John Vere

Good lord, any attempts at finding sf2 files takes you to the time machine and way back machine web pages. I think I'll pass, that's just way to much like work. The one @Glenn Stanton was all dead ends. Lots of interesting reading but no obvious downloadable GM midi sf2 files. I'm sort of careful about downloading files. Even though I'm doing this on a old laptop that is it gets screwed I'm fine. I doubt if my watchers are interested in ancient tech anyhow. I have found some very good alternatives that are super easy to download and install. Another weird one is I have Coyote with Band in a box. It directly will replace the TTS-1 in Cakewalk and sounds pretty good. But trying to find a simple download seems a rabbit hole of of scary places on the internet. If anyone has insight please share.

Spent all last night researching the topic and have most of a script for a video done. I followed all the leads mentioned above and downloaded 6 different options. Some work some don’t. So in the video I’ll play examples of what each sounds like including any hardware I have on hand. The deal is no user intervention. this is the file I’m using https://freemidi.org/download3-2804-sultans-of-swing-dire-straits It has systEx data. I had put my Sound Canvas on consignment at the local music store for $15 I’ll find out later if it’s still there . One common player people talk about and I got it with Band in the Box is Sforzanzo but I gave up on it as it seems you’re supposed to drag and drop the sf2 files which I don’t have. So is there a standard GM bank that people use? Thanks

I re download it. Sounds like the installer was corrupted.

Of course I agree. Reading a lot of post you will see lots of people that never progressed past the default. Many were even unaware that midi had other choices in Cakewalk. It’s the pre viewing midi files in 10 seconds we will ultimately be loosing. We will be loosing this long standing convenience. We will not be loosing an irreplaceable synth. Far from it. I can see that down the road when the time comes it will be a simple matter of associating midi files with Home Studio.

The video is getting more interesting by the minute! I can’t find my old file I guess it got lost in the transition from floppy disk to PC hard drives. But I found a downloaded version that seems the same. So hard cold fact is the TTS-1 still works as usual in the new update. I just updated Cakewalk and I opened the midi file no problem so we will have the TTS-1 until they pull the plug for good on CbB. My guess is this is still a longs way off. And it seems that even once CbB goes in to demo mode that it will remain installed and available to Sonar . And those of us with older Sonar will also have it until something breaks DXi. It was crashing Cakewalk sometimes anyhow so this is a good chance to move on as well.

Just another thought on this. I sort of think this might have not been planned by our developers and was not on the radar to add anything to replace that feature of default playback. It’s not possible without a 3 rd party plug in. This whole thing might be Roland pushing Software sales.

Here lies the problem. Because Cakewalk goes so far back it is almost unique in the DAW world and I’m pretty sure no other DAW can open and play a midi file in all its glory better than Cakewalk. When I get a chance I’ll try an experiment with a complicated midi file I bought back in the late 80’s. The Sultans of Swing. It heavily relies on system exclusive to play the guitar part. I originally had a Roland MT32 which was the beginning of GM but not there yet. It only had 8 channels. ? I replaced it with my Korg 05R/W which I still have. That was like night and day playing this same file. I remember being dissatisfied with Sound Blaster sound fonts. And GS wavetable synth was always bad. My Korg was better mostly I think because it’s effects were better. But when I started using Cakewalk in mid 90’s I found the TTS-1 was a lot less hassle than hardware so shelved the Korg. But I often dust it off for the none GM sounds that so far I haven’t found replacements for. But I’ll try playing this file through all the GM players I have and I’ll record it and possibly a fun little You Tube project which compared each player.

A quick look shows it’s Zoom, Focusrite and Motu all have Loopback. Zoom AMS24 is the least expensive and I can say I’m super pleased with mine. Next is the Focusrite Solo but they really suck at features compared to others in same price range. Then more expensive is the Motu M2 which I have the M4 so pretty good all round interfaces. I don’t know why people recommend Focusrite as when you look at what you get they are at the bottom of the check lists.

I make all my tutorials with it. Started out 4 years ago fighting the audio issues. Please don’t use weird 3rd party ASIO drivers or sound management apps like voice meter and banana. That’s a rabbit hole that the Cows pooped in. And you don’t need to set up anything to do with streaming. Ignore that. The real solution is an audio interface with Loopback. Nothing else other than using a little mixer to create a physical Loopback works. This allows you to run Cakewalk in ASIO mode. In OBS audio make sure it is set up to use your ASIO interface and also use nothing but 48 sample rate for everything. Interfaces with Loopback show as input options in the audio settings. In my case I use Motu Loopback Mix. I use Foobar to play my narration and then I can play from Cakewalk at same time. You can set up a few channels in OBS but I just use the one that basically captures everything from the interfaces outputs. I just turn down Cakewalk master bus to balance the mix. I rarely use live mike because I suck at that too many duhs and hmmms. But my mike is also available this way. I actually need to remember to mute it. So if your interface doesn’t have Loopback start shopping. I made a video about 2x2 interfaces and made a feature list were the ones that have Loopback show. I’ll go have a look.

