Instruments on Cakewalk have a horrible sound

[Lee Roy Gonzalez]

I have a brand new nektar impact gx61 that's connected directly to my computer through a usb. I also have a Behringer umc204 and that is sending the sound to my speakers.  Every instrument sounds terrible, like the sound is so loud and has an effect. I never had problems with this before. My old hard drive died, so i had to get a new ssd and installed everything from scratch and that's when this problem started.  I tried recording vocals and that comes out fine, even recording my guitar sounds fine. The problem is just with the midi instruments, no matter if its free ones or the ones that come with cakewalk. Even the drums, has anyone ever ran into this problem?

[Tezza]

Part of the problem might be that the velocity curve of the keyboard doesn't suit you.

I was using that keyboard and out of the box, they can have an unflattering velocity curve, It can max out the velocities of the instruments with little pressure on the keyboard making them sound a bit loud and harsh, especially if you are a hard player. I changed it to a softer one, you'll have to consult the manual about doing this as I have forgotten how to do it. I believe it has 4 to choose from.

Velocity curves are an individual choice depending on how hard or soft you like to play.

[Lee Roy Gonzalez]

Thank u, i'm going to give that a try

[Tezza]

 

7 hours ago, Lee Roy Gonzalez said:

Thank u, i'm going to give that a try

 

From the manual:

There are 4 different keyboard velocity curves and 3 fixed velocity levels to choose between, depending on how sensitive and dynamic you want the Impact GX keyboard to play. Here is how you change a velocity curve:

Steps:

1. Press the [Setup] button. The LED button is illuminated blue to indicate setup is active.

2. Press the G#1 key on your keyboard to select Velocity Curve.

3. Enter the value corresponding to the velocity curve you want (1 to 7 - see below) using the white number keys spanning G3–B4 (G4-B5 on GX61).

4. Press Enter (C5). This will change the velocity curve setting immediately and exit Setup.

Velocity curves:

1  Normal, focus on mid to high velocity levels
2  Soft, The most dynamic curve with a focus on the low to mid velocity levels
3  Hard, focus on the higher velocity levels. If you don't like exercising your finger muscles, this may be the one for you
4   Linear, approximates a linear experience from low to high
5   127 Fixed, fixed velocity level at 127
6  100 Fixed fixed velocity level at 100
7  64 Fixed fixed velocity level at 64

[Lee Roy Gonzalez]

I changed to the softest velocity and its still making that harsh sound kinda like there's an electrical sound to each note i press. I even turned off keyboard controller and restarted computer and just used the virtual keyboard on each instrument i have in cake walk  and i'm still getting  the same sound. Don't know what could be causing it.

[scook]

Make sure CbB is set to ASIO driver mode and the ASIO I/O buffer is large enough to handle the project.

[Lee Roy Gonzalez]

@scook Thank you so much, that fixed it but now it took the speaker option. It won't let me listen through my speakers anymore. Is there a way around that?

[scook]

By speaker I guess you mean speakers attached to the PC. The ASIO spec allows only one I/O driver to  be used at a time. When using the Behringer umc204 ASIO driver all audio must be handled by it. So, you have a couple of choices:

1) Attach speakers to the Behringer umc204 running both Windows and the DAW to it.

2) Attach one set of speakers to the Behringer umc204 for the DAW and another set of speakers to the PC for Windows

3) Use a different driver mode in CbB and increase the latency setting in preferences until the buffer is high enough to work

 

[Lee Roy Gonzalez]

Okay, thank you so so much ❤️ I'm new to all this, without your help i'd still be breaking my head. So thank you very much for taking your time and helping me..

Edited December 8, 2019 by Lee Roy Gonzalez