scook

I am not sure if the bundled plug-in is a dual VST/PC dll but the plug-in is available for free from Softube

While the plug-in is free, it requires an iLok account and license manager for activation.

When using hardware pads to send MIDI data to a DAW, there are basically two ways to map the pads to MIDI notes

• in the hardware - most devices have an editor that come with the hardware
• in the DAW - there are a couple of ways to map incoming MIDI notes to different values, the Transpose MFX and Drum maps

The SI-Drum documentation contains all the information about the notes used by the plug-in. To access the documentation, open the plug-in and press the F1 key.

Here is a post about creating a drum map for the MPK mini

Everything under Audio in Cakewalk preferences.

If you capture images of the pages when driver mode is set to MME and ASIO4All (the two modes you had working) the changes should stand out.

The critical bits are

• Devices, the input and output selections
• Driver Settings, the timing masters
• Playback and Recording, the driver mode
• Sync and Caching, the Record Latency Adjustment device

Maybe the Cakewalk Tutorial videos linked in John's .sig above will help.

ASIO4All was originally designed for use with Windows software that only worked with ASIO.

ASIO4All is not a driver, it is a wrapper that presents WDM drivers as ASIO to ASIO hosts.

In addition to ASIO, Cakewalk also works with MME, WDM and WASAPI drivers directly, no wrappers required.

Usually audio interfaces with a manufacturer supplied ASIO driver perform better using their ASIO driver.

The RealTek audio chip is an exception. It's ASIO driver is not very good. When running Win10 the WASAPI driver is the best choice.

When switching driver modes, review the rest of the audio preferences and make sure they reflect the change.

Some find it easier to validate their audio setup using an audio clip in a project before moving on to MIDI and soft synths.

8 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

I just did a quickie MIDI test of the TS-64 and on my PC there is a very noticeable delay from the time a note is played on a usb keyboard and the sound emerges from the TS-64. Playing back tracks it doesn't seem to have such a delay if there is any at all. To test I duplicated a short bassline to a track with the TS-64 removed and played both simultaneously.  

Bet there is information in the TS-64 documentation about this.

Click the F1 key when the plug-in UI is open and has focus to read the TS-64 help file.

If audio is disabled on the Export menu, it means there is no audio selected to export.

MIDI data routed to external hardware,  including the MS GS Wavetable synth, must be recorded into the DAW as audio before it can be exported as audio from the DAW.

One more option available today for volume control is the free Blue Cat Gain Suite part of the Blue Cat's Freeware Plug-ins Pack II

These plug-ins have 9 built in groups.

Drop one of the plug-in in the FX rack or PC, set the Group A through I and all the BC gain plug-ins in the same group are linked together.

Automate one, and all the others in the group follow the automation.

It's certainly easier to use the fader for group edits but it is possible to lasso nodes across tracks and edit them all at once too.

Here is another way using remote control, MIDI tracks and a virtual MIDI cable to control automation. This video shows:

• Track 1 through 3 with volume faders setup using remote control listening to MIDI channel 1 CC7 from MIDI track 7
• Track 4 through 6 have volume faders setup using remote control listening to MIDI channel 2 CC7 from MIDI track 8
• The MIDI tracks are sending their output to LoopBe1.
• After recording CC7 automation on both MIDI tracks, the CC data is edited affecting the volume on both groups of audio tracks.

3 hours ago, Light Grenade said:

However, if I automate this fader, only that fader follows automation, the grouped faders don't. I then have to automate every channel individually, making the groups somewhat pointless. 

For now create a group for the Automation buttons to match the fader group.

If you really want to use the MS GS Wavetable synth don't use instrument tracks. Instrument tracks are designed for soft synths like TTS-1. 

Use MIDI tracks and set the channel and patch name using drop downs in the track header or inspector to initialize the track.

All MIDI  channels except 10 default to the first patch - a piano.

I based the comments about synth audio recording on the image.

This image shows the audio+MIDI track pair setup to record audio only. The record button is not enabled on the MIDI track.

I am not a fan of Always Echo Current MIDI Track being enabled (as shown by the "A" in the input echo button) because of the effect input echo has on track input settings. The auto-echo setting along with hiding the track input drop down seems like an opportunity for problems.

If you were trying to record audio directly from the synth, it cannot be done with an instrument track. An instrument track can only record MIDI data.

Soft synth audio recording requires, as you have discovered, separate audio and MIDI tracks.

Not sure exactly what the question is but I suspect the Track 2 input setting (not shown in the image) may provide a clue.

