As a Canadian user can I just use main email contact for X1 tech support?

Perhaps a silly question but Cakewalk is confusing me a little on this topic. It consistently says if you are outside of the US to contact a regional dealer. It is giving me an email addy for Roland Canada but it looks to be more for orders and general queries. I'd like to get some specific tech questions answered ASAP and don't want to be firing off random emails to the wrong place wasting mine and Cake's time. Thanks.

No mods around who can answer this? Another concern is I fear the support teams up here may not be quite as up to date or knowledgeable as the main support team. @guitarmikeh... I called them the other day about a couple of things but I'm a little more concise with emails. This is a pretty detailed list of questions so I don't want to leave something out. Also a written reply would probably be better so I can hack through the issues one at a time and have a written reference point. Yanno? I can be a little stammery and forgetful in a live convo.

Right on. Was just checking. Thanks. I'm typing it up now. Hope I can get some answers.

you see, the above is why I like Cake and it employees so much. even though I might whinge and whine sometimes.

Yup. The legendary support and the things I heard about this specific forum are one of the reasons I purchased X1. I'm a reasonably smart fella but it's nice to have folks pointing you in the right direction. You guys are pretty awesome.

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk


Anyone else have experience with the Scarlett 18i6 that might lend some insight for Beepster?

someone from focusrite was on the board the other day.

This is a custom build (first one I've done). It is indeed an i7 system. The MOBO is an ASUS P8Z68V PRO/GEN 3 which I bought specifically for all the different connectivity options especially the legacy PCI slots. I was under the impression they were quality PCI slots but who knows. Yes I have heard a few grumbling here about new MOBOs not cooperating well with PCI cards but again I thought I had that covered by buying the ASUS. I may have erred. It still is an awesome board though and would recommend it to anyone. I'll just compose this email and see if your guys can cobble together an answer for me. However maybe you could point me to a webpage detailing how to configure Win 7 (I'm using Pro 64) and BIOS settings for optimal performance with Sonar x1 Production Suite. I've been picking up little tidbits here and there as I poke around the forum but if their is a Cakewalk verified procedure I would love to take a look at it. Thanks.

Seth Perlstein [Cakewalk
]

someone from focusrite was on the board the other day.

Oh, ya, I thought I recalled seeing that. Wasn't it a driver issue with latency and the internal DSP and he mentioned that their beta drivers are up and perform much better?


SP

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?high=&m=2522158&mpage=1#2562084

it was Ben. I only can comment on saffire 6, which I assume is the same family of drivers.. which is no problem in the main.. 


bit love / hate for me really. as I don't mind their products, but their novation stuff I doubt I'll ever buy again (I own 3 of their products) 

or maybe he was here to skool up Robin on DnB hehe (I'm awaiting the master class)

Sorry... that may have sounded a little snarky. Certainly not my intent and I'm very appreciative of the help. I will look into that box for the future but the boxes I've already researched meet my specific needs... if they work properly of course. If Roland produces something in the $300 range I'd certainly take a look at that. Replacing my i/o was not something I had budgeted for so this is already a significant financial problem for me. Unfortunately I have to keep costs low. I'm already sacrificing a few VSTs I wanted because of this but obviously a working breakout box takes priority. Anyway thanks for the input and thank you Fog for posting those details and links. The Focusrite guys sound like good fellas and that makes me a little more comfortable purchasing from them just like I feel about Cakewalk. Although I haven't been able to do much with X1 yet I am very impressed and quite eager to get some tunes together. Cheers guys!

Bloody hell. Just spent the past few hours detailing my issues and concerns in notepad format thinking I could send it straight though my Cake account so it was associated with my registered product. Nope. Had to poke around for what I hope was the right channel but it was just general support and it told me I may have to wait a week for a response AND now I'm getting a Cakewalk page saying "The internet is broken...". Man I hope the tech guys get this and I didn't just waste my afternoon. HELP!!!

lol... it's all very vague but Seth said we are worthy... but perhaps not. I asked my retailer about this stuff and he didn't really have an answer for me. Beepster's gettin' upset! SERENITY NOW!!! Seriously though... I'll chill out but I do need some answers here.

