Cakewalk BBL Komplete Kontrol host integration?

Songboy25

Will Komplete integrate with the Cakewalk by Bandlab Daw anytime soon? I bought the Komplete S61 and was wondering if the general facility to match this to other DAWs would be applied to Cakewalk.

chk071

You can get there, with a bit of "hacking": https://craiganderton.org/how-to-use-cakewalk-with-komplete-kontrol/

In general, though, Cakewalk by Bandlab's controller support is pretty lacking. My keyboard which uses the Maeckie HUI protocol to control pan and sends in Cakewalk doesn't full function either, because the HUI support in CbB is still in beta state, and doesn't support a lot of controls. I don't expect that to get any better in the future. The reply I got on their forums was, like, "write the support yourself, the interface is open source!". Which, obviously, is very helpful, when you have no idea about programming.

The way I see it, CbB is not a very widely used DAW, and it simply doesn't relish the same kind of support other DAW's get from hardware manufacturers. It's characteristic that neither NI nor Novation deem it worth to even mention Cakewalk in their setup guides for their MIDI controllers. One more reason for me to stick with something better supported (Studio One).

Uwe303

Hello,

the problem with cakewalk is, that it does not send the mackie handshake and as far as i know komplete keyboards need that. Otherwise they just stay in midi mode. I downloaded a file that has the option to enable\disable the handshake but it does not work correctly. Cakewalk should just give a proper mackie Integration, many controllers use this protocoll.

chk071

You can get there, with a bit of "hacking": https://craiganderton.org/how-to-use-cakewalk-with-komplete-kontrol/

In general, though, Cakewalk by Bandlab's controller support is pretty lacking. My keyboard which uses the Maeckie HUI protocol to control pan and sends in Cakewalk doesn't full function either, because the HUI support in CbB is still in beta state, and doesn't support a lot of controls. I don't expect that to get any better in the future. The reply I got on their forums was, like, "write the support yourself, the interface is open source!". Which, obviously, is very helpful, when you have no idea about programming.

The way I see it, CbB is not a very widely used DAW, and it simply doesn't relish the same kind of support other DAW's get from hardware manufacturers. It's characteristic that neither NI nor Novation deem it worth to even mention Cakewalk in their setup guides for their MIDI controllers. One more reason for me to stick with something better supported (Studio One).

Songboy25

Thanks for the reply. I feel reasonably disappointed. I've stuck with Cakewalk for years and feel quite disinclined to move over to another DAW (my learning curve these days is almost vertical)! I had toyed with going over to Pro Tools but the rental approach would not justify my slow output on YouTube.

Thanks again for the heads up.

Uwe303

Hello,

the problem with cakewalk is, that it does not send the mackie handshake and as far as i know komplete keyboards need that. Otherwise they just stay in midi mode. I downloaded a file that has the option to enable\disable the handshake but it does not work correctly. Cakewalk should just give a proper mackie Integration, many controllers use this protocoll.

chk071

I totally agree.

They seem to handle Maeckie (HUI) like "It's an old obsolete protocol which isn't worth supporting fully".

Uwe303

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/54030#Comment_54030

and mackie is still powerful today and will be there for some time

Songboy25

I am subsequently wondering, if Cakewalk are not entertaining this 'Mackie Handshake' (which is a new concept to me), what do they have to help users to integrate their controller experience? Is it a sort of blank space?

Uwe303

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/54044#Comment_54044

Cakewalk has a sdk for developing your own integration and it´s open to the public, there is one guy at github who already enhanced mackie integration, and his integration also has the option do disable the handshake, so i guess it´s there but maybe not correctly - but maybe i´m wrong will test a bit. You can contact him and ask: GitHub - msmcleod/Cakewalk-Control-Surface-SDK

Songboy25

Thanks for that. I will follow it up.

Best wishes to all...

Fullplay

Well it's 2024 and the list of DAWS with full integration on the NI website grows larger but still no Cakewalk/Sonar. Will the new paid version of Cakewalk/Sonar have full NI integration? If not I'm moving to Studio One - it has both ARA and full NI integration. What's not to like.