John Vere

This_ There have been many posts with this topic. And your best off to go this route as you'll otherwise be facing a lot of fussing about. Splat takes up very little space itself. I rebuilt a Laptop and this was more or less all I had to do. Clean Computer: Install Command Center and sign in. Run and Install Platinum and then all the extras I wanted. Authorize Melodyne and XLN. run updates etc. NOW, install Bandlab assistant and Cakewalk Next install all my 3rd party VST's and authorize etc. Tip- I make sure they are all pointed to the Steinberg VST folder. Cakewalk CbB on opening for 1st time scans and all my plug ins are present and accounted for including Session Drummer 3.

One thing that many fail to do when learning software, and I used to fall hugly under this category, is take some time to explore your GUI. We tend to race towards getting the feature we want working and carry on sometimes for years without having a clue about what all that other "stuff" does. Making my tutorials forced me to explore Cakewalks GUI in depth. Showing my friend how it all works made me stop for a moment and ask " Just how many ways are there to insert a soft synth?" ( I found 4 so far) . One of the overlooked features is the HELP MODULE. Open it up and start hovering you mouse over buttons and menu's. It will explain what most of these things do.. Here's a screenshot what it says when you hover the Track Control Preset Widget. And thanks John for giving it an official description.. See, I learned something from that. I didn't know what they were called... I guess Mr SLIP has been hanging out on other forums were comments like that are par for the course. But please folks, that style has never won friends on the Cakewalk forums.

Thanks Larry, That only re enforces how much I don't know about movie jargon !!

Hopefully someone with a Mac can help you but on a PC there is normally ASIO,WASAPI exclusive and WASAPI shared, WDM and MME. Is that an on board sound chip? It is best to use an Audio Interface if you are recording audio, even on a Mac.

I agree with most of what you are saying Someguy, regarding the vast majority of instruction videos are sort of long winded and most are never to the point. And ya, it's funny the audio is so bad, I just discovered I can use a lot of my hi end VST plug ins in the effect bin of Vegas Movie studio. But youtube seems to do something as the audio is perfect when I play the movies I make. I know all about how to take audio to the max. But once uploaded to b youtube the audio is always at a lower level and distorted. So I'm having to read up on this and it's a whole new ballgame. I'm almost tempted to purchase the Nugen mastering plug in. It has a setting for Youtube. As I make my tutorials I try to keep them at 4 minutes and pick a single topic. It's hard to do. I think I still prefer using screen shots. Then you can have the best of both worlds,, the picture and the text. But videos are easier to make and you do have the advantage of including the sound which is important sometimes when making a point.

+1 to Tezza's observations.. I now use my SHure beta 58 for all my vocals. I tried a half dozen LDC mikes and they all make me sound terrible. The room, the sibilance, plosives, snorting, breathing and yes distortion... yikes! I could never find a good input setting on my Scarlett, I even bought a Joe Meek pre amp and that didn't help much... I just about gave up singing. My Beta 58 with a cheap windsock I get in close and touch it and back off for my power parts. Works.. sound good to me. I just add the BBE Sonic MAximizer to crisp it up a little.

You can easily record material off the internet even with ASIO drivers. It just a matter of choosing a routing. And you can most certainly still use your on board sound for other apps. Most audio software lets you pick your sound source. I use Gold Wave to record sound from the internet webinars etc. I now subscribe to Google Play music and it lets you download in high quality any song on the planet. I used to have to lift songs from the uTubes. The bottom line with on board sound is the chipset is worth about $6 including the little cheap jacks. It's a shame to put a lot of work into playing a part and run it through low quality gear. I still use WASAPI and an on board sound chip a lot with my laptop, but I'm only working with MIDI at that point. You can do a LOT with WASAPI, but you still require good quality connections and A/D convertors to record audio properly. I would NEVER use MME mode. All modern on board chips support WDM and WASAPI. I'm not sure why it did not work for you. I used to use asio4all which is also a very good "on board sound" driver but WASAPI made it obsolete. Below is a screen shot of a loop back test. It clearly shows why ASIO works best for recording overdubs. Other mode will be out of sync and require manual offset adjustment. You can see that MME mode is the worst.

Yes that's because 6i6 and upwards all use the Mix Control and have different firmware etc. They updated the Mix control software for the 2nd gen. It probably works on the lowest 3 models because they didn't really change the hardware much.

This was good advise. I see that the solution to not making a fool of yourself in front of clients/bandmates is to pre meditate a few set ups and save them.

