John Vere

I often give very short answers in this QA sub forum because just like this thread as an example , 1 post OP So why waste time typing out long answers unless you know they are actually going to be engaging with the topic. I do a lot of remote recording and swap projects between computer all the time. I also use external hard drives to transfer projects. They always work for me. You have choices. Some are easier than others.

If this was true this forum would have thousands of posts. Obviously it’s only certain plug ins some of you are using that are misbehaving. You need to find them and then report this to Cakewalk so they can sort it out. And hopefully all involved in this thread are using ASIO audio interfaces and have optimized things properly

It won’t touch your VST folder or any 3rd party folders. But the stuff that comes free with Cakewalk is inside the Cakewalk folders so probably removes that. You will loose any 3 rd party VSTs that got installed to there as well. That’s why it’s a good idea not to use that folder for none Cakewalk stuff Just copy that folder to outside of Cakewalk folder Or better to re install them and make sure to choose a none Cakewalk folder this time

For a faster more precise answer you need to supply details of how your using your audio set up. Otherwise I can only guess what your doing wrong here. You either use an audio interface or you use on board sound. It's not clear which one your using. You don't use both at the same time. Have you watched the getting started tutorials yet? Cakewalk is complicated and it is recommended you spend some time watching some videos and learning before you just jump in with both feet and start stumbling around. We have a Tutorials sub forum here. What is your audio interface? Are you using ASIO? Did you follow the instructions for getting it to work?

There's a term for people who actually would do that but it eludes me at the moment. I'm just a little bit that way with certain things, the synth rack is not one of them. I only open it to check on what I'm using and in some cases will use it to delete certain synths. Normally I use "replace".

Yes that's actually a bad idea as one of the posters pointed out. Under many set ups your whole VST instrument world will be a mess. So the answer at this point in time is as my good friend @Bristol_Jonesey said- No you can't. Or to elaborate, no you can't without deleting them and re inserting which may work for some, but it certainly wouldn't work for many. If it bugs you then do like I do. I always stack my midi instruments in the same order and therefore I insert them in that same order. The synth rack is usually the same for me that way,

I just love threads that the OP never responded to and they go on and on.

Question. Why the huge C drive? My studio machine has 2 x 240GB SSD drives and 2 other 7200 drives that I think are 1TB each. My C drive is at 60% and I have a lot of software installed. A lot. I don’t store any data but some VST’s have snuck in there but they are working so I haven’t moved them. If anything I would upgrade my Second SSD drive to a 500 GB so I could put samples on it. But I never have issues with samples being on the 7200 spinners as those get loaded into RAM Other things I find important when building for a studio is quite fans including a good quality power supply. Some power supplies don’t have extra cables needed for those extra drives. And accessible USB ports. Buss powered interfaces like my Motu M4 require a dedicated USB 3 port. I had to buy a PCIe card.

Not an expert on the topic as I have always kept everything but samples on my C drive. I have a laptop I use for remote recording with a full install of Cakewalk and it’s add ins. I don’t have much else on it stored and that C drive is at 75 GB. So even a 128 will set you up with the bare necessities. For external storage I do believe all you need to do is have the drive connected during the install of the 3rd party stuff and change the pathway. Then include those paths in Cakewalk plug in scanner. This part I’m not sure about but you may need the external drive connected when running Cakewalk so the plug in scanner doesn’t hang up.

Once again this week I say this same thing? Try this instead. It was made for live performance, Cakewalk is a recording sequencer. https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/

I actually didn't think anybody would use that thing. To me it's like trying to play the guitar on a violin.

Thanks for the Clarification @David Baay I'm going nuts trying to remember your old forum handle. But the avatar is sort of like recognizing and old friend but forgetting their name. Was it like Brundlfly?? Anyhow, I guess because I'm not dead sure which plug ins are the ones that cause trouble for years I've just toggled the global effects bypass when tracking. Just a old ,but I feel, good habit. I've never in my million years of midi had to do much else other than that and I generally never experience midi delay. I can think that a sluggish audio system -- read- on board audio , could also cause issues with latency. It does depend on the controller and I believe the ones that come with a proper midi driver seem to perform better. I have only one controller that uses Generic Midi drivers, Akai synth Station 25 and it is the only one where notes played seem always late on the grid. I'm no hot shot keyboard player but my timing is much better than that. If I use my Roland keyboard tracks are generally spot on but still badly played.

