David Baay

I agree, Diamond is my Goto patch. Addictive Keys was mentioned. I have that as well. It sits well in a mix with a less complex tone (fewer high harmonics), but is not as responsive to dynamics in terms of timbre change on the attack or the harmonic evolution of the sustain decay on held notes/chords. And you can't interrupt the release when pedaling late, so I use it for more percussive parts that don't require a lot of nuance, and in settings where the piano isn't the star. EDIT: Of course, there are plenty of demos out there, but here's an example of what TruePianos can do. The tone on this is minimally EQ'd or otherwise manipulated, using the Diamond 'Jazz' patch: Dexter's Tune (Cover of a solo piano piece by Randy Newman)

I'm still struggling with the fact that my MOTU MIDI Express XT interface isn't detected at startup. I either have to power it up or toggle the power off/on after booting to get the driver loaded. I've not had this problem on any PC or version of Windows in the 25-odd years I've been running this interface until Win 10 1903 installed a couple weeks ago. The problem manifested immediately the first I launched Cakewalk after the final reboot. I've tried a number of different things to fix it without success. The MOTU ClockWorks utility doesn't see it either, so it's not specific to Cakewalk. Other than that, I've had no issues.

I don't know if 4Front are really still honoring the discount for SONAR owners; you might want to contact them. TruePianos is still the best-sounding, most expressive and playable, inexpensive piano I know of. It's not 100% modeled, like Pianoteq, but modeling is clearly being used to get smooth timbre change across the dynamic range and to produce a more realistic release sound and sustain behavior. I despise pianos that have a noticeable velocity switching, and TruePianos has none. It also lets you interrupt the release with the sustain pedal which a lot cheaper sampled piano can't do - another feature that makes it more playable if you're used to a real piano. It makes a slightly unpleasant 'warbling' sound when releasing notes held by sustain , but it's not that noticeable in most situations. I don't know of anything free that sounds even half as good as a solo instrument.

I don't understand what you're clicking on that closes it. The way it should work is you adjust the height of the focused track, and then when you click on a different track, the previously zoomed one returns to the default height of the other un-zoomed tracks, and the new one expands to the zoomed height you set previously. And if you adjust the height of an un-zoomed track, they all change together.

Perfect! I understand your reticence to upload the file. Thanks for taking the time to detail the changes. I'm not surprised to see incorrect samples being referenced; it's a common error, probably due to copy-pasting lines to build the file. Sometime obvious on auditioning the instrument, but sometimes not. I've done it myself. ;^) Cheers, Dave

Although it may not be relevant to this issue, I have always felt that using WDM driver mode, and letting Windows have access to your audio interface is asking for trouble. I prefer to use ASIO mode, and set Cakewalk not to share drivers or release them when not in focus. I leave my onboard sound active for use by Windows, browsers and generic multimedia apps so that they all keep their mitts of my audio interface, and patch the soundcard output to an outboard mixer so it can play through my studio monitors when desired.

I generally use keyboard shortcuts in lieu of the context menu as well. But this issue renders the context menu mostly useless (everything that depends on selection gets grayed out), and should definitely be fixed. In the process of checking it, I re-discovered that it affects the PRV and inline PRV as well. I think the problem in that context goes back many years (maybe to X1 when Skylight was first implemented). I had totally forgotten about it because I use keyboard shortcuts.

Not a problem for me. While I would usually suggest to take a discussion like this to another thread, I think it brought out some relevant points in this case.

Glad you liked it, Joe. I'm not really accomplished at performing in real time using wheel/joystick/aftertouch inputs, and I try to avoid doing a lot of data entry with a mouse at all costs. So this is a quick and dirty solution I came up with when I first got GPO, and later JABB.

Not to downplay the importance of having this issue addressed, but I try to avoid making complicated selections because it's all too easy to lose them (or inadvertently include/exclude something) by my own ineptitude if not by a bug. ;^) I'll usually just take the the extra bit of time to perform several independent operations on partial selections. And I also make liberal use of Ctrl+Z. ;^)

Yes, toggling Input Echo on MIDI tracks is a fairly common way to switch instruments during playback or live performance. But the OP was toggling Input Echo on audio tracks during playback, which is not so common, and is generally to be avoided because it requires making a request to the driver to open/close the port, whereas using mute/solo is a software operation over which the DAW has complete control without depending on good behavior from the interface driver to get the desired result with the least latency, audio artifacts and potential system instability.

How did you start the project after re-launching Cakewalk? From template chosen in the New Project view of the Start Screen or by File > New or by Ctrl+N or... something else? And what is the value of Sampling Rate under 'Default Setting for New Projects' in Preferences > Audio > Driver Settings?

Here's my tip for that: - Record from your keyboard, playing with variable velocity as you normally would though the patch doesn't respond to it (applies to most Garritan instruments). - Select the whole clip/track. - Show the Controller lane in the PRV, and add a CC1, Modulation lane. - Right-click the CC1 button, and choose 'Copy Selected Values to this Lane'. The velocity values will be copied to the CC1 lane, giving you basic starting volumes for each note that you can leave as-is or use as a reference for manually drawing in more controllers for swells, etc. The same can be done of CC11, Expression as needed. It may be helpful to layer some other instrument that does respond to velocity so you have an audible response to guide you while recording.

I don't use a lot of strings in my music, but hate to think there's a flaw lurking out there. Would you care to share the corrected SFZ?

A few additional thoughts/clarifications: - My main point was that distinguishing by channels makes toggling input echos unnecessary. But if you're changing channels on the controller, there's no need to have a forced Output channel to the synth; what's important is to restrict the Input channel, so that only one is recorded and echoed at a time (in the case of non-multi-timbral synths) - If TTS-1 or any other multi-timbral synth is using all 16 channels of one port, the other synth tracks would need to use a different port in order not to end up being layered with a TTS-1 sound. Unfortunately, most controllers do not offer multiple output ports. At that point you do have to start disabling Input Echos or muting tracks. - Most decent controllers can send on more than one channel at a time to address the need for layering but not all make it easy to quickly select output channels from the front panel without going into menus, and many can only send on two channels at once.