David Baay

This should work without pre-bouncing so long as you either select nothing or everything. When you select nothing, CW includes everything by default so that;s usually the best approach. If you use separate MIDI and synth audio tracks and select only audio tracks without the MIDI tracks that the drive synths, the synth tracks won't generate any output. That said I generally recommend bouncing the Master bus to a 'Master Bounce' track that outputs directly to hardware outs in parallel with the Master bus (Tracks > Bounce to Track(s) with Source = Buses and only the Master bus selected). Then you can group the bounce track's mute button in opposition with the Master bus to A/B between the bounce and the live mix or check for nulling by inverting the phase of the bounce track with both unmuted. Once you're satisfied that the bounce sounds right, export just that track in the desired file format.

ProjectScope does not show any channel info, and CAL mostly deals in embedded event channels. It does have a function for setting the forced Output channel on a track, but does not appear to have a function to return the current value. It may be possible to work around this but it would take a lot of iteration to check all the tracks and keep track of which channels are used on which tracks and whether they're forced or embedded. My CAL chops are too rusty to justify the effort to attempt this. Now I'm curious what the use case is...?

Not really, but it depends where they're set. If you're talking about channels embedded in events, you can view all tracks in the Event List and scan the Channel column. If it's forced Output channels, it's fairly easy to step through the tracks with cursor keys while looking at the Ch assignment in the Inspector (MIDI tab for Instrument tracks). Same for Input channels but this may require hovering over the Input widget since the channel is a suffix and may be hidden.

So put the channel numbers in the friendly names: Onyx 1|Onyx 2 Onyx 3|Onyx 4 ... You can even define a 3rd name for the Stereo Input: Onyx 1L| Onyx 2R|Onyx 1/2S

I can confirm something is not right with opening OMF files in Sonar. I tried opening an OMF that I had previously saved from CbB, and Sonar crashed. This file still opens successfully in CbB.

Actually input quantizing isn't done in real time (it can't be because there's no way to pull a late note back in time); it's just applied automatically when recording stops. After recording Input Quantize appears as a separate operation in History and can be immediately undone without losing the recording.

For this to be truely useful (for me at least), it would have to display a history list showing what time range was quantized with what settings on which track(s). In order for it to work at all, Sonar would basically need to keep a backup of all raw MIDI recordings as it essentially does for audio recordings. One big quesiton would be whether it's advisable to store that history when the project is closed as undoing a quantize operation much later could eventually become incompatible with other edits. For the time being, I suggest you Save-As a version of the project with a different name after every new recording, and again when you start making destructive (or hard to reverse) edits so you always have "raw' versions to go back to later. Alternatively you can drag-copy the unquantized MIDI to a second lane, noting that it's "RAW MIDI" in the lane notes area, lock it against editing and mute it so it doesn't show up in the PRV with Hide Muted Clips enabled.

There was also a time when you could just create an empty text file, save it with a .pcp extension and import it, but that stopped working at some point. In any case, it seems to me you must have been using a template with empty Prochannels (maybe acquired from another user) at some point since so many of the tracks in that project had empty Prochannels, not just the one causing problems. Normally if you open an old pre-X1 (or even pre-SONAR) project in CbB or Sonar, all audio tracks and buses will automatically have the default modules.

I'm not seeing either of those issues using a control surface with the AZController plugin. I don't currently have a Mackie surface set up. His second issue may be due to PDC-inducing plugins. I'm pretty sure there would be more reports of problems if there were a more general issue with Mackie control in Sonar.

Put a pipe "|" symbol between left and right channel names, and they'll show up that way in the Input pick list and in the Input widget after you select one.

In order to bring in the tempo changes along with the notes, you'll want to Open the .MID file with CbB from the File menu rather than importing to an existing project. When you import, the MIDI takes on the tempo(s) of the project. After opeing the file, save it as a "Normal" Cakewalk project.

Step Sequencer is probably a better way of producing a drum track without a keyboard, but if you really you want to "record" MIDI within CbB, you can set the Cakewalk's "Virtual Controller" as input to the track. Clicks on the virtual keyboard can be recorded in real time or by the Step Recorder (not to be confused with Step Sequencer), using either the virtual keyboard or its computer keyboard mode. Recording in real-time is challenging and with either method you need to get familiar with the mapping of drums to the keyboard. Ultimately you won't want to spend too much time messing around with this when basic used MIDI keyboard controllers are a dime a dozen.

Interesting. Definitely an oversight that the Bakers forgot that Home Studio installed to Cakewalk\SONAR (I presume it was all-caps then, but Windows doesn't differentiate). But if the more advanced versions of SONAR could open Home Studio files, I would have thought some sort of EQ "translation" would have been part of that process and would have carried over to Sonar. So I'm wondering if a template with empty Prochannel might still have been involved; like possibly you dragged a Home Studio project into a SONAR project started from a template at some point to update it...? This is normally a good way to update an old project, but not if the template has issues.

