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HOW TO USE XG SYNTHS AND
SOUNDCARDS WITH CAKEWALK

Updated: 3 Oct 1998


NOTE: Much more updated info about PC recording is available here.

This page came about because of what I had to go through to get all the basic information I needed to be able to use Yamaha XG sound cards and XG editors with Cakewalk for recording music projects. The information is all out there but I had to search dozens and dozens of XG-related sites (many great ones out there - see links below), read numerous XG bulletin board posts, wade through more than 47,000 Cakewalk newsgroup posts, contact Yamaha and Cakewalk tech support on several occasions and talk with many other users and XG programmers. I hope to save you the time it took me to get all the important information - especially if you're new to the very worthwhile wonders of XG MIDI. Much of this information applies to using any sequencer with XG.

Most of my experience is with the DB50XG daughterboard which I use on a Turtle Beach Montego sound card but the information will translate to any XG card or synth. I also used the WF192XG card for a while before I discovered that its effects were not up to the standard of the DB50XG's (though someone e-mailed me that the new drivers improve these).

If you want to contribute any tips, tricks, system-specific workarounds etc. in the box at the bottom of this page, I'll publish them. I've also written a thorough analysis of PC recording after many recent months of extensive research into the current existing state of PC multitrack recording. It's available here.

How to get the DB50XG daughterboard to be recognized by your system
How to access the XG instruments in Cakewalk
How to more easily find and select the XG instruments in Cakewalk
How to edit the XG instruments and effects in Cakewalk
How to get Cakewalk to save your instrument and effects edits
How can I save my XG Studioware edits in Cakewalk?
How can I have my XG editor open at the same time as Cakewalk?
What if I get an error message telling me that the MMSYSTEM104 system device is already in use?
Can I create my own user voices in the DB50XG?
How to access and edit the QS300 instruments in the DB50XG
How can I access the QS300 user voices in Cakewalk?
When I send someone else my XG MIDI files, they don't hear the XG voices
Is there an easier way to record and edit MIDI in Cakewalk?
How to get Cakewalk to record all your MIDI tracks and their effects to a Wave (audio) file
What is sysex and is there an easy way to learn it?
What exactly is the problem with Cakewalk and sysex?

HOW TO GET THE DB50XG DAUGHTERBOARD TO BE RECOGNIZED BY YOUR SYSTEM

This information is for the Turtle Beach Montego sound card but can easily be converted for your card.

1) Make sure that the "TBS Montego MPU-401 Interface" is selected as the default device in Control Panel -> Multimedia -> MIDI Properties.

2) Open the Win95 audio mixer (small yellow speaker icon in taskbar or click Start -> Run -> "sndvol32")

3) From the playback mixer, put a check in the select box under MPU-401.

If the MPU-401 slider does not show up in the mixer:

a) Click Options (on the menu bar of the mixer).
b) Select Properties (from the menu that appears).
c) Make sure that TBS Montego is displayed in the Mixer Device box
d) Select the Playback option under "Adjust volume for".
e) Under "Show the following volume controls:" make sure you have a check mark by MPU-401.
f) Click [OK].
g) In the Audio Mixer, Put a check in the select box under MPU-401.

4) This will enable the MPU-401.

For various other sound cards, in Windows Multimedia Setup the driver for the Wavetable port is named External MIDI Port & MIDI Daughter Board and needs to be enabled. For setup details for numerous other cards, go here and here.



HOW TO ACCESS THE XG INSTRUMENTS IN CAKEWALK

In order to get the instruments to show up as XG and not the GM presets you will need to download the XG instrument definition file (.ins) and set that up in Cakewalk, which just requires you to go to the Assign Instrument/Define/Import menu and then select the right one (after you download and unzip the .ins file, copy it to the Cakewalk folder). Someone told me that you also need to set your bank controller method to 32 when accessing the voices, but I haven't found any problems just leaving it on "none".

You'll notice that the intruments are spread out across numerous banks which makes them kind of hard to find. See the next item for a great solution to this.



