xtenkfarpl

Eggshells again. Today I open Cakewalk, start a completely new project, insert a soft synth, and as soon as I enter any MIDI data I get the feedback error from LoopBe1. Even though at this point I don't have it set as input or output on any track. Sorry, there IS a BUG in Cakewalk MIDI handling. It's intermittent and not cleanly reproducible. But this is NOT operator error. Makes me very wary about devoting much time to a project of any size that uses any kind of complex MIDI work.

And after a few more tries I now can't reproduce the problem again at all. I tried varying the order of switching the inputs and outputs, and the order of turning on echo for each track etc, but it doesn't show up. (As before, a new start of Cakewalk & an empty project each time). I'd think I was hallucinating, but there is no doubt I did see the feedback error several times. Cakewalk is written in C++, I believe: could there be some uninitialized variable bug somewhere... those are the devil to track down? Well, on with the music and let's hope a bug does not show up when it's really critical!

Eggshells. I try one more time (each time with a new start of Cakewalk), and again I get a feedback error as soon as I hit the keyboard. Yet another time, and it works as desired. Maybe there is some difference in the order of what I'm doing (eg which track I enable echo on first or something)? I need to start keeping an exact log of every action. It really shouldn't be this fragile!

This is frustrating. I tried it twice, with the same result: feedback error. Yes, I did have 'Always Echo' turned off. Then after a coffee break I tried again. And THIS time it works as expected?? Update: once more. Again works. I don't know what is going on here: I would swear I did the same steps each time. This is why working with MIDI routing in Cakewalk feels like walking on eggshells. As the famous haiku error message says: "Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that" Though in this case it seems to be 'Cakewalk is like that'.... Oh well, I will keep calm and carry on....

This does not work for me. I installed LoopBe1. Disabled 'Always Echo Current MIDI track'. Added LoopBe1 as a MIDI input and output device in 'Preferences'. Inserted a MIDI track. Set input to my usual MIDI hardware interface, output to LoopBe1. Inserted SI piano as a simple instrument track. Set input to LoopBe1 (left output as master). As soon as I enter any note on my keyboard, I get a warning about MIDI feedback. I can re-enable LoopBe1 in its icon, but again as soon as I hit a key, the warning pops up again. This seems to be 100% reproducible. Am I missing some 'obvious' setup or setting? Running latest Cakewalk on Windows 11.

Well, I sure can repro it. It's a BUG. It's not the just the deleted synths that are effected. ALL the synths in the project get reset. Annoying, but of course you can fix it once you know about it. But I'm not going to argue about it any further. I know what I have seen.

I had gone through so many experimental deletions and additions of tracks and synths on the original project that I think I may have gotten things messed up somehow. Starting afresh today, I have been able to set up what I want: a MIDI track feeding three bass synths (using an instance of midifilter), and a second MIDI track feeding two drum synths using a second midifilter instance. So far so good. It feels like walking on eggshells though... at some point a few of the bass notes started triggering the drums for no reason I could discover; just had to back out and start over. And one thing is REALLY a bug: if you delete a synth in the synth rack view, all the inputs to other unrelated synths on their own tracks get reset to 'none', and you have to go back and restore them. THAT is a BUG. It is really frustrating to have to dance around the tools like this. Clean robust MIDI routing should be a basic feature!

Yes, but then if you want to make a change in the score while keeping the same notes you have to edit multiple MIDI tracks. Fine if you actually need different features on each one, but if it's just plain note doubling that's unnecessary work. For example, in the thing I'm working on, I want an ostinato bass doubled on several different synths, and a drum track doubled on acoustic and electric drum sounds. Sure, it's just a matter of convenience and we can get the job done, but it would speed up the workflow if we had this capability.

Strictly speaking you are correct: it's a missing feature, not an actual 'bug' as such. I ran into the problem while trying to work on a real project; and I can't remember all the things I tried in detail. Will create a clinically clean test case tomorrow. Still annoying that something which should be as simple as this isn't built in, though?

Well, I thought I had a viable workaround using the 'midichannel filter' plugin to distribute to multiple synths: but no. This works for the first MIDI track. But if you add a second MIDI track, and a second instance of channel filter to try to distribute THAT track data to a different set of synths, it doesn't work. Worse, when you add a new soft synth at that point, all the inputs to the first set of synths seem to get reset!! WTF??? It really seems that for the moment Cakewalk is really not able to properly handle the concept of more than one synth fed from a particular MIDI track, at least for more than one MIDI track. Don't tell me this is "not a bug" or "works as designed". It's a BUG. Meanwhile, we're back to copying the MIDI tracks. Sigh....

C++. That's what I would have expected. The Pascal stuff was probably a joke? OK, if you're part of the Staff, how about asking the team about this? You probably have all the necessary C++ classes in place; just need to add a few methods?

Really? I could believe it, given how long it's been around in some form. So there's still some sort of Pascal programming environment in use? Oh well, getting distinctly off topic here....

Yes, that would be the larger part of the work. But some of the infrastructure is obviously already there: you can select a MIDI-thru capable VST as input. So the concept of different MIDI inputs to a VST is in place. How hard to add one or two more? If this was an open source project, I'd have a whack at it myself. Out of professional curiosity: I wonder what language Cakewalk is written in? It's been around for quite a while, so it might be something quite obscure and archaic, I guess?

That sort of stuff should obviously be done as plug-ins. But more flexible routing seems to make sense as a core function. Wouldn't even require any significant UI changes: just add the option to select a specified MIDI track as input in the input drop-down of a soft synth. In fact I suspect the amount of coding required for the feature would be quite minimal?

We can hope. Unfortunately it's not an open source project. As an experienced software engineer I might go in and add it myself. But meanwhile, we work with what we have, I guess. It is sometimes a trap to get so involved in the tools that one loses sight of what we are trying to achieve with them....