John Vere

Hmm, The Op was here 2 hours ago.

Absolutely. A 320kbps MP 3 at 48/ 24. is probably as good as a 44.1/ 16 CD , least is I don’t hear a difference, not that that’s saying much! And if I need a CD Nero happily takes my 48/24 wave files and burns them at 44.1/16 automatically. And now with the Zoom interface I can record at 32 bit as well. I can stay 48/32 start to finish.

Why not switch Cakewalk to 48? I gave you the instructions and it’s fairly easy . There’s many advantages to having everything 48. Videos are 48 and so this often can cause conflicts if you try and watch one with Cakewalk running at 44.1. I personally see zero reasons to use 44.1 anymore. I find it even odd that it’s still a default for Cakewalk? All the music delivery services now ask for 48/24 wave files. 44.1 and MP3 are dinosaurs.

For this reason I just use the Arranger track now. You can use it to show lyrics and chords. And the arranger track has multiple lanes too.

When this happens there is a volume event involved somewhere in the midi data and you should be able to see it in either the event list or down in the controller pane of PRV. But there’s sometimes a hidden event and I often run into this with download midi files. Example is I need the Ample P bass lite set at 1.0 on its level control in the GUI. I set it to 1.0 The minute you hit playback it jumps back to 2.0 and there’s no sign of any controller data anywhere. Sometimes changing the midi channel fixes it. But the easiest solution is to use the track fader and set it at 64 which seems to correlate to 1.0 on the instrument. Track inspector settings overrule midi events. One more thing to check is if another midi instrument has its output set in the GUI to output midi data this can loopback to any midi tracks that have all inputs selected. Either disable all midi outputs from instruments or set track inputs to your controller or none. The controller is my choice because none seems to get reset.

Ya the old PCI cards were pretty bulletproof and usually had best performance with latency. I have a PCI sound card from 2004 called Card Deluxe. The company even updated the driver to W10. It’s just a 2 x 1/4” TRS in and Out with SPDIF as well so worked great with my Yamaha 01v digital mixer. It’s still installed and working on my old retired DAW machine. Everything I own made by Roland still works. Some is from the 80’s. The Zoom was a surprise because they used to have budget low end rep and the ASIO drivers were not very good. Seems they sorted that all out because so far after 2 weeks this puppy is a dream to work with. It’s really a mixer. So it more like a downscaled integrated system for everything

I didn't read your post close enough. follow the directions in my video as well as make sure to set up everything everywhere to 48 as @mettelus has said even windows. The places to check are Windows sound settings/ advance settings In Cakewalk preferences Audio / Driver settings The Interfaces Control panel And as in my instructions above make sure there's absolutely no trace of 44.1 audio in any projects. Don't forget to try restarting after you make the changes and make sure they took. And don't forget to "APPLY" changes. https://youtu.be/opDwsC4_llg

I made a video about this , I'll see if I can find it. It's 100 % do able and I've now converted almost everything to 48. It's well worth the hassle. But for converting older projects it's a little involved. here's the basic outline of steps for converting a project from 44.1 to 48 Midi tracks don't matter. Only audio. You need all audio to be continuous from start to end. To do this you will export the audio tracks as stems at 48/32. follow the settings in my screens shot. You then delete the 44.1 audio from the project. All audio needs to be gone or it won't work. Even hidden tracks. Use the Project/Audio file drop down menu to check. It should be clear. Now you open the audio setting in preferences and change to 48000 in the new project box and by opening your interfaces control panel. You will hear a little click and now the transport module will show 48. Now drag and drop the new exported stems back to the original tracks.

As the link to the old post says the Metronome is turned off during export and bouncing so it's not just that simple. I'll repeat it here for those who are to lazy to follow the link @Promidi posted You put a Aux send on the metronome bus and then record it in real time to the Aux track. Worth noteing is another change due to the removal of the MS GM synth engine from Cakewalk is the Midi option in the Metronome can no longer use it. You would have to send midi out to a hardware synth or loop back a midi cable and use a VST.

