help needed getting ACT to work on X1 with A-300 pro

tried some more preferences and buttons but no luck. Am going to play on my hardware juno60 now, foolproof roland tech  :)

skylightron


Give this a try, How To Set Up A-PRO With SONAR X1.

thanks I'll give that a try later when I'm at the pc. Still, this isn't the type of user friendly process you'd expect from combining cakewalk hardware with cakewalk software. There is quite some room for improvement here. true plug and play and not plug, manage preferences and pray.

synthmann

skylightron


Give this a try, How To Set Up A-PRO With SONAR X1.

thanks I'll give that a try later when I'm at the pc. Still, this isn't the type of user friendly process you'd expect from combining cakewalk hardware with cakewalk software. There is quite some room for improvement here. true plug and play and not plug, manage preferences and pray.

Well, (thanks Daniel for also sharing your experiences) I followed these steps and it starts to work... somewhat...but:


1. when I open a synth, (tried with Diva and Fabfilter One) and push ACT learn, move some GUI elements and some faders and then close ACT learn, it says " 6 parameters and 3 controls were touched" , while I really only wiggled 3 GUI elements and 3 physical controls. 


2. when I open Dimension Pro, a cakewalk synth, ACT does not control any logical function as standard like cutoff or resonance but weird stuff like " quality"  and "LoKey01" 


3. Why are there different functions assigned to B1 through B4 under ACT, when ACT is supposed to follow the active window??


So still, no joy, just frustration and I rather just use each synth's midi-learn function and could have gotten an m-audio keyboard with an aftertouch that doesn't require a brute force pressure to engage. I really thought the integration would have been tight and supersmooth with both products coming from cakewalk. Bah, I'm starting to regret having upgraded in the first place.

still haven't gotten it to work properly. ACT and the A-300 pro are a plug and pray combo.

1. I did a factory reset on the A300.
2. I made sure the default map it loads on startup is map "0", the Sonar ACT one.

3. I open X1 and start a new project.
4. I drag and drop a Dim Pro x64 and choose "simple instrument track" 
5. I load a preset sound
6. I make sure ACT is enabled in the ACT configuration panel
7. I make sure ACT is enabled on the A300

I open the dimension pro GUI and make sure it is the active window. I turn knobs and nothing happens. I press the ACT learn, wiggle GUI elements and A300 controllers, nothing happens. 

I switch on and off the A300 (not that the above listed steps contain anything that should make it necessary) and restart sonar X1 and go through the same steps.

now I press ACT learn, wiggle GUI elements cutoff, reso and shape (all of which are used in this particular preset), wiggle R1, R2 and R3, press ACT learn again and it says 4 parameters and 3 controls were touched??


I wish cakewalk would make ACT work logically and make the integration of their own branded A300 products supertight, before making an X2 and asking money for that. It should be plug and play and not endless messing about with settings and ports. It is too combersome and it it is plug and pray. one time it works, another time it doesn't. Fix what is there first before moving on, how many times has it not been that users have asked for this.

again, 1,5 hours spent messing with settings, not making music. I have been lured in again by the promise of streamlined operation of X1 but in terms of firing up sonar, loading a vst and tweaking sounds with an A300 it doesn't do anything better than sonar 8.5. the same unreliable illogical ACT remains. Sonar should recognize immediately the A300 on pluging in or powering on, turn it to control map 0 for act, turn ACT on and just work. logical functions like cutoff, resonance and envelopes should be pre-mapped for cakewalk synths like dimension and rapture. that is streamlining. like when I plug anything into my macbook air, it just works.

Did this issue just get ignored, or fixed (I hope). I have an a-500pro and can't get act to control any synth properties. controlling the main window (track's, etc) seems to work. But no synths...
 
Thanks in advance
Phil Kemp
 

IainThompson
 I know there are work arounds ( Azslow3 often promotes one such solution, and I think Craig did an article on this not so long ago) but Cakewalk should really take up this short-coming. Judging from the date stamps on the posts it has been around for a while.

We can call Waves and NI plug-ins "a workaround" for plug-ins delivered with Sonar, but we do not do this usually
 
Discussed in this thread questions are related to two different topics.
* A-Pro is quite flexible and complicated controlling solution. It has several modes of operations and these modes are user configurable. Without reading and understanding relevant documentation it is close to impossible to use its complete functionality. "ACT" has many meanings, pressing one button with that label can not make everything "just work as everyone expect it"
* there is a bug in dynamic mapping configuration procedure which corrupt the file with saved mapping. From the time that happens and till the file is deleted/fixed manually (that is text XML file), "ACT Learn..." is not working properly (with any device, not only A-Pro). There are also several other bugs.
 
But there is nothing without some (relatively easy to use) solution. Note that while inconvenient, that is something to do only once per installed plug-in. I do not claim that part of Sonar can not be improved, but everyone who really wants control plug-in parameters can do this (and from experience I know that the number of such users is significantly smaller then the number of related complains in this forum...).

Original problem and the consequences: http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,5.0.html
Another view on that topic: http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,13.msg107.html#msg107
 
 

I can only recommend one more time to read the documentation. That is strait way to understand how these presets ("with the word synths") are constructed. That is not a rocket since and you will be able to create your own preset, customized for personal preferences.
 
One note about the mapping and related bug(s). The only (but 100%) indication you hit it is when your mapping is not persistent. I mean you "ACT Learn" controls and they work as you want, but after Sonar restart the mapping is broken.