scook

I doubt anything has changed since @Noel Borthwick wrote in http://forum.cakewalk.com/XP-services-that-can-be-safely-turned-off-m1238330.aspx but as Noel noted later in the thread I have also read a couple of posts where users posted better results after tweaking for background process. Might be worth testing on a case-by-case basis.

For devices not designed to work together it is not worth the effort if it can be done at all. There are manufacturers who design their interfaces to work together. This is done at the hardware level and at the driver level. IOW, the devices share a common clock and communicate with the DAW using the same ASIO driver. AFAIK, there are no manufacturers who design their interfaces work with hardware from their competitors. To use the M-Audio device with the Focusrite device requires figuring out a way to share a common clock and a WDM or WASAPI driver. There is no ASIO driver that supports both M-Audio and Focusrite devices. It is possible to have to M-Audio and Focusrite devices connected to the DAW but in ASIO driver mode, only one device will be available at a time.

Look at GeneralMidiSMFs in TTSSEQ.ini

Windows Magnifier

The only way CbB produces MIDI from audio using drag and drop relies on a Melodyne VST3 plug-in. The plug-in must be in the VST scan path and should show up in the "Sort by" plug-in lists shipped with CbB. There must be a licensed copy of Melodyne installed, a functional trial of Melodyne 5 bundled with a recent version of CbB or a timed-out trial of Melodyne 4 bundled with older versions of CbB. Prior to Melodyne 5, the trial version of Melodyne 4 shipped with CbB continues to perform monophonic audio-to-MIDI and tempo detection after the trial period. The other methods of audio-to-MIDI creation in CbB, audiosnap and drum replacer, do not use Melodyne.

Dragging audio to the timeline does not create MIDI note data, it creates a tempo map. Dragging audio to a MIDI or instrument track creates MIDI note data. Both of these processes rely on Melodyne.

The drum replacer is also available from the Cakewalk Installer. Except for access to BandLab and CbB remote authentication, there is no need to mess with Bandlab Assistant.

The current project sample rate is determined one of two ways. If there are audio clips in the project, the sample rate is read from one of the audio clip file headers. All audio clips in a project have the same sample rate. If there are no audio clips in the project, the sample rate is read from the "Sample Rate" setting under "Default Settings for New Projects" in Preferences > Audio > Driver Settings The transport module shows the current project's sample rate and the Record Bit Depth that will be used the next time some audio is recorded. See the answer to 1 for where the sample rate comes from. They don't have to match but it may make things easier if they are set the same. Windows may be set to 44.1 or the DAW to 48 take your pick. There is practically no difference between the two. As noted in the reply to 1, in projects that have no audio clips the sample rate is read from preferences every time the projects are opened. In projects that have no audio clips, the Render Bit Depth is what matters as it serves as the default in the export dialog, however; the actual bit depth used may be set in the export dialog. What bit depth should be used for export depends on how the export file will be used. If the export file is for playback only, select a bit depth compatible with the playback device(s). If the export file is going to be processed further (mastering?) use 32bit (or 64bit if the 64-bit Double Precision Engine is enabled and the mastering software can load the file). The current export dialog allows users to create tasks to export. Think of these tasks as the templates you need for projects going forward and update your custom project templates. Similar tasks may be added to existing projects too.

No, as long as there is no audio being recorded at all, it does not matter but it does not hurt to be prepared just in case they decide to record some audio. Audio from a soft synth will be at the project sample rate at the bit depth determined by the plug-in. When frozen, bounced or exported the Render Bit depth is used as the default with an option in the case of export to override.

May want to change the Record Bit Depth (currently 16) to be the same as the Driver Bit Depth (currently 24).

Make sure a project is open when changing bindings.

Can't answer why but Eventide rarely sends update notifications. I did not get anything for this update. Often updates happen around the time they announce a new product so, I checked today when looking at Physion MKII.

In addition to releasing a new plug-in It appears Eventide updated all their plug-ins on Aug 30. Installers available here

Given the crash was coming from M1.dll there is not much insight BandLab can provide. Unless the problem is repeatable on their end, it is unlikely any support group will be very helpful. I have seen some reports where a plug-in will crash if the ExceptionHandlingSeverity in Preferences > File > Initialization File is set too high. The default value is 1 and should be left at 1 unless debugging a specific problem. Sometimes bad plug-ins can have a knock-on effect. This is when some safe-mode sleuthing is necessary. Hold down the SHIFT key while opening a project to open in safe-mode. Sometimes this is enough to get a project to load OK. Sometimes stepping though all the plug-ins, allowing them to load one at a time is enough. Sometimes it takes skipping one or more plug-ins before the "crashing" plug-in loads correctly.

Should be OK. Download the Cakewalk Installer from the bottom of this page and install CbB using it.