I was unaware that pressing the J key activated a scrub tool! I just tried it and it did play only the audio but boy is ever buggy.. It wouldn't respond after a few swipes ,, then it started playing a choppy part and held my mouse ransom for a good 3 minutes. I'll not be doing that again.

Just watched the above video. It did explain clearly how to get the 2 different mixes to the 2 headphone and rear output jacks. I was unaware that the 2 HP jacks are tied to the rear outputs that way. In other words you have only 2 analog stereo mix options and they are cloned with 1/2 output to the left hand headphone jack and 3/4 output to the right hand HP jack. I always thought you could send these individually creating up to 6 mixes. Now at least I understand why I could never figure out how to send something different to the second HP jack. The 3rd stereo cue mix would be possible using the spdif but you of course need a device to send it to. I have the Yamaha 01v so I could achieve 3 stereo mixes easily. I think the 6 cue mix option would only be possible by using mono and panning. So Larry, do you have a way to use the SPDIF? I've heard of people using a DAT player or even some CD recorders ( remember those?) have the SPDIF inputs and a headphone jack. Otherwise you would only have 2 stereo mixes or 4 mono.

If you take your recording of audio seriously an audio interface with proper drivers is the only solution. Here is my list of things to look for so you make sure you get the correct interface that meets your needs. http://www.cactusmusic.ca/Recording.htm#AI Shopping List https://www.sweetwater.com/c695--USB_Audio_Interfaces

Hey Larry, You know I have never used the deeper parts of the mix control, in all the years I've owned the 6i6 I've rarely even opened the app. I just leave it alone. I have always used a little Mackie mixer to control my headphone mixes. And with the correct mixing board in the studio you can possible make this work for a whole band,, Forget those headphone amps,, they rarely offer custom mixes. So there's the hardware approach ( my pick) or fight the software. The other day I was making a tutorial for my bandmate and he won't have the mixer so I was pondering how to set him up. So I opened mix control and lo and behold I started to see how it worked. Amazing, It is ONLY for setting Headphone mixes. It has little to do with recording levels. The biggest problem is they use illogical terminology. Like DAW 1 and DAW 2??? I even posted the video I made for my friend on my web site but since then I've figured out a few more things. http://www.cactusmusic.ca/tutorial-videos it's on the right. I'll see if I can brew up a new tutorial this weekend. You might get buy for FREE.. my favourite price point>> Edit- whoops, the 6i6 is at my bandmates house so I can't even open Mix control.... I From what I understand... all of the software that comes with audio interfaces is just as mind boggling.

You should really follow my tutorials on how to use midi with Cakewalk, That will get you up and running. You need to understand the basics first See my signature for the links on my web site. I just put up part I and Part II of the videos I'm making. There will be about 7 of them and once someone has viewed those they will be a "expert". http://www.cactusmusic.ca/tutorial-videos http://www.cactusmusic.ca/sonar-tutorials

I would try borrowing a different Interface from a friend or music store and see what happens. It's certainly no fun wasting time with these sort of issues. I had nothing but trouble with a M Audio interface and I thought it was my system. I ordered the Tascam and it had issues at first but they updated the drivers and it's worked perfectly since.

It is best to use a proper audio interface for any serious audio work, but if your only working with midi you can get by with on board sound chip. Try WASAPI shared or exclusive.

I made a tutorial on how to open a midi file and then replace the instruments one by one. http://www.cactusmusic.ca/sonar-tutorials By default if there are no midi outputs selected in preferences, Cakewalk opens midi files with TTS_1 and the song can be played. It is important to now save the song as a CWP file first before you muck about. Then it is supper easy to insert your favourite synths and simply point the midi tracks at them. If you prefer instrument tracks just drag the midi data after you insert the VST. Takes 10 minutes to upgrade a song from TTS-1 to better stuff. I do a LOT of this.

Thanks for your support on my tutorials, I just checked again today and I now have 30 people have looked at them,, I guess I can't expect more than that as the only way anybody would find them is if I post it here. My text Based MIDI tutorial has been well received and is very focused on just a few things you can do in Cakewalk with midi. It made for total beginners but a few long time users have PM'd me with positive feedback. I set my bandmate up today with the laptop and he's very pleased I made the videos, even if they are not professionally done they are very straight forward. I didn't post those as they were very specific to our projects. To do a professional job I would need to write out a script and stick to it. I find it's easy to wander off topic because Cakewalk has so many tangents. And as I was demonstrating features often something would not work properly ?? The new Export button decided to go hide and I still have no clue why I did that. I ended up then having to show him how to customize the upper task bar..geeze. Making the videos made me explore Cakewalks options as I went along. I think I doubled my Knowledge after this was over... One of the issues was setting him up with just the one screen. I haven't suffered that in a long time. I must have learned over a dozen new things about the multidock and how the workspace can be manipulated ,, like double clicking the Multi dock makes it jump full screen. And I think I finally have wrapped my pointed little head around screensets and lens ( after how many years??)

