Sound Settings Messed Up - can't record audio in music programs

I’m having my first real sound issue, and am not very technical to be able to sort it out. I’m just starting to work with music on my PC, and have been trying out a couple of the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) packages for this. I've been trying a DAW called Cakewalk for a week or so, and a couple of days ago downloaded another, Cubase Pro 13 to try/learn.

At first, it seemed to work fine (even though I could do almost nothing on it yet), and I was trying to follow tutorials to learn it, but found that whenever I had Cubase open, I couldn't get any sound out of Youtube. ChatGPT "helpfully" advised me to go into my PC sound settings and prevent applications from taking exclusive control of my sound. That's when the problem started - I couldn't get any sound at all out of Cubase (or Cakewalk) after that, though other PC sound was fine and the indicators within these programs showed that there was a signal being generated. Switching the PC sound settings back to where they were didn't work, even after several restarts.

Someone advised me to download and install ASIO4ALL drivers and try that. That helped a little. I switched the DAW settings to this new driver, and now I can get sound out of the DAWs (though with Cubase, I often need to fiddle around a lot in audio settings to get even that), but I still can’t record anything. It look like it's recording and it does show a signal, but when I stop the recording, there's nothing there.

And if I switch back to the General Low Latency drivers (the default driver setting in Cubase), there is again no sound at all.

I’ve been playing around in the audio settings of the DAWs, but nothing seems to help and it’s really frustrating me.

Does this make any sense to anyone? Does the story above give any clue as to what the issue might be.

Thank you Michael. i'll definitely consider that. Isn't that sort of what I've already done with the ASIO4ALL driver, or would that not work to solve this?

michael diemer said:

I am familiar with Cakewalk and Cubase. I currently use Reaper. I think the best solution here is to use different audio "cards," one for your music, and one for your web surfing. Even a cheap (100.00) audio interface will give you better sound than what you have on your computer, such as Realtek. Then, you just set your DAW to use the interface, and everything else the on-board device. The new interface can be USB or a sound card. USB is preferred these days. Two inexpensive one are the Steinberg UR-22 and the Scarlet Foucurite, both around 100.00.

If you don't have a dedicated sound card or USB audio interface, you are using the onboard sound, probably Realtek. Which you can use, but almost everyone doing music on computers uses a dedicated interface. Better sound for one thing, and it also helps to keep your music making separate from everything else, so once you set it up it keeps working, because nothing is interfering with it.


If you were to get, say the Ur-22, it would come with its own Asio drivers. Steinberg actually created Asio, and it is the industry standard at this point. Asio4 all does work, but you're better off to use the pure Asio drivers. The onbaord sound device will have its own drivers from Realtek. If you do use Asio4all, make sure you download an older version which works on Windows 7. That may be where you are running into problems.

Thanks again michael. I do sort of have another sound card - it's the Soundblaster Live External 24-bit (an old one....), which I'm using. Also the ASIO4ALL driver. But even with both of these, I'm not able to record. I understand a new audio interface woudl be good for the sound, but is there any reason to think it will specifically fix the recording problem?

michael diemer said:

If you don't have a dedicated sound card or USB audio interface, you are using the onboard sound, probably Realtek. Which you can use, but almost everyone doing music on computers uses a dedicated interface. Better sound for one thing, and it also helps to keep your music making separate from everything else, so once you set it up it keeps working, because nothing is interfering with it.


If you were to get, say the Ur-22, it would come with its own Asio drivers. Steinberg actually created Asio, and it is the industry standard at this point. Asio4 all does work, but you're better off to use the pure Asio drivers. The onbaord sound device will have its own drivers from Realtek. If you do use Asio4all, make sure you download an older version which works on Windows 7. That may be where you are running into problems.

guy500 said:

Thanks again michael. I do sort of have another sound card - it's the Soundblaster Live External 24-bit (an old one....), which I'm using. Also the ASIO4ALL driver. But even with both of these, I'm not able to record. I understand a new audio interface woudl be good for the sound, but is there any reason to think it will specifically fix the recording problem?

No, probably not. Are you sure you are arming the track you wish to record? If you are using Cakewalk, you might want to check their documentation:

Cakewalk - Documentation & Help

This is for their older products, but it should still be relevant. What version of Cakewalk are you using? Newer ones don't work on Windows 7. The very latest version, SONAR, definitely does not. Older versions of Cakewalk By Bandlab still might, but they will be discontinuing all but the most recent one, and may at some point pull the plug on it. It's very confusing over on their forum, as information has not been forthcoming by the Bandlab owners. But you could join that forum, the folks there can definitely set you straight. I used to be on it, but since I switched to Reaper I have no need of it anymore.

Yes, definitely arming the track. Really at a loss as to how to get my recording back in cubase....

(I've written to them too about it, but I don't know how good their support is)

What are you selecting for outputs? Usually it will be analog out, but there are other options depending on your setup. Also, are you doing midi or audio? If midi, you may need to first insert a midi item on the track, however you do that in Cubase. Then you have a place for the midi to go. In most DAWS, tracks can either be midi or audio, and of course you need to use the right one depending on which you are recording, midi or audio.

Recording MIDI only at this point. The set up was okay until it stopped working when I changed the sound setting. But I've since changed it back and the problem is still there.

michael diemer said:

What are you selecting for outputs? Usually it will be analog out, but there are other options depending on your setup. Also, are you doing midi or audio? If midi, you may need to first insert a midi item on the track, however you do that in Cubase. Then you have a place for the midi to go. In most DAWS, tracks can either be midi or audio, and of course you need to use the right one depending on which you are recording, midi or audio.

- - - Updated - - -

What is on the actual track? Is there any information there, like notes? If the notes or events are there and you are not hearing anything, do you have volume events set up, like CC7 for starting volume, CC11 for on-the-fly changes, etc? Or do you have any knobs or sliders that are turned all the way down?