Cakewalk (Bandlab) DAW recording metronome all the time

[Bif_]

Downloaded and installed the new Cakewalk by Bandlab. It's essentially Cakewalk Sonar Platinum with a few features removed.

 

Installed in on a Windows 10 machine, able to load the provided demos. Using a Tascam US-322 audio interface. All drivers updated and able to use the interface for both input and output.

 

When I record audio on a track, the metronome records with my audio input onto the track. (The metronome can be set to work during playback and/or record independantly, but is unrelated to my problem.)

 

I've searched both the new Cakewalk and old Cakewalk knowledge base as well as general searches on the web but haven't found a solution. Some of my research indicates that it could be a problem with the way the Tascam audio interface is set and/or problems with how the output buss is configured. I've done a bit of trial and error in this direction but still stuck.

 

I don't know why this thing just doesn't work out of the box. Any ideas I can try?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Greg

[StickMan393]

Normally I'd say, try the Cakewalk forum, but I believe it is in a transition period and not accepting new members. I hope BandLab get their act together and open the new forum soon...

 

OK, create a new empty project.

Show/select the Console view (at the bottom of the window)

Click on the metronome icon in the Control Bar

 

At this point, we should have everything we need visible to decide what is going on...

The "Audio Metronome" should be directing its output to the "Metronome" buss.

The Metronome buss should be feeding into "Master".

Master should be feeding out to the hardware outputs (e.g. 1+2).

 

You should be able to mute the metronome by muting the Metronome Buss.

You should be able to direct the metronome directly to the hardware outputs, or an alternate set of outputs (e.g. 3+4).

 

Let me know if this makes sense and we'll continue to diagnose.

 

 

 

[Bif_]

Stickman,

 

Thank you for the response. I'll work on this tonight and report back.

 

Greg

[BbAltered]

Hello. I use CW Sonar (not Bandlab Sonar) on a Win 7 machine.

 

First let me make sure I understand the problem: when recording on an audio track, you get your recorded audio and the metronome audio all recorded to one track, yes?

 

What happens if you turn off the metronome during recording? (metronome settings are somewhere in the Edit/Preferences menu - or click on the metronome icon in the taskbar)

 

The metronome can either play audio on your computer, or a midi signal that your attached midi keyboard will play. Obviously, if your keyboard is making the metronome sound, that sound will come thru the keyboard's outputs and get recorded when you play the keyboard (unless you tell the keyboard to send the metronome to a different set of outputs on your keyboard). Check your metronome settings in CW to see if your metronome sound is onboard audio or a midi note.

 

The metronome audio has its own dedicated bus in the Sonar mixer view, but I believe the metronome audio can be routed anywhere in the mixer. Where is the metronome audio being routed in your mixer? If it is on its own bus, what happens when you mute that bus? Can you create a new bus and assign the metronome audio to that bus?

 

This problem is more likely user inexperience than a software bug or hardware issue, and should have an easy fix. Check the manual, try google, and check the various Sonar forums on the web.

 

Report back on your progress.

 

 

[Bif_]

First let me make sure I understand the problem: when recording on an audio track, you get your recorded audio and the metronome audio all recorded to one track, yes?

Yes, that's correct.

 

What happens if you turn off the metronome during recording? (metronome settings are somewhere in the Edit/Preferences menu - or click on the metronome icon in the taskbar)

It stops recording onto the track.

 

 

The metronome audio has its own dedicated bus in the Sonar mixer view, but I believe the metronome audio can be routed anywhere in the mixer. Where is the metronome audio being routed in your mixer? If it is on its own bus, what happens when you mute that bus? Can you create a new bus and assign the metronome audio to that bus?

I think this is my problem. Not sure I know how to set up another bus or even how the bus structure works within CW.

 

This problem is more likely user inexperience than a software bug or hardware issue, and should have an easy fix.

 

This, 100%. I'm just learning, figuring it out. I done quite a bit of research on the web prior to this post. Just frustrated, therefore reaching out.

 

Will do some work tonight and report back.

 

Thanks for the response.

 

Greg

[Bif_]

 

OK, create a new empty project.

Show/select the Console view (at the bottom of the window)

Click on the metronome icon in the Control Bar

 

At this point, we should have everything we need visible to decide what is going on...

The "Audio Metronome" should be directing its output to the "Metronome" buss.

The Metronome buss should be feeding into "Master".

Master should be feeding out to the hardware outputs (e.g. 1+2).

 

You should be able to mute the metronome by muting the Metronome Buss.

You should be able to direct the metronome directly to the hardware outputs, or an alternate set of outputs (e.g. 3+4).

