Byron Dickens

I'm jealous....

" General MIDI" is not a specific sound, but a standard protocol intended for interchangeability; so that a song done on my gear will sound reasonably similar on yours. https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/gm-level-1-sound-set 1 is always "piano," 53 is always " choir, " etc. I am unaware of any reason why GM sound set can not be compromised of high quality samples on the level of Spitfire Audio or something. The GM sounds in my old Korg X3 are actually pretty decent, as are the ones in TTS1. Neither is going to fool anyone into thinking they're hearing a real orchestra, but they don't sound like pure unmitigated crap either. As far as the MS wavetable, I can really think of no worse sounding GM sound set than that. But, hey, if that's your asthetic, go for it and don't let me dissuade you.

The most simple setup is to use the headphone out on your interface.

Why in God's name would you want to listen through the crappy onboard chip when you have a Focusrite?

Yes. Any time the computer is not receiving active input from you (ie typing or clicking with the mouse), it thinks it is sitting idle.

Well, there's a big part of your problem right there. You need to go into your power management settings and change them so that nothing turns off or goes to sleep ever. Everything should be "always on." Also, plugging your interface into a USB hub is going to cause you pproblems Another thing is to exclude everything related to your music production from being scanned by your antivirus.

They can't, because it isn't a Cakewalk issue. It's a Windows issue.

Of course there's no waveform. Read abacab's earlier post.

Octavers are very unconvincing. It's a cryin' shame that the aquisition of an actual bass guitar is seemingly out of the question for the OP.. A number of years ago, I picked up a Squier P Bass for dirt cheap at a pawn shop. I didn't know what I had and neither did they. When I got a hankering for a 5- string, I was going to trade the Squier towards it but I found out that it was one of the Korean made ones and that they are actually quite good.

"Works" is often pretty loosely defined. Focusrite and Personas both make good stuff that isn't very expensive.

I wonder if vintage DAWs will become a thing. Like vintage instruments & hardware.....

I got the slot volume thing. Problem is I have to turn the track volume faders down to almost nothing, which doesn't give me a whole lot of room for fine adjustments. I'm used to plugins like Sampletank which have a master volume. I posted this on the CWITEC forum too. Apparently, this is normal behavior. I'll have to find some workaround. In the meantime, it looks like I have finally found a use for the HaLion 3 I wasted money on so many years ago.

Start by ditching that garbage USB guitar cable and get a real interface.

You sure do. Gibson pulled the plug on SONAR over three years ago....

I don't miss the Portastudio one single bit. The Fidelity is terrible. There's only four tracks. Actually only three because one of them you have to give up to record timecode onto in order to sync up your MIDI gear. And that has to be recorded at the right level because if it's too loud it cross talks onto the next track. If it's too quiet then your midi gear keeps losing it's synchronization. Of course there's also cleaning a demagnetizing all the time and the expense of buying media which racks up real quick. Speaking of expense, the initial cost of the thing was as much as Cakewalk was back when it was SONAR and they were still selling it. Plus it didn't have any effects, or any instruments. If you wanted effects you had to buy outboard rack gear which was expensive.You also had to buy a stereo cassette deck to mix down onto which is more money. No, I don't miss the Portastudio one bit. It's well worth it to invest a little time and effort into learning how to use the software. (Which you had to do with the Portastudio anyways.)

More Reductio ad absurdum

Now we're getting to the point where I need pictures? I would be ever so thrilled if I could get this thing working

Ditch the sound blaster and get a real audio interface.

Reductio ad absurdum

For bass guitar plugins, I just plug in a bass guitar....

I guess you missed the point, which is: how can you be sure that any software is going to be around forever?

Sheesh, I don't know. How can we be sure Word Perfect will continue development so we can continue to work on our projects in the future? Oh, yeah....

What is "Vst Levelling tool?"

I don't know where you heard that nonsense. You can also turn off the analytics.

Well, I left it plugged in for a few hours and nothing seems to have gotten warm at all. I happen to have another 9VAC adapter and I get the same results with it.