New A-300 Owner Frustration

Hi Folks,
 
I've recently decided to "start over" in my home studio after many years away and bought an A-300 and the Cakewalk Audio Interface (UA-25EX) and I'm having a terrible time trying to get the A-300 to play nice with Sonar 8.5 LE. 
 
I'm on Windows 7 - 64bit (fully updated).  I run no anti-virus programs.  I have the same issue whether I remove the UA-25EX or not.  The only other thing connected to USB is keyboard and mouse. 
 
I have downloaded the latest driver, Control Surface Plug-in, and Tools (multiple times) and have installed/removed/installed all several times.  The midi keyboard part of the equation works fine.  I can add a SoftSynth and play and record.  The problem is with the Control Surface capabilities. 
 
Here are my symptoms:
1.    In Sonar Controllers/Surfaces Dialog, when I add the A-300 I specify Controller=A-PRO, Input=A-PRO 2, Output=A-PRO per the directions.  When I click the OK button, the ACT light does NOT light up on the A-300 as the directions state.  (I have tried resetting the A-300 to factory settings as well).  Once the Settings Dialog returns to the Controllers Dialog, the A-PRO shows but the In Port and Out Port both show as blank.  I can select them here and close the dialog but if I return they are missing. 
2.    I do not show anything about A-PRO in my Tools menu in Sonar.
 
I've tried manually clicking the ACT button and still nothing in Sonar.     
 
Any suggestions on anything else that I could try?
 
I tried calling support last week but was on hold for 20+ minutes and finally gave up.  I have killed way too much time on this am about to package it up and trade out for another controller. 
 
Any help is appreciated.
 
Rik
 
 

Hi Mick,

Thanks for sharing in my pain.  :o)  

To answer your question about choosing In Port as A-PRO 2, I was just following directions from the sheet of paper that was included with the A-PRO.  Selecting A-PRO 1 didn't seem to have any affect.

Will keep posting on my progress. 

I had this problem initially, then discovered that in addition to installing the drivers you need to install setup.exe from the A-PRO_CSP folder on your CD ROM. I note you say that you've installed the CSP, but it sounds like it's not installed and/or it's not set up in Sonar/options/controllers surfaces. This isn't in the instruction booklet, but included on a separate instruction sheet.
Sorry if you know all this already, but I had exactly the same problem with my A-500.

For what it's worth, I used to have a PCR-300 which was the older version of the A-Pro stuff. I had that working fine as a CS, but not from the instructions, it was from asking questions on the forum. If you do some searching for the PCR-300, you may find some answers if it still works the same way.

Thanks for the link.  I had already installed the latest Control Surface 1.01 and still didn't work.

For anyone one that comes across this thread.  I no longer need any help with this controller. 
I packaged the A-300 up and it's heading back to the dealer tomorrow. 

As I mentioned above, after my first week of frustration with the A-300 I decided to hedge my bets and ordered the Novation 49 SL Mk II.  It arrived and I plugged it in and within 15 minutes was making music with full DAW control over Sonar. 

Perhaps I gave up on A-300 too quickly, but I don't do this for a living and have very little time to make music that I'd rather not spend trying to get the tools working.  The Novation "just works" out of the box and AutoMap 3.5 is unbelievable.  Yes, it cost me $200 more and so far is worth every penny of the difference. 

Still a huge Cakewalk fan and I just updated to Sonar Producer 8.5, but they need to do a little better with these controllers.  Kinda sad that the Cakewalk controller won't work with Cakewalk's DAW out of the box and the competition's controller does (and well). 

I'm reading these through WAY after the fact but I've got both a VS-100 and an A-PRO300 and haven't had any of these problems.  Part of the problem may be that folks are running the installers or launching Sonar with Admin level privleges?
As far as the A-Pros go I agree with many many others who have pointed out that the included and the available online documentation for these units absolutely suck!  I have to wonder whether Cakewalk or Roland outsourced the job of writing the A-Pro guides to the staff at Behringer.  I've purchased a LOT of midi hardware over the years since I purchased my first Cakewalk software and up until now I'd nominate Behringer for the absolute worst documentation and tech support I've ever seen. (I've been a computer/network technician for over thirty years)  If it wasn't for a giving person on this forum named A.J., my BCR2000 would have shared the same fate as the laser printer in the movie "Office Space."  (I sent him a small donation but his help exceeded the value of the unit itself.)  There are some brilliant people on these forums!

Hi - new A800 owner here - I am having exactly the same problem - just spent all night trying to sort it - really frustrating - followed the suggestions on another thread but that got me nowhere as well!

Not sure why, but my options have slightly different values to yours. In MIDI inputs I have > A-PRO, MIDIIN2 (A-PRO), MIDIIN3 (A-PRO). In MIDI Outputs > A-PRO, MIDIOUT2 (A-PRO). IN order to get the ACT Control Surface to work, I have to select MIDIIN3 (A-PRO) as the input.