This is a bit of a tough call. I would mostly agree with John that if you re-save a template after verifying everything is laid out and working as intended you should be in good shape, but I have occasionally encountered issues in the past with old templates that seemed only to be resolved by building a new one from scratch so I tend to feel it's good to start over once in a while. For the most part I find this happens naturally at least every couple years due to changes in hardware setup, favorite VSTs and evolving compositional focus.

The number you see in the Output widget is the port number, not the channel assignment. Inputs don't show a port number. Sometimes things just are the way they are because no one stopped to think about it. But there's a severe space limitation that would make adding channel number not useful for those with multiport MIDI interfaces that have a need to know what port is assigned first and foremost.

As I mentioned in the PM, Noel made a change to accomodate the unsupported "hacked" condition of having an empty Prochannel when I reported it, and I've had no further issues with old projects that were set up that way, but I'm avoiding it going forward. I'm not sure what was special about that one track in your project that it was still having issues related to that, but the bottom line is that this condition was not something you could normally get into without hacking a preset file or continuing to use an ancient project template that was set up that way, so you can't really hold CW responsible for the resulting instability 10 years later.

Glad to help. When I need to keep track of a channel assignment (usually Output) I've historically just appended it to the track name. It's handy to see it in the widget, but I don't usually have that showing. 99% of the time, Input channel is 1.

If your "friendly" Input name is short enough (like 2-3 characters), there will be room to show the Channel. FWIW, I would call the input channel "restricted" or maybe "filtered". "Forced" applies to the output channel assignment.

Sound on Sound should have taken care of it unless you're also using Punch recording with Mute Previous Takes enabled...?

Yeah, I missed that you were doing it from Windows Explorer. That would have eliminated the need to jump through all the hoops to avoid unwanted plugin loading. I'd still be curious to look at the "un-fixed" project to see if my system has the same issue with AD2 and/or silent synths. All sounds a bit odd.

For me they are already 'sharper'; they just need to be slightly bigger and bolder as in CbB. I find the readability of almost all other text is an improvement over CbB at the same scale on the same monitor with the possible exception of Plugin and Media Browser text which got a little smaller, as did the numbering in the timeline and on volume/pan controls in the Console and Inspector. My vision is slipping with age, and restoring them to the size/boldness they had in CbB would be helpful to me. A larger timeline font would be especially appreciated. I find the contrast is pretty good everywhere except the Volume/Pan/Gain widget labels which are the same medium gray on dark gray as in CbB, but their differing units/appearance and consistent locations make that mostly a non-issue. This is all based on my preferred Mercury Classic theme.

When just one or a few users are experiencing sudden-onset instability and it it isn't affecting the majority of other users, it almost always means one or both of two things: 1. The root cause is at least partially external to Cakewalk - i.e. interoperability with particular environments. 2. Different users with similar symptoms are assuming Cakewalk is the common cause when the root causes are actually different, making the "issue" seem more widespread. In your case, it sounds like you're seeing similar - but not identical - issues on different machines. Together with the fact that Platinum is also unstable, this points to the root causes being both external to Cakewalk and different on the two machines (and maybe different for Platinum than for CbB and Sonar). Aside from the VC Redist issue, other common external causes are (in no particular order): - Other O/S or 3rd-party software updates, changes or new installations. - Interface hardware/firmware/driver updates or configuration changes. - Other hardware/firmware/driver updates or configuration changes. - RAM/Disk errors or other failing system hardware. - Cakewalk configuration changes (expecially related to driver mode, I/O enables and CPU - Project content changes (e.g. using new/updated plugins). If Cakewalk is launching okay and crashing only with a project open, the first step is to see if it's stable doing essential things like recording and playing back MIDI and Audioin new project started from the Basic template with only well-known stable instrument plugins. On re-reading your second post, I guess it's really down to a problem with just one project. If you want to PM me a link to a zipped copy, I'll give it a whirl here, otherwise you should submit it to the Bakers.

If I'm understanding correctly you're talking about the title bar of Prochannel modules in the Inspector following the track color in CbB, and not in Sonar, I hadn't actually noticed that til now. It would be nice to have that back.

Since a "Rewire Panel" was mentioned, I initially thought the quesiton was about Rewiring Cakewalk into Reason, but if it's about seeing Reason as an option in Insert > Rewire Device in Cakewalk, you just need to make sure Reason is enabled to be a client. Start Cakewalk first and then Reason. Once Reason is Rewired into a saved project, it should be launched automatically whenever you open that project. I;ve never used Reason, bit this is how it works with Presonus Notion.

Cakewalk can be a Rewire host but not a client.