John

Hi Jim thanks for that. I am casually looking for a new graphics card. It is not a priority. What was funny is I have Davinci Resolve which checks ones graphics card and it said it OK but it wont be good for so many things that Resolve can do. LOL In using it I found it makes my videos look really good where Vegas Video Pro is, shall we say, not as good looking. So I have a Nvidia GTX 550 ti. hooked to two wide screen monitors. 1 gig mem ddr5. I want to up that to 8 gig. and a better card. I don't want to spend a lot of money on it. LOL When I got it it was a middle of the road card. Each year it goes further down the line becoming lower and lower. I don't need 4k but.........😀

What about a GTX 1070?

What AV are you using?

I must say I didn't expect the jubilation you have. Very thoughtful.

I'm with the others here. Though for casual use an on board sound chip can do just fine. I would check what bit depth and sample Cakewalk is set to. Also you should run Wave Profiler, its part of Cakewalk, to test your sound chip to see what it has to offer. It may be that it can do 16 bit 48 kHz. Make sure that Cakewalk is set to what your sound card can handle. They should be set the same. Normally on board sound chips will switch itself if it gets a signal change. If you also play videos those may be setting it to 24 48. A good interface like a USB with XLR inputs will set you back under $100 it will be very much worth it to you. Plus you wont need the mixer. I hope you can get this sorted out.

So if it can mean anything that would mean it means nothing. I can't believe that.

It could also be a faulty mic.

To me stems are groups of tracks not single tracks. There is no need for the term if all it means is the same as tracks. My understanding is it comes from the movie industry where FX which are sounds to give a better notion of the scene. Foot steps or putting in the sound of a gun shot. Real guns have a sharp sound not the sound you hear in movies. Then there is dialog and background music. Often these sounds are made of various tracks for each individual sound. Combining like sounds together makes a stem. We in audio think in terms of buses. Not so much about stems. I think it could be because some don't think in terms of grouping tracks to buses. Many times people just output their tracks to the main outs directly. If there is a bus it for a send. I've noticed a trend toward using this term instead of buses. It confuses the issues for me.

Did read my post above? It applies to any VSTi.

All the ones that have been with us so long have a special place with me. Its really good to see names I know. We have lost a few that were good for the forum. Some of it is due to age some to finding greener grass else where. Those that have come back if not to stay with Cakewalk but to add their knowledge to the forum are from me very welcome. They can be trusted and they know a thing or two. I believe the Bandlab people have probably been inundated with all sorts of inquiries as well as international business responsibilities. We shouldn't take it as a sign that they are uninterested.

I have that as a feature request here.

This is from the old forum. http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2382979 Substitute Cakewalk for X1. First insert Kontakt in the synth rack. A pop up dialog should appear. Here is where you configure how you want Kontakt to work in your project. Pay attention to multi outs. You will want to select All Synth Outputs. Click OK and X1 will start making multiple audio tracks. Now you have Kontakt up and empty. No instruments are loaded. Toward the left top you will see a menu that has Files Libraries Database. Lets go to the database by clicking on it. You should see columns with type bank and timbre. For now select under type Piano/Keys. In the next column select Grand Piano. Look down below the database and you should see 3 pianos there. Select the last one which should be Grand Piano. You do this by double clicking on it. That instrument module will load. Now here is the hard part(not really)You should see the GP module with its name there near the top left. Just below it is output and just below that is the input. The input should match your MIDI tracks output. I will get to that in a moment. Be sure that the mixer is shown for Kontakt. There you will see some channel strips You add more if you need to up to the number of audio tracks you have created using that popup dialog that came up when you inserted Kontakt. Now you may need to set up the mixer for other channels. At the bottom the first channel will have 1/2 that is output 1 and 2. Nest if don't see a output in numbers just plus click on it and a dialog will appear. Here you select another out from the list. You do this for as many outs as you need. For the first module it is set up by default most likely the way you will want. Now lets load another instrument module. Go back to the database and select organ. In the third column select vintage looking below Melotron Organ should be there. Double click on it and it will also load. Although the module is different the area above where the name is is the same as the piano the output will most likely be the first or channel 1. Change that to 2. Click on it and it will give you a drop down window that offers all the mixer channels setup in the mixer. You want the second one or as above 2. The MIDI channel should also be changed to 2 if it isn't already. Now you have Kontakt setup you need to go to your first MIDI track and select its output to Kontakt. The Inspector is a good place to go for this. If using the Inspector Go to the bottom of the inspector and select Kontakt. Just below the FX bin you have 3 drop down widgets. The first sets the channel for Kontakt. The other 2 don't count with a soft sampler. They do with hardware. If there is data in the MIDI track then play X1 by hitting the play button. For the second MIDI track do everything the same except change the top channel widget to 2. Repeat as needed.

We can use all the help we can get. I hope you will continue to offer your expertise to the forum.

That is a shame Mike. I miss your comments. I always thought you had a way of explaining things that people could understand.

I just tried this very interesting and good sounding. Free is a very good price.

MIDI 0 is all channels are combined in one track. MIDI 1 channels are put on separate tracks.

It has been my experience that the first core is more utilized than the others. I believe its more about the way CPUs work. What is their responsibility. The first core is going to work with the program and the housekeeping of the OS. The other cores chime in when the program asks for them to take some load. If it were a simple round robin I think things would seem more equal. Its not. That is the best way I can explain it. Also sometimes its not as well programed as it could be. I am not saying this is true of Cakewalk. I do know Noel has done a lot to distribute work to as many cores as one has. The OS has something to do with what goes where.

Because being free and no cost to the user downloading it seems to me the very best way to see if it will work on one's system. No need to try a demo just do it. Also the nature of the question implies a wish for others to do the testing. That is fine if stated that way but it bothers me a little when its implied. Now what on earth does my response have to do with your question? Why do you care what I do? Do you find my answers inaccurate? Do I have a history of false statements regarding Sonar and now Cakewalk? In the old forum I had over 30000 posts and the vast majority were to help others get on better with Sonar. I wrote tutorials and gave the best advise I could. Now, what have you done?

What on earth has that to do with safety of Cakewalk?

All you need now is a monitor to monitor your monitor.

There is no reason to not have both.

Debro thank you for this. Very useful.

We got down to -40 last night in the eastern lower Michigan with wind chill -9 without. Even though its cold its not as cold as I recall from many years back. The snow is noticeable though. Not a huge amount but no one is going to say its light either. Oh well its winter. Looking forward to spring and summer.

Thats a great idea Chuck.

I am very sorry for your loss. I have had dogs through my life. Each one has a special place with my memory. All have given wonderful love and often humor. It can hit very hard and I don't have an answer with what you should do. Except until you have another companion I would suggest leaving it as is until then. Replace when you feel it to be the right thing to do.