MAX module freezes, lose the mouse pointer, clicks and pops develop in saved projects

This will identify the following problems:
1. After loading a project, trying to use MAX module is impossible.  Once you click the max know your mouse pointer disappears (goes behind the program window).
2. When recording, the input volumes sound good, however, during recording the volume of the actual recording is almost Nill.
3. After saving a project, when I open it up there are strange cracks and pops during playing.   The entire project sounds horrible.

Okay, the first one I list is just a heads up.  There is an easy fix if this happens to you.  Close the project, reload it, and instead of trying to change the MAX setting, right click over it and remove the module.  When you reload the module the problem is gone.

2.  I've baffled over this one for hours.  I use a 3000.00 computer system.  I won't go into details about it's specs, you only need to know I have massive resources and I am running the latest updated Windows 7.  (I hate windows 10).    I use a Line 6 Guitar Port with the Gearbox to run my guitar into my computer.  The first thing I noticed when I loaded up my gearbox was that although I could hear everything through my Guitar Port headphones, I was not getting an input signal on the channel I selected to record.
I'm familiar with Cakewalk, I used Guitar Tracks for years.  So, I puzzled over this no input until I finally decided to try to record something and see what happened.  Imagine my surprise when I pressed the red button (which looks just like the record button on older cakewalk) and learned that the red button on the track itself is the ARM button and not the record button.  So, now I had input signal to my meters, however even pushing the slider all the way to the top I couldn't make my input signal very strong.  I had great input from the Gearbox program, my guitar track output strength was good and it sounded GREAT both in the headphones and over the speaker system.  I mean, REALLY great.  I was excited to record.

However, during recording I noticed that the graph for the track had tiny little bumps instead of pretty waveforms.  It was recording at such low volume that even after muting the accompanying tracks I could barely hear the new recorded track during playback.

I have played with changing the input sources from left to right to stereo guitar port.  I've messed with the track out put sources.  I've opened and reloaded the preferences and the devices.  I've gone to the tutorial some 8 times and I've watched every video I can watch.  Nothing is helping me with solving this problem.  So I gave up for the night after about 8 hours of attempts to record this track.

The next day I opened the project and wanted to listen to it and during play back I was getting these NASTY snaps and pops and the playback of the other tracks (not the guitar track I was trying to record) were skipping and breaking with this strange static.
Now I know that the problem is not in my settings but the problem is with the program.

(When I experienced problem 1 with the disappearing mouse pointer I called tech support and he logged in remotely and was completely mystified by the problem, said he'd never seen it before).  So, it's my experience that problems 2 and 3 are going to be related to problem one.

Now, it's time to brainstorm.  Can anyone walk me through setting this recording track using guitar port/gearbox, how I would set up my inputs and outputs for Creator 7?  Let's make sure I have my settings exactly right and then see if my problem is solved.  In this way, we can identify if there is in fact a serious bug in this software.  Thank you.

gcolbert
When you arm the track for recording the meters are turned on.  Are you seeing good meter levels with the track armed (Near the top but not going into the red)?
 
Just out of curiosity, what driver mode are you using?
 

Answer: from my original post:
"So, now I had input signal to my meters, however even pushing the slider all the way to the top I couldn't make my input signal very strong.  I had great input from the Gearbox program, my guitar track output strength was good and it sounded GREAT both in the headphones and over the speaker system.  I mean, REALLY great.  I was excited to record."

I had input signal (meter was giving green signal) but even pushing the track fader to full blast I couldn't get it to go much higher than about 2/3.  Yet, still that should have recorded enough of the signal that I could at least hear it, but it did not.  After recording the track was barely audible.

As for what driver mode, I see two items in the help index for driver.  (There is no "driver mode" information in the index).  The two items in the tutorial under driver are MIDI and using ASIO.  I thoroughly read the "MIDI" section several times (even though I'm technically not using MIDI I'm playing guitar).  Since it mentions and interface and my Guitar Port is technically an interface I did look in the preferences as directed and found that the Guitar Pro is listed as an output driver.  When I selected that as an output driver I was stunned to discover two distinct signals coming through with the track armed.  I was getting, evidently a sort of feedback loop since the guitar port is also the input driver (set in preferences) and it also sends signal to the computer speaker system.  (I'm guessing that's why I got a track echo).

I read the ASIO page in the tutorial and went to "Playback and Recording" and immediately noticed it's using MME (32 bit) which is very odd since my machine is a 64 bit computer.  I'm going to include a picture of the preferences page I'm speaking about below.

I guess I'm probably just setting up everything wrong because the tutorial is not "dummy" friendly.

