Hi again - am getting to grips with MC6 afetr years of Cakewlak PA 9 and a messing about with the earluy Sonar products.
 
Can anyone advise me on one or more of the following/
 
1) Freeze/unfreeze synth - what does this really mean?
 
2) How do I attribute a TTS 1 instrument to a midi track? Example - I loaded a midi file into MC6 - and i wanted to change the guitar sound to something on the TTS1. However when i laiunch this synth i only get the choice of steel guitar - I cannot seem to change it.
 
3) When I click the freeze synth button (the snowflake icon) it mixes down the audio for that track into a new audio track. This is fantastic as I didnt know how to do this prior to finding it outt accidentally. However i did not have any control as to how the resultant audio track would sound it simply mixed it down straight away. The track it mixed it to was the TTS1 track. If I was to assign another intstrument to the TTS1 would it have been mixed down too?
 
4) Can i mixdown any midi track to audio with this method as it doesnt seem to allow me to do so?
 
Thanks in advance.

Another issue with the TTS1. When I attempt to assign a midi track to it - the TTS1 does not play the exact same notation as the original midi track. I was trying to get a better steel guitar sound, assigned the TTS1 to my midi track and it seems to miss out a few notes as well as playing the track slightly out of time.
 
 
When i go to inspect it in piano roll view i find that i have to actually phyiscally select the teack i want to view in piano roll as opposed to the view representing the track i currently have highlighted. Anyone come across this and can ecplain why this should be so? i.e. I am looking at a set the controllers for track 9 for example but viewing the piano roll for say track 3. In the same screenshot.
 
Maybe it is somethign i am not doing right but it is baffling.
 
Thanks
 
 
 

1. freezing renders the midi synth output from synth to a wave file and shuts off the synth, this is temporary and can be unfrozen at any time and return to the synth/midi 

2.   www.herbhartley.com   go to the music page and read the tutorial I put up there on TTS  it might help you understand this...... if not ask specific questions and I'll try to answer them.

3/4.... Freeze mixes to a WHAT YOU HEAR type format. TTS is capable of 16 midi tracks so freezing it will freeze all the midi tracks ... i don't know if you can freeze just one midi track.  You would need to insert one instance of TTS per track you want to freeze.   Many synths are one instrument per instance... freezing works well with them.

next post.....tts has a master tune function so you can set it to A-440.

there are better synths than TTS for sounds. especially stuff like steel and other obscure things.

I don't use PRV much but selecting the track is required...it can not read your mind. 


add: I did learn something about PRV the other day.... it is possible to have PRV open and on the right side to be able to view the various synth/midi channels and to be able to work on multiple midi tracks by simply clicking on the needed right side synth or the PRV notes.  I'd have to look to find the video where I learned that. Using this method makes it easy to work on several things at one time in the same window of PRV. Pretty cool stuff..... but I'd need to do it more to become proficient with it. 

If you already have a track open in PRV, like track 3, and then you select track 9 and click the PRV icon, since the track 3 PRV is already open it will show the track 3 PRV. You have to close track 3's PRV, then select track 9's PRV.
The 'wrong notes' and 'slightly out of time' are probably related to your sound card/audio interface's settings.
What is you sound card or audio interface?
What is your operating system and is it 64-bit?
What Cakewalk program are you using? MC 2003? MC 3? MC 6?
Putting this info in your profile signature will help us help you and we won't have to ask these questions every time you ask us a question.

Hi there sorry about the lack of info.
 
Windows Vista 32 bit.
Soundcard is unfortunately Realtec HD
Music Creator 6.
 
I am getting problems with softsynths using the soundcard and wonderd if there was an external device anyone could recommend?

the realtec is not a good card and is likely the source of troubles you PM'd me about.

Be sure you are using MME and set the buffers and latency correctly.

If you are going to pursue recoding as a hobby, I would recommend that you look at getting a better USB based music interface since it will do a better job with everything.... midi especially. 

I ran on Vista 32 on this lappy for 3 years and it did a good job BUT... I also have a good external sound card. I have never been able to get this lappy sound card to do anything with MC. 

Personus, Focusrite, and M-Audio make some nice 2 channel externals all running ASIO drivers and USB connections...... any of them are good to use...... 2 channels is plenty with MC6 because it only allows 2 inputs at the same time....  if you need phantom power for a condenser mic be sure the interface supports that,,,and depending on how you need to get the midi data in to MC6, you might wish to have the 5 pin midi connector as well. 

hope this helps. 

Does the externals you mention have their own midi banks incorporated within them i.e. GS etc. and can you verify they will play soundfonts as well as softsynths?

Many thanks

Very few audio interfaces include sound fonts these days. Sound Blaster probably still has some, but we don't recommend SBs for serious audio recording.
But all audio interfaces will play any audio sent to them, such as the audio from a soft synth's output or sound font player's output, as well from audio tracks.

Right.
The Soundfont format was developed by E-MU for Creative's Soundblaster, and to the best of my knowledge,Soundblaster cards are the only ones that were ever able to play soundfonts natively.
A lot has happened in the twenty years since sounfonts were developed.
It is not necessary to load the soundfont files into the banks in the sound card synth, as this function is readily handled by today's VST soundfont players.
That's where SFZ+ comes into the picture(mentioned in your other thread).
The soundfont player/ softsytnh/sampler works within the framework of your DAW (in this case MC6),and does not directly relate to your soundcard/interface.
The interfaces may have some additional features, but they all do the same thing.
They handle AD/DA conversions of incoming and outgoing signals.
MC6 handles the softsynths.
To directly answer your question, a resounding no and no, but it doesn't matter because these functions are handled more efficiently through MC6.
Does that make sense?

Yes it makes sense but does not explain why my soundcard at present is not handling soft synths very well. The card can handle multiple tracks of audio files but it is struggling with a few samples which is what makes it quite odd.