 

Let me know if this makes sense and we'll continue to diagnose.

 

 

 

Here's a screenshot. Sorry it's not embedded. Yes, I can mute the Metronome Buss.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hAYmiHGBA6k44tNW9

 

 

[Bif_]

 

The metronome can either play audio on your computer, or a midi signal that your attached midi keyboard will play. Check your metronome settings in CW to see if your metronome sound is onboard audio or a midi note.

 

The metronome audio has its own dedicated bus in the Sonar mixer view, but I believe the metronome audio can be routed anywhere in the mixer. Where is the metronome audio being routed in your mixer? If it is on its own bus, what happens when you mute that bus? Can you create a new bus and assign the metronome audio to that bus?

 

Report back on your progress.

 

 

Metronome sound is definitely onboard, not midi.

 

I was able to create another buss and assign the metronome to it.

 

The current setup as depicted in the link in the previous response still yields the result of the metronome being recorded with the tracks audio.

[Justin Havu]

Doing this from memory, as I'm on my laptop and don't have Cakewalk installed here. I do on my desktop, though.

 

The Console view has three sections--Tracks, Busses, Outputs. To create a new bus, just right-click in the bus section of the console and click "Insert Stereo Bus." Set the output of that bus to the Master bus. Then, to send the metronome to that bus, go to Edit -> Preferences. On the left side of that window, you should see a series of pages. Select "Metronome" from that area (you may need to scroll up or down to find it.) There should be an option for setting the metronome output. Make sure it's set to the Metronome bus.

[BbAltered]

OK, allow me to summarize to see if I understand correctly:

 

When recording onto an audio track, what is recorded includes both your vocal (or keyboard or whatever) and the metronome click. You have the metronome to play using the computer's onboard audio. If you disable the metronome during recording, only the vocal and not the metronome gets recorded (which is not very helpful because you want the metronome to guide your performance). You have been able to create a separate metronome bus, and the metronome sound still gets recorded with the vocal performance. Is this all correct?

 

I'm not sure but it looks like in your screenshot picture that all the mixer buses shown (Master, Metronome, and Preview) are all armed for recording. When recording, be sure to only arm the tracks you want recorded: all other tracks should be unarmed. Alternately, when recording onto multiple tracks and you want to check what is recorded on just one of those tracks, be sure to solo the track you want to check.

 

Have you found the metronome settings page (in the Edit/Preferences menu)? The metronome settings page is where you can turn on/off metronome during recording, turn on/off metronome during playback (turn it off during playback otherwise you will hear the metronome along with your recorded performance even if the metronome is not actually recorded on a track), allows you to choose whether the metronome sound is midi or onboard audio, and other important metronome settings. Review all of these settings carefully. It is possible that the metronome is getting outputted thru the computer's soundcard along with your studio monitoring system (depending on the complexity of your computer and peripherals). So make sure the metronome is playing thru the same audio drivers that Sonar is using (on my computer, I turn all the other audio drivers off entirely to avoid confusing myself).

 

Can you tell us about your computer-interface-speaker set-up? What audio interface are you using? (most likely this is irrelevant, but it never hurts to check.)

 

The Cakewalk.com community forum is still up and running, and while the traffic there is reduced, I still get many of my questions answered there. So you can ask that group as well.

 

Let us know how it's going.

 

 

[Bif_]

Update:

 

After trying some things suggested in the previous responses here (and general frustration with the software) I started using Cakewalk's email support as I suspected something wrong that was more involved. Thought I'd post back with a final outcome.

 

My Tascam interface has a hardware switch setting "multitrack" and "stereo mix". My initial attempt to quickly get up and running I set that to "stereo mix" as the other setting didn't work. (That was probably due to the fact that the "preferences" were configured improperly.)

 

Cakewalk support made that suggestion and I also found a detailed document on the old Cakewalk site that instructed how to set up my audio interface. As I was trying to work through that, I then hit another snag where Cakewalk would not authenticate my user name/log in credentials, therefore limiting me to 'demo mode' where I couldn't configure the 'preferences' settings (no way to save them).

 

It took several weeks of correspondence with Cakewalk for them to realize they had an issue on their end. They pushed an update out and all started working properly again. Today I was able to set up the Tascam device as instructed and all works as it should.

 

On a side note, Cakewalk support is pretty good. They normally responded in 1 to 3 days on every email I sent. I was further hampered with my efforts to resolve with work travel. Bottom line I think they're doing a pretty nice job supporting their product. They're using a formalized service ticket process and actually followed up with me when they hadn't heard back from me within several days.