John Vere

You won't get anywhere trying to record audio without a proper audio interface. ASIO drivers are the only driver that automatically synchronize your audio recordings. An interface will also have direct monitoring so you can hear your playback tracks mixed with your mike or guitar input.

There are no issues with W10 other than incompatibility with older hardware and software. The ONLY reason I can see to keep using W7 is if you have hardware or software that is real old and does not work on windows 10. I keep a laptop running W7 for this reason. This is a great solution. And one thing that is noticeable to me is how slow W7 is. The Laptop is a i5 with SSD drive etc. and same specs and software versions as my desktop more or less. I use it for live recording sessions and it's noticeably slower. You'll have to change someday. Software companies left W7 in the dust and asking for support is hopeless. That is why they all announced that "Support for W7 ends soon" and that was at least a few years ago. Keep your old computer running w7 for things that only run on it and build yourself a belter preforming machine to move forward.

Absolutely. It's the very first thing one should do before any changes or editing. The worst situation is to record audio to a template! The audio will initially be stored in the Global folder until you "save as" and name. If you forget to check the copy audio box your first recording might be orphaned.

In this case a re image of the old drive would have brought 10 years of dirty laundry with it Certainly if I started the image backup now it would be a better option going forward. it only took a couple of hours total to re build. Only hang up was Air. The installers for some work fine but half of them stall on the library location.

Yes I highly recommend Focusrite But that said the comparable model would be the 4i4. It is also only bus powered. You would need the 8i6. So the price point takes a jump. That’s the model I want if I give up on the Motu. My other pick is the Tascam 4x4 because it has a power supply. you sort of have to make a wish list and go on a site like Sweetwater and look at features vs price. my list is 2 mike inputs 2 or 4 line inputs 4 outputs 2 headphones (optional) good front panel controls midi ports power supply Also some interfaces like Focusrite come with a lot of free stuff. I got nothing with the Motu. But say you pay $50 more for a Focusrite but you get that back in fee stuff 4x

@Larry Jones That’s exactly what was happening in a sort of different way. I got It to boot eventually but it rolled back the up date and then wanted me to restart. No way Jose. I kept it turned on until I had backed it up. So maybe it wasn’t the hard drive but I’m really glad I did this as the machine is running 100% better than ever. The update might have barfed because of the iffy hard drive. I also have to thank a person on the Microsoft community forum for a quick answer about what happens when you install a new drive and install windows fresh. Seems it’s not a problem anymore with digital signature. Windows remembers you machine. No more product keys. At this point I think I have everything I need working again. All between installing new flooring in the entrance hall , dog walks, drinks of homemade wine and talking way to much on this forum Oh and one more thing. Air products are awesome to use but. the stupidest buggy install activation system on this planet. Cheap but absolutely no updates or fixed bugs in the last 8 years. or the terrible install regime. I wasted hours and I actually know what to do. I installed about 30 3rd party plug ins in 20 minutes but I’m still not done with Air.

I looked there but until you posted the name of collection it was in I was looking for the exact VST file. I had installed everything in CCC I realize now that because it was still working in my main DAW I could have easily copied from there. I would have thought that it used an installer but seems that the dll was all that was needed.

The Roland will have a Midi USB driver. Install this first following the instructions carefully go to preferences/ midi / devices and make sure the Roland is checked as an input device insert a midi track and choose the Roland as the input Omni now you can record a midi performance as you play along with the metronome a guitar track etc Depending on your audio interface driver if you try to use a VST drum kit via Input Echo you may hear a tiny delay. this I due to latency of the system All systems have a degree of latency I always play using the headphones output of my drums module so it’s tight. There is no delay from the module. Mine has a Aux input that I run the headphones from my interface to so I can hear the playback from Cakewalk. I always record the midi and then i can edit and quantize. I can then use a VST drum kit or run the midi back to the module and then record the audio output Sometimes I use both.

I'm sorry but I'm at a loss. I can only think 1- Your interface is defective if you say you can't hear your mike when you turn the blend control to direct. You normally would be overloaded the input when you turn a gain control up that hi. A Phantom powered condenser mike. Possibly your interface is bus powered and the mike is starved for juice? 2- Try re installing the drivers for the interface. 3- Try re installing CbB 4- If you bought the interface from a store that you can return it to exchange it for a interface that has a power supply. Tell them it's not working properly. The distortion could also be related to the interface. Example I had to purchase a USB 3 PCI card for my bus powered Motu M4 to resolve garbled playback issues. It wasn't getting enough juice. Its fine now. You solution would have to be a powered USB hub. A good one.

https://www.akaipro.com/mpk-mini-mkii Did you use the editor app?

