Cakewalk MIDI Troubleshooting: Finding a Faulty MIDI Cable by Swapping the Cables

A composer’s Roland RD-700SX would play the MIDI that Cakewalk by BandLab sent it, but nothing he played on the keyboard got back into Cakewalk, because one of his two MIDI cables had failed.

He wanted to use the RD-700SX with Cakewalk for composing. He’d connected it with MIDI cables to the MIDI in and out sockets on his Edirol UA-101 audio interface, and he’d checked that the keyboard’s MIDI Out went to the Edirol’s MIDI In and the other way round. Cakewalk could send MIDI to the keyboard, so the little test MIDI regions played on the RD-700SX, but when he played the keyboard nothing came into Cakewalk and he couldn’t record any new MIDI parts. He was frustrated, because as far as he could see he’d connected it all properly.

I connected to his computer with AnyDesk, as I usually do, and we spoke on WhatsApp. The first thing I did was check that his MIDI devices were enabled in Cakewalk’s MIDI preferences. Then we went through the cabling together and he showed me his setup. It looked to me as though he’d connected everything correctly, and I wasn’t sure why Cakewalk wasn’t picking up any MIDI.

Looking at the MIDI outside Cakewalk

So we closed Cakewalk and I downloaded MIDI View, a free MIDI monitor that I use a lot. When he played the keyboard, MIDI View showed no MIDI coming in from it either.

Cakewalk’s MIDI was reaching the keyboard, so at least one of the two cables worked, and swapping them over would show whether the other one had failed.

I asked him to unplug both cables and swap them, so the cable that had run from the Edirol’s MIDI Out to the RD-700SX’s MIDI In now ran from the keyboard’s MIDI Out to the Edirol’s MIDI In, and the other one went the opposite way. When he played the keyboard again, MIDI View showed the MIDI coming in.

So he had everything connected correctly, and one MIDI DIN cable was broken and needed replacing. He was relieved it wasn’t a fault with his computer or his Edirol, and he knew exactly which cable to replace. We carried on with the rest of the session, looking at how to bring his RD-700SX further into Cakewalk, and I’ve written that part up separately in a case about setting up an RD-700SX patch list in Cakewalk.

MIDI View is free, and with the DAW closed it shows you straight away whether any MIDI from your keyboard is reaching the computer at all.

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Looking at the MIDI outside Cakewalk

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