I would like to talk about virtual cables and how to record Cantabile in a DAW.
I have read a few topics about this on the forum but I haven’t found a solution unfortunately. I’ll give you more details on what I would like to do.
I use Cantabile to play several keyboards in live conditions with a band. I am using a Berhinger XR18 as a mixer for the band and this is my soundcard as well. I would like to record the band directly into Cubase (I prefer not to use Cantabile’s built-in recorder for some reason in this particular case) but my keyboards are played with Cantabile.
I understand that running Cantabile and a DAW with the same ASIO driver is complicated, but is there really no way to record Cantabile into Cubase with Voicemeeter or similar software ? (I don’t need to hear anything from the DAW while recording).
I did exactly that a few months ago, using VoiceMeeter Banana and Cakewalk. It is possible. If I remember well, I connected Cakewalk to the AUX voicemeeter driver and Cantabile to the Virtual one. However, after succeding, I did not exploit the possibility further. I remember that sometimes the audio engines of Cantabile, Cakewalk and Voicemeeter started out of sync and I got all sort of crackles. To bring them back in sync I had to switch them on and off a few times.
FWIW, here are some notes I took back then (edit: notes that I found after writing the first part of this message!):
Integration of Cantabile, VoiceMeeter, Cakewalk and Windows Audio System
VM=VoiceMeeter
CA=Cantabile
CW=Cakewalk
Driver ASIO
CA: VoiceMeeter Virtual Audio (VAIO), associated to bus B1 of VM
CW: Voice Meeter AUX Virtual Audio, associated to bus B2 of VM
Other notes
default device in windows driver is VoiceMeeter Virtual Audio (VAIO), associated to bus B1 of VM (channels 1 and 2)
in CA, channels 1 and 2 are used to monitor (they get into CA into the virtual strip “Voicemeeter VAIO” and they must be assigned to A3 to listen from the monitors (A3 is connected to ASIO 1+2 in VM settings).
channels 3 and 4 are used to record from CA to CW. To get them into CW, the signal of the VM strip “Voicemeeter VAIO” must be sent on bus B2. (actually, channels 3+4 could be avoided. I could use 1+2, there is no risk of recording the CW Master together with CA, becausei CW Master gets into VM on B2 and it is sent on A3 to be monitored, while CA getis into VM on B1 and it is sent to CW through, and it is also monitored on A3).
to monitor (i.e. listen to) CW (e.g. when I record a new track), I must assign the strip “Voicemeeter AUX” to A3. It is also possible to record in CW the windows audio (in the same way as Cantabile): the difference is that windows audio gets into CW on channels 1 and 2
If I get crackles in the recorded audio, the following procedure is of help:
switch off audio engine in CA and CW
restart audio engine in VM
restart audio engined in CA and CW
Ok. That’s all.
I can’t guarantee that this is the best way to do it. I was still pretty much a newbie when I did it. Hope this helps!
Just for the record, I have replicated a similar setup today and it works, though not flawlessly.
Here are a few pictures:
Cantabile Audio Engine is set to “Voicemeeter Virtual Asio” and I have added an output port “CakewalkRec” to send audio to Voicemeeter on channels 3 and 4
In Voicemeeter, the B2 button is on for the Cantabile strip: this sends audio to Cakewalk. The A1 button is on for Cakewalk strip: A1 is connected to my hardware soundcard. If you don’t need to listen to the DAW, activate A1 on the Cantabile strip instead and de-activate the one on the DAW strip.
One could use channels 1+2 instead of 3+4 to send audio from Cantabile to Cakewalk: it (kind of) works anyway. Why am I saying “kind of” works? Because sometimes you get nasty crackles in your audio. It happens, for instance, if you switch on and off the record or the monitor button of the track. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. After a few trials, it gets back to normal. I suspect the audio engines going out of sync. In Cakewalk, one can select which channel to use for timing master in playback or recording (see below) but changing these settings seems to have no effect on this issue.
Update: edited to insert new cropped versions of the images.
Update 2: this possibility to record from cantabile to the DAW is very appealing to me. I am in the process of building Unify-like racks in Cantabile, where I lay patches from different plugins to get new interesting sounds. Here is an example with Iris2 and Dexed:
Using Unify I could set up something similar and use it both in Cantabile and in my DAW…but I am so used to Cantabile’s way of doing things that I’d rather play Cantabile and record it in my DAW, just as you would do with an external keyboard.
Another possibility- I recently started playing with using the Jack Audio Connection Kit to combine Cantabile with Ableton Live and Digital Performer. (Why? They’re all plugin hosts with an overlapping set of features, but each has different strengths: Ableton for live triggering of drum patterns, DP for much better linear editing, and Cantabile for everything else.)
Jack is a mainstay of the Linux audio world, but it seems to run pretty well on Windows too, allowing routing and mixing between any applications that can use ASIO, via its own driver. Although its interface implies that it handles MIDI loopback as well, that doesn’t seem to work with regular Windows audio applications, so I add LoopMIDI into the mix for that. Very complicated but also very flexible.
No problem with crashes or glitches so far, although running multiple big applications simultaneously can use up the available CPU cycles, and it adds literally zero latency beyond that of the underlying audio interface’s driver. The only annoyance other than complexity is that whenever Cantabile (not the others, interestingly) starts its audio engine and connects to the driver, I get one buffer worth of max volume noise - clearly the buffer isn’t zeroed properly in the manner that Jack expects.
first I apologize since I have no time now to write a more complete answer (I am away for work). However, I can point you to this video, which should give you enough info to get you started. @terrybritton is our in-house expert about multitrack recording in Cantabile!
I can’t speak for other DAWs, but in Cubase you import the WAV file, then perform a conversion of the one track to separate tracks. It really is simple. I feel sure other DAWs will have similar functions.
Thank you very much for your detailed answers.
I finally chose the simple solution of recording in multi-track inside Cantabile and then importing the tracks into Cubase. This feature is really reliable, I was able to record a 4 hour rehearsal (8 tracks, Cantabile + analog) without any problem.
I’ll take a look at the options you have provided here though, it seems to be really technical to record Cantabile in a DAW !
