I'm playing around with Cakewalk, trying to find my optimal workflow, and I'm struggling with Takes so looking for advice.

Say I'm recording a MIDI improv part - am I better using Take lanes or just using separate tracks?

I had thought Takes would be easier but say I've done three takes in "Comping" mode - how does Cakewalk "decide" which ones / parts are promoted to the master track? And is lt possible to edit a Take in the PRV without seeing all the other Takes? (Muting the take doesn't seem to have any effect).

Ideally, I don't want a master track at all for the MIDI data (as this is stored on the take lanes) but I would like to keep the master track settings (e.g. names, outputs, channel etc) - is this possible?

Or should I just call it quits and simply use different Tracks and leave Takes/comping for audio?

Hey y'all, I'm brand new to Cakewalk Next and am experiencing some big issues. For context this is my first step up from Audacity so I'm not deep in the weeds on editing and producing yet, still learning a lot. But I have done a lot of music editing in Audacity and GarageBand so I'm not a complete newbie to recording and editing. Anyway, I have a project with about 10 live recording tracks that went mostly fine. After I exported and listened to the .wav a few times over a couple days I heard a few things I wanted to go back in and tweak on the project, but when I loaded it up today suddenly I'm only getting sound in the left ear. Tried two different pairs of headphones, as well as my laptop speakers, and there is absolutely no sound coming from the right side. I exported a new .wav and it's the same thing. I don't THINK I did anything to the project itself to cause this, specifically because the first export two nights ago was fine and I hadn't touched the project file since. Any ideas or quick fixes? Anyone else experiencing this? tia

Hi, I have been writing analogue music and am interested in trying to record some of the music without just recording it with my phone in a single take, as I have done so far. But I cannot make cakewalk work, like at all. My problem is that I cannot produce any midi sound into cakewalk at all. I can record from my laptops microphone and play it back just fine, there is no issue with the headphone settings.

I have tried a cable with my keyboard to my laptop(I think it is called a 3.5 mm TRS to 5 point MIDI), and the midi omni recording, neither produce any sound at all whatsoever. I am unsure if its getting any type of input. So I have tried just pressing things in piano roll and step sequencer view, and it shows something in the audio files visual aspects, both in the step sequencer clip and in the meter, but as I press play, it makes no sound.

I have watched different youtube tutorials in their entirety of either cakewalk basics, or how to make your first beat on cakewalk, and followed every single step, including downloading the same plug ins, but I cannot make any midi noise. I have tried downloading different plug ins, from different websites, to make any type of noise, nothing makes any sound. I have watched a tutorial on how to download the plug-ins correctly onto windows 11 so I have unzipped the files, and out them in the 'Cakewalk core' folder, and they show up on the options menu after pressing 'add instrument' as they show up on the tutorials.

I have tried connecting headphones, both bluetooth headphones and a cabled headset, neither will make it any less nothing. They only make it so I cannot record audio files, which isn't my goal anyways since I can still use the voicenotes on my phone to record myself.

The only thing that is different on my screen than what I see from others where it works is that I get a message which says' File corrupted !' when I open the software, but when I run a virus check then reinstall the software it makes no difference.

I truly don't know if I am just dumb I am getting exhausted after trying everything but I cannot get any midi sound from cakewalk no matter what I do and I was wondering if anyone could help me. I think I might have fundamentally misunderstood some core part of this software in some way which I hope can be resolved.

silly question I know, but I thought it was mainly for piano / syths, sorry i just got started and dont have a midi piano yet and the mouse manual keyboard is difficult to be precise

My video showing the issue

Hi,

since the CW support replies with questions twice per week, I'm kind of forced to ask here. Any plugins I load onto the Surround BUS crash the audio device. I'm on Windows 11. Changing buffer size doesn't help. Yes, the FX are capable of surround sound (tried with WLM plus 5.1 and Pro-Q 4). Running ASIO4ALL or WASAPI shared doesn't make a difference. I do not have an external audio interface. Yes, the sound works before I load the plugin onto the bus.

***UPDATE*** Thanks all, got it figured out!

I'm playing around with mixing a brass quintet, and I'd like to start my projects automatically with 5 tracks, and maybe some preset fx, eq etc. Is there a way to do this? For example, if my Track 1 could ALWAYS have all my tuba presets as soon as I start. It's the same instrumentation, the same players, and the same stage so I'd only need to make small adjustments as necessary rather than load each effect for each track every time.

This question probably is asked already, but I've been googling for a couples nights and trying all combinations, but I can't figure it out. I seem to find info on recording midi instruments being played, and how to add midi grooves so you can jam along - but not how to record those grooves.

i'm using cakewalk by bandlab, and a free ssd5 sampler. I click insert soft synth > ssd5, and I get a midi track. I can then drag the midi grooves from the plugin onto the track and I can hear it being played.