If the sound being produced is not expected chances are the input is set to Omni or one of the other synths in the project with "Enable MIDI Output" turned on.

To find which audio files are used in a track,

• select the track 
• right-click in the clips pane of the selected track
• select "Associated Audio Files" from the bottom of the context menu

For all the audio files referenced in a project use Project > Audio Files from the main menu

The interface and the project must be set to the same sample rate.

Project sample rate is determined by the audio in the project.

All the audio in a project must be the same sample rate.

When a project has no audio clips, the sample rate is read from preferences

If the interface is set to a different sample rate than the project, the DAW will record the audio at the interface sample rate but it will write the project sample rate in the file headers. Playback in the DAW uses the sample rate in the file header resulting in the audio having a different speed and pitch.

This may be fixed by correcting the sample rate in the file headers. 

Because the clips are not at the project sample rate and there are other clips in the project, it may be necessary to import the fixed clips into the project. Changing clip sample rates inside a project can cause the clips to be misaligned on the timeline. That said, I have not experimented with this particular scenario.

If I encountered this situation, to repair the clips I would -

• Copy the clips from the project audio folder.
• Correct the sample rate in the file headers. There are a few tools that can perform this task. Sox is one of them. I describe how to use sox in this post
• Import the new clips into a new track
• Delete the original clips from the project

CbB is running in ASIO driver mode.

This is the preferred setting when using an audio interface with a manufacturer supplied ASIO driver.

ASIO supports one I/O driver at a time.

If there were other ASIO drivers installed they would show up on the preference screen above.

Unfortunately, the RealTek ASIO driver is not very good. And even if it was a good driver, it is not possible to select the Focurite ASIO driver for input and a different driver for output.

As a rule, ASIO drivers do not support mixing hardware from different manufacturers. Only a few manufacturers supply ASIO drivers that support using multiple interfaces at a time.

You can try changing the driver mode to WASAPI shared or WDM. The internal sound chip should be one of the devices available and these driver modes allow multiple different devices, however; there are performance trade-offs using these modes instead of the ASIO driver designed for the interface.

From a performance and reliability standpoint, this

Quote

My setup: Guitar -> Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen (Input) -> Cakewalk v2021.04 (build 175, 64b) -> Scarlett Solo (output)

using the Focusrite ASIO driver is your best solution.

3 hours ago, TracingArcs said:

1) Go into plugin manager and exclude one by one the vst's you are using (so exclude one , run plugin manager, then open Cakewalk and see if it loads ok, repeatfor each vst)

Excluding plug-ins prevents them from showing up in plug-in lists but does not prevent projects that reference the excluded plug-ins from trying to load them.

3 hours ago, TracingArcs said:

2) If you can - move each vst outof its folder to the desktop, open Cakewlak.Again see if it opens and runs. (Don't forget to move them back )

This or renaming the plug-in binaries will prevent the DAW from loading the plug-ins. As far as the DAW is concerned the plug-ins will not exist. Projects that reference the plug-ins, when opened, will display a plug-in missing dialog.

If you are trying to monitor the input from the DAW, make sure the input echo button is enabled on the track. It is the button to the right of record.

At this point, you may benefit from some basic videos on how to use the software.

Take a look at the Tutorials section on this forum and search Youtube.

2 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

it used "WASAPI Shared", and I see similarly that the buffer slider is set to FAST and not being able to change it.

This is normal. Being shared, the buffer is set by the OS.

Reboot

Start up CbB

Verify the preferences are setup as described.

Verify the Master bus is pointing to the correct hardware output.

If ASIO4All is gone, it should be possible to select the Yamaha ASIO driver in Preferences > Audio > Devices as long as Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording "Driver Mode" is set to ASIO.

CbB will convert any file on import to a wav.

When importing wav files that the same sample rate as the project (and the import bit depth is set to the default value "Original" ) there is no conversion performed on import.

You should not have ASIO4All installed on a machine that also has a manufacturer supplied ASIO driver. 

It can conflict with the manufacturer supplied ASIO driver.

Uninstall ASIO4All.

I know some like to break out MIDI percussion data into separate tracks.

I stopped doing that a long time ago when soft synths with multiple audio outputs became common.

Instead of breaking out the MIDI data, I prefer using a drum map on a single MIDI track and, if necessary, routing the data to different synths from the drum map.

I suppose one could use clone MIDI tracks and use the MIDI Event Filter to group notes in any  matter they saw fit including replicating the function of "Split notes to tracks".

Sometimes the dropout code in the toast message is useful.