azslow3

A bit more concrete:

1. switch the device into CC mode (press and hold SET MARKER and CYCLE buttons while connecting USB cable)
2. make sure Korg MIDI input is found and enabled in Cakewalk MIDI preferences
3. make sure you do NOT use any Control Surface plug-in in Cakewalk preferences (at least not with Korg MIDI input/output)

What Korg sends can be configured using Korg editor.

1 hour ago, Yves Chaput said:

But it's a shame that I have to go thru those hoops and loops to try to figure out how to set it up.
It should be a much easier process. I don't know who's fault it is, Cakewalk for not being compliant or M-Audio for the same reason.

...or may be user can read the documentation (for the device and for the DAW).

Reading the first, you can find how to switch DAW modes on MKV. Set it to Mackie 1 ("NC1"). Also you can notice you have to use "MIDIIN2 (Oxigen 49 MKV)" as DAW control input (and since your device has no feedback, probably start with output unassigned).

From the second, you can find how to add some Control Surface (https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=ExternalDevices.03.html), and since your device imitate Mackie, you can choose "Mackie Control" here (do you remember what to set as input for it?).

Also in Cakewalk documentation you can find https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=NewFeatures.003.html and in fact you have to set "Disable handshake" (if not already set).

After that, most DAW operations should work as described in M-Audio documentation.

If you buy a e-guitar, you also have to plug it into "correct input" and set correct "parameters" to make it sound "right". Probably you will not write "it should be a much easier process..." is this case 🙄 What is "correct input" and what are "correct parameters"? Obviously it depends from what you want. With (some) surfaces that is the same, there is no single "correct socket" nor "correct parameters".   General purpose surfaces like yours are flexible.

-----

But may be something is not working yet... From the same sources, you can find that changing mode on keyboard to Mackie 2 ("NC2") will change knobs "resolution" while setting "Universal" or "Cubase" mode in Mackie Control plug-in can change the function of some buttons/knobs.

-----

And  in case you don't like what M-Audio has considered to control in DAWs, you may consider "rolling your own". Yes, that takes more time. But that is possible. You will need to learn how to configure MKV to send what you want (for that you have to find what you want it sends) and then configure the reaction on all controls.

Sorry for bumping own thread... but Google is definitively not my friend and attempts to put comments to videos from known "Cakewalk bloggers" have failed (comments disappeared).

I mean when someone is looking for a good solution, he/she had no change to find it 😒

So I have created my own video (see the first post) 😏

1 hour ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

I searched "simple" track on this forum and google for bandlab and the only reference that came up was your mention of it. Are you saying that I can set up the midi track feeding the instrument track, but have both of those tracks appear as one track? If so that would clean up a lot of clutter in the arrangement view and make it easier to navigate around.

"Simple instrument track" is how Cakewalk call it: https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=SoftSynths.05.html

I prefer to think about it as "Simple (instrument track)",  and use "Instrument (track)" for synth output tracks(s),  "Synth" for an instrument in the synth rack. Not as bad as with ACT, but just "Instument" term is ambiguous is Cakewalk.

Synth is always separate thing in Cakewalk, unlike in other DAWs where synthes are effectively handled as FXes. And they need at least 2 tracks, one MIDI with output to the synth and one Audio with input from the synth. "Simple instrument track" is visually merged representation of (one) input MIDI track and (one) output Audio track. Most controls (including Mute) in Simple tracks are for Audio track.

You can split simple tracks or combine related tracks into simple at any time. I repeat, that is just visual representation and so there are no changes in the project (all settings and routing are preserved).

You can manipulate the content  independent from tracks. That includes events, items, takes and Matrix.

To find combinations and try different arrangements live, explore Matrix. Another approach is using take lanes with Comping. There are videos on YouTube about both features.

7 minutes ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

So if I understand correctly in order to have a mute work properly, each track will need it's own additional redundant midi track just to press the mute button and have the instrument decay properly?   🙁

If you want mute to work as you want, you need to show both tracks. I mean:

• mute is working properly, but you want it work unusual way (so you need to disable "smart mute")
• "simple" track is internally 2 tracks, which can be shown as one. You do not created redundancy when you decompose simple tracks.

If you want mute MIDI track but still be able to play live, you will need "redundant" track for MIDI input. Note that is also unusual, till in recording. For recording that is supported without extra track.

