Promidi

Open the MIDI file instead of importing. Open retains tempo, importing does not.

Even though I have V-Collection 9, which Arturia synths specifically, maybe I can try some here.

This is where MIDI sends would be handy.....

Please list some soft synths where this is happening. Is your Cakewalk and soft synth performance sluggish when your soft synths are not displaying their GUIs? My guess is that this is because those soft synths are quite heavy on the graphics. Without a separate GPU to handle the graphics, your CPU has to do all the graphic grunt work. For an older CPU this performance degradation would be quite noticeable. I have a 10 year old quad core i5 PC with a GTX960 graphics card and I have yet to experience sluggish performance with any soft synth - even graphic intensive ones while they are being displayed.. I did an experiment and temporarily disabled the GTX960. Cakewalk and soft synths became quite sluggish. I re-enabled the GTX960. Cakewalk’s performance returned to acceptable levels.

No matter how good you believe your onboard audio is, always get a decent audio interface that comes with native ASIO drivers.

I know this is a long shot, but have you tried updating your Vdist Runtimes? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-au/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

This ^^^^^^

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Is “Zero Controllers When Play Stops” setting in Preferences - Project - MIDI is selected? When this setting is selected, the following happens when playback stops. Cakewalk sets the controller values of the pitch wheel, the sustain pedal, and the modulation wheel on all 16 MIDI channels to zero. See: http://legacy.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=0x200D7 Note it says " sets ..... the sustain pedal..... to zero,"..... That is effectively lifting the sustain pedal. Remember, this is a per project settings, meaning that it can be set via a project or a project template. You could also select "Send All-Notes-Off Messages on Stop." is preferences - File - VST Settings. See: http://legacy.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=0x22B07 This will only work for those VSTi which correctly responds to CC123 Events.

Looks like you already have the XG patches loaded. Setting all your MIDI channels to “Yamaha XG” should be all you need to do (this is assuming your Yamaha Keyboard adheres to the XG standard)

Strange it works in the inspector..... but I also had trouble selecting Analog Lab Pro Bank/Patches as inserted MIDI events. Looks like it’s a strange interaction between Arturia and Cakewalk. I even tried inserting CC0 events to change to banks like that.....nada! Bank changes do work in Cakewalk as inserted MIDI events per se as I use them all the time with a Yamaha SW1000XG external synth card and the correct patches are always selected with that - that's with a synth with over 1300 patches. Looks like with Arturia, the way to go is several instances. Some Arturia patches take some seconds to load as they are sample based. Therefore, even if Analog Lab Pro did respond correctly to bank changes, several instances might still be the way to go.

To trigger the first patch in the second song, you would send Bank 1, Patch 0 (you have Bank 1, Patch 1 - which is the 2nd patch) Remember, with Banks and Patches, everything starts at 0 (0 = 1st Bank, 0= 1st Patch)

When the issue is manifesting, what happens if you deselect “Zero Controllers When Play Stops” in Preferences - Project - MIDI?

Is it possible the pitch bend wheel on your MIDI controller is playing up and is sending spurious pitch bend MIDI events to Cakewalk? Check your MIDI tracks for any WHEEL MIDI events. You can do this with the Piano Roll View or the Event List View.

Use the VST2 version if you want Analog Lab Pro to respond to Patch Change MIDI Events via Cakewalk. Also, ins files are only used for external hardware synths not VSTis. You have to enter the numbers directly into the Bank and Patch fields. Bank 0 for the first song, 1 for the next. Within the songs, enter 0 for the first patch in the given song. Also, you have have less that 127 patches in total, you can just keep the Bank at 0 and just use the patch number. I tested Bank/Patch changes here with Analog Lab Pro in Cakewalk and they work fine. I just used "normal" for the Bank select method. Depending on your work flow and resources permitting, you might actually find in easier to just have a separate instance of Analog Lab Pro for each patch.

Being an XG keyboard, you might need the instrument definition file for XG. This should be in your Cakewalk resourses folder. Looks for a a file called "Yamaha.ins." Once this is loaded, your instrment patches should show up when ever you need to select patches, or enter Patch change commands in your Project. I have a Yamaha SW1000XG card and I have done this for that card. See Preferences - MIDI - Instruments Here is how mine is set up.

Because of the above, you need to OPEN the MIDI file into Cakewalk, not import it. Importing MIDI files does not bring in the tempo changes, key changes or Time signature changes.

First you have to determine that your VST actually responds to MIDI parch change Events - otherwise there is very little point in even using them. Usually the VSTi itself supplies this list of patch names. As far as the note notes are concerned, you can right click in the left keyboard in the Piano Roll View to load a custom note name assignment. The options that appear there can be edited in the Master.ins file under the ".Note Names" entry therein.

Make sure the external driver is not going to sleep. Some do this as a function of the drive itself an is independent of any Windows power saving functions. Personally, I would just use internal drives for all project storage.

Later versions removed the “TKPD.sys” driver. Also, the later iLok installers always check for later versions now.

Actually, there were some versions of Sonivox plugins that included a version of iLok that installed as a boot driver that was absolutely not compatible with Windows 10, yet merrily installed it on Windows 10 anyway. It installed even if there was a later version of iLok already installed. Problem was, that version of the iLok driver bricked your Windows 10 PC. End result, BSOD - even in safe mode. The only solution, in that case, was to side boot from a recovery CD to set the “TKPD.sys” driver in your Windows 10 partition to “disabled” rather than “Boot”. If you didn't know how to do that, then it was a complete fresh Windows reinstall (upgrade install would not have been enough) Fortunately when this happened to me, I was able to recover using the side boot from a recovery CD method to get back up and running.

Yeah, my bad..... (edited post)

You can change the pitch bend range inside FM8. In this example, I have set the Pitch Bend Up range to 8 semitones, and the Pitch Bend Dn range to -2 semitones

FM8 is one of those synths where you have to do it in the synth. That being said, if you want to do it in the PRV, you can add an NRPN event and look for Pitch Mod FB Up and Pitch Mod FB DN. The edit the value in the Edit List View. To get the required bend in FM8, the formula for the NRPN value is 8319 + 128 time x, where x is the number of semitones.

Which VST are you using - Make sure it can actually respond to RPN 0 MIDI Events. The best way (short of a CAL script) to enter an RPN MIDI event is via the Event List View. Enter a dummy MIDI event where you want to put the RPN MIDI event. Then change the Event type to RPN. Data to 0. Make the value 128 times the number of semitones you want. See image For instance, for a 5 semitones shift, the value would be 128 times 5, which is 640. Note: I have actually written a CAL script that allows you to enter the value in actual semitones. This script is specific to my system. It might work on yours. I wrote the script because there were many times I wanted to change the pitch bend range on a given track. Enter GM RPN Pitch Bend Range.CAL