Welcome to the wonderful world of recording with Cakewalk. There’s lots to learn as you start out. I made this series of tutorials just for people like you.

The whole control panel concept is why I didn’t look at Focusrite when I was looking at new interfaces a couple of years ago. My M Audio and Tascam interfaces were way easier to set up headphone mixes when tracking. I had to read the owner’s manual at least a dozen times for the Scarlett 6i6. So I bought the Motu M4 which was super easy to set up as well. It has other issues however so now I just bought a Zoom L8. But all my old interfaces still work except the M Audio is stuck back in W7 land. There’s been absolutely no real changes in things like converters in interfaces and Roland is a company that has usually used quality components in their gear. Its really about your workflow and how your chosen interfaces integrates into it for you. The Scarlett didn’t and that’s one reason I shelved it. That and it doesn’t have Loopback which is now important to my workflow. Funny how most people purchase an interface based on recommendation instead of sitting down and making a list of options that you need. Everybody’s workflow is different. So your title would probably have you purchase an interface that works fine for the person who recommended it but it might be totally wrong for you. There’s nothing wrong with that old Roland and who knows what the actual quality of any of the lower price point interfaces are these days. What is most important is if you are happy with the recordings it produces. I always felt my Tascam had better sound than the Focusrite. I only shelved it because it’s sort of too big for the desktop. And at the time the drivers needed a little work. They fixed them a few months later. Which is another important point. If the unit becomes unsupported and the driver is not updated anymore then like the M Audio a Windows update will break it.

VST instruments use an Audio track to output the sound. It can be used as a Split instrument track or a Simple instrument track which is we’re you can place midi directly on the track. Because they are Audio tracks then applying effects is treated the same. You can put effects in the FX bin , the Pro Channel or create a send to a effects buss. All this including control of effects parameters can be easily automated. There are hundreds of free or very inexpensive VST instruments.

My update to this situation is I bought a Zoom L8. It is a much more stable interface than the Motu M4. 1- No more dropouts at lower buffer settings. The Zoom can run at 64. Same project with the Motu was 256. 2- No more thump in my monitors on boot up. Just a very quiet click. 3- No more random garbled audio on new audio recording. This was a super annoying issue where a total restart of computer was required to continue working.

Ya it to bad they did this It certainly chased me away. Lord help us if they do this with Sonar. That would be end for me.

The OP was only interested in pre viewing midi files. They already seem to be aware of the rest. This thread and a few others are a result of the sudden removal of the MS GM player as an option in the midi device menu. Of course nobody will really miss it. But this one situation is why the OP posted. I gave them a solution with just drag midi files to Media Player. This is most certainly a simple solution.

If you don't want that then simply use the Notes tab in the Browser and insert your own pictures.

Ha, I knew a few people would get it. There's uncountable threads there on this topic ( Tape VS DAW) most are 45 pages long and impossible to glean any solid information. I like the vintage car analogy someone used in a thread that posed the question " Is Tape Obsolete? " One answer was- " nothing is really obsolete if people still use it." They gave a Classic car as an example. A 72 Mustang is not exactly obsolete if people still drive them and it's worth a lot of money just like a 1972 Reel to Reel deck would be if it's well maintained and in good condition. I own a classic 1985 GMC camper van that is in near mint condition . In a campground full of million dollar Mega Motorhomes people always stop by to get a closer look and talk about old cars and trucks. People like old stuff that's in good shape, if it's not then it's simply a old piece of junk. I'm pretty sure if I still had my Fostex r-r 8 track it would not have been used for a long, long time now. Small studio owners would have never had the resources to purchase a 2" , 1" or even a 1/2" machine. So 1/4" or even Cassette was what you would find in small or bedroom studios before digital came along. Even brand new they were far from perfect. The only deck I would still use was a Teac half track that took 10"x 1/4" tape that was a wonderful machine. But it was still worth a lot of money when I traded it for a Sony DAT machine. And I soon was totally digital once I got the Yamaha MD 8. I still have one. The quality of my recordings took a huge leap with digital. Consumer digital was 10x the quality of consumer tape based systems. That is still 100% true to this day. I get a huge kick out of these fools who record DAW recordings back to some old Cassette deck thinking it will somehow magically make their music sound cool. I remember the transition to digital was in I guess mid 90's. A group I was in won a battle of the bands and part of the prize was 4 hours in a local semi pro studio. They had just gone to ADAT but the old tape decks were still there behind the console position. The lead guitar player had been in lots of recording studios and when the engineer said OK, rolling, the guitar player said, No where not! and pointed behind the engineer at the decks which of course were not moving. The engineer laughed and turned around a started a deck rolling and said, there do you feel better now. The guitar player said it's just not the same without watching those reels roll along when I record.