HOW TO MORE EASILY FIND AND SELECT THE XG INSTRUMENTS IN CAKEWALK

Download a great little program called XGBank which lists the instruments in categories and then tells you which bank they're in and and which number they are.



HOW TO EDIT THE XG INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS IN CAKEWALK

There are basically three ways to do this:

1) From within Cakewalk using Studioware panels
2) Using an external XG editor linked to Cakewalk
3) From outside of Cakewalk using a program like Yamaha's XGworks Sequencer and Editor and importing the resulting files into Cakewalk.

With 1) you just download the XG Studioware panels that I've collected and zipped up and put at the link below and then unzip them and put them in your Cakewalk directory and open the one(s) you want to use in Cakewalk and edit your XG instruments, drums and effects all from within Cakewalk.
Download more than a dozen XG Studioware Panels for Cakewalk

With 2) you have to download and install one of the excellent XG Editors like XG-Gold (my favorite - and less than $20 - download the latest version 1.2 here) or XGedit (about $40) or one of the others. XG-Edit is very powerful but has a fairly steep learning curve (not surprising considering the power it has). It's a great program and the new version also unleashes the power of the eagerly-anticipated SW1000XG card (supposed to finally be available in Europe late September). It does have a nice feature of letting you play your MIDI file in it. XG-Gold is fabulously intuitive and easy and fast to use and also really lets you take advantage of the extra QS300 instruments built in to your XG card and the programmer, Achim Stulgies, is very open to suggestions for more features. As Yamaha points out, the ideal thing is to have both these programs, and since they're both so inexpensive, this is easy to do. There are at least two ways to use these editors - either a) edit the instruments, drum assignments and effects directly in the editor, save the results and then try to persuade Cakewalk to import them, or b) edit them in the editor while simultaneously having Cakewalk open.
With 3) you use Yamaha's XGworks sequencer. This is currently the only sequencer designed specifically for working with XG and it includes an excellent XG editor that enables you to save the edited information as part of the MIDI music file (by dragging it onto the List or Track View where it shows you in English what the exact edit you've entered is - very cool) which you can then open in Cakewalk for more sophisticated editing (see my Update notes below), adding audio etc. XGworks also adds audio but in a more limited fashion. Version 2 out soon promises more. You can download a trial version from the link above but you can only buy it (about $130) from their UK site (linked to from the above link).

Update: I've been using XGWorks more and more for mixing recently and the more I use it, the more I like it. It lets me edit sounds and effects in realtime while the mix is playing and saves my edits so they're repeatable (a sometime hit and miss affair in Cakewalk). More importantly, it lets me separate my sysex onto different ticks thus ensuring that other sequencers and players play the track correctly. It also lets me edit my sysex in plain English, which is great. There is some very useful data on XGWorks from Mick of XSCAPE here. I agree with everything he says except that, unlike him, I find the mixer window quite useful. He also has a link where you can download a trial version of the Japanese version 2.01 update. There is a link to the main XSCAPE site at the bottom of this page.

Further Update: Well, I'm definitely learning as I go here! In doing work in XGWorks and then going to Cakewalk, I ran into the truth of what Gary Gregson refers to later on this page regarding how Cakewalk changes the sysex after you've taken all the care to have the codes in the right place (the 1st 2 measures), the right track (1), the right sequence and the right tick spacing. After opening my file in Cakewalk 7.01, doing some note-editing and then re-opening in XGWorks, I found my carefully constructed sysex quite messed up. Cakewalk 3.01 was a little more forgiving but still added a load of unnecessary meta events (many on the same tick) and moved most events to track 2. I haven't had a chance to test Cakewalk 2 (which some people have found to handle sysex better) because I have unfortunately lost my Disk 1 of version 2. So now I'm pretty much using XGWorks exclusively and being *very* careful indeed whenever I have to go into Cakewalk (usually 3.01). Some people have said that other sequencers, like Powertracks Pro and Musicator 3 handle XG sysex better but I haven't tested this out.

