Cakewalk Latency recording from Roland TD-27 Multi-Track Audio

[Alex Cordero]

MY GOAL:
Record *Multi-Track Audio* from my TD-27 Drumkit so I can mix and add VSTs as needed.
I've been recording L/R 1/4" out from the TD-27 all this time but the mix is not the best and I'm limited to what I can do with it on a single stereo track.

EQUIPMENT:
Roland TD-27, Good quality USB Cable, Brand New Gaming PC with 64Gb Ram, AMD Ryzen 9 9950 on a Asus X870 Gaming MB & Win11 Pro. (No Audio Card - just onboard), Focusrite Gen 3 2i2, and of course, Cakewalk.

SETUP:
The TD-27 is setup for Vendor Mode (which they suggested) and has updated firmware. Connected via USB directly to PC. The PC connects to my Focusrite which outputs to speakers. I've downloaded the latest TD27 drivers and rebooted/restarted everything. Windows is also up to date with no driver issues. Cakewalk is also up-to-date.

THE ISSUE:
When I go into Cakewalk preferences and select ASIO, I can play back all my other instrument tracks (bass, keys, guitar, vocals, etc), *BUT I can't select any individual drum tracks as they're greyed-out.
Selecting WASAPI Shared, I now can select the individual drum audio tracks, *BUT I get terrible *LATENCY* and can not adjust the buffer as it's greyed-out.
WASAPI Exclusive also allows me to select the drum audio tracks, *BUT now sounds horribly broken up and still has latency. Although I can adjust the buffer, it still sounds absolutely unusable.
I've downloaded ASIO4all, *BUT it didn't work at all. 

I've also tried on another computer (My new computers predecessor which has all the same software and setup, *BUT same result.
I can record no problem from L/Mono, Right, But that isn't what I'm trying to do.
I can also get Midi to record into the track, But also, not what I'm trying to do.
I've search forums and YouTube and can't find the answer.

Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks

[reginaldStjohn]

You need an audio interface to record more then just the L/R in one go.,  In order to use ASIO you need an interface that supports it. When it is selected you can only select one device. 

I am not sure I understand what exactly you are trying to do but many of your problems are that you are trying to use your drum brain as the interface and it appears to not have an ASIO driver.  Your focusrite does have an ASIO driver. So route your drum audio into your Focusrite interface and use that to record the audio out of your drum module.  Then you can use the Focusrite ASIO driver to both record and playback.

Edited December 6 by reginaldStjohn

[57Gregy]

8 hours ago, Alex Cordero said:

MY GOAL:
Record *Multi-Track Audio* from my TD-27 Drumkit so I can mix and add VSTs as needed.
I've been recording L/R 1/4" out from the TD-27 all this time but the mix is not the best and I'm limited to what I can do with it on a single stereo track.

EQUIPMENT:
Roland TD-27, Good quality USB Cable, Brand New Gaming PC with 64Gb Ram, AMD Ryzen 9 9950 on a Asus X870 Gaming MB & Win11 Pro. (No Audio Card - just onboard), Focusrite Gen 3 2i2, and of course, Cakewalk.

SETUP:
The TD-27 is setup for Vendor Mode (which they suggested) and has updated firmware. Connected via USB directly to PC. The PC connects to my Focusrite which outputs to speakers. I've downloaded the latest TD27 drivers and rebooted/restarted everything. Windows is also up to date with no driver issues. Cakewalk is also up-to-date.

THE ISSUE:
When I go into Cakewalk preferences and select ASIO, I can play back all my other instrument tracks (bass, keys, guitar, vocals, etc), *BUT I can't select any individual drum tracks as they're greyed-out.
Selecting WASAPI Shared, I now can select the individual drum audio tracks, *BUT I get terrible *LATENCY* and can not adjust the buffer as it's greyed-out.
WASAPI Exclusive also allows me to select the drum audio tracks, *BUT now sounds horribly broken up and still has latency. Although I can adjust the buffer, it still sounds absolutely unusable.
I've downloaded ASIO4all, *BUT it didn't work at all. 

