Please help a nOOb

You must learn about soft synths and how to insert them.

Visit my web site for some info on midi and synths.

You obviously have the data source tracks with the midi, you need to: 

1. insert or load a synth into an audio track.
2 tell the midi track to send it's data to that particular synth instance
3 choose a patch, or sample, or in sound center, an instrument to play the midi.

my website explains this step by step.

BUT..... since you are new, what soundcard are you using?  As you step through the process on my site, you will need to insert YOUR soundcard where I talk about the Saffire (my card) AND, you need to have the correct drivers working.

Since midi is more complicated, I usually recommend that people get the AUDIO working first. Most of the demo projects are midi, but you can import any mp3 or wave file into a new project to test and get the audio working.   Open a new project, click and select an audio track, click FILE IMPORT AUDIO and navigate to the mp3 and click OK. then click play.


Oh yeah... be patient. Lots of good people here will help you get started, but it might take some time and can be a bit frustrating as you learn this new hobby.

Thanks but....
I do not know what "set the patch" means. I really feel this program is not intuitive at all. I've used many software programs, but this is frustrating. The only reason I'm bothering with it at all is that the other DAW I have won't let me use the Soundcenter because it's exclusive...
Could someone please walk me through it step by step.

Thanks. I read the help files but found them confusing. I guess i'm not smart enough to understand them. oh well.

Guitarhacker


Rev... be patient, and take your time. Try to get one thing at a time working. We all started out dumb as rocks when it came to this stuff. It takes time to learn it and contrary to the name "Cakewalk" it is usually not one when you are getting started.

Once you get a few things figured out.... you start building on that and before long, you are composing and recording entire songs.

DO you have sound from AUDIO working yet? You must have that working first before you try to tackle the midi stuff.

speak for yourself! 
 
rev - check out guitarhacker's website about working with MIDI.  he's got it in layman's terms and that might help some.

I remember you telling me to chill out and focus on one thing at a time.....

sounds like good advice!!!

First off I appreciate your time spent answering my questions. Like all of us I'm working with limited time (Fatherhood, single-parenthood, work etc.)
 
Before posting a question here I did everything I thought I could do on my own as far as reading the provided manual, help files etc. Even after getting an initial answer and going to the website given I still felt confused. 
1)    Yes I have audio working. I've dicked around with Cakewalk and have a basic understanding of DAWs if not a deep knowledge of them. I've listened to all the sounds on the Cakewalk Soundcenter both by triggering them with the mouse and connecting a controller keyboard via USB. I've loaded midi files and gotten them to play back using the default wavetable synth. I've downloaded a number of VSTs and played them via mouse and midi keyboard. I'm considering using Cakewalk as my preferred DAW (mainly because I already bought and paid for it.) However there are similarly priced DAWs that do more, are more powerful and I've "heard" are more user friendly. Certainly a full Abelton Live 8 suite would be preferable to any Cakewalk or Sonar product. I own a Roland XP-80 workstation and though it sounds fantastic, the manual is virtually incomprehensible. As pointed out in The History of Roland, they are notorious for this.
2)    MC5 could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, grind and brew my coffee for me in the morning too, but if you can't get anything done efficiently, then it is useless. Especially if Cakewalk is supposedly for beginners.
3)    The good news is I got it working. Beagle's post helped me understand a little bit and I figured it out. But - and there's always a but - I saved my Adagio for Strings project with all the midi tracks set up to play individual instances of the Cakewalk Soundcenter synth. But when I reopened it the next day all the Soundcenter tracks were now midi tracks and I had to start all over again. I'm sure this was due to some sort of user error, but for the love of Pete why wouldn't it save the project the way it was when I hit save? It's ridiculous that there must be some sort of setting, buried in yet another drop down menu to tell it to just save my work! Arrrg.
4)    Question: How do I save my project?
5)    Can I use TTS-1 as the sound source for midi track 1, use Soundcenter on midi tracks 2-4 and another VST on track 5? Is there some special trick beyond what has already been discussed here?
 

I was here before all of you, and I still feel like a moron sometimes for the dumb things i do.

Rev here is the skinny. Stop fooling with sound center until you have a working midi file.

Open up the synth rack and insert Rolands TTS synth then select that for each midi track, and hit play. You should have all the instruments playing.

Now reopen the synth rack, and in the second position add sound center, and add a violin sound and go just to ONE of the violin tracks and change it to use Sound Center.

Now go back and open the synth rack, and add sound center again, and add the instrument you want and change the synth assignment of another track to that one.

Now hit play, and two tracks will play thru the two sound centers, and the other track(s) will still play thru TTS.

Now think about it for a while. This is the formula add one more sound center, and change one more track over to it.

Heck i even beat Greg here by a day!!

Actually i had another account that i forgot the password and account ID for even before that i think.

RobertB


Beagle, I remember when you were a pup here.
I was still growing into my feet at the same time 

Yep!  and my first project was "Be Thou My Vision" that I wanted to add bagpipes to and you helped me learn about bagpipes!
 
revernd - these guys have given you the best advice I could give, so there's no point in me re-stating what they've said.  good luck!