Thanks @scook for the tip. I looked in my back up of the CCC download folder and I had 2 versions but they were newer. I think in a dumb moment I deleted older versions of all the installers to save space. But being one who never actually throws anything out I started scanning my back up drives and good luck showed it's face again. I found them. I had backed up the entire Programs/Cakewalk folder back when Gibson died and in the VST folder I had the dll. for both. I just copied them to the new Cakewalk vst folder. I panicked when I ran the scan as it found nothing, But they were there none less. Anyone else paying attention to this- You can never have enough back ups! I have added these two to my regular collection. No wonder my hard drive was failing, it's been that long!

Spoke too soon, That LP Multiband is totally different. Mine looks like this

Just re installing everything after a fresh install of windows and missing is the LP 64 Multiband and EQ. I installed X1 and Splat do I also need to install X3? I thought LP was part of Splat in the CCC . Never mind, It wasn't anywhere in CCC but I found the executables in the CCC download folder.

Here's what I do--it's also dead simple and fast. Take the mouse to the top of the screen- move it right till it goes off screen, hold down left mouse and drag the window back. Might take 2 tries but I just did this after shutting off my second monitor on first try. . Just stay at the top and you only have to go off screen like 1".

OK so the track seems to have an issue but only in this project. Possibly something went wrong with import. Possible solution: Insert a new audio track. Hit W to re set to start of project. Open the browser on the right and using the Media tab browse to where the original version of track 2 music is stored. Now drag and drop that to the new audio track and it will create a stereo file etc. Line up the start with track 2. Mute track 2 and see what this one sounds like.

That's very strange that that option would even be available? As Noel is showing, it's only an option for me on my on board sound, there is nothing like that for my Focusrite.

This might explain the bad sound of the downloaded music track. I would assume it is a stereo track like shown in my video. This interleave would be stereo not mono. If it is a mono track then it might not be very good choice for a backing track.

I made you a video- There is no sound, didn't have time to hook that up.

Typing from the updated machine. I forgot what a difference a SSD drive makes- Holy cow this machine is running fast now. It's just an i5 duo core 3.20Ghz. 16 GB RAM I built it myself from a bunch of parts that were mostly on sale I think it cost me $350 including a nice case and 750 watt PS. I have the 480 SSD and then 3 older 7200 1TB drives. One is the old OS drive which looks like windows renames Windows.Old so won't boot from it. Question while I have your undivided attention- How do you set permissions? It keeps asking for permission to copy files etc.

You are talking abut your audio interface I assume. And you are saying it sounded fine before and now it doesn't -correct? So the audio you are listening to is coming from headphones or studio monitors plugged into your audio interface - correct.? When you go to the Sound Settings in Widows that shows your audio interface as the default device and it is checked green- correct? When you said you changed the enhancements was this a windows setting or a setting in the interfaces control panel?

Windows sound enhancement has zero to do with you audio interface playback. It only effects on board playback through computer speakers. If an Audio interface comes with enhancements that’s not a good idea for studio audio. You want flat natural sound.

It’s not an issue. It is working correctly by what you say. It has nothing to do with the balance between recorded tracks. It is to balance your mike input with the computer playback WHILE RECORDING. After you have recorded a track the channel faders control the playback level of each track. If these are not working correctly then you are somehow sending the tracks via a aux or effects send The stereo interleave should not change the sound. What template did you use to start the project?

All up and running. I took the clean install route and it’s a fresh install of windows 10. It seems to keep track of the computer and it shows the same name etc in About. just running the updates and tomorrow will dive into installing all my software. For those who are curious about rebuilding their Sonar/Cakewalk empire my plan is as follows Out of curiosity run Latency Monitor First install driver’s for interface and midi keyboards X1 bare bones to get true pianos and vvocal Install command centre copy all the data from my back up of the ccc download folder to the new folder Run ccc and install everything I use Install Bandlab assistant Install Cakewalk Install 3rd party vst’s etc Next ILok and reactivate computer XLN manager and activate Scan an activate inside Cakewalk all that require this Set up my workspace an SC save Run Latency Monitor again and see if anything changes did I miss anything

Almost everything important I keep on One Drive. I also have stuff on Dropbox and Google drive. All my photos are on iCloud but I dump that to data backups as well. All the cloud drives are backed up to data drives. Probably Cakewalk projects are the most critical to me and they are backed up to the moon. When a system drive dies I only lose my software installs. 480 GB is overkill for a system drive the way I use them but it's nice to not have to fuss over storage room. This is the last post on the machine, after I send this I'm tearing it apart!

@abacab Thanks for the reminder I managed to deactivate this computer. vJust going downtown and PU a Kingston SSD 480 GB drive> All they have around here but I think Kingston's are OK. Only $80 Can.