It depends. Simply running uninstall and re-installing does not affect the registry or user modified files on disk. Running a clean install includes steps to remove registry entries used by CbB and all Cakewalk software (step 5), remove the user directories for CbB and all Cakewalk software "%appdata%\Cakewalk" (step 8) and remove everything in "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk" and "C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk" which could include all Cakewalk software and any third-party plug-ins installed in "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VSTplugins" (step 9).

The item circled in red is a MIDI activity meter and has nothing to do with audio. The image shows a project with one MIDI track with its output and channel set to TTS-1 BUT there is no audio track for the TTS-1 audio output. Add an audio track and set the input to TTS-1. The channel assignment in track 1 is not necessary. Alternately, when adding TTS-1 to a project add it using an instrument track. An instrument track is an audio+MIDI track pair that presents itself in the project as a single track. Or the best solution as long as Preferences > MIDI > Devices has no output device selected: use File > Open to open MIDI files instead of importing the MIDI file into an existing project. This will automatically add TTS-1 to the new project set up ready to play the opened MIDI file. This is the best solution for playing MIDI files because importing MIDI files into an existing project strips out some MIDI data such as tempo. Opening a MIDI file does not strip data like the import process does.

The transport shows the Record Bit Depth setting

The ellipses indicate there is at least one clip to the right. Not a big deal in this case because the clips are also visible, but this can be useful when the clips in the track are not visible. There is no option to suppress them. Some set their color the same as the track background, so they fade into the background.

The manufacturer presets are not loaded correctly in the PC plug-in. In addition to turning off the PC, the output level is zeroed, and other controls are not set as they are in the regular VST plug-in. This is part of the reason I believe the problem lies with changes made to CbB 2020.04. Instead of delete and re-instantiate try using the "--Full Reset--" PC preset to recover the PC. Yeah, this is really not comparable. The regular VST format works as expected in CbB too. As I mentioned in one of the updates my post above, the issue is not unique to the Softube FET compressor but can be seen in other Softube and Boz Digital PC modules. I believe this issue was introduced with the CbB 2020.04 per-PC module presets. Prior to that, there was no way work with presets for individual PC plug-ins unless the PC module contained its own preset manager like BREVERB. For now, if one really wants to use the factory presets in the PC, open up the presets in the VST plug-in, copy the settings to the PC and save PC specific presets. Of course, because the controls are not identical, some factory presets may not make sense for the PC. Update: reported to BandLab as a bug

I don't have a problem with the GR meter but loading presets is a problem. Can't say I have ever bothered with the presets. I also tested with an older version of the compressor (v2.4.83 from 2019), it may have never handled PC presets properly. Individual presets were added to CbB in 2020.04, around the time when Softube v2.4.96 was released. With v2.4.96 all the Softube PC modules started crashing and continued to be a problem until v2.5.39.0 around April 2022 when Softube fixed the crashing problem. Softube is likely unaware of the preset problem. Update: The preset problem is not limited to the FET compressor. I just ran through a few presets using the VST2 and PC versions of TSAR-1R. The PC reverb fails just like the PC compressor. It appears Softube still has some work to do on all their PC modules. Update 2: I am not sure if the per-module preset feature added in CbB 2020.04 works with any 3rd party PC modules. I just took a look at Boz Digital +10db and Hoser XT EQs. Preset seem to fail with these PC modules too. Update 3: After messing with this a little more, it appears the problem may be with how CbB is processing manufacturer supplied presets. Creating and loading new presets seems to work OK. If I had to guess, the problem may be due to the layout differences between the PC and VST plug-ins.

It depends on the plug-in. Most plug-ins capable of accepting MIDI data have "Enable MIDI Input" automatically selected causing the plug-ins to show up in MIDI track output drop downs. Some plug-ins require the user to configure the plug-in itself to use MIDI data and manually select "Enable MIDI Input" in the VST2/3 drop down in the plug-in standard header before the plug-in appears in MIDI track output drop downs. Then there is the issue of an incomplete MIDI implementation in the original VST3 spec and slow implementation of updates to the spec by plug-in manufacturers leading some users to stick with VST2 for certain applications. I do not have any IKM plug-ins to test.

If you are trying to control Amplitube 5, based on the image above the track 1 output should be set to Amplitube and not Axe I/O.

Please provide more than symptoms when asking for help. In this case, keyboard make, model and if the device is connected to an audio interface using a 5 pin DIN or directly connected to the PC using USB would be good to know. Whether a MIDI keyboard appears in CbB depends on if the keyboard was connected prior to starting up the DAW, how the keyboard is connected to the PC and if it requires driver.

Yes, the VST2 dll pulls double duty as a regular VST and PC module just like the Cakewalk CA-2A. And just like the CA-2A the plug-in UI depends on where the plug-in is instantiated.