azslow3

In Cakewalk preferences, Audio section, select Devices and enable channels you want. If you can't find them there or they are grayed, check Driver Model in the Playback and Recording.

So, you just had bad unit from the beginning... That can explain why you had several strange problems before.

Till your RME is back, I don't think you can find a device with the same driver versatility and stability. Unfortunately reports about overheating of "middle range" RME units is not rare (as well as problems with power supply in top units). But there is almost no bad reports about Babyface and PCIe boards. I know you probably no longer trust the company, but on Windows all other drivers are worse. From my experience the device+driver in many (most?) situations is not the origin of the problem. Different devices and drivers have different "fault tolerance" and for audio (especially at low latency settings) the limit is rather low. If there is something "wrong" with surrounding equipment, the device is "stuck" and/or the driver crash/freeze/etc. It is important to check there is nothing wrong with the computer/OS, it is audio optimized in general and it is currently in audio (performance) mode. And that is apart from conspiracy theories arising after strange coincidences. For example at some moment I have noticed one of my interfaces goes crazy too often... then I have noticed I have periodic tiny "glitches" in mic recordings... then I have checked and fortunately have found the XLR cable to the mic is bad... after replacing the cable the interface was no longer glitching ?

Control surface API still works and even supported... But it never had a possibility to work with content. You probably know which DAW supports such staff ?

SSDs have limit for the number of writes (per cell). The number depends from used cell type. The number of reads is unlimited. In practice that was a huge problem with early "flash" cards/USB drives. They was not "smart", so particular cells used by the file system was always overwritten and so the life of such drives was extremely short. Modern SSDs always (over)write new cells. And they always have "extra" space used for the purpose (also can be configured, obviously available capacity is reduced then). In specification the number of overwrites is not mentioned directly. But a "tip" is normally there, just presented a bit cryptic way. F.e. Samsung 970 Pro 1TB mention "1200 TBW" (500GB has "600 TBW"). Which indicate the number of rewrites is at least 1000. Since they are "smart", you really need to write 1PB to such disk to approach the limit. Sure, the life time of the disk will be less then 2 years if it is completely overwritten every day. But recording music produce ~20TB for 2 channels 24bit/96kHz if continuously recording one year long... So, it will take 50 years to hit the limit The information about my current disk in desktop at home: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB, installed around 10.2019, the time PC/disk was on: 183 days, written so far: 7.4TB, specified write limit: 600TB. It is obvious I will replace the disk and PC long before I hit that limit.

We are in year 2022... HDDs are used mostly for backups or really huge RAID storage, size per disk toward 16TB. SATA SSDs make sense if (a) you have them (b) the computer is so old it has no PCIe M2 slots (c) you need more then 1-2 disks. Modern USB (3+) can easily handle any HDD and in most cases SATA SSD without significant performance degradation. "Network" solutions (NAS) are (usually) way slower. For internal storage it make sense move toward M2 disks. Most systems support at least 2. But it is better check specification... some M2 PCIe can have effective speed of HDDs (it seems like producers of cheap notebooks love them).

There is Reapers Without Peepers mailing list: https://groups.io/g/rwp All updates in related scripts, tools, current status of plug-ins accessibility and most other accessibility for music related news are announced there. REAPER works good with JAWS and NVDA, on Windows or Mac. As Scook has mentioned, with some luck you will be able to transfer Cakewalk projects as is using ReaCWP. For other DAWs there is https://www.aatranslator.com.au/ But AATranslator handles audio only, no MIDI and no FXes. Also it is pricey tool and from what I remember it is not accessible.

I am still periodically look into direction "free" from "Roland"... Well. I have tried Tera piano. Just to find out that: (a) "concerto" is unable to work with 64 samples buffer (all cores start do "something", even so nothing is played; and no, my computer is not so slow), check under 2 DAWs, with 2 different interfaces, with 128 samples everything ok and consumes no CPU (b) there is almost no dynamics (tried all presets), I mean fff is still mf-f. So, to render some piano MIDI for free it is good (for me better then other free piano solutions I have tried). But there are good reasons why it is "discontinued"...

May be because in this video preset is "Reverb" and your preset is "Flat" ? ?

I forgot to update the documentation, done now ? Note you will need to re-apply Shift latch tuning. It should work for sends volume/pan switching as well.

You need Control Surface Plug-in configured in Cakewalk Preferences. Check Cakewalk documentation how to do this. Just for transport use Cakewalk Generic Surface. Cakewalk ACT MIDI has preset for Axiom, but it assumes particular preset is activated on the keyboard so may not work "out of the box".

