Robert Bone

Kewl - yeah, because the Kontakt default is to set each instrument up to a -6 dB level, which is usually WAY too hot for recording, you can take advantage of its default checked parameter telling each instrument to respond to standard controllers for volume and pan, by adjusting the instrument volume using the midi track fader, stops it from making the volume jump back to that default -6 dB level. It will just stay on whatever level you set on the midi track fader. The only thing with that, is that the scale on the midi track fader is from 0-127 - the midi scale, and that doesn't correspond to a dBFS value, so to get around that, try the following steps: 1) As soon as a Kontakt instrument gets loaded, drop its midi track fader to zero. 2) Alternate between moving the midi track fader up, and playing some notes on that instrument, so that you move up into the range you like to record at (for me that is around - 18 dBFS. (so as you play some notes, every time you move that fader up, look at the associated audio track(s) for that instrument, to see the peak. Doing it the above way, keeps the volume from being insanely loud to begin with, (even if you have a limiter on your Master Bus to prevent speaker or ear damage), and only takes a few seconds to do. After you do this a few times, you will get a feel for approximately where the midi track fader needs to be to result in a peak of around -18 dBFS, or whatever you generally use. If you use VU Meters instead, shoot for around 0 dB VU, which is usually calibrated to be at -18 dBFS - but if you use VU Meters for gain staging, there are a couple considerations: 1) make sure nothing peaks (on the Peak meter) above -6 dBFS, and also, if you have an instrument with sharp transients (like drums), you are better off setting that instrument using the Peak Meter (dBFS) , because the slow reaction of VU Meters could result in clipping. Bob Bone

Not to mention the candy they include with orders. Nice touch

Yeah, but I think you can avoid having to even go into the instrument, by simply adjusting the midi track fader for the instrument. Bob Bone

Kewl - just wondering. Strange symptoms. I have 4 of the M-Audio sustain pedals, and 4 different brands of midi controllers, and some of the pedals work 'backwards' than intended - because in the industry, there are two different polarities used between Yamaha pedals and Roland pedals, and for years and years, it would piss people off, because we would plug a pedal in, only to find the notes getting sustained when the pedal was not pressed, and the notes would release when the pedals would be pressed. The keyboard manufacturers eventually programmed their products to hold some combo of keys down when turning on the keyboard, to flip its idea of when the sustain pedal would sustain or release, and the pedal manufacturers generally also provide a little switch on the side or more often, on the bottom of the sustain pedals, that also flip the polarity - to switch the sustain/release to the other way - and this has allowed life to continue for keyboard players, the world over. On my M-Audio sustain pedals, there is such a switch on the bottom - have you tried switching that and plugging the pedal back into your keyboard? Bob Bone

Is the pedal plugged into an Expression pedal port, instead of a Sustain pedal port? Bob Bone

That would have done it, I would think - it justnever came up in the discussions between Sweetwater/Cakewalk Support/Nektar, to change anything called Global ID. and not sure if changing something like that would be possible. At the time, they had just said that both identical controllers would broadcast identical information. Once Sweetwater decided to overnight me a replacement controller of a different model, I never went back to revisit that situation. (That was AWESOME by Sweetwater to have done that, by the way - they essentially 'fronted' me a new midi controller, ahead of my shipping the other one back to them - which was made even MORE awesome because I had a gig days later, so them doing that reallyreallyreallyreallyREALLY helped me out). I will do a litle digging into the notion of Global ID - thanks for your post. Bob Bone

DOH! (and, yup) I might be tempted to continue to use an interface who's company closed its doors. I still use orphaned software, as long as it works, but only for recording, and not for live performance, just to play it safe on something causing me to have to abandon the evening and leave both audience and venue disappointed and pissed off - because of me using orphaned gear or software. Bob Bone