That is not a "work around", that is a possibility foreseen by Cakewalk developers to do what you have asked for.

More natural and so default approach is to mute the track when it should be really muted (so instantly), mute/delete the content (item or take) if it should not play and choose desired mode for recording.

The website remind me about 90es, I have created my first web site around 95 (after writing a web server for Windows to host it) 🤪

Seriously. Commercial (and even not commercial) websites should look a bit different these days. It may be worse to invest into that...

Also "View Your shopping cart" button produce "not secure" warning.

Just to make a website correctly respond to S, the simplest certificate is sufficient. I don't understand why you was asked for a "proof of business", that make sense for signing software (and from what I remember required for signing drivers). Web certificate just confirm what user see in the browser is really coming from the address the user is typed (https://www.nortonmusic.com/). Sure, now users can see the site owner is from Florida/Fort Pierce, confirmed by major certification authority. But I don't think many users really check that (and probably most people don't even know how to see that information...).

Probably that was the reason the first proposal was contacting webhost company. Many of them support S for free (using Let's Encrypt or similar certificates).

6 hours ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

Is there a pre/post setting to set mutes to toggle midi events of tracks  instead of muting the console channels, so that decay on virtual instruments and reverb etc. will continue to sound properly after mute.

You can mute selected MIDI clip or you can split an Instrument track into MIDI and Audio tracks, then you can mute just MIDI track (but check "Smart mute").

6 hours ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

Is it possible to assign external buttons/pads etc on a controller keyboard/surface to toggle mutes of different tracks on or off. If so, what is the name of the function/preference setting etc. in the DAW that facilitates this.

You can right click on Mute button and select "Remote control...". But that feature is not the best approach. Better use Control Surface plug-ins ("ACT MIDI" and "Generic" will do the trick in Banks, "AZ Controller" has more options).

6 hours ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

Is there a way to temporarily mute events in a track but allow the controller keyboard to still trigger sound from the virtual instrument on that track during song playback so you can try out alternate ideas for that track, and not hear the events that are already recorded on that track.

Apart from mentioned "mute clip", you can have several MIDI tracks pointing to the same synth. So you can mute the track with content but still play throw another one.

6 hours ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

Is there a setting to only have the track you have selected be the track that records/plays sound, and not also the track you were previously selected on recording sound. I understand i can manually deselect/disarm the previous track I was working on after I select a new track I want to work on, but is there a setting that allows you to just select the track you want to work on, and then have that be the only track that is selected.

Similarly, is there a setting to just be able to arm a track for recording by just clicking one record button that is right next to the solo and mute buttons of a given track, and not have to also the click the record button in the transport to arm a track for recording.

You can use "Automatically record arm" feature:

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Recording.13.html

If you are going to use AZ Controller (for custom muting, f.e. by track names), you can also add "Exclusive record arm":

https://www.azslow.com/index.php?topic=298.msg1453#msg1453

6 hours ago, Rok TheKasbah said:

Is there a way to alter the properties of midi events in real time that are coming in to the DAW to calibrate the velocity curve to suit particular keyboards or playing styles. The controller keyboard I am currently using does not have this feature internally unfortunately.

Apart from mentioned plug-ins, there is  my own: https://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,275.0.html

Note that some similarity (MFX plug-ins, SMF as a forum framework...) are just coincidence. I am NOT the person behind https://viramor.com/

3 hours ago, Alan Bachman said:

Thanks John.  It would be nice if the DAW folks could get together and agree on a particular saving format that is better than OMF, includes midi-audio,etc. - and works on all DAWS.   

In ReaCWP documentation you can find technical explanation why that is difficult  even between  just 2 DAWs, even so the target DAW is the most flexible DAW at the moment.

At least one of "officially supported" DAWs has features (1) and (2). And solutions for (4). But no (3), that is outside of "Boolean logic" and so not supported there 😏

In Cakewalk preferences, Audio section, select Devices and enable channels you want. If you can't find them there or they are grayed, check Driver Model in the Playback and Recording.

So, you just had bad unit from the beginning... That can explain why you had several strange problems before.

Till your RME is back, I don't think you can find a device with the same driver versatility and stability.
Unfortunately reports about overheating of "middle range" RME units is not rare (as well as problems with power supply in top units). But there is almost no bad reports about Babyface and PCIe boards. I know you probably no longer trust the company, but on Windows all other drivers are worse.

