John Vere

I have the M4 and I use it daily with only a few issues that I wrote off as being what you can expect from a Mac focused company. The driver is not even as stable as my 1st generation Focusrite Scarlett 6i6. First the 6i6 runs smoothly at 128 buffer. The M4 needs 256. The 6i6 never makes popping noises. TheM4 always pops when I change focus on apps. I run everything at 48 to avoid this but it still happens. If I work all day in Sony Vegas and open Cakewalk the audio recording is garbled. Reboot the interface doesn’t help. I have to re boot the computer. I had to buy a $40 USB 3 PCI card to resolve other issues with it because it’s bus powered. I just watched a video and this guy tested 15 cheap interfaces and your interface was his top pick because of build quality and features. He didn’t mention driver but he was of course using a Mac. I should have bought the Scarlett 8i6. But I do like the Motu meters.

See that's why I think any thread over 4-6 months old should be automatically frozen to keep cr4p like this from happening all the time.

It should be illegal to sell that interface to Cakewalk users. You're possibly the 10th person I've read about that has issues. Rule #1. Make sure the interface comes with a proper ASIO driver. The Generic drivers will often work fine with other software and no problem on a Mac so 100's of happy users, but Cakewalk is a bit more fussy and is heavily entrenched in the Windows system. You want a great interface, check out the PreSonus Audio Box USB 96. I just watched a video where this guy tested about 15 cheaper interfaces and this was his top pick for the price as it had all the right stuff.

If you use the Add Track + You can set the default input and choose the output bus as well. Only bummer is this setting is lost when you close the project. It would my feature request to make the settings in the Add Track dialogue saved with projects or Workspace

You always set the master bus as the outputs for all track and busses. It is normally set as the default when using any supplied templates. Your screen shot looks like you must have made your own project and bus A would have normally been the master.

There's something not right about the dialog boxes in your screen shot- I see a "Output 1+ " where it should show Master? Not that that that should mater but you never know. Only time I've seen that is when a Midi track has nowhere to go but never seen it on an Instrument track. -Midi Set up

You should watch some tutorials. Mine are numbered in order of what you need to learn first.

You could use a MP3 file you download as they will at least represent a good portion of what your trying to achieve. There are lots of sites that offer music in the Flac format which should be much better quality and the same as a CD, or so they say. It really depends on what your goal is for using the track. Just a quick listen? or deep analyzing using measurement tools? This would determine how high a quality was required. Myself I actually use my own songs. I have songs I think were as close to perfection as I will ever get. So if my other songs don't sound as good I go back to that one and figure out what it was that worked. There's a different approach to mixing a whole collection of songs than just focusing on one.

Those dots are a valuable tool for showing you that there’s audio or midi data further along in a track.

You can also get the demo version of Addictive Drums and Keys which never times out. It’s only a basic kit and no toms. But it’s much more advanced than SI drums and between the 2 you have lots of options. https://www.xlnaudio.com/ Just create an account and install the manager software. Sign up for e mail and you can watch for deals on upgrades and kit pieces. I just realized that maybe you didn’t download and install SI drums yet? They are well worth trying out and they are included with Cakewalk. But it’s in the add ins as a separate download

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Posting here is not how you contact support. They will help you right away. Look for the contact support option here https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us

256 is what I use. There’s no reason to go lower unless you use real time effects like guitar sims. I have a brand new Motu interface and it will start giving me static on playback if I go below 256. And my projects are very simple compared to most. I’m also looking at an upgrade but right now is a bad time to buy. You can’t even buy a decent mid priced video card right now.

What is your buffer setting? As projects grow so does the need to increase your buffer

It has been almost a year since you first posted and the conclusion as you well know was your Midi interface is outdated and causing you grief when you try to use your keyboards. The solution was obviously a new Midi interface. You choose to take the most difficult pathway ( Reverting to W7) and as a result you are still fighting a loosing battle.

Dang it you're always giving me GAS! Guess where I'm headed? 15 minutes later: Done and downloaded... Cost $7.51 Can because I had some virtual cash sitting there. They also gave me a cool looking synth called Alalog Lab intro by Arturia.

Also you might be having a Midi loopback issue. The midi signal is looping back out and the midi latency re records the same note again. Make sure the VST instrument you are using has midi output disabled. If you are using your piano as the playback then turn off input echo while recording to the midi track.

Midi TRacks

I also had issues with it a long time ago so haven't bothered with it for years. It wasn't that great anyway. I still use the old Lexicon and mostly now the Acon Verberate Basic 2. It's free. It's VST3 64 bit, its light loud on CPU and it has absolutely no settings which I like. Acustica has a lot of top quality free plug ins. https://acondigital.com/ My philosophy is if a plug in causes me any issues it's tossed out. There are literally 100's of free plug ins that are as stable as a rock. https://plugins4free.com/ https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/best-free-plugins So you have a choice. Jump through a bunch of hoops and spend a few hours and get Breverb working, or take 3 minutes to install something better. OK, that's flawed thinking because it will take you a few hours to test them all and find one you like, but once you've done that your are good for the next 5-10 years.

@scook explained this way back in the thread.