Beepster


lol... it's all very vague but Seth said we are worthy... but perhaps not. I asked my retailer about this stuff and he didn't really have an answer for me. Beepster's gettin' upset! SERENITY NOW!!! Seriously though... I'll chill out but I do need some answers here.

asking a retailer is sometimes not the best , ask them for pointers for sure.. BUT they might be on better deals with certain makers to flog certain products 

Hi, Seth. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

First off yes that does indeed look more like a tech support form than the pages I was originally getting. Not sure where that's placed within the support contacts but I'm gonna bookmark it for future reference. I probably just over looked it in my frazzled state yesterday.

Second, I realized last night watching one of the Cake webinars that you are the fellow from many videos that steered me towards X1 so thank you for that. I know it is an awesome program I just gotta get the thing setup properly. I also have a bunch of your tutorials bookmarked and they are definitely helpful and already helped me accomplish some beginner tasks before I started hitting this dropout wall.

Anyway I went into google hunter mode about this 18i6 issue and sure enough the searches brought me right back to these forums. The following thread in specific...

http://forum.cakewalk.com..aspx?&m=2326631&mpage=1

The OP and quite a few others were detailing some absolutely horrendous sounding issues with the 18i6 at the start (BSOD, MIDI not working, etc...) which obviously was off putting however it sounded like they weren't installing the latest drivers or plugging things in the wrong way. Others said they had some initial setup problems but then got it working great. So not much help until... the Focusrite guys showed up (like they did in the other thread that was posted by Fog). They explained there had been driver issues but they had corrected them then posted a bunch of links to the fresh drivers so it seems the issues with the 18i6 and Sonar have indeed been resolved. Just thought people here might like a more detailed view of the issues with this box.

I will likely just go ahead and buy it and not bother the tech support guys with that issue. If all else fails I'll just send it back to my retailer but I don't think that'll be necessary if the results in that thread hold true to life. As I said I am on a budget so the really high end stuff will have to wait, but perhaps I'll look more deeply at the Roland i/o's as opposed to the MOTU stuff. At some point I am going to want to start getting a V-Drum set up going so I'm sure going from Roland instruments, through Roland i/o and then INTO Roland software (X1) would probably minimize headaches.

So that's my main issue resolved. The other issue was in regards to optimizing my BIOS and windows settings specifically to run X1 however another helpful user here sent me a PM with some tips and I keep seeing little blurbs on this subject come up every so often so I'm going to post a topic looking to round up all that info or any articles on this matter to see if I can solve any issues myself. So again... I'll leave tech support alone on that for now.

The final problem I'm having is simply not being able to download some freebie videos that were sent to me after registering X1 from my Cakewalk account (links probably expired). I mentioned this to the general support fellow I was on the phone with the other day and he said he'd email me fresh links which hasn't happened. However that has nothing to do with Tech and I should probably just ask about that through the general support channels.

So yeah... gonna try to muscle through all this one more time on my own. Thanks.

Thanks, millzy. When I bought the ASUS MOBO it was to have as many connectivity options as possible and specifically the PCI slots so I could run the Layla. I was under the impression that this board would not cause issues but it's becoming clearer every day that is not the case. I will quite likely be buying that 18i6 in a couple of weeks so hopefully that resolves the issue. It also won't be a complete loss as I can just toss the Layla back into my old system where it worked pretty much flawlessly for years with Nuendo. I was just hoping to hold off purchasing a new i/o for now but... well it seems necessary at this point. Again, many thanks for the input on the Echo. It is a lovely piece of gear.

Dont kick yourself, Echo support is still good. I recently wrote to them regarding compatability with certain motherboards and they responded quickly. My point above is that the link to getting the Layla and X1 working together is your computer - and there are definite issues with those newer MB's and PCI cards.

One solution offered to me by Echo is to buy a PCI to PCIe adaptor. They apparantly have them running on test there according to their tech support guy. So that may be another option for you to consider.

Good luck