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All I can suggest is review how everything is connected before and after the PC. Feedback is not possible in the DAW without something outside the DAW connecting an output to an input. If audio effects are getting recorded the effects must be in the signal coming from the interface to the DAW.

Well you have one...BandLab. It is the only one I have too but I have not used it much.

Making good progress. I hope you found the modified filter on the Views tab in the theme editor. It helps when looking for changes. Themes are a collection of differences from Mercury, the "theme" in the program resource files. Looking at the mods in Tungsten gives you an idea of what needs to change when creating a dark theme.

It;s all down to signal flow. If the delay is getting recorded and is not getting in the monitors, the signal being monitored is before the delay.

The instructions are in the link above. On the Apps tab in BandLab Assistant, the second item is the installer for Cakewalk by BandLab. Click the install button and BA will download and run the ~500MB installer and active CbB.

Do not confuse BandLab the web-based DAW with Cakewalk by BandLab the DAW build from SONAR Platinum sources. Cakewalk by BandLab and the SONAR X series use the same skylight interface. One big difference is, after X3, the DAW supports themes. The X3 style theme is still there. It is called Mercury and looks a lot like X3 to me Cakewalk by BandLab installs as an upgrade to SONAR. Both DAWs have their own directory, the shared files are updated and backward compatible. All of the content installed with 64bit X3 is usable in CbB. Installation instructions are here The process starts by installing BandLab Assitant.

Really should consider upgrading to Cakewalk by BandLab. X3 is getting a little old (almost 7 years) and it makes no sense to update everything except the software you want to use. Did you install the ASIO driver? The Hotone web page says the device does not require a special driver if running a certain level of Win10 but it may be needed for software released before Win10 such as X3.

I do not use Waves plug-ins but have read enough Waves install threads to know contacting Waves support is the best solution for install problems with their plug-ins. Waves was one of the first manufacturers to support automatic VST2 to VST3 migration. Make sure the VST# migration options are enabled in preferences. Pretty sure the restriction on mixing Waves VST2 and VST3 plug-ins is still in effect. Starting with version 9.6 Waves supports VST3 only in SONAR/CbB.

If you need help figuring out where the audio overlaps and relative track levels a tool like Melda Production's MMultiAnalyzer can help. Like all Melda plug-ins it goes on sale for 50% off at some time through the year.

Glad it worked. Had you mentioned which version of CbB was running before the update it may have triggered my memory about the change but I doubt it. There were discussions about this issue with Toontrack sprinkled throughout the 2020.01 Feedback thread starting with this post.

May want to update the OP and subject since v1.7.1 is out The SurgeEffectsBank now scans OK in CbB

This is the problem. VST2 plug-ins cannot be installed in the VST3 folder. Starting with 2020.01 Cakewalk no longer scans files with a dll extension in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 Moving the Toontrack folder to a different location outside of the dedicated VST3 folder such as C:\Program files\Cakewalk\Vstplugins and scanning it may work. If that fails uninstall and reinstall the plug-in. The installer permits specifying where to put the plug-in. Do not install it or any VST2 plug-ins in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 the scanner will ignore them.

A dotted line indicates automation IS present. The value remains the same as the node on the left side of the dotted line until the jump is made to the node on the right side. Jumps are often used when automating between two states such as toggling between off/on.

A dotted line to the right of a node can indicate either it is the last node on the envelope or the envelop to the right is a jump A dotted line to the left of a node indicates a jump

The actual plug-in ezdrummer.dll should be where ever you installed it. If somehow it was installed in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 the scanner will ignore it. VST2 plug-in cannot be installed in this folder. You could check the exclude list in the Plug-in Manager. To do this, click on VST Instruments (VSTi) in the Plug-in Categories column of the Plug-in Manager. Then click the Show Excluded radio button below the Plug-in Categories column. If the plug-in is there, select it and click the "Enable Plug-in" button. If EZDrummer is not there, make sure the dll is in the scan path (circled in black in the image above). If the dll is in the scan path, open the VstScan.log and VstScanSandbox.log in %appdata%\Cakewalk\Logs and look for info about ezdrummer.dll

Yes there does have to be a file somewhere. AFAIK, Toontrack does not make VST3 plug-ins so the EZD plug-in has a dll extension. I am sure an EZD install contains multiple files. The log created using VST reset should contain information about all the plug-ins. If "Generate Scan Log" was enabled, when the reset completed a toast messaged popped up with the path to the scan log.

