David Baay

You're aware there are options in the Track View options menu for Click Behavior > Left/Right Click Sets Now...?

Are you sure about that? I have not seen that. So long as you don't save the project with the wrong assignments, it should come back up with the proper assignments once all your interfaces are up. It shouldn't even be necessary to restart Cakewalk. In any case, no, there's really no way to prevent that happening with tracks referencing missing hardware ports. I'm not sure how other DAWs manage this issue, but it seems there's room for improvement of Cakewalk in this area. At the very least, it could warn of missing drivers at launch before you even open a project.

Likely a specific plugin not playing nice with 64-bit double precision then the net 'weight ' of the project.

In the Track View menu: Options > Meter Options > Bus (and/or Playback) Meter Options > RMS (or Peak + RMS). The general rule for pre-master levels has traditionally been to just to keep the highest peak under -6dB, and let the Mastering Engineer worry about RMS and LUFS (loudness). Depending on the nature of the material, -6dB peak is typically going to give you an RMS around -12 to -14dB. But if you haven't applied sufficient compression on individual tracks (especially drums) to keep the peaks under control, the RMS may be lower. In extreme cases, that may make it more difficult for the mastering engineer/application to get a good result from compressing the stereo mix, but in general you don't need to be super-concerned about the RMS/LUFS of the pre-master. Better to leave a good amount of room to work than to already be over-compressed.

That's pretty typical. It's listing pairs of inputs under each input number. The 'Left' options will be channels 1 and 3, and 'Right's will be channels 2 and 4. Not sure about the 'Loop' options I guess it has some sort of internal looback path...?

A separate samples drive is useful, but not strictly necessary if you have space available on your main drive. An external SATA SSD will be less beneficial than an internal m.2 NVME type in terms of performance. If your PC is a desktop, you should look into the capability of your MOBO to support an internal drive, either onboard or via a PCIe adapter. The Alesis will work fine with KONTAKT.

FWIW, I found a link to a Casio instrument Definition file at the bottom of this page that was posted relatively recently: https://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/topic/16142-casio-instrument-definition-files/ To import it, go to Preferences > MIDI > Instruments, click the Define button, and then the Import button, and navigate to the .INS file. Assign it to channels of the output port that the Casio is on (maybe its own USB port), and then you will see Casio banks and patches in the relevant drop-down controls of any track that's ha souput assigned to that port.

Snap should take care of that unless the note start time and length is random. I haven't ever needed a function like that, so not sure what goal is, except maybe to create a glitch effect...? Drawing a series of notes with the pattern tool in the first place might be a better approach. Or using Step Sequencer...?

Got the Boz T-Bone for $19 based on your March 10 tip. It's shinier! ;^)

I'm not familiar with the Casio, but make sure it's in some kind of 'Multitimbral' performance mode, and you are playing it by echoing MIDI from the keyboard through Cakewalk and back to the Casio's sound module with Local Control turned OFF in the Casio so that Cakewalk can re-channel the messages appropriately for whichever track has focus when you're rehearsing/recording. Then, ideally, you should find and import an 'Instrument Definition' for it, which will allow you to select patches for each MIDI track using Bank and Patch controls in the track, rather than having to set them in the Casio, and reset them every time you use it with a different project that uses a different combination of sounds.

Sounds like you need to disable Snap to Zero Crossings in snap preferences.

Cakewalk has no tool for doing multiple splits at once like that. But it's pretty quick and easy to split a note (or multiple selected notes of a chord) multiple times using Alt+Click with snap enabled at an appropriate resolution.

Bounce to Track(s) with Channel Format set to 'Split Mono'. You'll get a new mono track for each channel, and can throw away the original stereo track and the flatline.

Change the Edit Filter in the track back to 'Clips'. Audiosnap edits will still be active - just hidden- and you'll have access to clip-related commands including Bounce to Clip(s).