From my experience the device+driver in many (most?) situations is not the origin of the problem.  Different devices and drivers have different "fault tolerance" and for audio (especially at low latency settings) the limit is rather low. If there is something "wrong" with surrounding equipment, the device is "stuck" and/or the driver crash/freeze/etc. It is important to check there is nothing wrong with the computer/OS, it is audio optimized in general and it is currently in audio (performance) mode.

And that is apart from conspiracy theories arising after strange coincidences. For example at some moment I have noticed one of my interfaces goes crazy too often... then I have noticed I have periodic tiny "glitches" in mic recordings... then I have checked and fortunately have found the XLR cable to the mic is bad... after replacing the cable the interface was no longer glitching 😐

Control surface API still works and even supported... But it never had a possibility to work with content.

You probably know which DAW supports such staff 😏

6 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

From what I can find out , it is the writing to SSD that more diminishes life span than reading SSD. Yes there will always occasionally be a dud regardless.

SSDs have limit for the number of writes (per cell). The number depends from used cell type. The number of reads is unlimited.

In practice that was a huge problem with early "flash" cards/USB drives. They was not "smart", so particular cells used by the file system was always overwritten and so the life of such drives was extremely short.

Modern SSDs always (over)write new cells. And they always have "extra" space used for the purpose (also can be configured, obviously available capacity is reduced then). In specification the number of overwrites is not mentioned directly. But a "tip" is normally there, just presented a bit cryptic way.

F.e. Samsung 970 Pro 1TB mention "1200 TBW" (500GB has "600 TBW"). Which indicate the number of rewrites is at least 1000.

Since they are "smart", you really need to write 1PB to such disk to approach the limit.
Sure, the life time of the disk will be less then 2 years if it is completely overwritten every day.
But recording music produce ~20TB for 2 channels 24bit/96kHz if continuously recording one year long... So, it will take 50 years to hit the limit

The information about my current disk in desktop at home:
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB, installed around 10.2019, the time PC/disk was on: 183 days, written so far: 7.4TB, specified write limit: 600TB.
It is obvious I will replace the disk and PC long before I hit that limit.

We are in year 2022...

HDDs are used mostly for backups or really huge RAID storage, size per disk toward 16TB.

SATA SSDs make sense if (a) you have them (b) the computer is so old it has no PCIe M2 slots (c) you need more then 1-2  disks.

Modern USB (3+) can easily handle any HDD and in most cases SATA SSD without significant performance degradation.  "Network" solutions (NAS) are (usually) way slower.

For internal storage it make sense move toward M2 disks. Most systems support at least 2. But it is better check specification... some M2 PCIe can have effective speed of HDDs (it seems like producers of cheap notebooks love them).

2 hours ago, Annabelle said:

Is it accessible to screenreaders like JAWS? Good Heavens I hope so!

There is Reapers Without Peepers mailing list: https://groups.io/g/rwp All updates in related scripts, tools, current status of plug-ins accessibility and most other accessibility for music related news are announced there.

REAPER works good with JAWS and  NVDA, on Windows or Mac.

As Scook has mentioned, with some luck you will be able to transfer Cakewalk projects as is using ReaCWP.

For other DAWs there is https://www.aatranslator.com.au/ But AATranslator handles audio only, no MIDI and no FXes. Also it is pricey tool and from what I remember it is not accessible.

I am still periodically look into direction "free" from "Roland"... Well. I have tried Tera piano. Just to find out that: (a) "concerto" is unable to work with 64 samples buffer (all cores start do "something", even so nothing is played; and no, my computer is not so slow), check under 2 DAWs, with 2 different interfaces, with 128 samples everything ok and consumes no CPU (b) there is almost no dynamics (tried all presets), I mean fff is still mf-f.

So, to render some piano MIDI for free it is good (for me better then other free piano solutions I have tried). But there are good reasons why it is "discontinued"...

50 minutes ago, mefodia said:

Please tell me: why is there no Reverb in my mixer? On the right screen it is (this is a video and YouTube), but on the left I don’t have it!