It is recommended you bypass all effects while recording both midi and audio to avoid the extra latency that effect plug ins can add to your system

It’s talked about a lot here about how important choosing the correct algorithm is to get good results. The OP mentioned a percussion loop. That might be a challenge if it contains multiple instruments @Arno if you post that loop here then I could see what happens with trying different settings

Not sure if the OP will come back but out of curiosity I opened Cakewalk on my Laptop which has ONLY the latest version of Cakewalk ( 058) installed. I don't have any version of Melodyne other than what everyone else would have on this machine. There are no other versions of Sonar or any other DAWs here. There is a difference between this and my main system. I opened a basic blank template and droped a bass track to the audio track. I then dragged this to the Midi track. I get this dialog box. With my Studio computer and Melodyne 5 I get the option to choose an Algorithm. Not here. The conversion happens quickly and I get a perfectly fine midi bass track If I highlight a small audio clip and create a regional effect I get Melodyne4 splash screen asking me to register and the "Player" will open. I cannot change the algorithm as it is greyed out. So with the unregistered version of Melodyne4 you are out of luck with trying different algorithm settings. It must be automatic. Here is the dialog I get with Melodyne 5 assistant on my Studio computer But the main thing is the audio to midi worked fine for me on the latest version of Cakewalk on the Laptop and without purchasing Melodyne. It just might not work as well on certain types of audio clips without the algorithm selections. So an upgrade will get you that advantage as well as a lot of other features you might find a use for. I only paid $100Can. for the Assistant version. It goes on sale all the time. Sign up for Emails.

As I said I’ve never had an issue with converting audio bass or single note guitar to midi. I’ve done this for years since it was first started. This feature is still available after the 30 days expires. It should work for everyone regardless of what version of Melodyne is installed. I never used the vocal pitch correction feature prior to version 5. I would use vvocal because I understood it better. But with the offer to upgrade to 5 I watched the tutorials and I think they reached a turning point with this software and I find it easy to use now. I would definitely recommend it if your working with vocal tracks. It has more than just pitch correction. There’s a bunch of tools. And I also use it to fix guitar bloopers

Yes in the wrong driver mode with on board audio this is normal. I was just doing something on my laptop and using on board. It took at least that long for me to hear the metronome in a blank project in MME mode. I had forgotten I had switched to MME for testing something else. WASAPI shared it was Ok. To the op. Really the best recommendation for anyone wishing to record audio is to purchase a proper ASIO Audio Interface. Problem solved. Nothing else will offer smooth sailing in Cakewalk or any DAW. You can use on board audio for playback and midi and using loops. But not recording audio with out latency.

I have the paid version ( Pro) of You Lean loudness meter. It allows me to drag and drop the audio track to the GUI and it tells me the true peak level and most importantly the LUFS. I can then decide that there is ,say , a 6db difference between those two tracks and simply turn the gain up ( or down) 6db. Then I listen to proof that this was correct. It almost always is. https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/

My conclusion with this issue is if you do not purchase Melodyne you will be using a dummied down version of Melodyne 4. Not 5. There were a lot of updates and improvements made to 5 , and for me everything started working smoothly. That said I never had an issue converting audio bass tracks to midi. Even years ago with Sonar Home Studio. This feature has always worked well for me and I have converted 100’s of bass tracks to midi I have also used it successfully for signal note guitar solos I turn in to keyboard parts For drums I use drum replacer. I drag the created track to a midi track and undo the regional effect. I use the midi data to trigger a drum VST. The built in drum replacer drum sounds are pretty bad.

Everything looks correct in the screen shots. If you activate the metronome during playback using the toggle do you hear the metronome? You should if you have headphones or if your stereo amp is connected to output 1/2 of the Focusrite. I don’t see any audio tracks or any VST instruments in the screen shots so not sure if this is your project off rig just a blank template

In I first got my Atari computer and wanted to record midi it became very obvious that I needed a midi keyboard. I had never played a piano before. But I could play the drums on it almost right away and soon I was playing bass lines too. in another short while I taught myself a bunch of piano chords and had totally memorized the note names.. I now enjoy playing my keyboards equally as much as guitar. Thank goodness for midi editing and quantizing!

Ya I saw that. The OP was asking which one to select... I say neither... The thing is you swicth to WASAPI your connections will be selected but with those drivers installed it will mess that all up. That's why you need to get them un installed and even remove them from the registry.

Those are both Asio4all type of drivers. They say ASIO but they are actually WDM wrapped. You can see they are not true ASIO because ASIO only allows one driver at a time. I tested them a year ago and they are a waste of time. Just like asio4all is now not needed. They fail the loop back test performed just like you would expect, with same results as WDM mode.

I don’t understand why people are making life more complicated by using these weird 3rd party audio drivers that obviously never work properly. Windows 10 and Cakewalk use WASAPI mode and most all people get very good performance out of it. That’s the recommendation by the developers. You should completely remove those drivers from you systems. They don’t add anything but a different fancy looking control panel. And everyone who’s come her with on board issues was trying to use them. You are always going to have issues until you get a proper ASIO audio interface but on board audio can work fine for a lot of tasks in Cakewalk other than recording audio. For that you need an interface. For now use WASAPI for on board audio and it should not have issues.

Generally when a VST plug acts this way I just delete it and move on to something that doesn’t screw up. There are lots of free or near to free VST’s that work just fine.