Good to know that. Surely someone could welcome that. If no takers,perhaps a church or school, or some young newcomer to music production. Both the UAD Arrow and Quantum 2626, and the pricier UAD Apollo Twin X Duo, all run at less than 2 ms latency, and the TB3 transfers at a blazing speed max of up to 40 Gb/sec. Bob Bone

MAJOR bummer! I just went back to look at the Sweetwater page for the Quantum 2626, and noticed their Pre-Order text says it will be several MONTHS until they start to get them..... that is not so good. To the best of my awareness, I left my UAD Arrow at a studio in Chicago, as I cannot locate it here - and since I almost certainly need to replace it, I was going to spring for the $100 difference between buying another UAD Arrow, at $499, versus getting the Quantum 2626 with the additional inputs. If I have to wait multiple months to get a Quantum, I might have to get the UAD Arrow as a direct replacement for the one that my dumb brain dead self seems to have managed to leave behind at a recording session. (it was only there as a backup in the first place). DOH! Bob Bone

Hi @msmcleod - not sure why this post also appears in the Free Instruments thread - just letting you know I replied there, about additional free libraries and instruments, and effects, and such. Bob Bone

If you are in Cakewalk, in the Browser Pane, click on the Media button, then if you navigate to where you have that audio clip stored, (Audio sub-folder in the Project folder), and click on it once, to highlight it in the Browser Pane, at the bottom of that navigation tree there in the Browser Pane window, you will see the audio details for the file: PCM, which is used in wav files, Sample Rate, Record Bit-Depth, Stereo/Mono, the number of samples, and the file length - in seconds. This is pretty handy info, at times, and a nice little feature - (thanks Bakers). Bob Bone

I still have a completely working Native Instruments audio interface - I got it in 2005. It just works. It is by no means in my gear anymore, but I could plug it in tomorrow, and it would do its job. I believe I needed to buy it to count as a qualifying purchase for me to get Komplete 3, or to go from Komplete 3 to Komplete 4 - bit fuzzy on the details - pretty sure I was married, had a son, not too sure about anything else, but an audio interface working for 15 years - not bad. That being said - I have had the TB3 UAD Arrow interface for a year now, and am absolutely floored by its speed, every time I use it. I am quite sure I will feel the same about the Quantum 2626, as soon as it becomes available. Bob Bone

Generally speaking, as long as you don't load up any effects that, by their design, require large buffers to do their processing, such as convolution reverb and linear phase type plugins, you can still use reverb and delay, or amp modeling plugins, without issue. if you are not also running a super small ASIO Buffer Size. I generally choose 128 samples for my buffer size, when recording. I could go lower, but this is still small enough to where it doesn't produce a delay that messes up my tracking, but is large enough to allow for quite a few effects (I generally don't apply too many when tracking, but at that buffer size I never seem to have issues). If you DO want to track with reverb, or whatever, just use one that doesn't induce a bunch of latency, or chew up too much CPU - even if that means using a less robust type of reverb, or whatever - and then when you are ready to start mixing, you can always load up the more resource-consumptive kinds of plugins, such as the nicer sounding convolution reverb or linear phase types of plugins. Or, as you noted above - bypass the effects while recording. Either way works. Bob Bone

Nope - because the issue happens at the device level, and not the midi channel. Because there are two literally identical midi controllers, both devices tell Windows and the world that they are identical, and CbB has no way to differentiate between them, so only the 1st one it detects is usable. I went around and around with Sweetwater, the manufacturer, and the Sonar tech support folks (a couple years prior to CbB), and it just could not be resolved. Aparently, not too many folks try to use 2 identical controllers. If there is some kind of programmatic way of intercepting that device ID info broadcast by the controller(s), perhaps it could be internally identified by combining the device info with the USB port it is connected to, and then maybe that info could be tweaked so that it looked like a different device. I just went with returning one of the controllers, and picked up a different one. Bob Bone

The Quantum 2626 is brand-spanking new, so might be a couple weeks until it starts to show up. I have a Sweetwater alert, to let me know when one comes into stock. Bob Bone