The eagerly-awaited new SW1000XG card comes with a special version of XGWorks that goes beyond the current Japanese version 2.04 (the current European version is only 1.04) and makes XG sysex editing even easier, as well as fully supporting the SW1000XG mixer.


HOW TO GET CAKEWALK TO SAVE YOUR EXTERNAL EDITOR INSTRUMENT AND EFFECTS EDITS

For 2a) above you are supposed to save your editor edits as a .mid file and then merge these as system-exclusive (sysex) information with your music .mid file in Cakewalk. Cakewalk's sysex implementation - especially in relation to XG sysex - is rather erratic and the only way I've found (thanks to Eric Arseneau for this tip) to do it that works every time is to open both .mid files in Cakewalk and to open the sysex view window and to cut and paste the sysex info from one to the other. Earlier versions of Cakewalk have a filemerge option and in version 7 you drag and drop from one file to another to merge (but it doesn't seem to work for sysex). Achim will be implementing a way to just save the edit info as a straight sysex file that Cakewalk can read directly in a new version of XG-Gold. This will make things a lot easier. XGedit has a merge option but I haven't had a chance to test it.

To do 2b) above you have to use a MIDI driver that enables you to either have several programs access the MIDI driver at the same time or that enables you to patch the input of one MIDI device to the output of another. There are several available here. More info on how to set these up and use them is in the "How can I have my XG editor open at the same time as Cakewalk?" topic below.

HOW DO I SAVE MY XG STUDIOWARE EDITS IN CAKEWALK?

After you have made your edits, press the Snapshot button and save your MIDI file while the Studioware window is open or minimized..



HOW CAN I HAVE MY XG EDITOR OPEN AT THE SAME TIME AS CAKEWALK?

To do this you have to use a MIDI driver that enables you to either have several programs access the MIDI driver at the same time or that enables you to patch the input of one MIDI device to the output of another. There are several available here. Several people have reported problems with Multimid and I ran into a small problem with it. Many people like Hubi's Loopback Device and MIDIYoke.

Actually, a simple way to do this is to install the Cakewalk TTS MPU401 Multiple Client Driver (which is included on the Cakewalk CD but which you need to install yourself in the usual way - via Add New Hardware/No/Sound, video and game controllers/Have Disk/ and select your CD ROM drive and the Cakewalk directory and oemsetup.inf etc.). Then just set the MIDI out of Cakewalk and your editor both to MPU-401 Out and you'll have it. However, a warning - many sound cards use only one driver for both wave audio and MIDI. If you use the Twelve Tone Systems MPU-401 driver on these cards, you will lose the capability to play back .WAV files and audio in Cakewalk at the same time.

Hubi's Loopback Device can be a little tricky to set up so I've included some user-supplied examples here:

Here's a great step-by-step from Achim Stulgies, creator of XG-Gold:

"Here is a very tricky configuration to enable Cakewalk (and other sequencers) to work with XG-Gold (and other editors). The advantage is that you can directly record your edits (see limitation below)!

A) Install 'Hubi's LoopBack device Version 2.5' (freeware). First unzip Hubi's zip file then read section Installation/Windows 95 in the file 'midlpbk.txt' and follow the given instructions. You don't have to install it again if you did it already!

B) Hubi's MIDI cable - Version 2.50.
You need two instances!
Drag 'HWMDCABL.EXE' from your Hubi's directory to the desktop and rename it (e.g. 'Hubi's 1').
Drag 'HWMDCABL.EXE' again to the desktop and rename it too (e.g. 'Hubi's 2').