I may be wrong, but from what I remember there is no plug-in file names (nor other info about it) in Cakewalk projects. But plug-in type is known. Try to open in REAPER+ReaCWP. I can't remember what and how I mark, but REAPER tend to display plug-in types as a part of the name. So with some luck you can get a tip ? I remember there was something called ProjectScope for Sonar. I have not used it, may be it can also display something.

I have uploaded v0.4, read "Shift latch for knobs" tuning to activate Shift+Play switch as shift latch (for knobs only). If that combination is also inconvenient, let me know.

Yes. Since DAW is not informed when Shift is pressed, that was not foreseen. I suggest to ask NI for double pressing shift or some other way to latch. I can branch my preset to control pan, even so the device will still show "Vol" on display. But selecting KK instance nor MIDI mode can't be workarounded.

In pre-installed XMLs there was "some" mappings. It can be some of them was partially usable. With this preset M32 controls so called "ACT faders" only, delivered mappings are primary for 8+8+8 Faders/Knobs/Buttons. That is why I write partially. By default when there is no mapping (after deleting all XMLs) everything is mapped to "ACT knobs". So you can't control anything from M32. There are 3 ways to map: one is "ACT Learning". You press ACT Learn button "A L" (if you are learning FX it is right there, if you are learning PC Module use one on ACT top bar module). Modify some plug-in parameters in sequence (using mouse), then turn M32 knobs (in ACT mode) in the same sequence. Press "A L" button again. You should get confirmation dialog "... map X controls to Y parameters...". Check X is equal to Y. If not, parameters you wanted are not "learnable" (see method (3)) is a variation of (1). Open AZ Controller UI, switch to ACT Tab. Focus plug-in in question, you should see current mapping. You can use the procedure of (1) but "pressing" buttons in the "Faders" column instead of touching M32 knobs (remember you have 4 banks, so 32 faders in total). This way you see current mapping, so "strategical planning" is simpler. it can be you can't ACT learn (also happens with Cakewalk plug-ins), or your current mapping is a mess and you want start from scratch, you want re-arrange mapping, etc. Close Cakewalk (important !). Start ACTFix. Switch to "AZ Controller" mapping (combo-box on top). Select plug-in in question. Here you can reset/rearrange/etc the mapping. After learning some plug-ins using 1-2, I strongly recommend close Cakewalk, open ACTFix and just "Save" to make a backup. If ACTFix report "corruption", restore from backup. When corrupted, Cakewalk can't use these files but it does not report that. Your old mappings will be broken, your new mappings will not be saved, etc. Note 1: if you don't see parameter you want in ACTFix, the parameter is most probably "not controllable". At least not in Cakewalk. Note 2: instruments you can map in KK and then use KK mode to control. Advantages: you can have different mappings for each preset, the mapping is nicely displayed in KK. Also there are NKS presets/mappings for many instruments in the Internet. Note 3: for instruments/guitar effects you may prefer to use MIDI control. So with MIDI track and in MIDI mode. Some synths allow "MIDI learn" what is not possible "ACT Learn" (and not KK map). PS. all that sounds like lengthy and complicated, but in practice using any of these methods is simple and quick (once you have mapped the first plug-in and understood the procedure).

S Mk2 supports MCU (default mode of DAW ports, at least according to NI documentation). I think that is in general better then "ACT MIDI", keyboard should display tracks and transport buttons should have feedback.

I have recently bought NI M32. Now, after several weeks, I have written a small review about it. If you want uncover the potential of that controller and you don't mind to use 3d party tool (AZ Controller), there is a possibility to: simplify KK instance selection work with ACT plug-in mapping ("natively", so with indicated current bank and parameter names/values on display, coarse/fine changes) choose FX/Synth from the keyboard control loop/auto-punch (including time selection) from the keyboard And a bit more. Details on my site. PS. I am almost sure the preset will work for A25/49/61 the same way. I don't have S keyboard, so related extras are not implemented.

Well, if you can fix existing for decades bug with "focus related synth", auto instance tracking can be implemented with current features. The bug: if Context API is used to Focus related Synth, the synth is focuses but ACT mapping is empty. Note that Open (with the same API) and focus with mouse don't have that bug-

This thread mention the way to select them externally. So that is possible ?

I propose AZ Controller preset with one Software Set (let say "Markers") into which you add names of all markers in question (f.e. "Song 1", "Song 2", etc.). At the moment there is no "<current state text>" option for Marker Action, so you will need to specify explicitly each jump. If you send CC with value corresponding to required Marker (up to 128), the logic list for the only control you need will be: 'Value:0' - Search marker 'Song 1' 'Value:1' - Search marker 'Song 2' etc. Where 'Value:x' you specify in the 'Action conditions' section. Typing 60 marker names and using copy/paste with selecting different value and marker can take a while... but I guess manageable in 15-20 minutes. Or in 2-3 days I can add "<current state text>" option, then the action list can be: - 'Markers' from MIDI value Search marker from 'Markers' I mean just 2 actions for up to 128 markers. Obviously you still have to specify all names manually... For MIDI you will need some MIDI loopback device. For OSC you will have to send a command with float value <marker number>/127.0 May be we should continue the discussion on my forum, so we can exchange AZ Controller presets. On in PM. Your choice.