Among the output of the midi track, I can see ssd sampler 2. Each time I add an audio track and insert ssd5 as an fx, It seems I can redirect the output of the midi track to a new ssd5 sampler x. I can see on the console which audio tracks receive input from the midi track.

What's the correct way of recording the output then? I understand I shouldn't record the midi track - unless I'm recording live playing. But I want to record the midi grooves I've dragged into the midi track.

I can't seem to be able to record the audio track where I believe I'm redirecting the midi file to. Not even when echoes are on. The recorded file is just a line, no waveform.

I want to find a more descriptive title, but this is all I can think of. All of the sudden, everything is different. The first problem is that I can't play or record anything new. It says it's armed to record, but clicking the record button doesn't do anything. In addition, whenever I try to play what I recorded, nothing happens. I will press play, the playbar will go for a bit (with nothing actually coming through the speakers) and then it will stop. Is this happening to anyone else? Thanks for the help :)

I am an absolute beginner in music production and I am confused where should I start , i just downloaded cakewalk and now i am stuck , what should I do further

How do I get out of step record? I’ve been trying to get out of it I’m trying to get back to record

I recently set up a small music studio. My setup includes a Behringer C-1 condenser mic, an M-Audio M-Track Duo audio interface, and Claw studio monitoring headphones.

The issue is, whenever I connect my headphones through the audio interface, the sound quality drops drastically. While recording vocals, I can barely hear the drums, snares, and kicks in the beat. Even when I play songs on YouTube, the audio sounds muffled and low quality—almost as if I’m using cheap ₹100 earphones instead of proper studio headphones.

Does anyone know why this is happening? Could it be a settings issue, or is there a problem with my interface? Any help would be appreciated! 🙏

Hello—

I’m trying to edit a couple of different takes in a track, but this conjoined sliding / cropping thingie won’t let me do it to one take without sliding the other. I’ve had this problem on a few occasions, and would really like to know A) what the fst fck it is, and B) how to disable it—permanently.

Any suggestions, my dear beloved Cakewalkers?

Hi, I recently was messing around with the driver mode in cakewalk, and I switched in to ASIO mode and it crashed the app. It has refused to open, I will see the startup image and then it goes away and nothing opens. It is not a background issue, it doesnt show up in task manager at all. I have deleted the ASIO4all driver as someone suggested and it still does not work. Any solutions?

Please help everyone, as you can see everything works fine and my midi is working, but I'm recording no input is registered

I can only hear the effects when I play it back, like the actual th3 plugin does not pick up my guitar , so I can’t adjust the stuff without playing it back, doesn’t pick my guitar up on the tuner or anything either

whenever i export, my track always gets compressed or it doesn't sound exactly what it sounded like in the daw or studio

I tried all the options in the snap grid included sample 1 but I did not manage to do it. I know you can do it if you drag the clip but I can't use that method because I want to paste it to another project. If the original clip does not begin at an exact time but let's say 11 sample after that... when I paste it the software paste it to the time (11 sample back) and not exactly at the sample where the original clip started.

Hi! So I was wondering if there was a way of backing up projects. I usually save my stuff in a disk/pendrive ojust in case but it'd be much comfortable for me to know if there's a way to automatically save it / back it up somewhere in the cloud so I don't have to be constantly saving stuff or something, thanks!

hi, i was wondering if anybody knew of a free vst that sounds like the cat keyboard. you know the keyboard im talking about, the one that meows when you press the keys?

I'm just trying out music production for the first time so could but a stupid mistake and can give more details if needed. I watched some videos and made sure it scanned the files and they still did not show up. Also the VST files that should come preinstalled did not. Help me please!

Hey guys I kinda wanna make an EDM song in Cakewalk, but since I have no experience...like literally 0 and also I never played with an instrument before...

I really need help! I tried to look for tutorials on YT but all of them seemed too advanced and stuff and there are also a lot of fx in the app too...

Where should I start? I kinda know what beat im going for but what FXes should I use? Or how do i make it sound like i really want to...im really confused but if you have time then pls help me 😭

I've got a Casio Privia and I'm trying to connect it to Cakewalk for MIDI. I have a MIDI -> USB cable connected between it and my laptop, and I believe I am seeing the device in the Cakewalk MIDI preferences (yes it's enabled for input), but still, no input comes through when I play the keyboard.

I tried this about a year ago as well, with the same result and kinda gave up back then, but I'd really like to get it working, so I thought I'd give it another try and get some help from you guys!

Anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions (besides, disconnect it and connect it again...I've already done that multiple times.)

Thanks in advance!

Hello guys , as an impulsive decision i decided to actually give out music production a try as a genuine hobby as I love to be around music. A bit of internet surfinf told me that Cakewalk is a pretty good DAW for beginers. But now i dont how to proceed. Any yt channels that can help beginners or any steps that you employed as a beginner to help yourself?