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It was a difficult decision for me as well. And yes, I had to move all of my Native Instruments libraries to another drive to free up enough space on my largest and fastest SSD. I'm sure I don't need 20 mic positions either, but I wasn't thrilled with the single mic position in Core, and Spitfire's demo of the mic positions convinced me I'd have choices in Professional I could be happy with. The other major factors for me were the addition of solo strings, and that it appears Spitfire's approach on this library was to include pretty much everything they were ever going to include for the BBCSO in Professional, instead of who knows how many other separate libraries that you'd have to purchase to get everything. For my needs, I may never be tempted again. Whereas, with their other orchestral stuff, and pretty much everyone else's as well, you'd end up spending thousands on many separate libraries if you wanted anything close to the "complete" set. For example, even with the Cinesamples "glitch" sale at ~$80 per library, I would have had to spend a lot more to get something comparative to BBCSO Professional, since I didn't have any Cinesamples orchestral libraries to start with. So I think it was very practical for me. YMMV.

Regarding the upgrade from Core to Professional, to confirm what others were implying, that was my situation, and the 50% discount resulted in the upgrade costing only $275. I couldn't resist!

If you've ever considered getting BBCSO professional, it is eligible for the 50% off and this might be the biggest discount you'll see for a long time. The 50% offer is good for another 6 1/2 hours.

Some say it was actually Rita Coolidge that came up with that piano part, and Jim Gordon. her boyfriend at the time, appropriated it for Layla without giving her even partial credit.

In my experience, this happens more often when some of the midi devices configured in Cakewalk are not turned on when Cakewalk is started. For example, I have about five midi devices configured in Cakewalk. A few of them are USB powered, so they are always on when Cakewalk is started, but I also have two midi devices that are not USB powered. If I consistently turn those two on before starting Cakewalk, the midi ports in Cakewalk are quite stable. If I sometimes don't turn one or both of them on before starting Cakewalk, the midi ports are likely to become jumbled eventually, and it is the first thing I check if a midi device is behaving unexpectedly, because I know I don't always turn on the two externally powered devices. I'm not aware of any way to lock the midi ports that Cakewalk assigns to devices.

You are right, they are two separate things and the DAW compatibility kits are optional. But for the people who hope to be able to use their keyboard as a control surface for their DAW without having to do a lot of work, that is what the DAW compatibility kits do. You just install them, get the midi and control surface inputs/outputs configured and everything magically works. Without them, very little, if any, of the control surface functionality works out of the box, it is just a midi keyboard.

Just in case you missed this, the LX series have custom software that enables quite good integration with Cakewalk. It has to be downloaded separately from Nektar after registering your keyboard with them. Looking at your screen shots where the keyboard was identified just as MIDI1 and MIDI2 leads me to believe you have not downloaded and installed this software. Cakewalk should see two inputs [Impact LX88+ and MIDIN2 (Impact LX88+)] and one output [Impact LX88+] for your LX keyboard. If you use other DAWs as well, they have separate software for each DAW, you can download and install as many as you want.

Stephen, for what it is worth, the Nektar P4 is not designed to fully integrate with Cakewalk, but the Nektar LX+ series is. I have the Nektar LX49+, it works completely as advertised and I am happy with it. The trade-off is that the LX+ series is not as technically advanced in some ways as the P series, which is more focused on plugin and instrument control. So neither is perfect and each person has to decide what is more important to them.

It appears that you are asking about the same thing as in the thread entitled Suspicious Points from September 11. Please check out that thread for more information.

By an incredible coincidence, I was just looking at some of my old bookmarked web pages yesterday and saw this one, in which Craig Anderton details the steps to make CbB do exactly what you want: https://craiganderton.org/how-to-do-true-tape-type-varispeed-in-cakewalk-sonar/ Maybe the Cakewalk devs can figure out a way to convert these steps into a "new Varispeed feature" menu item!

Very cool, I'll give it a try this weekend!

I saw on your site that you have released v0.5 of the M32 preset for controlling sends. I couldn't see any additional information, how is this accessed and used?

Yes, the shift latching works as advertised! (I'm sure you already knew that.) This is so helpful to me, I am truly grateful for all of your work!

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but if it does what I think it does, that would be absolutely wonderful! I'll try to let you know as soon as I am off work.

Yes, double pressing shift to latch it would be ideal, I'll try to ask NI about that. Thanks again for creating this preset and all the additional information! I hope all the other M32 owners using CbB will give it a try. And as you said, it should also work for any of the A series keyboards.

Thanks so much for the wealth of information. I think it explains what I'm seeing. The mappings appear in the ACT tab of AZ Controller, but they are not "connected" to the M32 knobs because they are associated with the ACT rotors, not the ACT sliders, and it's the ACT sliders that are associated with the M32 knobs. 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? I'll experiment over the next few days and see what I can do. Do you know if there would be any way with the M32 to have a selectable "flip" in mix mode, where the knobs control pan instead of volume? I know the shift key does this, but you have to maintain the press of the shift key while turning the knobs. Since I don't have a right hand, that's not really possible. It would be great, even if I have to give up some other functionality, say the Loop toggle, if that could function as a latching shift key. Maybe it's not possible, since the shift functionality seems to be strictly internal to the M32, but if anyone could think of a way to do it, you could!