So are ya good to go ?  Curious what your settings are under your Driver Settings are showing ?
I had a prob with the pop n noise with my Lexicon in the beginning of my recording also but found the proper driver settings (Buffer Q and size) for latency required some adjusting based on whether I was recording direct from my Vox Amp...or using the built in TH2 module in MC7.
 
As for the initial settings of 32 bit....I believe its due to your Line6's bit process capability. 
 
 "With GuitarPort XT you get:
• 18 amp and cabinet models based on brilliant tones from POD® [class="logofaq"]xt
• Over 20 stunning stompbox and studio effects
• Effects can be routed Pre- or Post- Amp
• MP3, WAV and Audio CD playback
• Loop and play half-speed without changing pitch
• 24-bit converters & 32-bit processing
 

Kalle Rantaaho
 
Quote: I had input signal (meter was giving green signal) but even pushing the track fader to full blast I couldn't get it to go much higher than about 2/3.  Yet, still that should have recorded enough of the signal that I could at least hear it, but it did not.  After recording the track was barely audible
 
As I don't know anything about Gearbox maybe I've missed or misunderstood something in your elaborate post, but Sonars track faders have nothing to do with recording volume. The track slider should be set at 0 and the recording level set in the audio interface.
 
 Quote: Now, when I play the project it is routing the sound to my guitar port (instead of my realtech sound card, which is default).
You should not use the Realtek for anything when you have a proper audio interface. ASIO can only use one interface
at a time, so you can't use both the Line 6 and the Realtek, and the Realtek doesn't understand ASIO anyway (except for ASIO4ALL, which is not an ASIO driver, but a WDM wrapper).

Well, here's the first confusion.  When I said that I couldn't get a green signal even with the fader pushed full blast I wasn't talking about the Guitar port I was talking about the Creator 7.  I got GREAT signal on my Gear Box (Guitar Port) and it sounded GREAT.  It also sounded great through Creator until I went to record it.

Here's the second confusion.  I'm not using Sonar, I'm using Music Creator 7 and indeed, when I push up the track faders the signal strength on the green meter increases which increases the volume of the recording I make.  (It works that way on Cakewalk Guitar Tracks too, so if it doesn't work that way on Sonar I'm surprised).  It's possible you don't know what I mean by "track fader" since you thought I was talking about what was happening on my guitar port.

It's obvious we are not communicating at all and you can fault my long post if you want but obviously even with long explanations we are not communicating.

I've been recording for decades.  First with analogue recording machines and then with digital Cakewalk programs.  I've never had THIS MUCH difficulty recording anything.  When I go to the tutorials they are little to no help. 

In short, I'm finding Music Creator 7 is not very user friendly.  Hence I have to come here and make long posts before anyone knows what I'm talking about.

Since I said that my guitar port was working fine, that I was getting great signal from it and it sounded great, you should have immediately taken that out of the equation as a potential problem, but perhaps you didn't think I knew what I was talking about on that regard too.  I have been using Guitar Port to make music on my computer since windows 95.

So...

I thank you very much for trying to help, and I do appreciate it, but obviously we are speaking a different tech language here.

As I understand ASIO, according to the tutorial on the subject, it is supposed to utilize my sound card (which is my realtek).  You say ASIO has nothing to do with the realtek but from what I read in the tutorial it has everything to do with it.  Again, perhaps the tutorial once again is not helpful.

Onewitnessus

Kalle Rantaaho
 
Quote: I had input signal (meter was giving green signal) but even pushing the track fader to full blast I couldn't get it to go much higher than about 2/3.  Yet, still that should have recorded enough of the signal that I could at least hear it, but it did not.  After recording the track was barely audible
 
As I don't know anything about Gearbox maybe I've missed or misunderstood something in your elaborate post, but Sonars track faders have nothing to do with recording volume. The track slider should be set at 0 and the recording level set in the audio interface.
 
 Quote: Now, when I play the project it is routing the sound to my guitar port (instead of my realtech sound card, which is default).
You should not use the Realtek for anything when you have a proper audio interface. ASIO can only use one interface
at a time, so you can't use both the Line 6 and the Realtek, and the Realtek doesn't understand ASIO anyway (except for ASIO4ALL, which is not an ASIO driver, but a WDM wrapper).

Well, here's the first confusion.  When I said that I couldn't get a green signal even with the fader pushed full blast I wasn't talking about the Guitar port I was talking about the Creator 7.  I got GREAT signal on my Gear Box (Guitar Port) and it sounded GREAT.  It also sounded great through Creator until I went to record it.

Here's the second confusion.  I'm not using Sonar, I'm using Music Creator 7 and indeed, when I push up the track faders the signal strength on the green meter increases which increases the volume of the recording I make.  (It works that way on Cakewalk Guitar Tracks too, so if it doesn't work that way on Sonar I'm surprised).  It's possible you don't know what I mean by "track fader" since you thought I was talking about what was happening on my guitar port.

