Chuffey

I'm a pretty clumsy and unskilled Cakewalk user - full disclosure. 

Several months ago I bought a Two Notes Torpedo C.A.B. M+ pedal, which is an amp di box, with a number of virtual cabinet IRs in it. It allows more to be loaded. I believe Cakewalk also came with a group of cabinet emulation IRs in it, and if I can find them, I think I can copy them into  the Torpedo. But I can't find them. Can I get a hand on this, please?

This guy is good! 

Kevin-

Thanks for the reply. The virtual computer keyboard just starts the recording going, but still nothing records. I see that there are virtual MIDI controllers that you can download, but I hate downloading stuff from the internet that you don't know who the heck made, and if they are going to hack you.

Sorry to keep posting about the same thing, but I have spent hours trying to get my virtual drums to work. (I have studied the various how to get started videos). Still no luck. SCook posted this step, which I don't understand:

"Set the input to your controller, enabled the record and input echo buttons on the track"

I understand that the controller is the bar up at the top of the screen. I don't get what the record and input echo buttons do. So  I went back to the tutorial and followed these exact steps:

From the Start Screen, click New Project then select Empty Project

Click the [+] Add Track button in the track view. At the top of this menu, you will see Audio and Instrument. Choose Instrument.

The first drop-down menu represents the synth that will be used. This defaults to TTS-1, but if you have other software instruments, click the box and select your instrument from the list.

The second menu is to select your Input. If you're using a MIDI keyboard controller, select the controller, or All Inputs > MIDI Omni. Otherwise, Omni or Virtual Controller > MIDI Omni should allow for any input device to be recognized.

Check the box for Record Enable, then click Create to add the track. If you want to use your computer’s keyboard as a controller, check Open Virtual Controller as well.

Select a patch (sound) from your plugin, and use the virtual controller or your own controller to make sure you hear the correct patch.

Press R to record, then Spacebar to stop. Press Spacebar again to listen to what you just recorded!

I get the drums going, I can hear them, but nothing gets recorded. Here's how I've got it set up (I also show an earlier one that doesn't work): 

SCook-

The punch recording is not enabled. Still can't get it recording. Here's why my screen is showing (I guess I recorded the metronome this time):

Yeah, I did hit the record button in the transport, SCook. RTFM?

If I can just get past this, I know I can really fly!

My computer keyboard can start the recording, and I can start the drums playing by hitting the start button. Still can't get the drums to record. Here's what the screen looks like:

"Set the input to your controller" . What does that mean? I am trying to record the virtual drum track, and then play my guitar and do vocals over it.

Newbie here, trying to learn how to record, and I'm stuck. I'm trying to lay down a drum track. I've got the plugin in record, start the drums going, and click on record in the top bar. Nothing gets recorded. What am I missing?

I'm a great believer in music lessons, and it would be cool to find a teacher who's laid out a study program. I've gone down many of these kinds of paths on guitar,  and found that to be valuable for me. Right now I subscribe to "ArtistWorks", and am able to study guitar with an A-list player who has a huge career, and who happens to have a great handle on how to teach guitar. I can't believe a guy at this level actually teaches, and I went back to the very basics of playing guitar to learn his approach. All this leads me to wonder if something like this exists for people who want to learn how to use Cakewalk. I've gone through some of these YouTube tutorials and they are very helpful, but I'm wondering if an actual course exists. 

This is so great! Thank you!

37 minutes ago, abacab said:

Cakewalk comes with SI Drum Kit. Just insert it as a virtual instrument track, and play along with one of the included patterns. You can adjust the tempo of the project any way you like, and the drum kit will stay in sync with the project.

You can audition the patterns from within the Drum Kit UI. Then you can drag and drop any of the patterns you like into the track as a MIDI clip, that you can edit and arrange them as you need to accompany your music.

There are also multiple pre-defined drum kits that you can choose from in the program browser.

Got it, thanks! Got as far as inserting SI Drum Kit, and picked a beat. Can't figure out how to slow it down, though!

Still kind of lost here. What I'm trying to find is something like a drum machine that lets me just pick a beat, get it started, slow it down or speed it up, and then start laying down tracks on top of it. I started using Cakewalk because it was user friendly enough for me to figure out how to record a track with my guitar, and lay down a vocal on a second track. Now I want to go to the next step and record to a drum track. Can somebody point me in the right direction? So far, I haven't been able to find a YouTube video on how to do that. I could buy a stand alone drum machine, and just run it into Cakewalk, but that seems like a rather more expensive and awkward way to do it.

I'm a total newbie to recording in Cakewalk. I'd like to start recording some songs, and I'd like to just use a pre-recorded beat to play along to, rather than trying to figure out how to do all that myself. Can I get a recommendation please? 

In the last DAW I experimented with, I was able to put my guitar into my interface and listen to it in the DAW before recording it. I was able to apply the effects, and choose a variety of emulated guitar amps, rather than applying the effects and amp emulation after recording. I can't figure out how to do that in Cakewalk. 

OK! Here's what I did, in case somebody else runs into this. I didn't download the new driver because the old driver seems to work ok with the other DAW I'm trying to learn, and I didn't want cause any issues there.  The intial bad recording played the same in other software, so that wasn't the issue. I imported a clip into Cakewalk and it played back just fine, which was a good sign. And putting the mic directly into the interface didn't make sense to me because the pre-amp records just fine into the other two DAWs I have tried to use. So I hit "reset config to default" in "Preferences", as suggested, and that solved the problem. It now records beautifully. Thanks so much for helping, I really appreciate it. I'm going to continue working on learning how Cakewalk works, it seems like a great application. I especially like the help module, I've never seen anything like that before. 

Here's the Focusrite info: 

Focusrite is shown in the Record Latency Adjustment section of Synch and Caching. The only driver shown in Preferences>Audio>Devices

Thanks to the folks who replied to my post. In response to Jonathan, I'm attaching a screenshot of my settings. It's what I've used successfully to record my vocals in Music Maker, and in Cubase, so I don't think there's anything wrong in my cabling or equipment. From what I've seen so far in Cakewalk, I like it better than Music Maker, so I'd like to at least try it out a bit, but I can't seem to get to first base. I'm afraid to make any changes I don't understand that would alter what might happen in Music Maker when I go back to that. As far as my computer goes, it's a middle of the road PC, not the cheapest, but now souped up. I'm running Windows 10, and it seems to have plenty of memory.

I'm an experienced musician, trying to settle on a DAW to work on. I spent beaucoups of hours trying to use Cubase, and even with the help of a tutor, I just kept hitting the wall, so I thought I'd see if I could do any better with Cakewalk. But I hit the wall almost immediately. I am using a Pro MPA II preamp, and trying to record my vocals. There's nothing wrong with the preamp, and at I've been able to at least lay down something on Cubase with it. But in my first pass with Cakewalk, it's just coming in as sort of fuzz that you can barely hear that it's a human voice. I've started with the tutorial, but I don't know how to move forward.