I also tend to leave MIDI 'live' until mix time at least, and often all the way to final rendering of the Master bus. This doesn't preclude mixing with audio, which I mostly do. In the case of a multitimbral synth or sampler like Kontakt, it just means setting up to use multiple audio outputs so you can have control of the individual audio streams. I was recently reminded that one reason I like to leave the MIDI live is that I can start playback anywhere, and it picks up cleanly with no sound carrying over from the previous measure/beat. I don't use a lot of continuously droning pads, so this works fine for me most of the time, and just sounds more natural - like asking the band/orchestra to pick it up somewhere in the middle of a piece. Plus there's just something cool and inspiring about knowing that the audio is being generated in the moment through the 'miracle' of MIDI. ;^) One caveat: It's a good idea to freeze/bounce/record everything at some point in case you eventually lose access to a synth/patch for one reason or another, and can't get 'that sound' back. Don't ask me how I know this.

The content of a track and what it has assigned for inputs and outputs are two different things. Individual MIDI and Audio tracks can exist without I/O assignments. An Instrument track is defined by it's MIDI output and audio input assignment. Instrument tracks were a late addition Cakewalk, and that dictated how they were implemented. That's fine; this just isn't the right forum for that. There's a dedicated Feedback forum for making suggestions, and letting other users weigh in on them: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/8-feedback-loop/ This forum is primarily about answering questions, solving problems, and helping users get things done based on existing functionality.

Bounce to Clip(s) renders ARP output to a new clip, but there can be discrepancies between the realtime output and the rendered output in some cases. To record the real-time output, you would bneed to use a virtual MIDI cable or physical loopback.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=NewFeatures.49.html

5 ticks at 125bpm is 2.5 milliseconds. it's a rare bird who can hear, much less perform, with that level of precision.

Does the controller present separate 'control' and 'performance' ports in MIDI Devices? Sounds like your control surface setup as taken over both. I've never used a controller that was both a contorl surface and a performance controller so not sure how that's normally handled in ACT.

That doesn't seem possible. Unless you did a non-Fast, real-time bounce (?), audio preferences should have no bearing on the rendering of audio ITB.

I think you must have inadvertently grouped that fader with others. If it has a colored vertical bar along the left side (the group's color code), right-click and choose Remove from Group (or Clear Group if the whole grouping was inadvertent).

"Missing" from where? Do you have all the drivers for individual audio ports checked in Preferences > Audio > Devices?

4th approach (or maybe just expanding on the 1st approach described above): - Set up just one audio track to record and echo the stereo output of the synth connected to one pair of inuts to your interface (preferably always available) - Shift+Solo (override) that audio track so that it won't be muted by soloing MIDI tracks that drive it or other audio tracks in the project. - Create a MIDI track for each channel of the synth that you want to use with output channel assigned accordingly. - Do a rough mix of the parts using MIDI track volume, panning and controllers as needed. - When satisfied with that rough mix and the arrangement, solo each MIDI track in turn, and Bounce to Tracks with Fast Bounce disabled, and Audible Bounce and Live Input enabled in the bounce dialog, specifying a new target track for each part. - Archive bounced MIDI tracks as you go, and when you're done, disable input echo on the audio track so you're not adding to the noise floor of your mix with his from the idling synth. - When using a hardware synth for drums, you can put all the MIDI parts for each kit piece in lanes of a single track, and solo lanes when bouncing those parts to get multitrack audio. One thing to keep in mind: For any parts that are really low in the mix, you might want to make note of the audio live level of the soloed part, temporarily raise the MIDI volume up to get a better signal to noise ratio out of the synth while bouncing, and then take the level of the audio track back down after bouncing using its Input Gain or Volume controls. This will help to minimize the effect of summing of noise floors from all the separate bounces. This would also be a reason to consider doing all the drum mixing with MIDI, and recording a single drum audio track.

Rendering Audiosnap stretching (either in place or bouncing to another track) will often move transients a bit, depending on the nature of the audio, and which stretching algorithm you're using. This is a function of the algorithm, and should be the same in any DAA that uses the same algorithm. I've had at least one case where Elastique really messed with the timing of a single transient; changes of a few ticks should not be a problem in most cases.