A double click on Hubi's 1 / Hubi's 2 starts the instances.
After you have started a Hubi's instance (you can't see anything of it!) the app appears in the windows taskbar. Click on it with the right mouse key.
The app opens a menu displaying 3 columns.
Left column => here you need just the 'Filter' settings for 'Hubi's 1' and 'Cmd to Clipboard' for both instances
Middle column => to select an input device
Right column => to select an output device
______________________________________
Hubi's 1
1) Left column: 'Filter ...' => mark all, except SysEx!!!
2) Middle column: In => LB1
3) Right column: Out => LB2
4) Left column: 'Cmd to Clipboard' to copy the command line to the clipboard
5) Click right on 'Hubi's 1' shortcut on your desktop
6) Select 'Settings' in the popup menu
7) Select page 'Shortcut', clear the field 'Target' and press CRTL+V to paste the command line
8) The target field must look like this C:\midi\multi\HWMDCABL.EXE OUT=5 IN=2 FILT=FFFF,7F00,DDCE
9) Click OK to close the dialog
Now all settings are saved for further sessions
______________________________________
Hubi's 2
1) Middle column: In => LB2
2) Right column: Out => SB16 Out (or your OUT port)
3) Left column: 'Cmd to Clipboard' to copy the command line to the clipboard
4) Click right on 'Hubi's 2' shortcut on your desktop
5) Select 'Settings' in the popup menu
6) Select page 'Shortcut', clear the field 'Target' and press CRTL+V to paste the command line
7) The target field must look like this C:\midi\multi\HWMDCABL.EXE IN=3 OUT=2
8) Click OK to close the dialog
Now all settings are saved for further sessions
______________________________________
Cakewalk (tested with Demo 6.0 and 7.01)
Menu 'Settings' =>'Midi Devices ...'
Input Port => LB1
Output Ports => LB2
Menu 'Settings' =>'Type Filter ...'
Sytem Exclusive enabled (marked!)
=>> to enable your sequencer to record SysEx data!
Setup a different sequencer in a similar way!
______________________________________
XG-Gold
Menu 'Option' =>'Midi Port ...'
Midi In => SB16 In (or your IN port)
Midi Out => LB1
______________________________________
Now you can play your song and edit your settings at the same time. If you are satisfied, save all edits as SET XYZ.xgs or XYZ.mid. Furthermore, you can directly record the settings with your sequencer! Select 'New' in XG-Gold at your song start to record as first message a XG reset!
=>> Cakewalk can't record SysEx messages in realtime with more than 255 bytes!!!
=>> A QS voice contains 392 bytes, therefore you just can record all XG settings!!!

Don't forget to start both instances before you run your next session! If you like, copy the shortcuts 'Hubi's 1' & 'Hubi's 2' to your Windows 'Autostart' folder to run it automatically on Windows startup."

From George: "I have AWE32 and DB50XG. I use 4 Hubi's LoopBack drivers: LB1 - LB4. I also have 2 shortcuts to Hubi's Cable in my startup folder as described in his help file. See what happens:

Hubbi's MIDI Cable
Programs/Startup
1) Shortcut to Hwmdcabl.exe
"C:\Loopback\HWMDCABL.EXE" IN=1 OUT=6
2) Shortcut (2) to Hwmdcabl.exe
"C:\Loopback\HWMDCABL.EXE" IN=6 OUT=3

SB16 MIDI In [300]*LB3

0 No Input 0 No Output
+ 1 SB16 MIDI In 1 MIDI mapper
2 TTS Virtual Piano In 2 SB AWE32 MIDI Synth [640]
3 LB1 3 SB16 MIDI Out [300]
4 LB2 4 LB1
5 LB3 5 LB2
6 LB4 +6 LB3
7 LB4

LB4*SB16 MIDI Out [300]

0 No Input 0 No Output
1 SB16 MIDI In 1 MIDI mapper
2 TTS Virtual Piano In 2 SB AWE32 MIDI Synth [640]
3 LB1 +3 SB16 MIDI Out [300]
4 LB2 4 LB1
5 LB3 5 LB2
+6 LB4 6 LB3
7 LB4
-------------------------------------------------
Cakewalk:
Settings/MIDI ports:

SB16MIDI In [300] Output Ports
TTS Virtual Piano +MIDI Mapper
LB1 +LB4
LB2 SB AWE32 MIDI Synth [640]
+LB3 (keyboard) SB16 MIDI Out [300]
LB4 LB1
LB2
LB3
____________________________________________
XG Edit:
Input ports: none
Output ports: LB4
With this setup I can adjust XG settings in XGEdit, save the setup as sysex and use it in Cakewalk."

