MIDI Mix-up [SOLVED]

[Asher B. Colins]

Howdy,

I'm pretty new to using DAWs anyway, and I picked up Cakewalk since it seemed like a good free option.

I keep running into the following issue: there are multiple MIDI tracks in the project, and at apparently random times, the instrument assigned to one track can be heard playing the MIDI from another track as well as it's own assigned MIDI. Upon some research of this issue, I found a forum post that suggested changing the inputs on the tracks. Most of the time, if I have the inputs to all the MIDI tracks set differently, the problem won't occur, but sometimes it still will, so this doesn't seem like a satisfactory solution.

Beyond that, the most recent variation of this issue was when I tried File>Export>Audio... and exported as an MP3. I had all three MIDI tracks set to different inputs so that the different sounds wouldn't play the wrong MIDI during playback as I described above, but upon export as an MP3, the exported file very clearly has one instrument still playing MIDI from two different tracks.

I don't know why the instrument assigned to one track would be affected by anything in another track anyway, and I definitely don't know why the DAW wouldn't export exactly what you hear in playback within the DAW, so I'm quite befuddled. Any help would be much appreciated!

[Promidi]

Here are some things that get me out of a situation like this.

1) Set each MIDI track’s channel to a specific channel number (1 to 16) rather than “None” .  (can be done in inspector - press i )

2) Set each MIDI track’s input to a specific MIDI controller rather than All and Omni.

3) Make sure you disable “Enable MIDI output” on all VSTi plugins. (This is done in the VST plugin window menu - the down arrow next to “VST2” or “VST3”)

[Asher B. Colins]

Thanks @Promidi!

Options 1 and 2 both help prevent the MIDI muddle during playback, but they don't fix the problem of it happening to an export. 

Option 3 finally stopped it from exporting incorrectly; two of the three MIDI instruments had the "Enable MIDI output" box checked, and unchecking them fixed the problem. 

Thank you so much, you're a lifesaver!