John Vere

If this happened to me I would immediately open the file in a Wave editor and diagnose the track. It would also tell you as stated above details like sample rate. Always have a safe copy first If the sample rate is different than your project convert it in the Wave editor and run the diagnostic again. If it peaks then undo the conversion, lower the gain, and re convert it. I would make sure when you share tracks that you both work with the same sample rate. And if that isn’t the case, then tell them to back off on the level at their end. With digital tracks there’s no reason to push to the max.

No problem. It's just sometimes we get people posting things like... "I started a project and the computer didn't automatically make me sound good" That's right folks.. sometimes a little WORK goes a long way. Just be happy your not using Tape.....

No. How hard is it to simply use the template? You make it sound like a huge deal. I can populate a project with templates in less than a minute.

Good, now your rockin! I was going to recommend that but you said you had tried everything Get that going and then lets help you clean up your song. Your not that far away from achieving a good mix. By the way, what are you using for monitoring?

This! I would rather use 8.5 than X1. They had things working pretty good by X3e.

Absolutly Use Track Templates. Create your track including, effexts send, input settings, colours, which busses it send to and save as a Track Template. I use this exclusively for new tracks.

SI Bass is part of the Studio Instrument package which goes a long way back. But it is still included with CbB. Open the assistant and go to Apps and choose the Install add ons

Often when Cakewalk crashes it is due to a faulty plug in. First thing I would try is remove the Garritan from the VST folder. Just put it somewhere else for now. Cakewalk is probably crashing on the VST scan. For the Roland keyboard make sure you download the latest midi driver for it. https://www.roland.com/ca/support/by_product/a-800pro/updates_drivers/

Probably one of the many major bugs that X1 was famous for. The Master Bus gobbler bug. Just insert a new one.

Fiber Optic here We used to live rural and had Satellite which sucked. There was 80GB max we paid $130 a month for the stupid satellite now we pay $70 for unlimited. Get different results with different test sites. I have always used one drive to store projects but only my backing tracks which have no audio. That way I can open them on both computers and they are up to date. Also this gives my 3 safe copies. The 2 local folders and the cloud. I guess I could store album projects on the cloud. I just checked and last album which has 18 songs is 10 GB. But I'm a ruthless deleter! I know people keep way too many tracks that are sub par, I don't. If it sucks, even a little, it's in the dust bin.

Yes always OPEN a midi file. This is true for me not only Cakewalk, but with Cubase and Harrison Mix bus. I'm sure it's universal to all DAW's. Importing is not for whole songs but for when you want a midi clip added too a project.

It’s obviously hung up. Kill the process and try again. I would have done that after 10 minutes

On a normal connection it takes a few minutes.

A DAW has no control over what happens inside a GUI for a plug in. There would need to be a universal feature that the manufactures added.

So your tracks look like they all might be midi. The answer to the problem might be there is somehow a global volume CC coming in. Try turning off all midi inputs.

I was wondering about re rendering a clip, so what I have done is delete the clip I had already rendered and then Copy /Paste from the safety copy of that clip into the working track. I always copy the track and put it below the working copy. It's also handy to see what kinda mess you made of the original.

And to answer your OT question, Your settings are fine. Other than the mono issue. Your computer is a bit behind the times and could use a SSD drive and some more RAM to perk it up. Just listened to your song and ran some diagnostics on it. First the distortion is probably the excessive low end on your vocal mike. There is a lot of mike noise in the low end. Hi pass the vocal track. There's even some banging and mechanical noise like your hitting the mike or the stand. You'll need to use automation or clip trimming to get rid of the noises as well as using hi pass EQ. Look at picture 2021-02-04 this is before you started singing. The second picture is while song is playing. Possibly your monitoring system is to blame. I took a few screen shots running Span to show you the problem. Your overall mix comes out in the ballpark. And then your master is Mono? and there is too much space at the start and over 4 minutes of silence at end. It looks like your going to need some help with mastering as well.

First may I ask why you using a outdated version of Cakewalk when the latest version is free? This alone will help because the improvements are huge since X1. X1 was considered the worst version in the last 20 years As far as achieving results the sound like hit records made be professionals in million dollar studios that’s a lifetime quest Try watching some of the many videos. The ones by Creative Sauce are real good at this. And the folks here on this forum can also help but it’s better to ask a specific question about one issue than a general one But real hard to help when you using software we all left behind years ago. Go ahead and update first it will still keep X1 as you learn about Cakewalk by Bandlab

Don't attempt to open a large section of a track. Keep the clips 4 measures long and see what happens.

You should "render" the clips as advised by the Cakewalk team. I used to bounce but now I render.

Oh, well then that is not the issue, Sonitus are very stable with Cakewalk so that shouldn't make a difference. So much for that idea. I'm mostly trying to focus on why Cakewalk would crash on you. Over compressing and distorted sounds don't crash Cakewalk, They just suck. Run Latency Monitor and lets see what's going on in the background. A peak level should not crash Cakewalk. https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Yes this method has become well know as there are dozens of threads regarding issues with updating the assistant. The auto update rarely works. Also look in the system tray and you'll often find the assistant is already running. Open Task manager and kill it before updating.

Don't think it's possible without a interface with Loopback function. This is why that feature exists. I used to be able to do this with a Creative SB Audigy PCI card. It had the "What you hear" option as input. Never used it with Cakewalk but it worked in Wave Lab. Why don't you just drag and drop the movie from media file browser into an audio track?

Yes after you update CbB you can remove the Assistant. But you will need it installed next time you update. Even though we now update from CbB the Assistant needs to be there still

Ya hope that works. As I said I’d save them as midi files because those can be opened by any DAW. That will give you the tempo and possibly other midi instruments. You should be able to Open them on your Mac Daw and drop the audio in there to re build