From Eric Arsenau: "After installing Hubis cable I am left with LB1, LB2, LB3, and LB4 as midi input and output ports as well as my original AWE32 ports named SB16 midi in (300) and SB16midi out(300).

I start Hubi's midi cable (Hwmdcabl.exe) and choose LB1 as input and SB16 midi out(300) as the output. This output is my DB50XG daughterboard.

I open Cakewalk and go to Tools - midi devices and choose SB16 midi in (300) as input and choose LB1 as output.

I open XG-Gold and choose none for input and choose LB1 for output.

I also configure Hubi's midi cable to start as soon as I start my computer. Just for a convenience.

Now when I open Cakewalk and XG-Gold I can switch between the programs, using XG-Gold to come up with cool sounds and effects and Cakewalk to record and play the midi data.

When I save my song in Cakewalk I also save an XG-Gold set file in the XG-Gold folder. When I want to play the song again I open both files with the same name. One is a .wrk file for Cakewalk and the other is an .xgs file for XG-Gold."

From Holger: "1. Install one of this 'Multimidi-Driver'
I'm using an older version of Multimid (needs no registration)
My DB50 is attached to my AWE32 so the new ports are:
Multi-SB Midi-In
Multi-SB Midi-Out
Pipe-SB Midi-In

2. In XG-Gold select Midi-In = None,
Midi-Out = Pipe-Midi-In

3. In Cakewalk select Midi-In = Multi-Midi-In, Midi-Out = Multi-Midi-Out

!!It's important to create NO (!!!) midi-loops. Otherwise the system will hang and the only way to get out is a reset!!

Here is some very useful info from Jerry Jorgenrud, the developer of the excellent XGC editor: "The biggest problem I have is that CW doesn't pass sysex "through". While versions after a certain number let you record sysex in real time, you can't hear the changes in the gear as you record them because it doesn't pass on the sysex it's recording."

More great data from Eric Arsenau: "When I start a song, I open Cakewalk and Gold and Hubi's midi cable. I find the sounds I want using Gold and adjust my effects for my midi sounds in Gold also. I then record my song into Cakewalk. After saving my song in cake, I save my XG edits as a .sys set file. I then go back to cake and go to View, Sysx. This opens my sysx view and I click on the Load Bank button and find the .syx file I just saved in Gold. Click on the Auto button in the sysx view and save the Cakewalk song. The next time you open this song, the .syx file will be loaded before you play the song. Very Nice.

"Double click on a track to get the track properties window. I think that bank and patch have to say "none". I did this with all tracks and saved it as my normal template so that when cakewalk opens, it starts with this setup. This way when you hit play, Cakewalk does not send any bank or program messages and does not screw up your XG-Gold settings

One more thing to try. You should configure Cakewalk in Tools, Golobal Options so that it looks to your XG-Gold/Set folder for .syx files. Now when you load a sysx bank into Cakewalk it will be quicker. Also I find it is better to name your .syx file the same name as your Cakewalk song. Then if you change your settings in XG-Gold ,you can save over your old file and load the new one into cake."



WHAT IF I GET AN ERROR MESSAGE TELLING ME THAT THE MMSYSTEM104 SYSTEM DEVICE IS ALREADY IN USE?

Use one of the multi-MIDI drivers as described above.

CAN I CREATE MY OWN USER VOICES IN THE DB50XG?

From a user: "It is possible to create voices (up to 32 extra in addition to the XGvoices!) from scratch, since there is some unused memory leftover on the board (these voices are stored in bank MSB=63, LSB=0). There's a brand new piece of software that let you manipulate with that. It's called SWEdit and itīs very cool!!! Unfortunately you can't create voices *completely* from scratch like this - you're still limited to basing them on samples that are stored in the ROM. But you *can* define from scratch every other parameter associated with the patch.

These USER voices use a version of the architecture of the old QS300 and in fact QS300 voices can be loaded into the USER bank (except that genuine QS300 voices have 4 elements and the DB50 can only use the first two elements - although XG-Gold does let you access and edit all 4)."