Thanks so much for doing this Azslow3, I'm trying it out with my M32! Most things appear to be working as you explain on your web site, that is great. When I first installed it, the ACT sub-mode was partially working, a few parameters of focused effects would be mapped to the knobs and work as expected. Then I saw your instructions to delete all of the XML files, so I did that, thinking that the ACT sub-mode might work even better. But it's not working at all now. I even reinstalled the NI M32 preset, but no parameters are mapped in ACT sub-mode, though the Metro light is bright indicating it went into that mode. Do you have any idea what I might have done wrong and/or how I can get the ACT sub-mode working as intended? Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!

As a long time user of Cakewalk, I always wanted a Sonar Power book. Then one year I suggested it as a Christmas gift, and I got it. Little did I know at the time it would be the last one: X3. And now it's worth 4 or 5 times as much, if only my other investments did as well!

Reading about the CPU load for B-3X in multiple places scared me away from it for quite a while. But yesterday I decided to try the demo and see what happens. I could run the stand-alone application at 48k and a 32 buffer with no more than about 4.5% CPU load. Even at 96k and a 64 buffer it didn't go over 9%. Is that what other people are seeing as a high CPU load, or are they seeing significantly higher loads? My computer isn't fancy by today's standards: I7 4770k @ 3.9Ghz, 32Gb ram, a couple of SSD drives. I didn't think the CPU load was too high, and since my crossover price with jam points came to $70, I bought it and I like it.

Yes, the A series will work in a limited fashion if it is setup correctly using the MCU emulation. The transport controls will work as expected and when in MIDI mode the large knob will allow navigation between tracks, once you get used to how it is implemented. Of course, it will also work as intended within the Komplete Kontrol shell VST. There are other threads on this forum that have more details if you search for them.

Another thing that is easily overlooked is that keyboard/controller hardware combos usually have two virtual midi devices for input to the DAW and both must be enabled. For the Nektar LX+ series, when viewing the CbB midi devices dialog, the one named MIDIIN2 (Impact LX25+) is the control surface midi device and the one named Impact LX25+ is the keyboard midi device. You may not have both enabled. Also check in the control surfaces dialog, the one named MIDIIN2 (Impact LX25+) is the one to use for the control surface input. (Yes, the input and output names will not be the same device!) I have an LX49+ and it works perfectly, I'm very happy with it.

A simple thing to check is in Preferences > MIDI > Control Surfaces. Make sure both the in and out ports are correctly assigned to the Project Mix. The symptoms you described may indicate that the in port is not assigned to the Project Mix. These settings seem to be somewhat subject to getting jumbled, and are the first things I check when a control surface is acting strange.

If the Nektar LX+ controllers otherwise meet your requirements, you should not be put off by the threads where some people could not get them to work as they had hoped. I don't know what they did wrong, but I just got an LX49+, and had no trouble quickly connecting it with CbB. Their website clearly documents what it will do with each of the DAWs it supports, and it does everything they say it will with no user mapping/programming required. It has separate dedicated plug-ins for each DAW, including Sonar/CbB. You have to register with Nektar to download the plug-ins and installation instructions. I just followed those instructions and it works flawlessly. I also set it up with the free version of Studio One 5, and it works as advertised there too. The Nektar LX+ keyboards also allow for quite a bit of additional user programming for more specific control of VST instruments for example, if you are so inclined. I haven't gone down that path yet, and may not need to. Everyone's needs are different, but yours may be similar to mine. I did a lot of research to find the best controller for me, especially considering that CbB is my DAW of choice, and have not been disappointed in any way. I think these are the only controllers anywhere near the price that do have a dedicated plug-in for Sonar/CbB. If you use one of the "major" DAWs, there are more choices. If you want the nine faders, you'll have to go for 49 keys. The 25 key version only has room for one fader.

Actually, you most likely will want to also set up the M32 using the Mackie MCU device. I have one of those, and the transport controls are the part of it that will work in CbB if it is set up as an MCU. The "big knob" will also work for selecting the active track and scrolling the timeline. But other than those things, it won't control the DAW itself, because NI hasn't collaborated with Cakewalk as they have with some other DAWs for deeper DAW integration. The M32 does a very nice job of controlling the Komplete Kontrol shell plug-in if you use it. That is perhaps the main control purpose of the NI keyboards, at least when used with CbB. Make sure that neither the M32 firmware nor the version of the Komplete Kontrol software is too old. The ability to use the MCU protocol was added somewhat recently, mid 2019 if I recall correctly.

If each is set up correctly, there shouldn't be conflicts between them. I have three different controllers with transport controls. I can use the transport controls on whichever one I choose at any given moment. I can even press play on one and stop on another and it all works. Part of the work the DAW and controller integration has to do is coordinate the controllers. When play is pressed on one controller and sent to the DAW, the other controllers are informed (using whatever method is necessary for those controllers) that play has been engaged. The one thing to monitor in CbB is that the controller In Ports and Out Ports sometimes get jumbled up, especially if not all the controllers are connected (and turned on if necessary) each time CbB is opened. If one or more controllers are not working as they should, the first thing to check is Preferences > Control Surfaces > In Port and Out Port.