Microphone not listed as an input device. No audio playing through speakers either

[Russell Ehrnsberger]

Hello. I am new to Cakewalk and DAW's. I am an IT Director and have extensive PC experience.

I have an Atlas microphone that uses an XLR cable into a Maonocaster G1 Neo. Everything works in other programs. I can pull up sound recorder and the microphone works just fine. In Cakewalk under preferences-devices. It does not show up as an input device.  I also have usb speakers plugged in. They do show up as an output device, however, no sound comes out. 

I have tried the drivers wasapi exclusice, wasapi shared, and asio. The program crashes when attempting to us asio. 

 

Anyone experince this before?

[Amberwolf]

What driver are the other working programs using? 

What are their settings?   

Do any of them have exclusive access to the driver(s), and if so are any of them running (even as "inactive" TSRs) while using CbB?  That could prevent CbB from accessing the drivers to get sound in or out.

Are any of the drivers set to allow exclusive access in the Windows sound control panel? You might disable that if so, and see if it makes a differenc.e 

 

Keep in mind that ASIO, per Steinberg's limitations, can only use a single audio device at a time, so if you have separate in and out devices, you can only use one of them at a time in any program that is set to use ASIO.  To use separate devices for in and out, you will have to use one of the other driver modes, to allow you to select multiple devices at once.  

If you are unable to select multiples, then first uncheck both inputs and outputs for the current driver(s).  Then you can try selecting multiples; if there are any that won't let you do that, it means those drivers are written in some way that prevents access to them while the others are being accessed, which you'd probably have to take up with the hardware manufacturer.

 

Regarding the crashes, I would guess that you have a driver called ASIO4ALL installed.  It isn't a "real" ASIO driver, and is known to cause various problems.   Uninstalling that completely may fix the ASIO issue, if you have a real ASIO driver to select instead. (many devices do not, and use ASIO4ALL as a "wrapper" to talk to their *real* driver...but the way ASIO4ALL works is talking to *all* audio drivers on the system, which isn't helpful when trying to access a single device, and is part of the problem).  

 

Edited January 5 by Amberwolf

[Russell Ehrnsberger]

thank you. I have no idea what driver is being use. Whatever the default windows driver would be. If I open the Sound Recorder application in Windows, it sees my mic and it works properly. Thats all the information I can give as I do not know more.

Most what you said makes no sense to me. I am new to this kind of setup. I will look it all up. 

[User 905133]

1 hour ago, Russell Ehrnsberger said:

thank you. I have no idea what driver is being use. Whatever the default windows driver would be. If I open the Sound Recorder application in Windows, it sees my mic and it works properly. Thats all the information I can give as I do not know more.

I looked for the "manual" yesterday and almost posted the link in case it might help others to help you.  But I figured that might be a bit insulting.  

I have almost no experience with gaming devices or low-cost microphones / microphone combos except for a podcast mic I picked up a year or two ago and used to record a few things.  I do remember having some difficulties. The operational range was very limited. I recommend trying to find the specs. IIRC the mic I got only worked with a sampling rate I haven't intentionally used since the days of Windows 98SE  and maybe Windows XP.

Let me see if I can find the manual for you.

That was quick.  It was still in my browser's cache.  Here's what I found yesterday. Hope it helps.

Edited January 6 by User 905133
to post a link to the manual

[Sock Monkey]

Bottom line is Cakewalk is software made for more professional users and is not optimized for using consumer level hardware. It rarely works. 
You can get away with using the computer audio system for playback but it rarely can be configured properly for recording. 
To record audio with out all the issues you will encounter with computer consumer type audio gear you will want to purchase a proper audio interface which must have the proper ASIO driver to work smoothly with and Daw.  
And then a proper XLR microphone. 

 

[David Baay]

On 1/5/2025 at 8:06 AM, Russell Ehrnsberger said:

I can pull up sound recorder and the microphone works just fine. In Cakewalk under preferences-devices. It does not show up as an input device. 

Just to be clear, since the microphone has an analog connection to the Neo 'interface', it is not going to show up directly as an input device in CbB. What you should see is the driver for the port on the Neo to which the Mic is connected. It looks to me like the Neo is strictly a class-compliant Windows device so you should see its inputs and outputs in WASAPI mode. Ideally you should connect headphones or motniros to the Neo's analog outputs. If you want to use the USB speakers, you;ll want to set that as the Playback Timing Master while the Neo is the Record Timing Master, but using two different devices for input ant ouput is not ideal.

Here's how you would normally go about using a class-compliant device like the Neo:

- In Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording, set the Driver Mode to WASAPI

- In  Audio > Devices, Check all input/output ports associated with that device.

- In Audio > Driver Settings, ensure that the Playback and Record Timing Masters are set to Output/Input ports associated with that device.

- Connect headphones (preferable when recording from a mic) or powered monitors or an amp with passive speaker/monitors to the L/R Outputs of the interface.

- Add an audio track to a project, assign the relevant Input via  the "I" control (a.k.a "widget") in the track. The Ouput should already have defaulted to the Master bus (or direct the interface outputs if you started from a completely empty template with no buses).

- If using headphones, enable the Input Echo button (icon looks like headphones) on the track. Do not enable this if using monitors or you will get feedback between the mic and monitors.

- Click the record (arming) button on the track to arm it for recording.

- Make some noise into the mic and verify you see the track meter responding; if it's peaking in the red (above -6dB), turn down the input level on the interface.

- Hit R on the PC keyboard to start recording, and make some more noise into the mic.

- Hit Spacebar to stop recording.

- Hit W to reWind, and hit Spacebar again to play back the recording.

 

[Sock Monkey]

It’s funny David, reading you most excellent explanation of how to hobble together the OP’s system is a testament to why a $50 audio interface makes more sense! 
I was just in my local music store and they had a Motu M2 for $40. I was tempted to buy it at that price but I already have 4 interfaces. 
 

Edited January 7 by Sock Monkey

[David Baay]

1 hour ago, Sock Monkey said:

It’s funny David, reading you most excellent explanation of how to hobble together the OP’s system is a testament to why a $50 audio interface makes more sense! 

True, but giving step-by-step instructions for anything always comes off as more complicated than it is. ;^)

1 hour ago, Sock Monkey said:

I was just in my local music store and they had a Motu M2 for $40.

I always advocate finding a used/open box deal for those on a budget. That's a good example. I think an M5 is in my future when ye olde MOTU 424 PCIe system becomes unusable due to hardware or O/S evolution.