New to Aardvark and Cakewalk...suggestions? Insights?

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bloozguy

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I have the Aardvark Direct Pro 2496 and Cakewalk 9.0 on a PC with a Soundblaster Live card. My system has 256RAM.

First of all....I know the Aardvark has 24 bit capability, but my system on the sys check finds that my sound card only has 16 bit capability. Is that true for others or am I configuring it wrong. Gee, just bought this multi media computer a few months ago and gave the tech who built it a word up front what I wanted to use it for. I wanted the best soundcard, which he assured me this was. Is there a better PC soundcard for working with Aardvark and Cakewalk that I should perhaps plan to replace my current one?

Secondly,
I tried, in the Patch bay, to set it up as the small manual suggests so that I can hear playback thru my headphones AND be able to hear the current track I'm recording. Still, I only get the sound of what I'm playing, (guitar for example). The playback is coming instead thru my computer speakers, which of course is going to lead to feedback problems when I use a vocal mic or acoustic guitar. Any suggestions. I did go to the little speaker icon on the bottom of the PC tool bar, and activated what I've been told is necessary.

ON the unit itself...the interphase, I have my headphones going into the front headphone jack. Should I get two 1/8" jacks with the adapter to plug headphones into the back coming out of the "monitor out" instead?

The other thing that is wierd is, I'll have my rhythm guitar set for the source of my DirectPro, and port my soundcard, and lay a rhythm track down no problem. The track view shows the signal recorded.

I'll have it playing second track with a drum session midi on the first. The imported drums will play, and be heard...but shows no visual track of having been recorded. Is that normal?

Lastly, I'll lay my lead track on the third, and also see the visual of its having been recorded, but after dis'arming and hitting play, will only hear the rhythm and drum tracks playing. I swear I have the same stinkin' settings. Is this computer glitch stuff??

I did purchase thru Amazon the "Power Cakewalk" book, so hopefully that answers a lot of questions. Thanks for your time.

bloozguy
 
bloozguy said:

First of all....I know the Aardvark has 24 bit capability, but my system on the sys check finds that my sound card only has 16 bit capability. Is that true for others or am I configuring it wrong. Gee, just bought this multi media computer a few months ago and gave the tech who built it a word up front what I wanted to use it for. I wanted the best soundcard, which he assured me this was. Is there a better PC soundcard for working with Aardvark and Cakewalk that I should perhaps plan to replace my current one?



I knew I'd see you in here sooner or later, Larry. :D

With regard to the sound card - not my area of specialty - and likely, not your computer tech's area of specialty either. The problem with most tech guys is that they benchmark sound cards in terms of how they sound/perform for gameplay - which is obviously not what you are after. There is a soundcard forum here on this site - might want to browse through there to see what the latest cards are doing these days ...

Cheers.
Scott
 
I should also add that if you don't get a response here after a short period of time - I'd definitely post in the Cakewalk forum, as well as possibly the Computer Recording and Soundcards forum.

Cheers.
Scott
 
Thanks Scott...hee heee....

only you would see thru the "bloozguy" handle and know who it is outright!

I've been enjoying messing around, but this Aardvark manual they give...about a 12 page copymachine folded over and stapled, is pathetically minimal at best IMHO. I'm hoping I get some better directions from this new book I ordered.

I saw the newbie thing here, and figured it might be best, but...I'll hang out a bit at the Cakewalk forum. I did get some initial suggestions there that helped get me to some higher ground.
Larry
 
A couple of thoughts...

I used to have a DirectPro, and used cakewalk, so hopefully I can give a hand.

First, when playing back tracks, look at the "out" setting on the individual tracks, if they're playing throught the computer speakers, they're routed to the SB, not the Aark.

Remember that the audio routing in the Aark patchbay is independent of the cakewalk routing.

One way to significantly reduce this sort of confusion is to disable the SB in the Tools/audio menu, but I am assume that you are using that for the drums sounds, so that may not be an option.

The Cakewalk power is a great resource, it made a big difference in making the program "make sense" to me.
 
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