I spent some time last week working with Midi in Cakewalk. I wanted to try and record my guitar to some completed midi recordings. Man, what a ball buster.
With Cubase, I can import a midi file and it will play back using general midi (GM) voices with no additional tweaking. Then if I want to change voices or instruments its a very simple task.
Cakewalk? Maybe I just haven't got it all figured out yet. If I import a midi file, there is no default GM voices. You have to go in and select an instrument and voice for each track.
My success was limited. I was able to get some sound from some tracks but there's something going on with note velocity. Its like the instrument is plugged in after the velocity attack and only peaks would get through to activate the midi instrument. Its liked of like a gate on an analog track with the threshold set so tight it only lets the peaks through.
I re-read all the manual and tried to figure it out step by step but I'll have to experiment more. It may be cakewalk will record midi well enough, but just plugging in a midi song made on another program was a huge failure for me.
I couldn't get a sound exporting the midi to audio either. You could hear the midi notes play as the file was scanned and saved, but when I opened the saved wave file there was no sound.
This isn't my first attempt either. I got farther this time but I still can't get the results I get in Cubase.
This is one reason when I'm asked to give advice about DAW programs, My answer is if you're inexperienced and want a daw that's easy to learn audio recording, My answer is Sonar. If you want simple midi, Cubase. Maybe If I was real good at midi my mind would change, but I don't see having to load an instrument for each track as being very productive.
I suspect, if I had a midi template file setup, with all the instruments set on the tracks, and then load a midi song, it would alleviate the problem of having to go through all the BS, but Its unlikely it would select the proper voice for the proper track. Cubase uses GM as a default. The GM voices may not be the best, but at least there's something there you can hear to make a judgment before substituting other voices.
Maybe I just need to have a keyboard setup that has voices and use it to hear the raw midi song play back. I didn't have it connected so that might be a needed link.
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