There's been a sudden change: when I open a project in my Music Creator 6, VLC Media Player won't play. With MC open and no project opened, it may or may not play. Getting it back requires rebooting. Maybe I've clicked a setting in MC. Or maybe sweet cake hurt VL's feelings. Any ideas?

I'm guessing.. probably ASIO driver being used by both ?
 
Make sure one is on ASIO (probably Sonar) and the VLC set to MME.

I found no path to tell VLC to use MME. I uninstalled it and began using Windows Media Player. It also stops when I open a Cake project but when I close the project - w/ Cake still open - WMP plays again w/o having to reboot. I see no option in MWP (or in VLC) to select MME. My audio driver ASIO4ALL is the latest version. I would try reinstalling Cake but nobody seems to know where the instrument definitions are stored and I don't want to lose those - again.
 
I've been unable to make any sense of the few guides on creating instrument definitions. My method is to manually edit each name within Cakewallk: Edit > Preferences > MIDI Instruments > Define > Patch Names > Ketron. It takes hours. I've searched C-drive under all things Cakewalk and have found no file with the instrument names. The reason I edit the names is to give each category the same alpha-numeric code: Elec. guitars are all C3, pads are d1, acoustic bass are b1, etc. This prevents having to cycle through the several hundred patches for each track. I enter d3 in the search field and all string ensembles appear. But I guess this is another subject. 

The problem most likely is ASIO4All. This is not a proper ASIO driver. It is a wrapper for the WDM driver which is probably shared by all the audio programs. This means the underlying driver may not be configured for sharing or there may be something to configure inside ASIO4All. I have not looked at ASIO4All in years but know that it has been reported as a problem in the past. The best solution is use a dedicated audio interface with a vendor supplied driver instead of ASIUO4All.
 
The instrument definitions are all stored in the master.ins in your user directory. The user directory in this case is "%appdata%\Cakewalk\Music Creator 6"
 
I do not think reinstalling MC6 is the solution though.

It's scary to think that terms these days like ASIO, MME, CODEC, USB, and a gillion more can suddenly become the secret to our survival, forcing us to trudge like stupid mules after a carrot on a stick. For no reason other than blind jabs, I tried switching Cake from ASIO to MME and now everything works perfectly. I must be some kind of extra-terrestrial gift to mankind.

Scook,
Thanks for the location of the instruments file. I've seen already that edits I wanted to make on some of the sounds are showing up on my Cake patch selection window. I could not expound on the names with the former approach because having that dialog open in Cake offers no way to hear the sounds. But with the .ins file open, it's separate from Cake, so I can hear each patch. Strangely, in back-tracing the location of that file, the names of the sub-directories change, so it's still hidden. The only way I can find it is entering %appdata%\Cakewalk\Music Creator 6 into the Run field.
 
Jim

The path is in the hidden directory appdata in C:\Users\[yourUserName]
The full path is c:\users\[yourUserName]\appdata\roaming\cakewalk\music creator 6
 

It should be possible to enter %appdata%\Cakewalk\Music Creator 6 in Windows Explorer

Just be warned that Cakewalk and most other DAW's will not perform very well using MME mode. That mode is just a default windows driver used mostly by your computers on board sound card.
Believe me, I had to go through the driver de-buckle back 10 years ago. I had a sound blaster sound card and was also directed to use asio4all.  That was a disaster and I too found my DAW ( Guitar studio) worked best under MME mode.. but.. there were timing issues and constant drop outs. None of my tracks lined up after recording. I eventually saw the light by reading on forums and bought an audio interface that had proper ASIO drivers. The ASIO drivers are the most important key to smooth sailing. And to add, you'll need to get rid of all traces of asio4all. It's invasive and well documented to mess things up for other drivers.
 
Asio4all does have it's uses and some have had great results using it when a company does not supply a proper driver. But it is not ASIO, it is a WDM wrapper that pretends to be ASIO. 
This is why it's important to only purchase an audio interface that comes with PROVEN ASIO drivers. 

 I concur with the notes in above posts about ASIO4ALL being for many folks quite unstable and problematic.
 
If you currently do not have a dedicated audio interface with drivers for your version/level of Windows, then you would likely have the best success with the following configuration:
 
1.  First, go into Windows Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, and click on the link for Manage Audio Devices.  Select something OTHER than ASIO4ALL as the Windows Default Audio Device Driver.
 
2.  If needed, remove the check from having ASIO4ALL as your Sonar audio device.  (IF your Sonar driver mode is set to ASIO and ASIO4ALL is the selected audio interface, then you do NOT need to remove the check from ASIO4ALL, as you already have the driver mode set to ASIO and this part is all set.
 
3.  If you had to change the Sonar Driver Mode in Preferences to ASIO, then click Apply, then Sonar should automatically pick the ASIO4ALL drivers for you, since those are currently the only ASIO drivers installed on your system.
 
After the above steps, Windows should no longer try to grab the ASIO4ALL drivers, and you shouldn't lose access to ASIO4ALL as your Sonar audio drivers or the Driver Mode of ASIO.
 
As soon as your budget allows, I would suggest you look at picking up a dedicated purpose-built audio interface that includes drivers that include Windows 10 (if not on it now you will likely move to Windows 10 at some point).  A dedicated audio interface will perform MUCH MUCH better than ASIO4ALL, as it will use dedicated circuitry to do all of the analog/digital conversion for multiple tracks in Sonar, instead of making your poor CPU have to do all that work (which is what happens with ASIO4ALL).  You will have MUCH smoother and better sounding playback, with FAR less recording latency when properly using an actual audio interface, rather than ASIO4ALL.
 
A reasonable USB audio interface with a couple of mic/instrument inputs and outputs will run you around $150 USD, and will make everything work LOTS better than ASIO4ALL.  IF you need additional inputs and outputs, the cost for an audio interface will go up - mine is a Presonus AudioBox 1818VSL, and new it seems to be running around $400 or so, depending on where you would get it.  (it has 8 decent mic preamps and good analog/digital converters, and is pretty rugged - I also happen to have picked up an expansion unit for it, giving me 16 mic/instrument inputs, which I use to mic entire drum kits with each kit piece having its own input on the interface),
 
I wish you the best with all of it, 
 
Bob Bone