Christian Jones

Here's one more super helpful link from Craig Anderton in a Sound on Sound article on how to set up your MIDI controller w/ ACT in Cakewalk. It's for Sonar but it will apply to CbB just fine. Craig is great at describing the intricate details of this kind of thing in an understandable way. Between this SOS link and that YouTube video (which I'll post again here to have them both in one place) and a little time spent you *will* have this working sooner or later, probably sooner. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/using-sonars-act-hardware-controllers

I can't comment on the assignment of the transport controls at this time, but re the KeyLab's endless encoders and values jumping around like that: The infinite nature of the knobs are not the cause of that. I had the Arturia KeyLab Mkii 61 for a minute a few weeks ago before returning it, which is a step up model from the Essentials line, and basically word is that the encoders are poor quality and inconsistent between the knobs. That's been reported on Arturia's own user forum as well as YouTube video, and I found that to be the case with my particular model as well and is part of why I returned it. Of the 8 encoders on the KeyLab MkII 61, they all had a different resistance feel, some were stiffer and some moved more freely. There are complaints on the Arturia forum about the encoders, when, say, moving them in one direction in a fluid motion the value will sporadically jump back even though it wasn't moved in that direction. I had that w/ a TC Electronic G Major, where you'd move the encoder one click to the right and sometimes the value being adjusted would jump back 2 or 3 values because the encoder on that thing was a cheap pos and it sounds like that's the case w/ these Arturia encoders. Luckily I never got to experience that particular headache because I never got to the point of even powering my Keylab on before returning it due to some other defect that made it unplayable. Just saying, what you're experiencing there w/ the knobs and values jumping around, I think the controller itself is likely the culprit and not a Cakewalk/mapping issue.

So long as you're seeing your device listed in your midi devices list (it's being recognized), that video should be a great help. Have you gotten that device working in Cakewalk on at least a basic level such as triggering a soft synth?

Not to hijack thread or nothing, but real quick.. For those who used ProChannel, how did it stack up against Waves' SSL E-Channel? I have that Waves strip so I never messed w/ ProChannel, but I always wondered how it compared.

Also, don't expect *anything* to come with pre-mapping for Cakewalk, at least not right now and maybe not anytime soon. You would've been *lucky* to have something come w/ pre-mapping for Sonar back in the day and even that was barely. There just ain't no love.

Just to be clear, are you saying ACT didn't work for you, or you were unable to figure it out? I haven't gotten around to it yet, but when my Novation SL MkIII gets here I'll be following this guy's instructions and I'm totally expecting it to work.

So, it's a card.. https://www.google.com/amp/s/appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/06/bh-payboo-card-to-refund-sales-tax-on-all-orders/amp/

Well, the email did say it was inside info that, as a loyal customer, I was privy to pre-announcement lol. Some people talking about it. https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62639953

If you got that email seemingly from the B&H CEO, what's your thoughts on it? Looks like some think they were hacked. Supposedly we're supposed to "tune in" for the launch tomorrow. If you didn't get it, google "Payboo."

Well that's about all I'd ask from it anyway except for maybe the ability to record into it, but even then I'd still prefer to record in the track view w/ all its editing tools and visibility.

That's cool. Is it somehow better than using take lanes for the same thing?

Do a lot of people use Matrix View? What would be the use for it outside of live performance? In the video he says to maybe try things out in a different order but other than that who's using it and what for? Does anyone actually use Cakewalk live?

That's cool, it *can* do it. Thanks

I'm not interested in Ableton, but I was curious if in Cakewalk there is any way to launch a pre-recorded performance/clip from a midi controller like Ableton can? I suppose it can be done w/ Kontakt but I don't know if it'd be in sync the same way and anyway that's Kontakt. Is there a way to do this in Cakewalk somehow?

On second thought, I've had the waveform disappearing act happen *after* I saw a waveform getting drawn, because come to think of it I *always* see the waveform getting drawn no matter what; it just vanishes sometimes 😫

Right, I forgot about previous installations, such as splat and x1 that I have, and I'm really not interested in busting out my discs and reinstalling those after all. But nothing worse than recording a hot take only to look up and find no waveform There. That messes with your mind man, you start wondering if you ever really pressed Record and didn't actually hit Play instead. This is a thing and it sucks. I *guess* what you could do is keep an eye on it at first and verify that a waveform is getting drawn before you start playing, but no.. that's no good either especially if you're punching in or need to start playing right after the count. If messing w/ the buffers has an *effect* on the issue like it did for me, where it went from happening everytime to intermittently after messing w/ the buffers, maybe it's not Cakewalk after all and maybe it's the audio interface/driver, which in my case is still the old RME 9632.

Not to hijack the thread, but just to quickly say that in my case at least it most definitely *is* a bug as I've narrowed that lag down to user-created midi track templates. I know it's those templates because it happens when I use them and doesn't happen when I use the standard insert command. The the way I figured it out is with the same trick I always use to see if a session itself is corrupted or if it's something within the session: I highlight *everything* in the session, create a template out of the whole deal, open a blank session and load that template, essentially porting everything to a new clean session and seeing what happens. Often times things will work fine in the new session w/ the session template and I'll know that that previous session itself somehow got corrupted. But sometimes the problem carries over w/ that template and that's when I know it's something within the session and I can start the elimination process and that's how I found the midi track template problem. I need to look into it further, but it may drill down even further than that, as I vaguely recall the fact that I saved those midi template tracks as red, and it may be the saving them in a color other than standard gray being an issue. Yeah that seems weird but I seem to remember something like that but haven't verified it (the color aspect) 100% yet, but there's definitely a *user-created* midi template track bug on my system anyway and I think there may be something with audio track templates to causing these intermittent record failures. Anyway I'm curious if the OP was able to solve this as this has definitely been a problem for myself and a few others and the more methods to fixing it we can get documented the better.