I was going to say that Mackie is well known for writing good owner manuals. Your answer will be found there. Sorry for my original answer as I didn’t realize your mixer was actually the USB model. I have a Pro FX 4 which doesn’t.

This has turned into a Gear Space thread.

Ok, I see you actually use your outputs for hardware. No problem, just open a music player app and drag and drop the file to the playlist and it will play ( using the MS GM synth ? ) I just tested this on W10 22H2. Both Win Amp and Windows Media player play the file. I notice that Cakewalk no longer has the MS GM synth as an option so it would seem that this utility has been removed only from Cakewalk and not other apps yet. Other DAW's have built in GM players like Cubase uses the Halion synth. If you really want to use Cakewalk you would have to OPEN the midi file from the Menu or the desktop. If you have the outputs selected you will get all the midi tracks but no TTS'1. The midi tracks will be assigned to the output that was the top of the list. This is the default and why you have to de select the midi devices listed to trigger the insertion of the TTS-1. This can work if that device can play GM files. I have a Sound Canvas and a Korg 05/rw as example which are both GM. Then if you add the TTS-1 to the project you now have to change each tracks output. So it's much faster to simply uncheck the outputs first. This is Win Amp playing a midi file I just downloaded. It was how I previewed midi files a long time ago until I discovered the TTS-1 trick.

Rex I just read through this whole thread and I apologize for parts of my earlier comments. It’s funny how we read what we have said at a point in time and see how ignorant we were about certain things. I just bought the Zoom L8. Firstly because the mixer is perfect for my Solo act. Finally built in effects that I can actually use! But this 32 bit thing had me turn off my Motu M4 and connected the L8 and try it as an audio interface. This is with out a doubt the best interface I’ve owned. So far it is a big improvement over the Motu. No more loud thump on boot up. No more random garbled audio or just stopping for no reason? Excellent monitoring system with no fuss to get the balance in the headphones perfect and keep it that way. The list is long and I made a video about it so I’ll stop here. And yes I’m slowly learning about achieving a higher quality sound using a DAW that I was not even aware might be possible seeing as things have sounded pretty good to me more or less. But the other day I was listening to some of my new tracks with headphones and I started hearing crap I hadn’t noticed before. WTF Then I played a song I recorded on my Yamaha MD8 20 years ago and was blown away with the overall quality and dynamics of the sound! No computer was involved in that song. Real drums, bass, guitar and me singing into a very basic signal chain. A SM 58, Into the recorder which featured Yamahas top of the line pre amps due to a favour from a Yamaha service tech. A Yamaha compressor and a touch of Alesis micro verb. It was the energy and the performance that made this a great recording. I was also very good at engineering with this gear back then. After that Yamaha pre amp experience I’ve never been happy with the pre amps of any of my interfaces. I’ll see how the Zoom does but so far it seems about what you can expect at this very low price point. Then in the DAW I’ve learned that every time I add some stupid effect to my vocal track it immediately sounds weird and I end up removing the effect. I haven’t had to use Melodyne much for pitch correction because like you I have a million miles on my voice and I’m close enough for what I’m trying to accomplish. But I’ve been using it a lot for timing and loudness correction. After reading what you are saying I think you are totally onto something that needs a second look. Melodyne is probably yet another stupid effect I need to stop using and stop being lazy when I lay down vocals. I’m breaking my own rule number one - Don’t record crap and think you can just fix it. Im not sure still if going 32 bit will compensate for the so so pre amps but that’s what I’ve set up now 48/32 no dithering. Someone asked about the Round trip latency. The L8 is a little behind the Motu but the that said I can’t run the Motu at even 128. I tested the L8 at a 64 ms buffer recording with TH3 and a few midi instruments no problem. Having super low latency is useless if you can run at a lower buffer anyway.