May be because in this video preset is "Reverb" and your preset is "Flat" ? 🙄

I forgot to update the documentation, done now 😏

Note you will need to re-apply Shift latch tuning. It should work for sends volume/pan switching as well.

You need Control Surface Plug-in configured in Cakewalk Preferences. Check Cakewalk documentation how to do this.
Just for transport use Cakewalk Generic Surface. Cakewalk ACT MIDI has preset for Axiom, but it assumes particular preset is activated on the keyboard so may not work "out of the box".

I may be wrong, but from what I remember there is no plug-in file names (nor other info about it) in Cakewalk projects. But plug-in type is known.

Try to open in REAPER+ReaCWP. I can't remember what and how I mark, but REAPER tend to display plug-in types as a part of the name. So with some luck you can get a tip 😏

I remember there was something called ProjectScope for Sonar. I have not used it, may be it can also display something.

I have uploaded v0.4, read "Shift latch for knobs" tuning to activate Shift+Play switch as shift latch (for knobs only).
If that combination is also inconvenient, let me know.

6 hours ago, ptheisen said:

And since I'm starting with a clean slate, I'll have to manually convert all of the FX and instruments I want to control in this way. Do I have that right?

Yes.

6 hours ago, ptheisen said:

I know the shift key does this, but you have to maintain the press of the shift key while turning the knobs.

Since DAW is not informed when Shift is pressed, that was not foreseen. I suggest to ask NI for double pressing shift or some other way to latch.

I can branch my preset to control pan, even so the device will still show "Vol" on display. But selecting KK instance nor MIDI mode can't be workarounded.

In pre-installed XMLs there was "some" mappings. It can be some of them was partially usable. With this preset M32 controls so called "ACT faders" only, delivered mappings are primary for 8+8+8 Faders/Knobs/Buttons. That is why I write partially.

By default when there is no mapping (after deleting all XMLs) everything is mapped to "ACT knobs". So you can't control anything from M32. There are 3 ways to map:

1. one is "ACT Learning". You press ACT Learn button "A L" (if you are learning FX it is right there, if you are learning PC Module use one on ACT top bar module). Modify some plug-in parameters in sequence (using mouse), then turn M32 knobs (in ACT mode) in the same sequence. Press "A L" button again. You should get confirmation dialog "... map X controls to Y parameters...". Check X is equal to Y. If not, parameters you wanted are not "learnable" (see method (3))
2. is a variation of (1). Open AZ Controller UI, switch to ACT Tab. Focus plug-in in question, you should see current mapping. You can use the procedure of (1) but "pressing" buttons in the "Faders" column instead of touching M32 knobs (remember you have 4 banks, so 32 faders in total). This way you see current mapping, so "strategical planning" is simpler.
3. it can be you can't ACT learn (also happens with Cakewalk plug-ins), or your current mapping is a mess and you want start from scratch, you want re-arrange mapping, etc. Close Cakewalk (important !). Start ACTFix. Switch to "AZ Controller" mapping (combo-box on top). Select plug-in in question. Here you can reset/rearrange/etc the mapping.

After learning some plug-ins using 1-2, I strongly recommend close Cakewalk, open ACTFix and just "Save" to make a backup. If ACTFix report "corruption", restore from backup. When corrupted, Cakewalk can't use these files but it does not report that.  Your old mappings will be broken, your new mappings will not be saved, etc.

Note 1: if you don't see parameter you want in ACTFix, the parameter is most probably "not controllable". At least not in Cakewalk.

Note 2: instruments you can map in KK and then use KK mode to control. Advantages:  you can have different mappings for each preset, the mapping is nicely displayed in KK. Also there are NKS presets/mappings for many  instruments  in the Internet.

Note 3: for instruments/guitar effects you may prefer to use MIDI control. So with MIDI track and in MIDI mode. Some synths allow "MIDI learn" what is not possible "ACT Learn" (and not KK map).

PS. all that sounds like lengthy and complicated, but in practice using any of these methods is simple and quick (once you have mapped the first plug-in and understood the procedure).

2 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

FWIW, for S-series keyboards, I wrote How to Use Cakewalk with Komplete Kontrol.  However it doesn't cover the M or A-series keyboards.

S Mk2 supports MCU (default mode of DAW ports, at least according to NI documentation). I think that is in general better then "ACT MIDI", keyboard should display tracks and transport buttons should have feedback.