I've also tried on another computer (My new computers predecessor which has all the same software and setup, *BUT same result.
I can record no problem from L/Mono, Right, But that isn't what I'm trying to do.
I can also get Midi to record into the track, But also, not what I'm trying to do.
I've search forums and YouTube and can't find the answer.

Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks

Welcome to the forum.
You should record the MIDI from your drums and output the MIDI tracks to your chosen software synth. The soft synth tracks will not be "recorded" without additional steps taken. It can later be Frozen or Bounced to Track(s), if desired.
If you want to record the actual sounds of your drum kit, the stereo output is the only way (I write that not knowing if the Roland can transmit audio via USB).
If you want to record the actual sounds of your drum kit with each drum on its own audio track, you have to do them 1 by 1, muting all the tracks you don't want recorded.

[Alex Cordero]

There doesn't seem to be a way to directly reply to answers on this post so I'll clarify better here in case I did a bad job initially.

YES: The Roland TD-27 Drum Kit DOES output via USB for MultiTrack Recording. This is an intentional feature.

YES: I have managed to get this to work with WASAPI Shared, BUT there is TREMENDOUS LATENCY. (THIS IS THE PROBLEM I NEED TO SOLVE DESPERATELY)

YES: I have already been recording the whole drumkit in L/R output mode but I can't modify the kick for example (ex: add more bass), or if I wanted to duck the Bass Guitar based on the Kick. I need it on a separate track. It can be done BUT not with this latency issue.

NO: I will not record the drum track 18x to record each part separately. Who would do that??

NO: My question was not about recoding MIDI. That's not my goal here. I like the sounds from my drum kit.

New notes: I have tried this now on 3 separate PCs. One brand new gaming machine with more power than anyone needs for this. Another PC that I use to experiment on. And another with a pretty decent soundcard (if that matters). ALL have good amount of CPU and Memory. None show any bad draw on resources in the resource manager.

Thanks again for any help on this.

Edited December 9 by Alex Cordero

[57Gregy]

Sadly, I think you're just going to have to deal with the latency and manually line up the clips post-recording.
As mentioned, when using ASIO, you can only use 1 device, which is the Focusrite in this case. If the Roland audio interface in the brain also has an ASIO driver, you can only use that one.

[Sock Monkey]

Seems to me if it’s Roland it would have an ASIO audio/ midi driver that should be installed.  
WASAPI exclusive has pretty good latency but ASIO should have none when set up correctly. 
 

Then in your Daw choose ASIO mode and the Roland as the device. Don’t use the other interface for recording the drums. I would think you can use the Roland as an interface.

Probably you can hear the DAW playing in the drum kit headphones. I would read the manual and look for how you can set this up. 

if not possible then: 

On my Yamaha kit it has an Auxiliary input that I  connect to the headphone jack of my interface. I then monitor the Daw and the drum kit directly from the kit’s headphone jack and there is no latency that way.  The audio output recording is in sync with the Daw project and the midi version is too. 
I record both audio and the midi. Then I can double up on sounds. 

Edited December 9 by Sock Monkey

[mettelus]

On 12/6/2024 at 12:14 PM, Alex Cordero said:

When I go into Cakewalk preferences and select ASIO

I had to research the TD-27, which will send audio over the USB. The issue with using ASIO is you now have two devices connected (TD-27 and Focusrite) which won't work.

This same latency concern came up in another thread, and my experience with tracking is to ARM/Record the drums tracks but MUTE them. Use the headphone out of the TD-27 as your direct monitor and only have the DAW playing back the other tracks (via the Focusrite). You will have to use WASAPI Shared to do this, but it will let you focus on your performance. When finished tracking, you may need to nudge all of those drum tracks by a universal amount, but it should alleviate the latency for the tracking part of things. For most situations, you want to direct monitor audio from its source rather than through the DAW recording them.

Edited December 9 by mettelus