A VST reset clears and rebuilds the Cakewalk VST Inventory in the registry. It is like running a scan for the first time.

Not third party plug-ins like EZDrummer. Could try running a VST Reset with "Generate Scan Log" enabled from preferences. If the plug-in is still missing from the default "Sort By" layouts review the log.

Make sure the ASIO drivers are installed and Cakewalk is setup to run in ASIO driver mode. Latency has two sources a user can affect the interface driver buffer setting plug-in delay compensation To see if plug-ins are part of the problem click the FX button in the Mix Module. If the delay gets significantly less, one or more of the plug-ins in the project are the problem. While reading about the FX button check out the info on the PDC button. There is no way to completely eliminate the delay when monitoring through the DAW. This is why Focusrite has direct monitoring. This sends the input directly to the interface output eliminating the latency caused by the driver and plug-ins. Distorted audio may be the result of running too small an interface driver buffer.

The Piano Roll View is disabled until there is an instrument or MIDI track in the project. If you are just messing around use the Add Track menu to insert TTS-1 into the project. Read the To create Instrument tracks in the link. While your at it disable the MS GS Wavetable synth in preferences (there should be no MIDI devices selected because you don;t have any) and get used to using TTS-1 for GM sounds.

select the MIDI and audio track then bounce the track

IF the MIDI is broken out by instrument bounce each MIDI track separately to get per-instrument audio tracks or create an instance of the drum synth for each MIDI track.

1. No but a MIDI keyboard can be handy for data entry maybe start saving one now. 2. Not immediately (maybe not ever) unless you plan on recording audio but you may eventually get one so it can't hurt to save up for one while saving for a MIDI keyboard. 3. If running Win10 use one of the WASAPI modes (probably WASAPI shared). ASIO4All is not a driver, it wraps the WDM driver and presents it as an ASIO driver. Cakewalk can use WDM or WASAPI drivers without an ASIO wrapper. 4. The master needs to be routed to your audio interface (in this case the PC sound chip).

There are a couple of things that might interfere with Cakewalk accessing the internal sound chip. Running Windows and Cakewalk at different sample rates is a problem because an interface can only run at one sample rate at a time. Giving a program other than Cakewalk exclusive control over the interface. ASIO4All is not an audio driver. Instead it wraps existing Windows audio drivers and presents them to software that can use ASIO. The original purpose of ASIO4All was to provide programs that only used ASIO drivers a way to use the internal PC sound chip. Very few programs use ASIO and even fewer use only ASIO. Cakewalk can use ASIO but it can also use Windows audio drivers. I am not sure if there is any advantage to running ASIO4All instead of the WASAPI driver in Win10. I am sure there is an additional layer of software and config when running a wrapper like ASIO4All.

I cannot recommend the video because MIDI import skips reading tempo data from the MIDI file. Instead of import, I recommend opening MIDI files using the main menu File > Open. In addition to opening MIDI files without stripping data, Cakewalk automatically adds TTS-1 with the correct instrument assignments. The automatic addition and mapping of TTS-1 only happens when no MIDI output device is selected in preferences. If there is a MIDI output device selected in preferences, the file opens without adding TTS-1. Either way, File > Open is intended to be used when opening MIDI files as new projects. File > Import > MIDI is intended to bring MIDI data into an existing project. WRT adding additional plug-ins such as EastWest Hollywood Orchestra; once the plug-in is installed and scanned by the Cakewalk VST scanner (for info about the scanner see this page), it will be available to add to a project. One way to add a synth when working with existing MIDI tracks is use the insert synth function (A in the image below) in the synth rack view. Then change the MIDI tracks outputs and audio tracks inputs to point to the new synth as desired.