I can only speak on a more expensive Akai than the one you're looking at; the Akai Mpk261 - 61 key model that sells for $500. I had the mpk261 and man those keys are short and stiff. They're shorter than your standard "full size keys" board and you'll notice it immediately just on sight, they're about 1/2" shorter than even my old M-Audio Oxygen silver. On top of that, the keys are very stiff which is exacerbated by their shortness - and being that short you're forced to play closer to the root hence the exacerbated stiffness of the already stiff keys. You're looking at a cheaper Akai model and the one I just described is a more expensive one, and if the more expensive one is like this than the cheaper one is probably not any better. So in regards to Akai especially I'd suggest seeing if you can find one in a store and trying it out first or you may end up sending it back like I did the mpk261. Personally, I'm gonna buy the Novation SL61 Mkiii next month @ $700 but that may be more controller than you care to have, but if you're gonna spend on the Komplete Kontrol S61 @ $729 then you ought to have a look at that Novation too just to have everything covered. Of course, you can get the Komplete Kontrol S61 bundled w/ Komplete 12 software, but NI also has the A line of controllers like the A61 that might be worth a look, as I don't know how fancy (bells and whistles) a keyboard you're wanting or if you want something good but simpler, like the A61 as opposed to the S61. Then you can check out separate VSTS for country from places like https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/slide-lap-steel There's also the Arturia KeyLab mkII 61 you can have a look at and it comes with a light version of their classic synth bundle and even the light version comes with 6,500 presets lol... but I'll have a difficult time recommending the Arturia because the white keys were flimsy, I mean when you press down on them to apply pressure for aftertouch the keys would actually bend a little bit as they have no rib/reinforcements under the keys to make them hold their shape, but it may be worth looking at because you may feel differently. What's most important to you in the keyboard itself? Do you want the best feeling keys? If so you'll want a board that has a Fatar keybed or something on par with that, and in that case you can look at a used Novation SL61 Mkii which has an excellent Fatar keybed and can be had for $200~ used for the 61 key as they have been discontinued and replaced by the Novation SL61 Mkiii I'm getting. Google Novation SL61 Mkii and have a look, nice 61 key board, many pros still swear by it and they can be had cheap now, they've got enough knobs to control your VSTS and that great 61 key Fatar keybed.

One thing you can try just for the heck of it to see what happens is highlight every single track and plugin etc in the entire session and create a template out of all of it, open a blank new session and load that template, save it, close and reopen and see if it does it still. That *may* at least tell you if it was something within the session causing it or if the session itself got wonky which happens to me occasionally and that template trick is how I've sorted it out before. ymmv

I think it's just the idea of uninstalling and reinstalling something and having to worry about settings being retained and all that but really uninstalling Cakewalk is not that big a deal and I believe the settings don't get lost unless you really wipe it from the system and it's something that I also did when I was having this problem, though I don't recall if it helped or not, but everyone's system is different so could be worth it.

I've posted here in the past about similar problems. For me (and I never 100% got to the bottom of it) it at first *appeared* to be the user-created audio track templates I was using that had BIAS Amp sims loaded in them, and I still think there may be something to that. I know for a fact that user-created midi track templates on my system are problematic, where when using a midi track template I created rather than using the standard insert midi track command, when I'd go to record on it the now time time would hang for maybe 3 seconds before recording would start and the same would happen when stopping the track, the now timeline would hang for a few seconds before rewinding itself. I don't know if you stated whether or not you're using audio track templates but maybe something is wrong with your audio track template if you are in fact using them. For me the failed recording would happen every single time on my first attempt to record audio in a track the very first time I opened the session for that day - the first attempt always failed. After messing w/ the buffers it became an intermittent issue rather than every single time when I first opened the session, but still happened. I'd press "R" on keyboard to record and it'd go along and I'd look away to play my instrument, when I was done and would look up there'd be no waveform there. Other guys had this issue and one fix was to *uncheck* the "Allow arm changes during record" - that actually fixed the problem for some people, and I currently have mine set up that way, though some people complained because they actually use that feature, but nonetheless unchecking that box fixed it for some people so maybe give that a try. Now prior to every session I disable my AV (and re-enable if I had to go online during a session) and I'd disconnect my pc from the network too, though I stopped doing that because I'd forget to. But I read Craig Anderton say something like he was able to record at super low latency (48 or something) after he disconnected from network (correct me if I'm wrong) so maybe doing so may help this issue is yours - and for some people disconnecting from the network doesn't seem to matter one way or the other, but then for some it does. I also keep a shortcut of the picture cache folder on my desktop and empty it out regularly just because.

Well, I do doom-metal, and I've been messing with baritone sax and accordion lately, they pair really well together.. don't tell anybody.. it's MY thing .. though, it can be yours too

Lol naw, it's "sike" - and I was explaining this to a friend recently, that as slang it's intentionally misspelled But yeah sike on the Walmart daw. I got the idea for that joke from the real news that the Gibson and Walmart companies are merging. I suspect we may see Gibson/Equate Les Pauls or just a straight up Equate Les Paul kinda like the old Epiphones.

Lol sike

That's a good thing to know and keep in mind man thanks