HOW TO ACCESS AND EDIT THE QS300 INSTRUMENTS IN THE DB50XG

XG-Gold lets you do this as does QSEdit. Also, the following sysex commands will do it:

F0 43 71 7E 09 01 F7 (switch DB50XG to TG300 mode) or F0 41 10 42 12 40 00 7F 00 41 F7
TG300B mode is essentially identical to roland GS mode. In fact it will even recognise roland GS commands at sysex level in this mode.



HOW CAN I ACCESS THE QS300 USER VOICES IN CAKEWALK?

From Chris Holm: "Download the banks from Clemenz Kurtz, available from the programming section here. It contains a bunch of midi files. Load up one in Cakewalk and let it play through once. Then go to the first channel selector and you see that it is set to BANK 8064, or it should. Then try to play the first 32 voices and you'll hear that they are the QS300 voices. You can then use them in a song as a normal voice. Just remember BANK=8064 PATCH=1-32."

From Holger: "In Cakewalk open the SysEx-Window (View/Sysex)
Press receive
Select: You start dump on instrument
Cakewalk will wait for transmission now.

In XG-Gold select Job/Store QS-300 voice Select one of the first 32 places, press OK.

Switch back to Cakewalk.
The voice is now in Cakewalk's SysEx-Bank ;-)
Press Save Bank and name it."

Note: The new 1.3 version of XG-Gold makes all of the above very easy to do and when registered, gives you access to many thousands of great patches programmed by others and lets you program your own custom patches either from scratch or as variations of these patches. It also saves sysex files that you can import into Cakewalk.



WHEN I SEND SOMEONE ELSE MY XG MIDI FILES, THEY DON'T HEAR THE XG VOICES

Assuming that they also have an XG synth or sound card, in order to hear your tracks with XG voices, your tracks have to start with the XG-on sysex command, which is F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7 in the first measure.

From Danny McNay: "You can do this in the event list. Select Insert/Series of controllers from the drop-down menus, select pitch wheel, press OK, now on the event list it should have this as an event. Double-click on it and you get a menu. Select SYSEX Data from the second column, click OK, now the pitch wheel event should be sysex data to the right. In the Values column type "F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7". When you play this track it will turn XG mode on, otherwise you'll be in GM. If you want others to be able to play your music on their XG compatible software you will need to type that in (I just made a .wrk file with that in the first track and when I start something new I just load that up). Make sure you leave a measure or two blank because the SYSEX messages are goofy and some programs delay tracks with them in it and they get out of sync in the first 1-4 measures."

IS THERE AN EASIER WAY TO RECORD AND EDIT MIDI IN CAKEWALK?

If you're using Cakewalk 4 or above, you'll notice that things that should be simple - like looping tracks or moving selected sections around - are ridiculously complicated, especially when they were so fast and intuitive in previous versions of Cakewalk. So the answer is simple, do your MIDI recording and editing in an earlier version like Cakewalk 3 and save yourself a lot of time and frustration! Then when you need to add audio, open your files in a later version like 7. Earlier versions also handle sysex much more kindly.



HOW TO GET CAKEWALK TO RECORD ALL YOUR MIDI TRACKS AND THEIR EFFECTS TO A WAVE (AUDIO) FILE

From Cakewalk tech Support: "These are the steps for recording any MIDI tracks that are using your internal synth sounds – such as FM, wavetable or Sound Fonts.

1) Arm two open tracks for recording audio by setting the Source columns Left and Right. If you have more than one sound card installed, make sure you select Left and Right for the sound card that is playing your internal MIDI sounds. Also make sure that you don't have any tracks set with a Source of MIDI in Cakewalk, or you could overwrite them by accident.