I guess you haven’t watched my tutorials. I highly recommend you do and then you will see what is common practices for playback of Midi GM files in Cakewalk. Nobody who understands and uses Cakewalk or any DAW for that matter, has used the ( Dreaded) MS GM synth since 1994 or something. Most DAWs include a GM soft synth. Cakewalk has had the TTS1 for so long now it’s becoming worn out. As said the MS GM synth is sooo outdated it has been discontinued. You don’t see anything on the list because of its removal from supported apps as well as I guess you don’t own any midi hardware. That list is now exclusively for choosing midi hardware devices. Including the midi ports of Audio or Midi Interfaces I’m afraid a Realtek sound chip is not a midi device and never was. Do you see midi ports on your laptop? Only midi hardware comes with midi drivers. But you don’t need a midi device to play and use midi in any Sequencer including Cakewalk. Please watch the tutorials and then let us know how you’re making out And for sure ask questions.

For other who might find this thread in the future. There’s some misleading comments I feel need clearing up. First the title would imply that the update is faulty. If this was true then thousands of people would be here complaining. It’s theoretically the ultimate best version of Cakewalk ever. The only reason why an update might cause minor issues with some users is that something was never properly set up to begin with. So it reset to a default. The normal default is what you will see if you open a Basic or other Cakewalk template. The tracks are assigned to the Master bus. The master bus is assigned to 1/2 outputs of your interface or It will be Speakers if you are using Computer audio. Simple. This is the first thing you check if there’s no sound. The OP said no sound from midi tracks. Of course, midi doesn’t make sound. It is possible they were using the MS GM synth. They didn’t say there was sound from audio which is important. Midi doesn’t make sound on its own it needs an audio/instrument track to do that. That’s why I pointed to the videos because there can be infinite amount of things not set up properly and the videos take you step by step to achieve the correct set up to work smoothly in Cakewalk. The OP’s workaround possible solved the problem because apparently the MS GM synth is now unsupported. So to other new users starting out, take the time to watch the videos from the beginning to the end and as I said you might have to do this a few times before you get it. You will save yourself a lot of waisted time trying to sort things out on your own Cakewalk is complicated. This is the playlist that is best to watch in this order. Watch for end screen link to view in order.

Guess the OP never did read this post or the users manual.

This. I just worked on a similar project where it was a young bands very first live show. They had never used a PA other than for the 1 singer so the family asked if I could help them. I offered to also record the show as well. There were the occasional bass boners and wrong guitar chords etc. overall they played way better than I was expecting. And for a young band it was a surprise to hear them cover Southern Rock. But I thought it best to use the tools needed to remove any blunders. I mostly used my copy paste trick where you delete a bad note and see if you can copy it from elsewhere in the song. If that didn’t work then I used Melodyne. I’ll say that the reason overall they had no timing issues is the drummer was very focused on tempo and was not flashy at all. I also showed them how to put the bass player and amp right next to him so they can lock in. It also was a perfect venue. A huge stack of hay behind and an open Barn around them. They were very receptive to the idea of purchasing in ear monitors for future gigs. If you’ve never played in a band that uses them there’s one aspect not always mentioned. Stage latency. In ears tighten a band up if set up properly. Just use one if you like, that’s what I do. It’s like being in the studio at gigs. Modern mixers like the Behringer x18 are perfect for this.