Refunds From Cakewalk

I realize that I am new to this product and new to this forum but I'm not new to software, PC's and a lot of other technology. That said I want to know if anybody has ever asked for a refund from Cakewalk. The claims that this product is easy to use is totally unjustified. I am 9 or 10 hours into this product and still cannot figure out how to open a midi file with say 5 tracks in it, play it back while recording my guitar over it in audio. Mix the midi and the audio down to audio and export to an MP3.

I've been through tutorials on softsynth TTS stuff and the like and at every pass there's something else. Sometimes I don't see my audio card in the list of drivers, sometimes when I start the program MC 4 profiles my hardware and shows the audio card and my PreSonus box. Sometime it only shows the PreSonus box, sometimes just the audio card. Sometimes you get audio out the PC speakers, sometimes you don't. This amazes me. Small things like you cannot use ALT-TAB to go from the help file to the MC 4 GUI you have to explicitly minimize the help window. People, there's money to be made here its called make a DAW that you can do 80% of what it is you want to do in 20 minutes after you install it. Oh and by the way Steinberg's no easier that's why I bought MC 4 I was hoping.

Sorry for the rant but I get so little free time I'd rather be struggling with playing well over my song rather than getting this to work. Oh isn't that the claim by the way.

Copy that. MC4 is relatively easy to use, but it is still a fairly sophisticated program.
If you are using the Presonus, you should not be getting sound from your PC speakers at all.
The initial setup is the worst part, and we can help with that. It's not as easy as the marketing hype would have you believe, but it is doable. Once you get your legs under you, it can be smooth sailing.
As you noted, Steinberg, Cakewalk, it's all got a learning curve. We have a great crew here, and we will help you in any way we can.

OK first thanks. I want to take a midi file, in my case I downloaded somebody's version of Water Mellon Man. I stripped this down to just bass, drums and keyboards and I cloned the keyboard track and reassigned the sound to a "marimba". These are all midi tracks. I can listen to these tracks through my PC speakers via my sound card (on-board sound disabled). I can record my guitar coming in through my PreSonus box into my 1384 card. It took a while to figure out how to get my guitar sound to playback out of both sides (L / R) but I got that. So I hear the guitar out of my headphone jack of the PreSonus box and the midi tracks out of my PC speakers. I would like to hear the midi tracks and the guitar track out of one place so I can mix it. Then I want to take the mix and export it to MP3.

So I hear the guitar out of my headphone jack of the PreSonus box and the midi tracks out of my PC speakers. I would like to hear the midi tracks and the guitar track out of one place so I can mix it.

yes - you need to get this to happen because you'll have many problems if you don't. you need to have your everything coming from the presonus only. do what Robo says above but also do this:
go to OPTIONS>AUDIO>DRIVERS
UNCHECK anything that doesn't say PRESONUS on it. uncheck your soundblaster and your onboard soundcard - leave ONLY the PRESONUS stuff checked.
then go to: OPTIONS>AUDIO>GENERAL and make sure the presonus is checked on the RECORDING and PLAYBACK TIMING MASTERS and make sure there's nothing else checked - only the presonus.

THEN do what Rob says above. to get MIDI to sound out of the presonus, you need to insert the TTS-1.

TOM.... I feel your pain..... I wish I had my system going in 10 hours....man...no lie...I messed with this thing for 7...yes SEVEN days before I got it to work...then it took another couple of days for me to get the midi working.

I hope most people are faster at comprehending than I am...BUT... I have it now, I understand quite a bit, and I can assure you that once you "get it" everything will be OK again. There is a learning curve as some have pointed out. Stick with it, and we here can assist you on your quest for the perfect recording.

OK enough of that ..... All good advice above..... I have a web site that I set up to assist people in working with TTS, SFZ, and midi. It's a basic tutorial in "musician speak"......designed to be easily understood by musicians, as opposed to engineers. Go to www.herbhartley.com and navigate to the music page> MC4 tips.... and go through it one step at a time. The tutorial starts with a new project and walks you through inserting TTS and getting 3 midi tracks to play.... let us know ...afterwards...if you have additional questions..... good luck, and good playing to you.

Yes, you have to use the 'Insert>Soft Synth' menu at the top to open the TTS-1, otherwise it won't be available as an output option.
Disable the onboard sound card.
I know I wrote that before, and you wrote that it's disabled, but it shouldn't be selectable if it's disabled. Unless you're having a conflict of some kind, the like of which caused me to have to delete my onboard sound card's program to keep it away from MC.

