Brundlefly - thx for helping - ok, just all audio tracks to start over. Inserted soft synth from rack, used '1st audio output' option. A new track was created and synth was opened. I assigned the audio input to the soft synth and it played fine from property page (like usual!) using the mouse. I re-assigned the midi track output to the same (and only) soft synth and nothing, no audio! Any sense in that?

Mark

Brundlefly - I should have said '...just deleted all audio...' etc in 1st line

Daveny5 - same midi track drives my hardware synth fine when I assign it to that so basic midi data should be good, no? Exact same track & data assinged to my soft synth gives nothing!

Daveny5 - same midi track drives my hardware synth fine when I assign it to that so basic midi data should be good, no? Exact same track & data assinged to my soft synth gives nothing!

Did you even look at the Event List? That's the only other thing I could think of that would cause your problem unless you have your soundcard's volume set to 0 or muted in Windows. Drag a WAV file into an audio track and hit play. Can you hear that? Softsynth tracks are essentially audio tracks. 

MIDI notes out of range of the patch? Or some controller in the track silencing the synth (by MIDI volume, closing down a filter, making the attack extremely long, etc.)?
Then there can be issues like Garritan Aria Player, which needs non-zero CC1 to set volume, and SONAR's Zero Controllers will reset the volume to 0 every time you stop/start playback.

EDIT:


What synth(s) have you been trying to work with?
I'd recommend you start with a no-brainer bundled synth like TTS-1 that will pretty much respond to anything on any channel with no setup, and give you sound.

Yea, I can hear all that no problem! Event list looks and remember the soft synth plays fine from the PRV keyboard using the mouse so the audio routing from the synth out must be ok I think. It's not getting the midi input for some reason.

Great suggestions! but, just checked note range for the synth and all is ok there. I also just tried drawing a new note in PRV using the smart tool, the note sounds (good audio) as I draw it but then I hit play to run the midi track and nothing, no sound!
 
Mark

Ah... MIDI Prepare Using buffer value too low. Try 500ms.


Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording > Playback section

YOU GOT IT MAN - glorious sound at 500ms, if you were here i'd buy you cake! Thank you very much; i'll now wind it back from 500 in stages to see how low I can go! XXXX

Dear Cakewalk - pleaes send Brundlefly a free lifetime subscription to all products!

Thanks to all how made good suggestions too!

Mark

 Cool. glad to help. Usually it's only some fraction of the notes that get dropped so the cause is more obvious, and others would have known immediately what the issue was, too, as it's quite common.

In most cases, there isn't really much value in lowering the buffer. If you set it right above the trouble-point for this project, you may find that some other project still drops notes. 500ms used to be the default. For some reason, Cakewalk lowered it to 250 with the release of X1, and the forum saw a raft of users reporting dropped notes. 500ms is still a good place to leave it.

X2a is supposed to auto-adjust the buffer as needed, but I haven't personally noticed any improvement. It still has issues with some projects if I try to run an initial setting below about 260ms.