Yup - there are literally hundreds of free Kontakt libraries and effects and synths available. I think I ended up with close to 4 hundred such items. I only deal with those that are 64-bit, except for a small number of 32-bit synths that work in 64-bit VST programs, such as CbB and Cantabile, and other DAW suites I have. Someday, I will dig up all the links I saved off, for the freebies I have downloaded, and will post them in some kind of way here - I want to give thought on how to best do that, and I have a pretty full couple of weeks ahead of me. But, I will circle back to do that, and also want to thank all the folks who have posted about freebies and good deals, quite kind to invest time like that, to help the rest of us. GREATLY appreciated. Bob Bone

I still have a small number of 32-bit plugins that I use, and what I did was to create a sub-folder within the folder all of my 32-bit plugins are in, called Bridged, and I included only that sub-folder from the 32-bit plugins main folder, in the VST search path in Cakewalk. I would place only those 32-bit plugins that I had tested out and found to work OK in Cakewalk, into that sub-folder, so that I would then only see any 32-bit plugins that I could reasonably believe would work OK. If I wanted to try out an additional 32-bit plugin, I would 1st copy it into that sub-folder, and then it would be able to be pulled into a test project to make sure it would work OK, and if so, then I would leave it in the sub-folder and could begin to use it in general projects, with high confidence things would work OK. I also bought J-Bridge, as it seems more robust then the free BitBridge bridging software that comes with Cakewalk. When I bought it, J-Bridge ran me something like $20. It is not required, but you might find it helpful if some plugins you need don't happen to work with the free BitBridge within Cakewalk. Bob Bone

The notion of cranking up the ASIO Buffer Size to a large value is not a viable solution during the recording phase of a music project. ASIO Buffer Sizes of greater than around 128 samples, (which is still OK), begin to cause an audible delay between triggering a note and hearing it, and thus during the recording/tracking phase of a project, an ASIO Buffer Size larger than 128 samples is not workable. During mixing/mastering, by all means jack up the ASIO Buffer Size to either 1024 or 2048, because that allows for plugins like convolution reverb types, or linear phase effects, to have enough buffer size to work their magic properly. For the rest of time, folks switch back and forth, between smaller ASIO Buffer Sizes, and larger ones (128 or lower when recording, and 1024 or higher when mixing). As far as your current issues - I suggest you try setting your ASIO Buffer Size to 128 samples, and also make sure you don't have anything interfering with the ability of your computer's streaming audio capability. Sometimes, which plugins are loaded into a project can adversely affect DPC Latency - such as a convolution reverb or linear phase effect. You can quickly test that scenario out, by hitting the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard, just prior to playback, which will toggle on/off the bypassing of all loaded effects. If your issues instantly go away with the effects bypassed, then you know that at least one effect plugin is not likely meant to be used during recording, but instead is designed to be used during mixing, when the ASIO Buffer Size can be set to a much larger value. (turn effects back on by hitting 'E' again, by the way). Another possibility is that your wireless transmitter/drivers could be gumming up the works, this does not always occur, but can, and you can also test this out by temporarily disabling the wireless adapter in Device Manager (some laptops have a function key or physical switch to disable WiFi, as well), and then launching Cakewalk, and seeing if that resolves the issues for you. If it DOES, then your solution would be to temporarily disable the WiFi adapter in Device Manager, then launch CbB and when finished, then enable the WiFi adapter again in Device Manager. LatencyMon is a free app that you can download and run, to also produce a report that indicates possible things that interfere with your computer's ability to do the streaming audio needed for clean sessions in Cakewalk (or any other DAW). https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon And here is an example video talking about using LatencyMon (the guy put me to sleep, but it might help explain it to you, otherwise, search for other videos on YouTube that demonstrate using LatencyMon to resolve streaming audio issues): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78S0CMafigM Bob Bone