One instance of TTS-1 will accept input from 16 MIDI channels.
What sound the TTS-1 makes depends on what patch you have in the MIDI tracks being output to the TTS-1. The default is piano, so if the MIDI track has no patch and channel selected, you will hear a piano.
Each MIDI track has to be on a different channel; if you have 2 or more using the same channel, they will all sound the same, regardless of the patch you have for each. Channels are important.
Most of the options in the TTS-1 menu can be left alone, but I uncheck the one that says 'create a MIDI source track' because I usually have the track already created.
So you have the Presonus and a Sound Blaster going at the same time? You disabled the onboard sound card when you installed the SB? You did that in the 'control panel>sounds and audio devices' page, I presume. Is there a reason that you want to use both? One reason could be to use the SB as your MIDI device, for MC or gaming.
If you use the SB as your primary MIDI device, then the TTS-1 could be redundant, until you look for a better sounding instrument. Make sure you use the WDM driver mode if you want to use the Presonus and the SB (options>audio>driver mode>WDM/KS).
I used to use a SB Extigy, and it worked well, but I upgraded to a newer device that can use ASIO drivers, which are arguably better.
Using the SB for MIDI: create MIDI track, record with a MIDI keyboard or controller, or enter notes using the mouse in the piano roll view or staff view. Select patch and channel, and direct the output of the MIDI data to the SB's synth.
Using TTS-1 for MIDI: same as above, except you have to insert the soft synth, and direct the MIDI track's output to the TTS-1.
If it were me, I'd disconnect the SB altogether and use the Presonus and it's ASIO driver and soft synths. That way all your sounds can be heard with the same speakers or headphones. Unless you want to get a mixer as well, and run the audio outputs of the Presonus and the SB through it. Another advantage of using soft synths is the ease of converting your MIDI/soft synth output to an audio track. Oh, man, did I just create more confusion? You have to convert the MIDI to audio? Well, you don't have to, but if your project is completely in the audio realm, it will be easier to burn to a CD or convert the project to MP3 for posting/emailing.
I've kinda been jumping around in this post, so if there are any questions with it, I'll try to be more concise next time.
My sound card problem: When I bought this computer new 2 years ago, I had problems with my Extigy and the onboard RealTek HD audio card. Sometimes everything worked perfectly, other times there were anomalies, and then-nothing worked! No sound at all. A few days of trying to troubleshoot the thing resulted in me removing the Realtek program from the computer completely (the support guy from India asked if the Windows recorder worked, I said "yes" and he replied "use the recorder, it's a good recorder") . The only minor problem since the deletion was when I upgraded to my current Focusrite Saffire I had to run the firmware update a couple times before it took. No problems now.

Thanks this is all great stuff. I will have to absorb it and then go through it. In answer to some of Greg's questions I disabled my mother board sound card in my PC BIOS settings, basically its gone for good unless I go through BIOS setup again but there's no need since I have the SoundBlaster. I did disable the sound blaster only within MC 4 so to speak not in any Windows control panel places. I don't want to do this since my sons use this PC for gaming and want to hear sound.

From what I'm gathering here is that I will be using PreSonus box to record my guitar while listening to the tracks I'm recording over, through the Presonus box as well. I would like to and it seems possible to have the option once I figure out how, to jump back to the sound card and my PC speakers to use when mixing down all of my recorded audio tracks. I don't want to buy a set of reference monitors to support the playback/monitoring via the PreSonus box at this point as I have just built the PC from Newegg parts.

Both Greg and Herb's instructions should be included in the MC 4 help files. When I look at this forum and all the really nice and helpful people pitching in to help each other its great. If I were CEO of Cakewalk I would be verifying the instructions on this forum then using all this information in my product manual, help files and FAQ pages. Of course only after paying some royalties to the real contributors.

Thanks again !

19 Post as of my count doesn't make you "NEW". I'm sure you will find help here on the forums, but posting refund stuff and all that crap will not make you very popular around here. Just thought I would mention that. I'm probably the Number 1 in the most hated field. That's cool though, because I am honest above all else whatever it might cost me!

Good luck and best wishes!

Bobby

Bobby,
Hey man, he was a bit frustrated, but seems to be getting a leg up.
As you well know, it's not as easy as it says on the box. Heck, my hairline receded an inch the first year of learning it.

ORIGINAL: RobertB
Read this Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_MIDI_Level_2 TTS-1 is a General MIDI 2 synth, which means it supports an extended set of 256 different sounds (patches). I would encourage you to print the table from the article. It shows where to find the different sounds, and how they relate to each other. The patch numbers are off by 1 because the MIDI standard starts counting at 1, but the computer starts counting at 0.

This is new to me or I read about a long time ago and have forgotten. You just doubled my chances of find the right midi sound I need. Thank you. I printed the chart off as well. With the reference to the patch numbers being off by 1, does that mean I have to subract 1 from the numbers given on the list?

Thanks.

Annette

Yes RobertB,

That helps a lot. I guess I've always read "stick wth omni for now", so that's what I've done. It took forever before I was advised that there was a preset for drums. I remember reading that most of those presets were empty so, I never got curious or ventured out past omni and the drums. I'm not one of those people who run and push all the buttons to see what they are and what they do That how kids seem to approach it and they know so much about computers, games etc. They are not intimidated like me I guess. I was never a kid, even growing up, so maybe it is time to break free!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks again.

Annette

Glad to help, Tom.
Ask any questions you may have. You are vicariously helping others, because they are watching, looking for the same answers.

You mean we got moderators?

ORIGINAL: 57Gregy

You mean we got moderators?

I think we do, if we don't then all bets are off, it's time to do some DAMAGE!!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY, bad spelling and all I am only KIDDING. I wanted to throw water balloons at a couple of users but I figured the mods might ban me if I did.