I’m not sure why you had that happen. I just redid a computer and part of it was installing my copy of WaveLab and Cubase. I was aware what would happen so first thing I did was open the Reg Edit app and deleted the Steinberg driver. I had already installed my Motu driver and that is what both Windows and all my music apps were using. I do believe there’s a big reason for why we are instructed to delete these invasive drivers in the Reg edit app. Uninstalling leaves to much behind. The process is very straight forward. Other invasive driver’s include Magix and even PreSonus has a generic driver. I’m not sure if it has both proper ASIO drivers and the generic one. Seems there was a thread just last week with someone having issues and so they ended up purchasing something else. In most reviews they rate pretty low due to the quality of the pre amps. Here’s that other thread

Without GM format midi files would playback out of control gibberish. People who never use pre made midi files will most certainly not miss the TTS-1. It was very convenient and powerful as far as GM multi channel synths went. But pretty lame sounding as far as instruments go. For me it will probably be around until I’m over 80 years old because that how long I expect my new computer to last.

I only ever used the TTS-1 to preview midi files. You can still do this in Media player or WinAmp using the MS wavetable. Cakewalk just removed the MS wavetable synth back in the Fall in the original “last update “. Apparently a lot of people were using it judging by the angry posts made. Now goodbye TTS-1. The only people affected right now would be the very rare person who just installed Cakewalk who actually pre views midi files. But you then realize how many Cakewalk users were using the TTS-1 totally unaware there’s a much better world out there of better synths. I wonder what the default will be in Sonar?

It is an invasive driver installed with Steinberg products. The only way to get rid of it is in the RegEdit App. Local machine/software/ASIO. Delete all but your Presonus driver .

Please study the dialogue. Everything is right there. Don’t just use the default. You have to change to what Glenn shows in his screen shot if you use the old system or in the New Dialogue it clearly gives you options for how many tracks and stereo or mono. Both dialogues work they just look different and I feel the new one is easier to understand. The old dialogue shows when you use the synth rack or drag and drop from the browser. It has a box ask every time see Glenn’s screen shot look lower left. If that box is not checked it will insert a default set up.

It’s really only bad news for people who only have CbB. The rest of us will simply install any old version of Sonar. My example is I have Home Studio from 2015. I understood that you could only obtain Roland VST instruments by subscription to the Roland Cloud. I have a real Sound Canvas as well as a Korg 05R/W. I also have Cubase and then Band in Za Box. I see it’s GM player shows in Cakewalk as a plug in. I think it’s DX too. Apparently there’s a way to get Steinbergs Halion into Cakewalk.

It’s all clearly explained in the release notes that spear as well as I think the new Cakewalk Product Center has the information built in.

Actually that’s the old system. Use the Plus symbol ➕ add tracks found at the top of the track pane. There it’s very straight forward to choose multiple track outputs. Use the advanced tab.

I just saw this posted in the announcement regarding the last release. Quote: “The TTS-1 synth is no longer installed by Cakewalk, by request from Roland. This product is no longer supported and has reached end of life. Older installed versions may continue to work but it is no longer a default for insert instrument.” Unquote But I would imagine we will still have access to it if it was already installed. I guess it will not be installed with upcoming Sonar. I wonder if Sonar will include the same Generic boring instruments as Cakewalk Next? I noticed in Next that GM midi files open with very few appropriate instruments assigned to the tracks. I think there’s only a few common instruments. So GM midi files will end up with a lot of piano substitutes as tracks instead of wind instruments and what not. I can see Roland requested the removal of the TTS-1 as they are one of the few developers that make a GM player still. We will all be fine until down the road when you rebuild a new system then you will be faced with life with out a free GM player. update March 23 2024- I’ll post the links to the 2 videos I produced on this topic so people don’t have to go digging through this long thread: No TTS-1 No Problem- https://youtu.be/kF3tEttGdIQ?si=ww5yU8Wesi0ejmBz Goodbye TTS-1 : https://youtu.be/Zw-UqrMmF0A?si=Y3lSjXwjR61elW-p

Just right? Click on the keyboard and choose.

Please start a new thread.

And that Ripple Edit is still on before you do any copy paste if!! It should blink when on!

Go into Device manager and see what it says there. Should be under Game Controller etc. Open the tab ( properties?) and see what the driver tab says. Generally If the manufacturer doesn’t have a Midi driver then Windows uses its generic midi driver. Make sure it says as such. Then generally Cakewalk recognizes that driver and will list it in Preferences/ Midi/Devices. If it isn’t listed myself I’d get my money back as it is sort of par for the course with this type of consumer devices. I just saw a nice small 21 ? note M Audio keyboard I was tempted to buy for both travel and to use at gigs for playing simple little parts live while still holding my guitar. I think wanting 88 keys is sort of out of the question for small and portable.

First only old 32 bit plug ins are in the x86 pathway. So no point in having Cakewalk scan those. There’s 4 ? common pathways used by most. The default Cakewalk folders as well as the Program File/ VST and the Steinberg folders. I only have a few 32 bit plug ins I kept due to older projects and I moved those to the Program Files (64bit) VST folder.

Funny I put the Lexicon reverb in retirement a few years ago thinking it was old and defunct. I’ve been using a few others like the Acon Verberate. I just loaded an older project which used the Lexicon and realized how much better it sounds to me. So it’s back and getting used again.