strange midi behaviour?

This has been reported before, but rarely. It happened to me once a long time ago. More often than not silent tracks turn out to be a routing/channel/patch/controller/envelope problem or clip muting or track archiving or some other user error, but it's possible you've stumbled on this rare bug.

Check your preferences/options, three options something like (not at my DAW, but you should be able to work out what they are):
 - Zero all controllers on stop
 - seach back controller values on start
 - play effects tails
 
I always have these options checked, that way, you get the MIDI CC values playing correctly regardless of where you start play from within the project.
 
Now, the key here is ... you MUST set the vital controllers to get sound, and it varies by VSTi/Library.
 
You should set up track templates for them all anyway, so you can load them up ready to go in a couple of seconds.
 
Set the following controllers at the beginning of every track (in your templates too).
 
MIDI CC 7 = Volume.  Normally set to around 100
MIDI CC 11 = Expression (also referred to sometimes as volume) - makes a big difference to timbre on some libs/instruments.
MIDI CC 1 = MOD-Wheel.  This is one to keep in mind for Aria Player (Garritan).
 
Those are the main three to make sure you get sound.
 
AriaPlayer is a bit unusual in that it uses MODWheel to control volume, so you need to turn it up :-).
 
 
Hope that's what you're seeing, 'cos it's easy to fix :-).
 
You should try working the CC11 for expression with many of the instruments too.
Makes a big difference to the expressiveness ... fancy that :-)
 
 
Cheers - Cliff

Could you let us know what those issues are in case we see them?

I've had a running conversation via email with one of the techs at Cakewalk regarding some very strange MIDI issues. So far the issues have yet to be resolved, but I've found a couple of work-arounds. I was hoping that X2 would have those issues solved, but they don't. It's really strange that Cakewalk started as MIDI only, now it seems to be old-fashioned to use MIDI.

Hello all, I've been perusing the X1 threads to see if my particular MIDI issues have been already addressed (as to avoid RTFM syndrome), but while I was delighted and relieved to find "missed notes during playback" was solved by the aforementioned "increase the MIDI buffer size", sadly there are still some frustrating MIDI issues for me. First, the preliminaries: I'm running X1 Studio (X1d, build 534)x64 on Win 7(x64), i7 970 @ 3.2 Ghz, 16 GB RAM. MIDI interface is an Axiom 61 controller through a Saffire Pro 14. All drivers are up to date and happy, no MIDI issues in any other program. Now, to paint the picture: A current project has one audio track with a few FX plugins as inserts; one instance of SI Drums (MIDI recorded and unfrozen) with a few more insert plugins processing the audio; all well and good. I add an instance of SI EP to record some more MIDI- and that's when SONAR decides it doesn't love me anymore- depending on the relative humidity, phase of the moon, etc. live MIDI input will be sent to the EP, or the drums only, or both the EP and the drums, but seemingly independent of what the track/instrument settings are for receive, echo, etc. It will be a case of triple-checking that the drums are indeed set to no input, the EP is set to receive from the Axiom, and that all MIDI preferences are where they're supposed to be, followed by a trial-and-error process of save-quit-open until SONAR behaves as instructed... then. Lag. Lag that makes recording a decent live-sounding EP part impossible. After clicking the delay compensation on and off in the plugin properties, now NO controller messages are being recieved. Virtual keyboard responds, produces sound, so not a plugin or audio dropout... let's press the good ol' "Reset all MIDI" button, and.. oh, look- the audio engine's stopped. Let's go into -oops, never mind. SONAR "has stopped working". I want to love SONAR, I really do- there's a lot of wonderful features and tools; but the first thing I think upon starting up my DAW should not be "Please just work this time."... Thanks for your forbearance, I'm off to my anger management class now ;)

Hi Cliff, Thanks for the tip about not using the "Simple Instrument Track"- I'd thought that it was just SONAR's way of simplifying the routing by providing a wrapper for the MIDI/audio tracks needed for instruments, but I'll give the alternative a go and see if it helps at all; incidentally, perhaps my post was a bit unclear- I'd meant that the project has: 1) Audio track (audio file, FX plugins) 2) MIDI track (MIDI sent to SI Drums, set to no input) 3) Audio track (SI Drums output, FX plugins) 4) MIDI track (no recorded data, set to Axiom input, output to SI EP) 5) Audio track (SI EP output) I do realize that this is a forum, and not Tech Support, so I'm not trying to demand that anyone here be able to read my mind, look over my shoulder, and automagically fix whatever PEBCAK issues may be at work here... but if posting helps the bakers or other users get a little closer to more clarity and less stress in the long run, why not? As baby birds everywhere might tell say, "A closed mouth doesn't get fed", heh. Also, forgive the horribly unreadable block-o'-text, but I am apparently too stupid to figure out how one successfully formats the text for readability, as the Return key seems to have no effect...

The most frustrating MIDI issue I have is that when you create a file using a particular MIDI device setup, in my case I use a Roland piano as a controller in my small studio, and I move the file to another setup on the stage, X1 and X2 always cough up an error that it can't find the original MIDI device used. I've made the changes to the later file with the stage hardware, but it still wants me to acknowledge that the original MIDI device isn't present. It makes using a playlist set almost useless. The workaround is to assign the MIDI track to a softsynth, then freeze it, delete the original MIDI track, then save the file. That solution does work, BUT it's a hassle and I have to keep two versions of the song (studio and stage) if I ever want to tweak it. Cakewalk has been very gracious regarding the issue, but the techs aren't sure why it happens. I showed them that if you open the file in a binary reader, you'll see that the original specific driver setup is encoded into the file, i.e. "Roland Digital Piano IN, Roland Digital Piano OUT" which is different from earlier versions. The older versions didn't store actual driver names in the files other than "MIDI Dev 1 or AUD Dev 1". What's really weird is that if you export the MIDI track as a SMF, it still has that info embedded, but if you use it in different program, the info is ignored.

 
MIDI CC 7 = Volume.  Normally set to around 100
MIDI CC 11 = Expression (also referred to sometimes as volume) - makes a big difference to timbre on some libs/instruments.
MIDI CC 1 = MOD-Wheel.  This is one to keep in mind for Aria Player (Garritan).
 
Those are the main three to make sure you get sound.
 
AriaPlayer is a bit unusual in that it uses MODWheel to control volume, so you need to turn it up :-).
 
Hope that's what you're seeing, 'cos it's easy to fix :-). 
 
You should try working the CC11 for expression with many of the instruments too. 

I wish I had run into you about a week ago - I found out about CC behavior the hard way, and yes, I'm using Aria. Now I know I'm not crazy for wondering why CC11 reacted differently with different VSTis.