find my way back to this thread.
I figured from the start that my problem had to do with output device selection, since I'd just updated the Gigabyte B450M DS3H MoBo with a nice Realtek I/O driver set to config all the hardware I/O ports, front & back on the tower, to optimize how many inputs I have coming from my vintage 4-track RTR w/o having to resort to a 4-into-2 hardware stereo mixer, and lose digital track mix functions on two of the four analog tape tracks. I tried laying down one track at a time but synching them up was a nightmare. Maybe there are tricks to synching tracks, but I have a LONG way to go in learning a tiny fraction of the tools on this program. (My step daughter built this tower for me in '19 before moving out to Cali, this MoBo was her choice, and a good one it is! Thanks Susan!! )
My basic problem was I that couldn't figure out where the output driver selection was on Cakewalk, it is not an intuitive to maze path to the "NEW STEREO BUS" option to bring up other output device drivers available on the PC. All good, though, as I also found a mismatch in the sampling depth and rates while running down the basic driver selection path.
