Captain Plugins from Mixed in Key - anyone got this to play nicely with Cakewalk?

[kevmsmith81]

I recently bought the Captain Plugins suite from Mixed in Key, as they seem like a good and fun tool to play around with.

However, they don't seem to work so well with Cakewalk.  For example, for Captain Play, in theory you use the keys of the computer's computer to play melodies, but this isn't working so well.  Either it doesn't play anything, or it sets other things off that I hadn't intended.

Has anyone got Cakewalk and the Captain Plugins to work properly together?

I also have Reaper which the Captain Suite does work with, but I still prefer Cakewalk (and the latest version of Reaper is frankly horrible to the point where I am seriously considering rolling back to version 5).

[Matthew Sorrels]

Turn on the send all keystrokes keyboard icon in the upper right corner of the CbB plugin UI to get the keystrokes to the Play plugin.  It mostly seems to work for me if I do that, but I think you'd have more luck with it in MIDI mode.

[kevmsmith81]

48 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

Turn on the send all keystrokes keyboard icon in the upper right corner of the CbB plugin UI to get the keystrokes to the Play plugin.  It mostly seems to work for me if I do that, but I think you'd have more luck with it in MIDI mode.

Ok, I'll have to give that a try, thanks.

Will make things easier if I can remove Reaper from the equation especially as Cockos seem to have ruined it!

And when you say about running it in MIDI mode, what do you mean by that?  I've been inserting it in as a soft synth with a separate MIDI and Audio track, as that is how I've always had it set up since the SONAR days.  Do you mean setting this up in a different way?

Thanks

Edited December 9, 2019 by kevmsmith81

[Matthew Sorrels]

The Play plugin can take input from the computer keyboard, which is what you are having a problem with since Cakewalk wants the input to drive it's UI.  But it can also take input from your MIDI keyboard and will still play chords.  Makes it a one button chord plugin (you press one key and get a full chord).

Plugins that use keyboard input often have issues with the DAW.  Which is why there is that switch to focus the keyboard entry to the plugin.  But even that has limits.  Reaper isn't a magic bullet for this, it just is slightly different so perhaps it's working better for you.  The truth is the Play plugin is the least useful (to me) of all the Captain plugins.

In general the Captain plugins have seemed to work for me in CbB.  But keyboard control over a plugin is always an issue, doesn't matter what plugin or what DAW.  If your plugin wants to use the '1' key for a feature and your DAW wants to use a '1' key for a feature, someone is going to lose that fight.

[kevmsmith81]

6 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

The Play plugin can take input from the computer keyboard, which is what you are having a problem with since Cakewalk wants the input to drive it's UI.  But it can also take input from your MIDI keyboard and will still play chords.  Makes it a one button chord plugin (you press one key and get a full chord).

Plugins that use keyboard input often have issues with the DAW.  Which is why there is that switch to focus the keyboard entry to the plugin.  But even that has limits.  Reaper isn't a magic bullet for this, it just is slightly different so perhaps it's working better for you.  The truth is the Play plugin is the least useful (to me) of all the Captain plugins.

In general the Captain plugins have seemed to work for me in CbB.  But keyboard control over a plugin is always an issue, doesn't matter what plugin or what DAW.  If your plugin wants to use the '1' key for a feature and your DAW wants to use a '1' key for a feature, someone is going to lose that fight.

I never suggested Reaper was a magic bullet - just seems to work better with these plugins.  For everything else, I much prefer CbB.

That said, I have recently ordered a MIDI keyboard as a controller so once I have that set up that will likely be a better option than the computer keyboard in any case.

I also know what you mean about the Play plugin.  My main idea was using it to make texture pieces to compliment everything else - it's just handy having something which will only play notes within the scale your track is in!

[kevmsmith81]

3 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

not being funny, but did you demo before purchase?

 

There was no demo option.

And besides, I was happy with other things that it offered that I could see from videos online - especially knowing that I had one other DAW it was listed as being stable with.  

[Tydell Williams]

So just in case anyone else is having this problem now. This is what you do. First make sure it appearing in your instruments. It shows up in the uncategoried folder. Double click and set the options 

I then have the midi input set to my keyboard  and the output is master. I'm new to using a DAW but not software in general so i'm honestly not sure if this is "correct" but it working perfectly and I can drop and drop my midi and audio files created in the captain suite.