Bill Phillips

Thanks. I'd still like to know the answer.

Is anyone besides me using the now ancient MOTU 828 mkII Firewire? If yes, are you experiencing the issues I describe in my attached May 13 post? If yes, I'll know I'm beating my head against a wall; but if not, maybe there's something that you're doing that I can do to continue using my 828 mkII. Basically the project I'm working on has grown and seems to require a sample buffer size bigger than 192 samples. When I increase the sample buffer size above 192 samples Cakewalk acts as if I've lowered the buffer size and stops working. (See my previous post for details including a gif) To me it seems like there's a bug in the driver that actually reduces the buffer size for buffer size settings above 192 samples. This is a recent problem. I've recently used sample buffer settings up to the maximum of 1024 samples. I suspect that the problem was caused by a Windows 10 update, but don't have any idea how to address. I plan to also contact MOTU, but don't expect any help from them. I recently checked for new drivers and found that I have the latest version which was released in 2015. To get the 828 mkII working I upgraded to a newer Windows 10 compatible Firewire card a few months ago. That solved earlier problems and the 828 mkII was working great until early May when the project I'm working on required me to increase my sample buffer setting above 192 samples. My May 13 post below explains what I'm still experiencing. @scook made one suggestion but the setting in my Configuration File already matched his suggestion.

So you select the L+R Stereo patch point input for the receiving mono track? I haven't investigated before and don't recall any surprises in my use of mono track patch point inputs, but I hope to soon just to clear it up for me. It seems to me the patch point input selection does make a difference to the receiving mono track. A stereo input is 3,072 kbps for 32 bit/48 ksps instead of 1536 kbps for mono. Not sure that panning is necessary for either the stereo or mono patch point input selection. I think that the stereo output from a center panned mono track is just two (L+R) identical copies of the mono signal.

Thanks for that clarification. I seem to keep losing track of the fact that all Cakewalk inputs/outputs are stereo meaning outputs from mono tracks, including sends are stereo. That's not a problem for me with audio interface I/O it matches hardware routing. But for mono tracks with outputs or sends routed to other mono tracks via patch points, I believe that I need to pan the mono tracks stereo Output or Send hard Left or Right and select the correct Left/Right patch point channel as the receiving mono tracks input. If both the mono tracks Output and Send are going to mono tracks, then only the Output needs to be panned if the Send is post fader. Have I got that right?

I think sends match the track. So a mono track send will be mono and a stereo track send will be stereo. Stereo tracks can't have mono sends, though if a stereo track send is panned hard left/right the send will still be stereo but only one channel (left or right) will contain any data. So you could use two stereo track sends with one panned hard left and the other hard right to send the left and right channels separately. Not sure that's what you're looking for. One confusion to me is how to use the left/right/stereo options for patch point inputs. AFAIK, all aux tracks and buses are stereo and so are patch points. However patch point sends can be directed to either the left or right channel. So far, I've never felt the need to sort this out. But I'm guessing if a send from a mono track is routed to the left/right side of a patch point, it will be sent to that channel of a aux track or bus. However if a stereo track send is routed to the left/right side of a patch point it will be summed to mono then sent to that channel of a aux track or bus.

I tried that and it worked. I created a new empty track and added a FX Chain at the top of it's PC and began dragging FX from the FX Chain at the top of Vox 1 into the FX Chain in the empty track. After dragging each FX to the empty track, I tried to switch Vox 1 to mono. Once all three bypassed FX were gone leaving the active MEqualizer, I was able to toggle between mono/stereo. I tried to isolate the offending FX with no luck. As I dragged each back to Vox 1 the track mono/solo toggle continued to work until I dragged the third (last) one back. At that point the track stayed in mono state until I toggled it to stereo. Once in stereo state it wouldn't toggle back to mono. I then tried moving the MEqualizer to the top position above FreeG (Mono) in the FX Chain and the mono/stereo toggle began working again. There seems to be some unintended inter FX reaction that I can't explain but that I'm pretty sure is a bug. I think I will report it on the Feedback Loop.

Yeah, I saw that. It says that if the first effect is mono, the track can't be placed in stereo mode; not vice versa. The first plugin is Melda Productions MEqulizer with mono processing enabled.

These sends are to SPAN inputs.

Thanks. Now I understand. I'm in the patch points & aux tracks in lieu of buses camp.

Right, they are all mono tracks. This is a mix project so the 4 audio tracks (Bass, AG, EG, Vox and BV were imported into mono tracks. The AG, Vox and BV tracks were duplicated. The problem I have is that Tracks 18 & 19 (Vox 1 & 2) have switched from mono to stereo (the clip is mono but the track processing is stereo). So I have mono clips being processed in stereo. I want to switch the mono/stereo toggle back to mono but it won't switch. See the GIF below. When I click the mono/stereo switch for either the Vox 1 or Vox 2 tracks, the mono symbol momentarily appears but the stereo symbol returns when I release the button. However on the BV track I can toggle the mono/stereo switch. My question is what do I need to do to switch the tracks back to mono? What I hope I don't need to do is delete and re-insert plugins because of the need to create presets to restore settings and redraw automation.