It's obvious we are not communicating at all and you can fault my long post if you want but obviously even with long explanations we are not communicating.

I've been recording for decades.  First with analogue recording machines and then with digital Cakewalk programs.  I've never had THIS MUCH difficulty recording anything.  When I go to the tutorials they are little to no help. 

In short, I'm finding Music Creator 7 is not very user friendly.  Hence I have to come here and make long posts before anyone knows what I'm talking about.

Since I said that my guitar port was working fine, that I was getting great signal from it and it sounded great, you should have immediately taken that out of the equation as a potential problem, but perhaps you didn't think I knew what I was talking about on that regard too.  I have been using Guitar Port to make music on my computer since windows 95.

So...

I thank you very much for trying to help, and I do appreciate it, but obviously we are speaking a different tech language here.

As I understand ASIO, according to the tutorial on the subject, it is supposed to utilize my sound card (which is my realtek).  You say ASIO has nothing to do with the realtek but from what I read in the tutorial it has everything to do with it.  Again, perhaps the tutorial once again is not helpful.

Isn't your Line 6 an audio interface? AFAIK it is. If so, you should not use the Realtek for anything. Sonar and MC act in a similar way regarding recording. When you record, the MC track fader has nothing to do with recording level. The level is set by your audio interface (Line 6) the moment the analog signal turns into digital. Onboard soundcards don't usually support ASIO, but ASIO4ALL usually works. ASIO4ALL is not an ASIO driver.
When Guitar POrt was published they advertised "ASIO support in progress" so I don't know if it has it today.
If there are dedicated ASIO drivers for it, use only them, but it's OK to try WDM or whatever, of course.
 
Don't let your frustration take over. We are communicating.
 

Kalle Rantaaho
 
Isn't your Line 6 an audio interface? AFAIK it is. If so, you should not use the Realtek for anything. Sonar and MC act in a similar way regarding recording. When you record, the MC track fader has nothing to do with recording level. The level is set by your audio interface (Line 6) the moment the analog signal turns into digital. Onboard soundcards don't usually support ASIO, but ASIO4ALL usually works. ASIO4ALL is not an ASIO driver.
When Guitar POrt was published they advertised "ASIO support in progress" so I don't know if it has it today.
If there are dedicated ASIO drivers for it, use only them, but it's OK to try WDM or whatever, of course.
 
Don't let your frustration take over. We are communicating.
 

Ya, I was not understanding the ASIO concept in the tutorial.  While the Guitar Port does act as a type of ASIO it also has a line output that goes directly into the input on the sound card.  I've never had any trouble using the sound card with it because the Guitar Port is designed to do just that.

Anyway, I found that I can go straight to using the Guitar Port and as long as I seriously crank the drive on the Gear Box software that comes with it I can get a decent signal (but still not as great).

Here's a link to my first recording using the Creator.  As you will see, the output was rather low.  I found if I tried to record it at any higher volume it spiked the meters and distorted.

I'm still learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daPSJcQM15k

The faders still control levels routed to the Master which is then the final setting for exporting...at least it works with my setup.   That is ....those Faders are doing plenty for me during all aspects of my record/mix/export experience.    On a side note ..when I first began using my Lexicon as my interface....i was getting terrible distortion on the input side....like it would slowly overload from the direct guitar (or amp line out) to the Lex input and then shutoff completely.  I thought the Lex was defective....it did this awhile...i would lower the Sig in till it stopped and was usable for recording.  Then it kinda disappeared and no trouble since...no matter how much hot signal i throw at it...lol.  Really weird but glad i didn't have to return it.  That said....there is no doubt the new class of external interfaces are far superior to typical sound cards in Laptops. 

Kalle Rantaaho

Onewitnessus
You're right, apparently the faders in the tracks serve no purpose whatsoever.  They had no effect on the recording volume on the input side, and when I went to play it back they had no effect on the play back volume either.  I simply couldn't control a mix when exporting.

I was horribly disappointed because I'm a "mix" recording guy.  I fix everything in the mix.

Perhaps I'm still missing something.

The faders control all output of the track during playback an mixing, so, there's surely something wrong with your settings. Actually, I can't imagine a situation when they have no effect on playback volume (other than trying to adjust soft sybnth volume using the MIDI track fader instead of that of the audio output track). I've never experienced or heard of such an issue. Maybe someone else has a better imagination. 

I had to open "Take Lanes" for each track before the faders had any effect on the playback recording (export).  Before I did that the faders had no effect on playback.

I ran into your problem #1 with the MAX mod...mouse disappearing act...that's a weird quirk i never ran into before.
Did not find any other reason on faders issue yet...