All Instruments Playing with One Track Selected!

[Stephen Power]

I would appreciate some assistance with this beginner's problem, please. I'm new to CbB but have been using it for a few weeks without this happening, so I'm quite puzzled.

I added a new track and dragged across a midi plugin (Surge XT) to it. Normally, I could just play that instrument on it's own, without muting the others.

But, today, the 2 other tracks (which were playing separately previously) are playing along with the Surge instrument. All the track levels are showing at the same db, although none are showing in the photo - even though I had it playing wen it I made the screenshot.

Any advice on what caused it and how to fix it, is welcome. Thanks.

UPDATE: I've seen my mistake! Input Echo was turned on on all tracks. Bear with me, I've only been using Cakewalk for 2 weeks!

Edited April 4, 2023 by Kerryman
Being brain dead So early in the morning!

[msmcleod]

It's likely you've got MIDI output enabled on the the other track's synth, which is causing it to echo everything to the other MIDI tracks.

You could do one or both of the following:

1. Open the synths, and on the VST2 or VST3 menu, uncheck "Enable MIDI Output".



2. Set the MIDI input of the Surge XT track to "All External Inputs".

[Stephen Power]

3 hours ago, msmcleod said:

It's likely you've got MIDI output enabled on the the other track's synth, which is causing it to echo everything to the other MIDI tracks.

You could do one or both of the following:

1. Open the synths, and on the VST2 or VST3 menu, uncheck "Enable MIDI Output".

2. Set the MIDI input of the Surge XT track to "All External Inputs".

Thanks for your reply @msmcleod I had a look...

1. "Enable MIDI Output" is greyed out when I opened both of the synths that played along with the Surge synth and can't be unchecked.

2. "All inputs" is set for all tracks. I can't find an "All External Inputs" option in the drop down. I thought this odd, as I have definitely seen it for other tracks in other projects.

 

[user 905133]

Where you have the Track Control Manager that says "Custom," do you see what you need if you change that to "All?" 

[mettelus]

In addition to the above, tracks default to listening to all MIDI channels (MIDI Omni). When you start working with multiple MIDI tracks it is good practice to also set the input and output channels to specific numbers (1 through 16) so that they are paired accordingly (match output of intended source # to input of intended receiver #). You can also see that in the Track View (inputs/outputs) when the view is set to "All." It is difficult to easily trace MIDI routing in Cakewalk, so assigning channels will help you when you return to old projects so you can get back into the swing of things quickly.

Another thing to consider when working is the Input Echo being activated or not. When off it only plays back what exists in the track already rather than also from input sources. Your "wavering voices" track already has MIDI data in it that it will play with the Input Echo (speaker icon to the right) off.

Edit: Just noticed the bold quote at the bottom of the OP!

Edited April 11, 2023 by mettelus

[Starship Krupa]

What you really need to do is read the entire 2000-page Reference Guide and watch every beginner tutorial you can find on YouTube.

....J/K ?

[Stephen Power]

On 4/11/2023 at 9:48 PM, Starship Krupa said:

What you really need to do is read the entire 2000-page Reference Guide and watch every beginner tutorial you can find on YouTube.

....J/K ?

OK, I did that. I've now started on Freud's 24 Volume 'The Interpretation of Dreams', to help me understand why I'm having nightmares about Cakewalk.