Mis-labeling of interface inputs is a problem

[Starship Krupa]

It happened again last night, this time more serious, although I did capture the performance. I just feel like it's only a matter of time before it really bites me on the *****.

The issue: in the physical world, I plug microphones and guitar cables into an audio interface with inputs that are labeled simply 1-8. No right, left, up, down, or sideways. It also has stereo S/PDIF jacks on the back, making it a 10 in/10 out interface.

When I plug a mic into the 4th jack from the left, it has a "4" under it.

When I create an audio track and go to select one of these inputs, Cakewalk presents the list of inputs of my interface like this:

Wanna guess which input to select to enable monitoring of Input 4 that I just plugged a mic into?

Well, I DON'T. Last night I happened to select "Stereo FirePod ASIO x64 Pod 1 - Input 3L" when my mic was actually plugged into "Right FirePod ASIO x64 Pod 1 - Input 3L." I was also recording using "Left FirePod ASIO x64 Pod 1 - Input 3L" at the time, so I wound up with a stereo track with a redundant side. The fact that I was getting a signal into the other input contributed to the confusion, because I was seeing activity on my meters. By the time my eye traced across that huge string, I lost which "Input 3L" was the correct one.

Cakewalk tantalizingly gives us partial control by allowing us to assign "friendly names" to each of the "stereo pairs." However, only the text string following "Left" can be changed, Cakewalk won't let me rename the individual halves of the imaginary pair. So it always has to be "Left 1/Right 1/Stereo 1" "Left 3/Right 3/Stereo 3" and so on. I can't name them something like "One/Two/One+Two Stereo" which is what they actually are. The end result is that the even-numbered inputs lose their names

I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and do it myself in Preferences or by editing a file, just please let me before I make a costlier error regarding arming the correct input(s).

Need I add that my other audio programs don't have this same problem....Mixcraft, Reason, they figured out how to show me the individual inputs by their actual names.

[kc23]

Hi

You asked me about this in the other thread... actually my I/O is named a bit different although similar, but I get the point of what you are requesting.

In the meanwhile, I found this thread from the old forum which mentions the names being in the aud.ini file... maybe renaming them there would help you? I haven´t tried myself, as I´m already used to this quirk...

Anyway, hope your request is taken in to account!

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Where-Can-I-Rename-My-Device-InsOuts-m1449022.aspx

[scook]

The friendly names feature in preferences is the front end for updating this part of Aud.ini. There is no need to manipulate Aud.ini directly.