I think I remember a thread in the old Cakewalk forum talking about your unit and the driver issue. See if you can find it there. WASAPI is a OK driver when you don't own an interface. The best performance will always be with ASIO. If you use WASAPI make sure you figure out your offset as you will have out of sync tracks. ONLY ASIO reports system latency to Cakewalk. All other driver modes do not so you need to make the offset adjustment manually. You do a loop back test like so.

I assume you mean the 16x08. I own and use a us 1641 which is almost identical. There's really nothing complicated they work like all interfaces. First go here and download the drivers and the manual. https://tascam.com/us/product/us-16x08/download Install the latest driver for W10 Make sure to follow the prompts carefully, you need to wait before plugging in the USB cable,, always use the same port afterwards. Use USB 2. Open CbB and go to preferences and set your driver mode to ASIO. Make sure the Tascam is the only device checked and is your timing master Now the Tascam will show as your inputs and outputs

Funny, I just updated Melodyne the other day after not even authorizing it for over 2 years. I also have just updated CbB. I have ONLY used it to convert real Bass into midi. I just dragged an audio Bass track to a midi track and it worked like it has always worked for me. Sorry to hear it didn't work for you Larry. I think it depends on how the bass was played. It certainly doesn't like any fancy picking and slapping. I find the only bug is the note durations are all overlapping, The fix is to highlight the whole track and drag them back until they don't over lap. It does take a 10- 20 minute run through to fix minor glitches. I also have to raise it up an octave. But I have now converted probably 80 bass tracks. This has been over the last 5 years I guess and using all versions of Cakewalk. What's cool is for my bluegrass songs to now have access to an acoustic bass. And for my backing tracks it gives me a dependable quantized bass line that sound almost as good as what I can get with Audio and a complicated $$ rig. I use the Ample P bass freebie. For serious recordings I will still use real bass but man it's hard to get that sound I'm after. I even used it on a version of Home Studio that was installed to a laptop that never had anything else installed ever. It works fine. I came to the conclusion that it was sort of built into Sonar. I tried it once on a simple guitar one note melody and it didn't work at all. It only seems to work on bass for me. Someday maybe I'll try and sing out of key and see what Melodyn can do for that!

I'm glad you got it to work, but I myself would recommend doing it the way they intend it to be done and use the track inspector dialogs. Then the patches are in clear view at all times and super easy to change. I'm not sure you found where to do this in the track inspector?

Normal behaviour is if you solo a midi track or the VST track that it is pointed to only those 2 tracks will show as soloed. This is a handy way to check what tracks are associated with what. If you solo the midi track only the instrument track associated with it will also show as soloed. Also there is a possibility that your synth is set to output midi data. Go to it's GUI and options ( gear) and make sure it is not set to transmit midi. This can cause a loopback.

Obviously your drop outs are not related to your buffer settings or any background processing as reported by Latency Monitor. You should have no problems working at a mid buffer setting ( Focusrite speak = 10ms ) I've actually read somewhere that turning buffers up too high can cause issues but don't quote me on that one. So your dropouts and crackling must be something else. If it was me the first thing I would do is try these few things as it is possibly your hardware or your drivers that are not performing correctly. The driver you can try and re install. Go to the Focusrite support page and get the latest. Also try a different USB cable and/or a different USB port. Older interfaces didn't like USB 3 ports. Last thing to try is if there is someone or a music store you can borrow an interface from try that too. For sure turn off your internet while troubleshooting. But I doubt that's an issue judging by your screenshot.

I made a bunch of tutorials as I have 3 people I'm teaching how to use the program and thought some screen capture videos would be useful. They are working very well for my students. They said they are making good progress and nobody had to phone me so far. I shared them on my web site ( see signature) and Utube but seems I've only had 3 or 4 people watch them so I might as well remove them. It's hard to make effective videos that get to the point as it's easy to go off on a side tangent with the 3 or 4 ways there is to do everything. I found the videos posted in the OP contained to much personal workflow, and I could barely understand him. The older Sonar videos are well done and are more or less still relevant. What I found very cool was when I opened Vegas Movie studio for the first time I followed the tutorials which used the actual GUI window and animated how you did things. It gave me a whole tour of all the menus and tabs, I was up and running in no time at all and that software is at least as complicated as Cakewalk.