No audio after saving without headphones plugged in

[William Boll]

I was in a hurry to import an audio track into a song, so I opened Cakewalk and loaded the song without plugging in my headphones.  I saved the song, and now I can't get any audio from the project.  The audio worked this morning, and the only thing I "changed" was to import a track.  All of my other Cakewalk projects play perfectly, and the settings all seem to be the same across the board.  I'm totally lost.  I've been using Cakewalk exclusively since 1989 and this is biggest problem I've ever had with it.  Any advice?

[Michael Elliott]

Are your headphones USB, with their own driver?

 

Or are they standard headphones that plug in to an audio device with a 1/4" or other type of standard TRS plug?

 

 

[William Boll]

I'm using standard Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones.

[57Gregy]

14 hours ago, William Boll said:

I'm using standard Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones.

Welcome to the forum.
I don't have these headphones. What audio interface are you connecting them to? Or are you plugging them directly into the computer sound card or with a USB cord?

[William Boll]

13 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

Welcome to the forum.
I don't have these headphones. What audio interface are you connecting them to? Or are you plugging them directly into the computer sound card or with a USB cord?

Thanks for your help!  The headphones plug directly  into my laptop using a standard 1/8 inch phono jack.  It might plug into the sound card but I'm not sure.  I haven't added any hardware, so it's whatever the factory standard is for laptop audio jacks.  Every audio source (streaming media, stored audio, system sounds) defaults to the laptop speakers when the headphones aren't plugged in, but all audio goes through the headphones if they are plugged in.  But I'm finding that Cakewalk is very persnickety in that the headphones have to be plugged in when starting the app or they won't work.  I already knew this, but I didn't know that if you saved a project in that scenario, it changes some setting so you can't use the headphones at all.

[William Boll]

On 6/4/2025 at 9:03 PM, Amberwolf said:

Are your headphones USB, with their own driver?

 

Or are they standard headphones that plug in to an audio device with a 1/4" or other type of standard TRS plug?

 

 

I'm using standard Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones with a 1/8 inch phono jack.  Sorry, this is my first post here and I don't know what I'm doing.

[Michael Elliott]

Sounds like the driver for your audio device has a problem of some type.

Most built in soundcards have a control panel to turn various options on or off, including things like auto-level or surround sound or extra bass or other assorted options.   These usually show you the status of the jack(s), if they are connected to anything, etc.   Some that have only one jack can use it for headphones or a tiny headset-type microphone, but this has to be switched in that control panel as it doesn't always (sometimes never  ) autodetect the change.  

 

What driver are you using in Cakewalk?   This is in your audio settings; I don't know the specific menu you'll need to go into to see this, but there are various threads about drivers (ASIO, WASAPI, etc) with screenshots and such to show you what the page looks like.   If you're not sure what to look for, you can screenshot what you see in your settings by holding your Alt key and pressing PrtSc (printscreen), and then coming directly to your post here and holding Ctrl key and pressing V to paste.   If you can't fit everything on one screen, you can do this as many times as needed.   

 

 

[mettelus]

Check the obvious first with this. What is the "Master" output set to for your project? If your headphones work with other apps on your machine, then there is more likely a routing issue (track->busses->Master). Cakewalk will shift the Master output at times if the default device is not seen, and it may be set to None on you.

[57Gregy]

Right. Open Cakewalk's Preferences (P) and see what the Playback Timing Master is and what other options it has and change it to the one that worked. Then open that project again and make sure the correct outputs are chosen, play it to see if it works and then resave it.

On 6/4/2025 at 6:00 PM, William Boll said:

I've been using Cakewalk exclusively since 1989

And you've never had this kind of problem in 36 years? 

[John Vere]

This is a longtime problem with on board audio that when you make any changes ( unplugged the headphones Jack) Cakewalk defaults to “None” on the master buss. I’ve seen 3 pages of troubleshooting advice including re installing the software before someone mentions this. Good advice @mettelus

[William Boll]

On 6/6/2025 at 10:24 PM, mettelus said:

Check the obvious first with this. What is the "Master" output set to for your project? If your headphones work with other apps on your machine, then there is more likely a routing issue (track->busses->Master). Cakewalk will shift the Master output at times if the default device is not seen, and it may be set to None on you.

That's exactly what it was!  I can't believe I spent so much time trying to "solve" the problem.  I was so focused on Preferences (which were identical to those of other projects) that it didn't occur to me Cakewalk would reroute the signal.  Thank you for your help!

[William Boll]

On 6/6/2025 at 10:31 PM, 57Gregy said:

Right. Open Cakewalk's Preferences (P) and see what the Playback Timing Master is and what other options it has and change it to the one that worked. Then open that project again and make sure the correct outputs are chosen, play it to see if it works and then resave it.

And you've never had this kind of problem in 36 years? 

LOL, it's true.  The DOS-based Calkwalk 2 had free telephone support that helped me set the dip switches on the midi card; Cakewalk Pro was plug and play; and Cakewalk Sonar effortlessly worked with my ADAT lightpipe soundcard.  But since I never look at the master output until I'm ready to mix, I probably wouldn't have seen the issue for a while.

[William Boll]

On 6/7/2025 at 12:10 PM, John Vere said:

This is a longtime problem with on board audio that when you make any changes ( unplugged the headphones Jack) Cakewalk defaults to “None” on the master buss. I’ve seen 3 pages of troubleshooting advice including re installing the software before someone mentions this. Good advice @mettelus

Good advice, and it came just in time--I was fully prepared to copy each individual track into a new project.  I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem, it was frankly kind of embarrassing to find out how simple it was!