Search the Community

Yes, I'm a complete newbie when it comes to working with MIDI keyboards and DAWs. So, please have patience for a question that is probably in one of the manuals somewhere, but to my frustration must be glossing by it. My setup is a Roland RD700 hooked through a Focusrite 4i4 (3rd Gen). I do have both the MIDI and the audio hooked up to the keyboard. I created a MIDI track in Cakewalk by dragging over the Cakewalk TTS-1 plugin and can even record the track using the selected sound - in this case a simple piano. The other day, I selected "something" (that is the mystery - how I got there) where my Roland was not playing any other sound than what I had selected in my MIDI track. Even the LED screen on my Roland showed that it was under control of the Cakewalk software. I didn't touch anything on the keyboard to do that, it was something in the Cakewalk software. Well, I come back two days later and I cannot get back to that state. When I play, I hear both the MIDI sound AND the audio being generated from the Roland. I saved everything after my first session, but it didn't come back to the same place. I just want to get back to my position where I was recording MIDI and not hearing my Roland's output as well. Any pointers to documentation or help is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi, I'm using Windows 10. My goal is to make a control map for my Roland A-800Pro midi controller to enable full operation of Cakewalk. Currently, I'm having trouble assigning my transport buttons to their Cakewalk equivalents. I read elsewhere that it takes two kinds of software to fully operate the A-Pro (at least in Cakewalk). The A-Pro Editor and the A-Pro Control Surface plug-in. The latter appears to be unattainable as the website went stale and the account creation was disabled. https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007012938/A-PRO-Control-Surface-Plug-in-1-0-1 In addition, the official Roland website states that the Windows 10 driver for the A-Pro midi controller does not support the plug-in for Cakewalk. https://www.roland.com/global/support/support_news/2849/#midikey My questions: 1. Is there another website where I can download the A-Pro Control Surface plug-in? 2. If the Windows 10 driver does not support the plug-in, is there an alternative? 3. If no plug-in is available, are there alternative methods to assigning my transport controls, etc.? Please explain. Thank you.

First of all, thanks to BandLab for letting us use Cakewalk for free. After Roland HP603 came into my house, I felt the internet has no instrument definition file for it. Since the user manual is lack of information about MIDI, I've tried bank/patching manually in Cakewalk. However, it was not easy to know how it works. By digging into MIDI and Cakewalk instrument definition file structure, I've made what I want; changing instruments with a couple of clicks. Here is Roland HP603 instrument definition file. I hope someone could save his/her time for producing music with HP603. If you want to make an ins file, I'll give you my tools for reference(some python scripts). Installation: -------------------------------------------------------- 1. Download the attached file to your computer and rename it to 'Roland HP603.ins' (This forum doesn't allow attaching a file with .ins extension) 2. Open Cakewalk by BandLab. 3. Go to Edit -> Preferences. 4. In the left side find 'Instruments' under MIDI section. 5. Your instrument will be shown in the Output/Channel if it was connected. 6. Click 'Define...' button. 7. Another dialogbox will be shown. Click 'Import...' button. 8. Choose saved file (C:\Users\user\Downloads\Roland HP603.ins). 9. Click 'Roland HP603' and 'OK' button. 10. Click 'Close' button. 11. Select your instrument from channel 1 to 16 on the left hand side. 12. Click 'Roland HP603' on the right hand side. 13. Click 'Apply' and 'OK'. Simplifying Cakewalk .ins file structure: -------------------------------------------------------- .Patch Names [BankName-A] ProgramNumber=ProgramName ... [BankName-B] ProgramNumber=ProgramName ... .Instrument Definitions [InstrumentName] Patch[BankNumber1]=BankName-A Patch[BankNumber2]=BankName-B ... BankNumber = CC#0 * 128 + CC#32 ProgramNumber = PC Caveats: -------------------------------------------------------- 1. Feel free to change whatever you need. 2. Drum patch is not tested(my holiday is over!) References: -------------------------------------------------------- MIDI Specification https://www.midi.org/specifications http://www.music-software-development.com/midi-tutorial.html MIDI Programming(python, c#) https://www.pygame.org/ https://pypi.org/project/python-rtmidi/ https://mido.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/multimedia/musical-instrument-digital-interface--midi HP603 MIDI Implementation http://cms.rolandus.com/assets/media/pdf/INFOCUS01_MIDI.pdf https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/LX_HP_KF-10_GP_DP_RP102_FP-10_MIDI_Imple_eng04_W.pdf Cakewalk ins file https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=Instrument_Defs.07.html http://www.raisedbar.co.uk/InsDef.htm http://www.heikoplate.de/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=426&Itemid=63 Roland HP603.ins.txt