I too, had the same issue come up, about 3 years ago. You will not like the explanation I am about to give. In my case, I had two identical Nektar midi controllers, and just like your situation, both worked fine separately, but only one would work properly within Sonar Platinum (Cakewalk's former self before Gibson abandoned the brand, and Bandlab so wonderfully picked up Sonar and staff and gave us Cakewalk by Bandlab). The issue is that both controllers sent out identical broadcast information ID's, so because of this, Cakewalk/Sonar has no way to treat them as different midi controllers, and this is why only one will respond properly within Cakewalk. There is no current workaround or fix for this situation. In my case, Sweetwater worked with both the Cakewalk folks and with the Nektar folks, but there was, and still is, no way to have two identical midi controllers work together in Cakewalk. My only recourse was to return one of the midi controllers to Sweetwater, and they swapped it out for a different make and model, and things have worked wonderfully, ever since. I suggest you either keep one of your identical controllers as a backup, or sell/return one of them, and pick up a different brand or model controller. The issue lies within the internals of the midi controllers themselves, and not with some issue with Cakewalk, and there is just nothing in Cakewalk anybody can do to alter the fact that identical midi device types will almost certainly broadcast themselves with identical information, and that because of that, Cakewalk will have zero chance of being able to have whichever device is detected 2nd, respond properly. Perhaps there is some kind of way to either use a filter to intercept and modify that broadcast information, or to write some kind of little program to accomplish that, but I do not consider that likely, as a solution. I cannot rule that out - though, so perhaps something along those lines could be undertaken - I just accepted the situation as being an unfortunate reality, and after swapping the 2nd controller out for a different one, I no longer had to deal with the issue. Bob Bone

You can uninstall ASIO4ALL, as you now have the ACTUAL ASIO drivers of your NI audio interface. Bob Bone

GREAT motherboard. The dual M.2 support is awesome, and it does indeed have support for TB3, however , you need an add-on card to actually use TB3. M.2 2280 NVME drives are super fast for storing sample libs. Here is the ASUS TB3 add-on card page: https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessories/ThunderboltEX-3/ NOT a converter, by the way - it is purely for TB3. BLAZING fast, but needs super -short cable for 40 Gb/sec speed. The max speed drops to 20 Gb/sec when longer cable is used. Here is a link for an idea on cost of add-on TB3 card: https://www.microcenter.com/product/466938/asus-thunderbolt-expansion-card-for-asus-z170-and-x99-motherboards Bob Bone

Sorry you are so frustrated. I am only trying to assist you with my next comment, so please understand I am not saying this lightly. There are some 32-bit plugins that work properly in Cakewalk, HOWEVER, many many many more are flaky at best, or they cause all kinds of errors, or crash Cakewalk. There are hundreds of free plugins that are 64-bit, that WON'T cause crashes and flaky issues. If you want to contact me in a message, I would be happy to try to get you stabilized- I will work out a block of time for us to chat through the issues, and get you working in a stable manner. We can post info on things we resolve, to help others. Kewl? I am quite sure I can help you get things sorted out. Bob Bone

Yeah, it is because things have changed internally for the midi controller, but we cannot see this has occurred. The only fix I know, is to do the steps as I laid out. Does not mean those ARE the steps, just means those are the ones I have been able to get past the issue. I WELCOME someone giving me better steps. Bob Bone

Exactly why I continue to seek a permanent solution, so I don't have to keep going through deletion and adding the controller back in, for every existing project. Bob Bone

I am SUCH and IDJUT! I completely forgot I have both SynthMaster and SynthMaster One. I recently got them, along with 273 other synths and effects, and just did a swing and a miss. Both SynthMaster and SynthMaster One are found in the Synth category, in CbB on my system. What I cannot recall, is whether or not I altered the category from Uncategorized, to Synth - but certainly it would appear that you would find them in one or the other of those two categories. Bob Bone