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I recall once upon a time that a Steinberg demo installer slipped a "Generic" ASIO driver onto my machine, which prevented Cakewalk from detecting my "real" ASIO setup. That experience showed me that it is best to make sure there is only one installed, as @scook suggested.

Getting weaker...

Using BandLab Assistant, click the dropdown menu next to "Cakewalk", and you will see "Install Add-ons..."

OK, now my resistance is getting really weak...

Ok, that FORUM code works. Sorry, I thought I had tried them all. My browser keeps a list of everything I've typed in that field.

Try it now... FORUM is good, but GROUP is not. All good now!

Just logged into my account at JRR and tried it. Larry straightened me out. FORUM works, but GROUP does not.

That didn't last long ...

Not any more ... EDIT: FORUM works now, but GROUP does not.

Looks like the author has created a new site on Patreon, and is uploading clean versions of the plugins there... https://www.patreon.com/analogobsession

This usually only happens to me on occasion, such as if Cakewalk has suffered an sudden abnormal crash first, as caused by a bad plugin. In that case, it is possible that the audio driver is left in a "dirty" state, and is not released by Cakewalk, so the system won't let you kill the task. I used to reboot to fix this, until I discovered that resetting the device usually helps release it. It happens so infrequently, that I can live with it. And I am running an end of life audio device with Win 7 drivers, on the latest Win 10 update.

Which matters not one bit if some of them sound "good".

Whenever I cannot kill Cakewalk in task manager, usually I just reset my audio interface (off/on) and that fixes it. Somehow Cakewalk and the audio interface driver got "hung up".

It's amazing how all the synth "experts" over at the KVR instruments forum dismiss sampled synths. They ignore the sound possibilities, and just focus on the knobs and ultimate tweakability, lol!

I think 9 positive detections at VirusTotal would give me pause...

That item was in the utilities menu in Sonar Platinum. I just checked, and it's there. @scook is correct. It has been moved to "Get Started" in the Help menu. Same thing with a few tweaks for CbB...

Good tip Larry! Nice addition to several courses I already had at Udemy!

IK Syntronik for sampled synths +1. I have UVI Digital Synsations, but I prefer the IK user interface over that of the UVI workstation. I will have the Arturia modeled synth collection eventually...

I like Komplete Kontrol, but the lack of instrument layering puts it at a disadvantage, unless you layer multiple instances in a DAW host. AKAI has VIP, which I have, and it works standalone as a plugin host, as well as a plugin for your DAW. You can layer up to 8 VST instruments (channels), 4 VST insert FX per instrument, with sends to 4 busses and then save as a multi. The lack of a standard makes it a bit hit or miss which plugins will work with it, but most of my plugins seem to be compatible. Downside to VIP is that AKAI doesn't seem to be very active in continued software development for this product (another inMusic brand), such as no VST3 support yet. AKAI seems to be more focused on hardware. That new Unify from Plugin Guru looks interesting, too. Small developer, who implies bigger things are to come! Price looks good right now, at $59 until March 1st. https://www.pluginguru.com/products/unify-standard/

If the instrument is virtual, you can record that directly now. https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=SoftSynths.27.html

Matthew, I think you may be onto something there... On my DAW PC I use the basic integrated Intel HD graphics, with drivers supported by my CPU and chipset/motherboard. Rarely see any unexplained app or plugin crashes described by others. I have often wondered if graphics driver incompatibilities could be at the root of some of those issues...

If you are running Win 10 Pro you can do this to disable automatic updates:

The tutorial covered the MIDI side of things, initially using Philharmonic inserted with one MIDI source track and the 1st audio output. The plugin in this example was used with only one stereo audio output. In this case the mixer window in the plugin is capable of mixing the individual instruments and routing them as one stereo signal to the Cakewalk mixer using one Cakewalk fader. Alternatively you could have inserted Philharmonic with one source MIDI, and all audio outputs. That would result in 16 audio channel faders in Cakewalk. But then you would need to go into the Philharmonik mixer window and send each audio output to its respective channel in Cakewalk. By default, a multitimbral plugin usually mixes & routes all audio output to the first stereo output, but you then can manually change if the plugin offers an audio output for each instrument slot. It possibly would have complicated a basic tutorial to go into all these extra steps, as it really comes down to personal preference for which end you choose to do your mixing on. Obviously there may be advantages to mixing in Cakewalk if you want to use advanced insert FX plugins on specific instruments in the mix.

I forgot to mention that Cakewalk itself (at least on my system) has a sub-folder for VST2 plugins. "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VstPlugins". I left the Cakewalk products there, rather than risk moving them. All of the Cakewalk VST2 live here, everything from Sonar to CbB. Occasionally a 3rd party will drop a VST2 here, but I will move that to the main VST2 folder. As far as Cakewalk VST3, they all go into the general "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3" folder.

The Cakewalk browser panel shows a very clear indication of 32-bit or 64-bit plugins if you just look in there...