Dav Mar

I recently purchased a nanoKontrol2 for use with Cakewalk. When set up as described for SONAR it does work out-of-the-box to control transport and mixer console faders. Note: Every time you reboot your PC you must reconnect the nano as if it were for the first time (holding buttons when connecting USB). However, I did not purchase the unit to control the mixer console. I wanted to program it to send selected MIDI CC's with the faders. That has not been possible. Although the unit is clearly connected and controlling transport and console faders the supplied Editor software indicates that the unit is not connected when the app is launched and therefore cannot be used to program the unit. I requested tech support from Korg a week ago and haven't heard back since. I'm returning the unit to the retailer. That is unfortunate since I spent several hours fabricating a nice bracket to mount the nano over my main MIDI keyboard controller (a Native Instruments Kontrol S49, which doesn't have any faders).

The biggest feature of Cakewalk vs. ProTools is that it is free. As a MIDI sequencer Cakewalk, aka SONAR, has been on the market and in continuous development longer than any other similar product. Even the digital audio capabilities have been part of the product for over twenty years. I'm sure I've spent more than $2,000 over the last thirty years that I have been using the product on initial purchase and upgrades. I actually purchased SONAR Platinum Lifetime (hah!) before it was sold to Bandlab and made freely available. The downside to the current product is that there is no factory technical support. I actually looked into purchasing Cubase for that reason. After researching online, particularly about support, it found that there were large numbers of posts about the tardy and poor quality of Cubase support. So, no cigar.

I use a tc electronic Digital Konnekt x32 as my "soundcard", (it is digital I/O only so it is paired with a tc electronic Finalizer Express A/D/A converter). Up until a few months ago it played nicely with Cakewalk. However, even after installing the latest available driver, TC Near, it takes dozens of tries to set the bit rate and buffer size in Cakewalk Preferences. It will frequently just ignore the selected bit rate and, even worse, actually changes the selected buffer size in the Cakewalk GUI without user input. It now takes me about ten minutes on average, repeatedly selecting the desired settings and hitting Apply until it finally settles on the chosen parameters. It this a Cakewalk problem, a Windows 10 problem, a tc electronic problem? Who knows? Maybe all of the above.

I have a Kontrol S49. It integrates nicely with NI Komplete Kontrol but is not very impressive as a general purpose MIDI controller keyboard due to the lack of sliders, not to mention no drum pads. My Akai MPK49 (sold) was much better in that respect. To compensate, I have purchased a Korg nanoKontrol2 which does have sliders. You can control multiple sliders, e.g., MIDI CC's, with the fingers of a single hand simultaneously but you can't do the same with rotary knobs. I fabricated a little bracket that holds the nanoKontrol2 above the left hand side of the Kontrol S49 far enough to still be able to reach the S49 left hand side buttons underneath.

I found this web site with some information that may be of use. It is a program change calculator for various synths, including the Kronos. You enter the desired bank and program and the calculator supplies the MSB LSB & PC values. https://keyboardwaves.com/msb-lsb-program-change-calculator/

The VST scan dialog that pops up when doing a VST scan does not have sufficient length to display the full path length, i.e. name, of the VST being scanned. When there is a hang, which happens if there is a problem with a VST, it is impossible to know which VST caused the problem. The dialog should display significantly more characters.