2) Next, open your sound card's mixer device. Make sure you are adjusting "Recording Controls", and not "Volume Controls", because we want to adjust recording options, not playback options. Because we only want to record the sound of the MIDI playback, make sure the "MIDI" or "Synth" fader is the only category with a check in it's "Select" box. Now all your MIDI Tracks assigned to the internal synth will be recorded as a stereo pair of audio tracks. Your new audio tracks will automatically be panned hard left (0), and hard right (127). To save confusion, you should Mute the MIDI tracks that you just recorded as you'll be listening to them as audio tracks now."

Also: "If you have a soundcard that supports this feature, such as the Soundblaster AWE64, you can double click on the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the screen and choose Options|Properties|Recording and check the box under Midi. Now, all the Midi from the souncard will be recorded onto any audio track that's armed in Cakewalk."



WHAT IS SYSEX AND IS THERE AN EASY WAY TO LEARN IT?

Sysex stands for System Exclusive and is a system of commands that you can send to your XG device to control it down to the minutest parameter. You can also use it to tell the guitar to switch from flange to wah in the middle of a song, for instance. There are two great explanations for beginners - The Beggar's DB-50XG SysEx Guide and System Exclusive......a guide for the bewildered. Another great source of both sysex and general XG editing info is Yamaha UK's On-line Guide to XG (Anatomy of XG). It's an interactive guide, with loads of diagrams and downloadable samples. Their XG Production Guidelines (accessible from the same page) is also very useful. Sometimes when using sysex you will need to convert a decimal number to Hex code. Here is a chart of those conversions:

DecimalHexDecimalHexDecimalHexDecimalHex
0003220 64409660
1013321 65419761
2023422 66429862
3033523 67439963
4043624 684410064
5053725 694510165
6063826 704610266
7073927 714710367
8084028 724810468
9094129 734910569
100A422A 744A1066A
110B432B 754B1076B
120C442C 764C1086C
130D452D 774D1096D
140E462E 784E1106E
150F472F 794F1116F
16104830 805011270
17114931 815111371
18125032 825211472
19135133 835311573
20145234 845411674
21155335 855511775
22165436 865611876
23175537 875711977
24185638 885812078
25195739 895912179
261A583A 905A1227A
271B593B 915B1237B
281C603C 925C1247C
291D613D 935D1257D
301E623E 945E1267E
311F633F 955F1277F

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE PROBLEM WITH CAKEWALK AND SYSEX?

Here's some very useful info from Gary Gregson (developer of XGEdit): "CakeWalk - This sequencer has many non-standard midi handling techniques....the short answer is to ship your midi files in native WRK format! However when using it for MIDIs....be VERY careful about how it handles sysex. It has a habit of importing sysex by concatenating several packets together (thus destroying timing). Also on playback it may not time sysex events correctly and WILL struggle if there is alot of Sysex in the file (all of which can cause problems for XG power users). Finally it tends to leave unused Meta events and other oddities scattered throughout your files (these are normally placeholders for events which have been deleted etc....so if you don't recognise the Metas...delete them from the saved midi file!)."

SUBMIT TIPS AND TRICKS AND WORKAROUNDS AND
SYSTEM SPECIFIC STUFF BELOW AND I'LL PUBLISH THEM



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GREAT XG LINKS

Yamaha's Official XG Page
The main link for XG
(with close on 13,000 files in total
for all of their synths, samplers and XG cards)
The DB50XG Daughterboard
A Selection of good FAQs
XGworks Sequencer
The XG based sequencer for your XG synths
The official XG-Gold US Mirror Support Page
A *great* XG editor
Michael's Page
The No.1 resource for Yamaha XG Midi
Yamaha XG midi ring
Nearly 30 great XG sites
XSCAPE's Main Page
A great source of XG info and songs
XGCentral
Lots of XG songs, covers and originals
Acustomix, Sound and Vision
Features an XG contest
XG Discussion Forum
Lots of great XG info
Check out Gary Gregson's fabulously useful post on 08/08/98
entitled "XG Midi File playback problems"!
Waveforce Home Page
Yamaha's page devoted to matters XG
(specifically for the WF192XG)
Cakewalk News Group
Almost 50,000 posts
The YAMAHA WaveForce Users Forum
An XG support BBS
Yamaha Home Page
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