For Years, IK's MODO Bass has Worked with Every DAW But Cakewalk. Why?

[Craig Reeves]

I just downloaded IK Multimedia's MODO Bass and in Cakewalk by Bandlab, when I play, notes either don't play at all or the MIDI notes hold out forever. The same occurred in SONAR Professional, so this is not a new problem and has persisted for years.

This issue only seems to occur in Cakewalk. MODO Bass works fine in every other major DAW. So this seems to be a problem specifically with Cakewalk and not with MODO Bass.

I do not have this problem with any other VST2 or VST3 I use in Cakewalk by Bandlab, whether it be Kontakt, NEXUS3, Synthogy Ivory, etc.

This problem occurs with MODO Bass whether I am using VST2 or VST3.

I tried restarting my computer and reinstalling MODO Bass. The problem persists.

Once the MIDI data is recorded, the playback works fine and all the MIDI data seems to be what I recorded, but playing live is where the problem is.

The problem seems to go away when I turn the buffer size (latency) all the way up but that shouldn't have to happen as I have a very fast and very powerful workstation machine where far more demanding instruments and sampled orchestral libraries do not have this issue.

I am using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 and the latest version of Cakewalk by Bandlab.

I understand Cakewalk by Bandlab isn't one of the "mainstream" DAWS everybody's using these days like FL Studio, Ableton, ProTools or Logic which might be why there haven't been enough complaints to get anybody's attention over at IK, but I've seen others raise this issue  in posts that are years old yet this issue still seemingly hasn't been addressed.

Thank God IK was nice enough to provide a trial version of this product because I would have thrown away hundreds of dollars on a product I cannot use. 

But every other DAW can cooperate with MODO Bass, I think Cakewalk should be able to as well.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Craig Reeves

[David Baay]

6 hours ago, Craig Reeves said:

This issue only seems to occur in Cakewalk. MODO Bass works fine in every other major DAW. So this seems to be a problem specifically with Cakewalk and not with MODO Bass.

I do not have this problem with any other VST2 or VST3 I use in Cakewalk by Bandlab, whether it be Kontakt, NEXUS3, Synthogy Ivory, etc.

I can almost hear Spock's eyebrow going up.  ;^)  If MODO is fine in other DAWs, and Cakewalk is fine with other synths, the logical conclusion is that there's an interoperability issue between the two, but it's not possible to conclude that the issue is attributable solely to one or the other.  It takes two to tango as they say.

The first thing I would suggest is raising your MIDI Prepare Using Buffer. In SONAR the default was 250ms, which was too low for some synths/FX in some situations. Recently, the MIDI buffering process was re-engineered so that that buffer values are lower and more representative of what's actually going on. I believe the new default is 50ms, and the buffer is supposed to increase dynamically 'under the hood' as needed.  But I  wouldn't be surprised if that adaptation is still imperfect, and suggest you increase it manually. Try 100 or 200, and work down from there to see if you find a sweet spot. Also, if it has both VST2 and 3 flavors, you might try the alternate one.

If that doesn't get it, I'll download the demo and see what I get. Have been meaning to do that, anyway. I'm pretty sure some others around here are using it without a problem, so there's hope it can work for you as well with the right configuration.

[JonD]

I've seen other CW users report different issues with MODO (which were resolved BTW), but not necessarily this issue.

Bottom line, there ARE others here who are successfully running MODO Bass with Cakewalk.  I'd start with that fact (instead of implying it doesn't work for anyone), and troubleshoot from there.

[reginaldStjohn]

I successfully use MODO bass in Cakewalk. Haven't noticed any issues personally. I use the vst3 version. Just a for another point of reference.

[David Baay]

Well, seeing the IK sale coincidentally going on at the moment. I broke down, and actually purchased MODO bass. It's working fine here, but I did notice immediately that - like a lot of bass synths -  it's programmed to sound an octave lower than standard keyboard tuning and doesn't play below the standard low E on an electric bass. So any notes below MIDI Note# 40 ( the second E up from the bottom of an 88-key controller) won't be heard.  I haven't yet figured out whether the synth has a transposition option built  in - didn't see one at a glance.

Otherwise, it's all good here even at very low audio and MIDI buffer settings.

EDIT: Spent some time getting up to speed with videos and playing around, and realized the transposition is necessary to make room for keyswitches. All in all a very cool and good-sounding instrument. I just love modeled stuff.

Edited April 3, 2020 by David Baay

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Demo is just the quasi-Modo so don't get the hump if it doesn't work

[Craig Reeves]

Well, it's nice to know others aren't having the same issue as me. Thanks for the replies, guys.

[David Baay]

The only other suggestion I have is to make sure you're inserting it in the synth rack, and not in the FX bin of an audio track. I've seen the symptoms like this when synths are inserted in FX bins. Cakewalk supports this configuration but it's not the preferred setup.

[Promidi]

I downloaded the trial of IK MODO Bass and gave it a bit of a play using a MIDI controller.  I inserted it as a simple instrument.

I used different patches, etc and I had no issues here.

My MIDI prepare buffer is 200 milliseconds.