Fix/Update-External Insert true mono send and return

[Noel Borthwick]

@Adam can you elaborate further what specifically is broken? If you can attach a simple test project or give a step by step recipe it would help reproduce the issue here. I’m sure it is something minor to fix if its broken.
Preferably please post any bugs or regressions to the main 2021.09 feedback thread since we’re tracking that more closely.

[Adam]

Thanks for your reply, @Noel Borthwick.

I'll see if I can find that thread and post there.

[kc23]

Almost two years have past since this request, and so many people adhering to it.

Plenty of updates to other features, but nothing about the necessary support for true mono send and return for the external insert plugin.

It was mentioned that because of CW´s support of multiple driver modes its "harder to do". But it certainly can´t be impossible... so many other daws have support for multiple driver modes, and yet they have had true mono external send and returns for so long.

It was also said that it was "lower on the priority list" a year ago. It would seem that some items in that list are simply not moving upwards in the cue, as so many other things keep being updated, but not a fix for this in sight.

Again... please address this. After almost fifteen years of the external plugin being introduced, it´s due time for an update that fixes it and brings it to a contemporary standard for serious mixing duties.

Hopefully it will soon.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

On 3/7/2022 at 10:25 PM, kc23 said:

After almost fifteen years of the external plugin being introduced, it´s due time for an update that fixes it and brings it to a contemporary standard for serious mixing duties.

Fifteen years ago I still had external hardware to patch to..I've sold it all now !  Except a Nanoverb I kept just in case.

I agree though I think hybrid mixing has kinda come back into vogue and we need to be able to implement it properly

[Starship Krupa]

I just upgraded to an interface with more flexible routing, and yes, I'm ready to try patching in some outboard gear.

However deeply it's baked into the code, there is some demand here. Friendly bump.

[Xoo]

Devil's advocate question: if indeed the difficulty is caused by driver model support, would you prefer mono external support and dropping driver modes other than ASIO or not getting mono support and retaining other driver mode supoort (eg. WASAPI)?

[Starship Krupa]

On 3/13/2022 at 3:44 AM, Kevin Perry said:

would you prefer mono external support and dropping driver modes other than ASIO or not getting mono support and retaining other driver mode supoort (eg. WASAPI)?

Might as well ask if you'd prefer the moon with or without green trees. Cakewalk is not going to drop support for WASAPI, the driver model that Cakewalk engineers helped Microsoft develop. Nor is it going to become the only Windows DAW to lack support for ASIO.

Any time someone tosses out "that would be difficult/impossible to do because X" statements, I remember when we were told similar things about correctly naming I/O ports (which Cakewalk was the only piece of software I had that messed it up so badly) and not automatically shuffling MIDI ports when USB devices were unplugged and plugged back in.

I was an advocate for making both of those fixes and was treated to more than one patient explanation of why it was technically unfeasible. In one case the audio driver reported those port names therefore Cakewalk had to display the same names (otherwise the Port Name Police would knock down the door?). In the other, it was impossible because the OS doesn't keep track of what's hooked up to any given USB port, therefore Cakewalk couldn't keep track of MIDI devices either, despite being able to give them persistent names. In both cases, Cakewalk was the only software I knew of that had these issues.

If even one other DAW can do it, I'd say that it kinda proves that it at least can be done, it's just a matter of how much trouble it would be.

Praise to the Cakewalk developers who stepped up and took care of these issues, BTW. I don't take them for granted, they were a pain in the neck and source of tech support confusion (the MIDI device issue). In the case of port naming, going way past what I hoped for and allowing us to name them ourselves (which has come in very handy with my new interface believe me). And it sure is nice not to lose the connection to my keyboard controller because I unplugged my nanoKONTROL and Cakewalk assigned my main MIDI interface's ports to a nonexistent control surface.

All we can do is remind the devs every so often that a given issue still matters to us and try not to get discouraged if they don't get fixed as quickly as we would like. There are features and fixes that would be more useful to me than mono inserts, but it seems like a very important thing to some people, and if it were implemented, I might just hook up some of these external hardware boxes I have around, like my Craig Anderton Hot Springs Reverb.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Starship Krupa

[jesse g]

Does anyone know if multiple External Inserts can be created within CbB?  I want to be able to select an external insert created for my  Hardware Compressor while selecting one for my Hardware  EQ  and then another created for my  Hardware Lexicon MX200  Reverb unit for my Cue Mix Bus going out to a head phone for the vocalist to hear the reverb.

[Base 57]

12 hours ago, jesse g said:

Does anyone know if multiple External Inserts can be created within CbB?

Yes. Keeping in mind the subject of this thread. 

My interface has 64 outputs and I have used multiple external inserts many times. 

[jesse g]

4 hours ago, Base 57 said:

Yes. Keeping in mind the subject of this thread. 

My interface has 64 outputs and I have used multiple external inserts many times. 

Thanks,

I've only used one External Insert and never tried to use several at a time. ?

[Johnathan Illgen]

One more user requesting this feature. #1 Annoyance trying to conserve premium I/O.  1176, La-2a, and Pultec style hardware all seeing a resurgence and the workarounds are cumbersome.

[Bruno Dzogovic]

Any progress on this issue guys? I've equipped my studio lately with additional hardware that I can barely use with Cakewalk. It's been a long time since I've been a Sonar user and now this issue still persists. I am confident that if this is fixed and we can route mono or dual mono signals to outboard hardware at separate outputs, no other DAW would be able to compete with Cakewalk by far. I understand that the sole design of the routing is responsible for not being able to hijack a separate mono output and I agree that the routing in Cakewalk is unmatched, but at the same time this feature is very necessary. I'd be happy to contribute with my programming skills to help resolving the problem.

[Sarmad Dehnadi]

Hi guys

Its 2023 and still there is no mono external insert plugin which doesn't eat up a stereo pair.

All other DAWs do this very easily. 

Its a MUST in professional studios and if Cakewalk wants to be taken seriously.

I need this issue be fixed after all these years .