Anyone Using Cakewalk with the RME UFX II Interface?

[Jerry Gerber]

On 8/10/2022 at 4:38 AM, DeeringAmps said:

Jerry I did the “loop back” via adat. I was surprised that the result was “offset”. You can “bounce” the entire mix, and select “real-time audible” and get the same results. The example shown, very simple compared to your compositions, is all midi for drums, bass and piano. The only recorded track is the guitar at the top. The great thing with Cake and RME is the flexibility. Find a workflow that “works”, and you have!

Take care, and enjoy 

t

Hi Tom,

For the life of me I can't figure out, and never have been able to, how to bounce MIDI tracks to audio.  I can bounce audio tracks, I do it all the time, I can bounce synths (instrument) tracks even though I never need to, but I have no idea how to bounce a track that only consists of MIDI data to audio.   I can copy MIDI tracks, but that just copies the MIDI data, it doesn't render the track into audio.

The manual of the UFX II confirms that if you want to record MULTIPLE tracks from a DAW, the best way to do it is to use Loopback.   Otherwise, you can only record the input channel that corresponds to the hardware output channel, which means you end up with multiple audio tracks rather than one stereo audio track that contains all the tracks in a Cakewalk project.

If there's a way to bounce MIDI tracks and turn them into audio, I'm all ears!!!!

Best,

Jerry

 

[DeeringAmps]

I'll post a screen shot for you when I get back into the studio this afternoon...

[DeeringAmps]

@Jerry Gerber
Here's the screenshot. Notice that the track number for each midi track and their SoftSynth are selected (highlighted in blue).
Then bring up Bounce to Track, select the appropriate Buss, (I'm assuming you use a MASTER buss?)
or Hardware Outputs if you are sending all tracks direct to the interface.

As said in my earlier post I create a Mix or Master Track before I bounce.
You can Ctrl+A which will select all tracks in the project > Bounce to Track > select the Source Category and Cake will create the track and bounce the mix.

You must have the midi and the SoftSynth tracks selected to bounce a Synth track; easy as pie Cake!

HTH,

t

Edited August 12, 2022 by DeeringAmps

[Jerry Gerber]

3 hours ago, DeeringAmps said:

@Jerry Gerber
Here's the screenshot. Notice that the track number for each midi track and their SoftSynth are selected (highlighted in blue).
Then bring up Bounce to Track, select the appropriate Buss, (I'm assuming you use a MASTER buss?)
or Hardware Outputs if you are sending all tracks direct to the interface.

As said in my earlier post I create a Mix or Master Track before I bounce.
You can Ctrl+A which will select all tracks in the project > Bounce to Track > select the Source Category and Cake will create the track and bounce the mix.

You must have the midi and the SoftSynth tracks selected to bounce a Synth track; easy as pie Cake!

HTH,

t

Tom wrote:

You must have the midi and the SoftSynth tracks selected to bounce a Synth track; easy as pie Cake!

I see what you've done, and I could be wrong, but  most of my MIDI Tracks are assigned via Ethernet (MIDI out) to a 2nd computer that handles the Vienna Symphonic Library Orchestral Cube.  They are simple MIDI tracks, with only MIDI data.  MIDI data contains no sound, no audio, no wave files.  It's just data.   I can bounce them, trim them, copy them and paste them, but I still don't see how you are converting them to audio without actually recording the tracks to an audio track in real time.  The VSL machine sends the MIDI data back to Cakewalk as audio via ADAT ports.   It's this audio that I record using the UFX II's loopback function. 

When I call up the same dialogue box that you have in your above post, I see no option to convert MIDI to audio. The only source track that I am being shown that can be bounced is the one track that is a softsynth and the audio connected to it, this softsynth resides in the DAW as a plug-in under Cakewalk. 

Either  am completely missing something, or we are working differently.   I suspect everyone who used Cakewalk uses it slightly differently than others.  songwriters, engineers, sound designers, live recording---all these approaches require we learn our own workflow differently. 

Either I am really slow (I am!) or it's just not possible to render a single MIDI track that is not triggering a plug-in within Cakewalk to audio.  Is that your experience?

J

 

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by Jerry Gerber

[DeeringAmps]

9 hours ago, Jerry Gerber said:

it's just not possible to render a single MIDI track that is not triggering a plug-in within Cakewalk to audio.  Is that your experience

Correct, the Synth and midi must both be in Cake. Basically you are working with “external” synths. 
Are you using multiple outputs from the VSL computer, or a single stereo mix?

Tom

[Jerry Gerber]

5 hours ago, DeeringAmps said:

Correct, the Synth and midi must both be in Cake. Basically you are working with “external” synths. 
Are you using multiple outputs from the VSL computer, or a single stereo mix?

Tom

Yes, multiple outputs, 16 ADAT channels coming into the UFX II via 2 discreet ADAT ports.   I called RME tech support the other day and the guy I spoke with insisted I was "doing it wrong" by using loopback.  But when I did further investigation I found that 1) the manual itself says that when you are recording multiple tracks at once you need to use loopback to get all the tracks recorded (at one time) onto a stereo wave track in Cakewalk and 2), my own experimentation proved to be in agreement with the manual; if you're recording one track to Cakewalk you don't need loopback, but you'll end up with a mono or stereo audio track of that one instrument (or mic recording) only.  That's not the way I work. 

As far as bouncing, that can only be done with audio tracks or synth tracks when the audio from the synth is within Cakewalk.  So all is well, the loopback feature works just the way I want it to, after I am done composing and sequencing a piece I render all MIDI and synth tracks to a stereo wave file. 

Thanks Tom!

Jerry

Edited August 12, 2022 by Jerry Gerber