Why do I hear my drum machine?

[Eisenbart]

Yeah, it works!

I managed to connect my Boss DR-660 to my PC, and I can do incredible things now I can make the drum machine playback and record that stuff with SONAR, I can also hit keys on the DR and record this way, too!

Now, where´s the problem, you might wonder: Actually there is no real problem, but when I hit a key on the drum machine, I immediately hear the corresponding sound from my PC - how does this work? I expected to hear nothing until I play back the track just recorded. It does not seem to have to do with input monitoring, as this is switched off.
The PC and the DR are connected using a cable from my game port that splits into a midi-in and a midi-out plug, both of which are plugged into the drum machine.

Sorry for the stupid question, but I just want to understand the inner workings of all that stuff!

 

[Torpid-x]

Are you recording it as midi or audio?

If it's midi, you might have the track ouput going thru an internal midi drum bank. it's just like a keyboard and does the same thing. you can play (record) midi keyboard notes with it if it's set up right.

If it's audio, your just hearing the source sound going through. just like any instrument connected to audio, it's going through your windows mixer or sound card drivers.


Input monitoring, as far as I understand it, is for monitoring with effect plug-ins active (hearing the effect while you play). my system doesn't have the power to use it, so I'm not absolutely sure what it does.

hope that helps. really the question needs more info on how you have things set up on the track.

 

[Eisenbart]

I'm recording it as midi. I have set the track's "In" to midi channel 10 (as this seems to be my drum machine) and the "Out" to my sound card's synthesizer.

Is the midi signal sent to my sound card's synth even while recording? Besides, I can also hear my drum machine when I do not record. I can even hear it when there is no project open, but then I hear piano sounds instead of drums...

 

[Eisenbart]

It looks like I hear the drums as long as there is at least one track in my project using the sound card's synth as "out". The "in" only seems to play a role when I'm recording.

 

[Torpid-x]

LOL

Your playing an internal midi drum bank from your drum machine pads. Midi channel 10 usually loads a drum patch into your sound cards synth.

By setting up a midi track that way you're telling cakewalk to accept a signal from any midi device connected to your computer. If you change the patch to piano, the pads will play piano sounds (or any other patch, soundfont, soft-synth, etc. that you set the output to) The track you recorded will also play whatever sounds you tell it to. Basically your using your drum machine as a keyboard.

if you set up the 660 to accept a signal from cakewalk, and set your output (in the track) to your external midi port, cakewalk will play the 660 for you, then you can record it to an audio track by connecting the 660 to the audio line in. That would be using the 660 as a sound module.

midi's some crazy sh#t, almost every device does the same thing.
That should confuse yoerrr keep you busy playing around for a while.

 

[Eisenbart]

I've now connected the line-out of my 660 to the line-in of my sound card, and it works! I can actually use the 660 for playback, but where does the audio signal go? I mean, I want to record that stuff, but none of the audio channels seems to be involved.

 

[Torpid-x]

Not sure if you figured this out yet or not, the boards been full of problems the last couple days.

To record the 660 as a playback device, you have to set up an audio track and record the line in (or whatever you have it connected to).

to record it with a cakewalk midi track controlling it, you need both midi and audio cables connected and record to an audio track to hear the actual sounds of the 660.

Record midi to program it, audio to record the sounds.