DO NOT BUY A SOUND BLASTER...thinking it is a suitable upgrade to a factory sound card....it is not.
 
You should look at the M-Audio, Presonus, Focusrite brands of interfaces.
 
Sound blaster is an upgrade for a normal gaming computer perhaps, but if you are doing recording.... it is a DAW, and the soundblaster is a sub standard card just like the factory relteck or whatever happens to be in it. You will still be working at a disadvantage if you waste money on the SB card.

Did you guys say that SoundCenter synth tracks must be separate tracks, but TTS tracks can be one instance of the synth as long as they point to the same channel?
 
In the song I created today, I have two SoundCenter tracks and an SI Drum Kit track. The SoundCenter track is a simple bass guitar riff on notes snapped to the grid. However, I could swear the placement and duration of the notes (all identical) aren't in sync with the drum played in the song. What could be wrong?
 
Could it be the synth options? What are the default checked boxes for that window? Thanks!

One instance of SC can only handle 1 MIDI track.
One instance of TTS-1 can handle up to 16 MIDI tracks, but they must be on different channels when sent to the same synth.
The out-of-syncness sounds like a stumbling sound card.
What are your Preferences set to?

Greg is correct.
 
Sound center handles one midi track at a time.
 
TTS, on the other hand, can easily handle up to 16 different midi tracks. Each midi track gets assigned a different channel number in the TTS synth instance. Each channel can have a different patch, so channel one could be piano, channel two bass, channel 3 strings, channel 4 cello, channel 5 violin, and so on. All headed to the same TTS synth.
 
So you have 3 synths in a project and the sounds are not synced. You can try adjusting the preferences, the midi buffers, and the drivers, but very likely, again, as Greg pointed out, it is the sound card itself. Factory cards are not designed to do the processing in real time that is required with synths to get the music to the speaker at the same time.
 
TRY THIS:  Freeze the 3 synths. This converts the synths to AUDIO and removes the processing in real time from the process. Once all 3 tracks are frozen, hit play. Do they all play in sync now?
 
A decent USB interface running ASIO will very likely solve the sync issues once and for all. (not Sound Blaster)

I got frustrated and took a brief break from composition. Things are getting a bit confusing. So far, this project is barely moving along because of petty difficulties I should be able to comprehend...
 
57GREGY
Which preferences are you referring to? I have no sound card, as I'm using my motherboard's onboard audio. (Board is less than three years old.
 
GUITARHACKER
What sound card? I have no sound card. As you instructed, I tried freezing the synths in question (One SoundCenter synth and one SI Drum track synth). The same anomaly is occuring. A few notes in the SoundCenter synth track seemed to delay a few millseconds, although I swear they're all snapped. It just sounds really off.
 
Also -- you suggested using a "decent USB with ASIO" and not a sound card. Are you saying that every MC6 user must have external equipment for it to function properly? If so, why doesn't it say so on the side of the box? Why are sound cards being manufactured then if they're all useless? This isn't sarcasm -- I'm just asking why I have to rely on a piece of USB hardware to achieve a simple function like playing MIDI data (multiple notes at once, high and low and in various durations, which my three-year old PC should be able to do just fine!
 
I've researched some more via tutorials, videos and the manual. I'm still failing to understand some of these concepts. It cannot possibly be this difficult. All I want to do is compose music using this software, using the three synths to my advantage and not have to expect all these goofy hiccups to happen. (This being said, once again, I am an amateur and I know things won't be perfect.)

Grundberg
 Are you saying that every MC6 user must have external equipment for it to function properly? If so, why doesn't it say so on the side of the box? Why are sound cards being manufactured then if they're all useless?

It has already been discussed here. The sound chips and drivers supplied in PCs are not designed for DAW use. I do not know what is printed on the box but the specs on the website do list a "Windows-compatible audio interface" as part of the system requirements. I would imagine most people would read that as something more than the chip that comes with every PC. The sound cards you are probably referring to are not useless, they are intended for playing games and multimedia playback; in other words what most PC users do with the sound capabilities of their machines.

Grundberg
I got frustrated and took a brief break from composition. Things are getting a bit confusing. So far, this project is barely moving along because of petty difficulties I should be able to comprehend...
 
57GREGY
Which preferences are you referring to?

Press P on the computer keyboard.

You have a sound card..... not a very good one. probably a realtek.
 
Sound cards in most new computers and especially lap tops have the sound card built into the motherboard as a chip.  They are designed to play mp3 and wave files for video, music and games. They are not designed to handle the load we place on them... full duplex.... stuff going in and out in sync.  The drivers are designed to let them do that job and not much more.
 
We need to have a sound card that CAN handle the load and process synths in real time while getting 20 tracks to the speakers in sync, and do it all without more than a 5 ms delay. (approx) 
 
I said : A decent USB INTERFACE running ASIO will solve the issues. (Post #24 last line)  There are interfaces for audio and midi that are specifically designed to do multi track  full duplex recording and playback and they generally are external, use USB as the connection method, and run ASIO as the driver.
 
All the other stuff about freezing and bouncing was offered simply as a possible work around. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  
 
Yes, Cakewalk says that MC6 is ready to run straight out of the box. And for some people, it does. And generally at a very basic level. I have seen some folks here make the claim that they can do multi tracks and synths and have no issues on factory cards..... one guy took me to serious task over that issue. For the other 99%, yeah, you can run some basic stuff but to get into synths and multiple track projects and keep everything running smooth and synced up, an aftermarket interface is a requirement.
 
Most folks who are serious about recording at home will invest the money into a decent interface that lets the process run smoothly so they can concentrate on the music and not the process.

(I've been taking a break from this project for a while. I resumed a few days ago to discover I may have solved my problem with notes not playing in sync with either synth.)
 
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to those in this thread for answering my questions and more importantly, assisting in tackling my issue with MIDI synth playback. The issue in question was notes not playing in sync although they're all quantized.
 
I was given strong recommendations to use a "USB audio interface" to resolve the issue. At this point, I briefly lost interest in my music project because I had no clue what to do or look for. When I got back into it, I did some experimenting.
 
I may have fixed my issue with the out-of-sync playback (if not a "workaround"). In the Edit-Preferences menu, I changed the Latency from 250 to the minimum of 30. (I confirmed the solution when I maximized the latency and noticed the playback more horrible than ever.) Since minimizing the latency, the notes ALL seem to play at pinpoint accuracy. This is too good to be true, and I hope this sustains once I find myself building more complex track arrangements.
 
I want to say thank you again, and I will be sure to come back and read responses more carefully should I have any further problems. :)