home studio 2002 help

i've had a copy of home studio 2002 sitting around for a while, but have never been able to get it to work. i've installed it on three seperate computers, and they all present the same problems:

1. they tell me there's no midi output, which is probably not a big deal, since i'm more interested in plain old audio than midi at present

2. there seems to be an input problem, since the record button is gray, pressing "r" does nothing, and arm button is also gray and non-functional

i'm guessing the problem is with the soundcard, as the one i have now is just the factory default (SigmaTel Audio?), but i really have no clue, since i'm a novice at this, and the manual just refers me to the online faq, which doesn't seem to address this problem. to prove how much of a novice i am: it says to plug a microphone into my computer's sound card.. i'm on a laptop, and all i've got at present is a microphone jack next to a headphone jack. is that going to achieve the same effect, or is that no good? and would i be able to use USB inputs as well, even though that's not plugged "into the sound card" as the manual repeats so many times?

i'd like to get some decent equipment for my computer, but not until i'm sure this software is actually going to work..

thanks a lot, i'll try all that. yeah, i know the quality's gonna be miserable, but i've gotta test out the software somehow

Are you in MME mode?

Download the latest drivers for your operating system from SigmaTel.

Could be. Windows XP is very particular about what drivers you use. Try the website for the company that made your laptop.

Otherwise consider the Echo Indigo soundcard for your laptop. Its a PC card. USB sound cards are too slow for audio work.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=040721135242141149115094023190/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/247018/

Hi Dot,

Did you ever resolve anything about your problem with SigmaTel? I just bought Home Studio 2, and I have the exact same problem.

I tried the same thing you did: did a search for the driver, and found the same message at SigmaTel's website that you saw, saying they don't do driver support.

A further note, for any who are interested: the first thing I tried after installing Home Studio, was to load up one of the sample music files, and see if it would play. I tried the file called "Let It Ride" which has both audio and midi. I got nothing out of midi or audio. Very discouraging! I had already verified my new midi cable works with Media Player.

Later, I tried opening another Home Studio file which has midi tracks only, and it played to the midi output. So it appears that when there is an audio track in the project, and my audio isn't working, Home Studio suppresses the the midi output as well, and doesn't tell me it's doing that!

Also, in one of these combined midi/audio files, the audio is supposed to play on longer than the midi part. But when the pointer hits the end of the last midi track, play stops. So clearly Home Studio recognizes it can't play the audio portion. But again, it's frustrating that it isn't giving any warning messages explaining what's going on, aside from the 1 message I get at program start-up.

I will have to see if the Calkwalk people have any plans to address this problem. Audio drivers are fairly standard. It doesn't make sense for Cakewalk to be incompatible with sound cards that work fine with Windows Media Player.

Any comments or assistance will be appreciated!