Ideas are good, but... let be practical. What is the number of "jumps" you are going to have for one project and how you are going to know to which marker you are going to jump? +-20 in Marker Action was designed with TouchOSC in mind. To show some set of markers around current one and allow jump to one of it. Note that iterative "scrolling" happens relatively fast (till the project has markers at every measure). Note that Marker Action is already "tricky" (see documentation). You can move to named markers or shift by more then 20, using Software Sets. I can extend the functionality, but only after I understand the intention and agree the change is practical ? PS. AZ Controller is for controllers... so it is not currently supporting "text input". PSPS. If you like scripting, may be "another DAW" is more appropriate for you... There is a DAW which support all kind of scripts/extensions in several languages, with complete access to all information in the DAW and projects and with a possibility to save script/exception specific data into the project. And converting your Cakewalk projects into that DAW can be simple (project dependent) using another tool from my site...

I also think drum-maps can be excluded from matching, so MIDI directly connected to soft synth, Instrument tracks with the synth and probably audio tracks with input from the synth should return the synth id in the rack, everything else can return -1. That will match behavior of NI keyboards in other DAWs. While theoretically there can be audio and MIDI sends, only tracks which physically host KK are considered (as far as I know, may be in some DAWs that is different...). DM is in any case just a workaround for not existing MIDI routing and strange MFX format in Cakewalk...

@msmcleod PMs are not enabled, so in open Hello Mark, I have ordered NI m32... for other reason then Cakewalk, but remembering all discussions I have decided to check if "normal" (not Mackie based) integration is possible. I will need to know (from API) if current track is related to some synth. I know there is command to open related synth, but I don't know how to get the synth in question from API. That remind me about old standing issue. For that purpose I was using hack method and it was working in Sonar X2, but that is no longer working in current Cakewalk (from what I remember since long time). The following is comparison for 3 calls in X2 vs Cakewalk: GetMixParam(.... MIX_PARAM_INPUT ...) X2 for MIDI track: -1 (somehow not tracking changes in input) Cakewalk for MIDI track: MIDI inputs (correct) X2 for Instrument track: index of MIDI track output (so usable to identify the synth) Cakewalk for Instrument track: ??? seems like index of MIDI track output dependent, but see later ??? GetMixParam(... MIX_PARAM_INPUT_MAX ...) X2 for MIDI track: MIDI inputs count (correct) Cakewalk for MIDI track: MIDI inputs count (correct) X2 for Instrument track: MIDI outputs count, so usable with value Cakewalk for Instrument track: ??? some number which i was unable to correlate ??? GetMixParamValueText( ... MIX_PARAM_INPUT ...), using the value from GetMixParam X2 for MIDI track: "--- none ---" X2 for Instrument track: the name of MIDI input with the same number (as mentioned, the number is from MIDI outputs set) Cakewalk for MIDI track: correct MIDI input name Cakewalk for Instrument track: as with X2, the name of MIDI input for provided number I think fixing everything means: Report MIDI input as the input for MIDI and Instrument tracks (with correct MAX). Add a method to detect that track is Instrument (may be already exist?) For any track add "Get Related synth" method (for Instrument tracks may be also "Set Related synth" method) (may be also exists?) But for the moment I will be satisfied just with (3) Regards, Alexey.

I think for that particular implementation to work, Cakewalk has to be in focus. Let me propose other possibility. Currently AZ Controller has no way to navigate internally by time (can be added... if really required...), but I think for your case it is better navigate by markers. So you create a set of markers and ask AZ Controller navigate to them. Advantages: if you modify the project timing, markers will be shifted properly and you don't need to correct the list you can expose the list (throw OSC), so it will be project specific in the app Current limit in AZ Controller is 20 (can be easily extended if required). But if you don't need jumps you can show "current" and 1-2 previous/next, then the list will not be long and there is no limits. I can make an example preset.

We had many related discussion with my colleague and friend. He instantly passed away several years ago... It happened at that time a pair of his Kimber Hero XLR was by me, and so I still have them. Not sure about advantages in sound, but they are good and I guess will work for long. Every time I use them I remember my friend, with smile. Could simple XLR have the same effect? I don't think so. I mean from some perspective these particular cables are probably worth the money...