How do I convert my identical Vox 1 & 2 tracks back to mono? Clicking the interleave/mono button doesn't work. They were converted from mono to stereo but I don't know how/when. Is there a way to prevent Cakewalk from converting tracks from mono to stereo, assuming it does? The PDF manual seems to indicate that the user can change it at will but it's not working for me. Like all the other audio for this project those tracks were mono when I started the mix. All others (Bass, AG, EG, BV still are. All clips are 32 bit mono at 44.1 ksps (1411 kbps) I didn't intentionally convert them to stereo and I tried to verify that all plugins were either mono or capable of working in mono. I can't show all plugins on my 1600 pixel screen. The missing ones are the top of the CA-2A and an FX Chain containing Melda Productions MEqualizer. Looking at the plugins the SPACE knob looks like a good candidate for not working in mono. So I deleted it but still could not convert the track back to mono. I don't see any other plugins that shouldn't be mono compatible. Once I know what to do, hopefully I can move stereo plugins to the stereo VCL Sub track.

Can you give me an example? I think all the sub buses exist. For example Track 18 Vox 1 is routed to VCL Sub bus Track 20.

Thanks. I'm ok with the warning. I pretty absent minded.?

Sorry. I corrected my response. I see your point. I agree having a way to use Quick Groups and double-click to zero multiple fader or rotary controls would be helpful. CTRL+ Double-click currently zeros the control clicked and moves the rest of the group a relative amount. Redefining CTRL + Double-click to do to a Quick Group what double-click does to a single control makes sense to me. Watch those GIFs again. The control with the highest value is first CTRL + dragged to zero or minus infinity and released moving all quick grouped controls to the lowest value. Then CTRL+ Double-click on any of the now identically set controls moves all controls to zero. So it's a two step process but it works for Gain and Fader, but I tried it for Pan and it doesn't seem to work. See GIF below. When I select the Pan knob in the group furthest right and drag it left the other Pan knobs stop moving as soon as the one not being dragged furthest left reaches 100% left. That response seems different than that for the Gain and Fader controls. Is that a bug, intended operation, or am I doing something wrong?

That's it! Didn't know sends to None would trigger that warning. Now I do. I assigned them to None instead of deleting them because l intend to restore them.

So you want to double-click rather than click and drag?

I need some help understanding what I'm seeing. I'm not sure what the problem is here. The project shown in the first screenshot is working fine. But the silent buses detected dialog in the second screenshot pops up each time I open the project. Only the Bass and Submix tracks which are all routed to the Pre-Master bus are listed. The FX tracks are also routed to the Pre-Master bus but they aren't on the silent buses list. Everything seems to be routed properly as shown and working fine. This dialog started displaying yesterday after I re-installed 2021.06, testing the new web installer per @Noel Borthwick's request. I installed 2021.06 several days ago and had been running the early release before that. The current build number is 50. Don't know what it was before. All this time I've been working only on this same project that I expect to die before I finish. So no rush here.

I clicked the link and my experience was similar to those described above. In my case: Cakewalk_by_BandLab_Download_Setup_1.0.0.013.exe was downloaded to my Cakewalk install folder When I launched the install file I was asked to chose add-ons I have all installed and selected all but Melodyne because I have Melodyne Studio installed and didn't want to disturb that. Next I was presented with a dialog announcing the latest version I clicked OK in the dialog, the installer terminated and my Cakewalk install folder opened. If that was the expected behavior it worked fine. Since nothing was installed, the installer must have determined that the add-ons were also installed and up to date.

Looks like @Mark Morgon-Shaw showed you how to do what you requested. What's missing?

I haven't used Live but based on your description the conventional DAW (i.e. Cakewalk/Protools) equivalent of a Live folder is a bus. So there's no need to add anything to Cakewalk. Live folders and Cakewalk busses are metaphorically the same thing. Though IMHO, the bus routing mirrors the routing used in physical consoles and mixers, and therefore makes more sense.

I'm asking if others have noticed FX Chain LED's are not working? For me this seems to be a new thing but I don't believe it started in 2021.06 Early Release which I'm using. @Keni posted in the Feedback Loop about seeing the same thing in 2021.04. I have FX Chains in many ProChannel strips in the project I'm working on and checked a number of them. None are lighting at all. If others are seeing this and it is a bug, at least it's only a bit of a distraction and doesn't really impact Cakewalk performance. [Deleted. Already posted in Feedback Loop by @Keni]

Thanks. I'm going to post this under Q&A to see if other people are seeing the same thing. It's definitely not a show stopper.

Are you running the 2021.06 early release?

Looks like you are correct. I haven't tested thoroughly but I did verify that I'm using the VST2 version. So I dropped a VST3 version in to the same FX rack as the VST2 one is in, checked sends on another track, and no sends were available for the VST3 version. I deleted the VST3 version and inserted a second copy of the VST2 version, and found the 3 additional sends for the second copy were available (numbered weirdly but available). Since I prefer to use VST3 plugins, I may have tried the VST3 version first and the switched to the VST2 version when I couldn't find sends on the VST3 version but I don't remember. I'm accustomed to trying VST2 versions when VST3 versions don't work because of previous problems with some iZotope plugins. AFAIR Cakewalk support dug into the iZotope issue and identified it as an iZotope problem, which I think was later fixed, though iZotope initially called it a Cakewalk problem. I haven't been using the iZotope products for a while now. So I'm not current on that.

@msmcleod thank you very much.