Help- no sound

Am TOTALLY new to DAW- have trial version of Cubase 9 Elements and Mixcraft. I don’t want to connect my keyboard/instrument to computer… want to use chord tracks (on Cubase) and computer only (with virtual keyboard) to enter some simple music… (at this point). I thought I managed to do that but there was no sound during playback. Cannot figure quite how to do this- searched tutorials, etc. online and can’t really find anything. I can load tracks and get sound out of Mixcraft only using computer…(Mixcraft seems much easier but I like some of the Cubase features…)
Please someone, send simple steps on how to do this- thanks.

Not much information to go on but I’ll keep it as basic as I possibly can.

  1. Go to Devices > Devices Setup and make sure you have your audio interface selected from the drop down menu.
    Preferably use an ASIO driver for optimized performance and to keep latency as low as possible.
  2. Go to VST connections (press F4) and set up the audio input/output by adding busses and connect these to the physical port names you want to use.
  3. Create an audio track in the track list (click on the + above or right click).
  4. Open the mixer (press F3) and turn down the level of the Stereo out (Master) and audio track you just created to a minimum setting. (This is to prevent your equipment and worse your ears from blowing up).
  5. Open Media > MediaBay (press F5) and browse for a sound clip. You should actually already hear sound when clicking on the preview button but also drag the clip to the audio track for additional testing.
  6. Hit the play button and you should see/hear audio activity on the instrument and Master faders.

If you still don’t hear sound look at the physical connections and routing within your audio interface. You should at least be able to hear sound on a plugged in headphone.

I had a noob problem too and it wasn’t covered by the above suggestions.

Make sure you are playing in the range of the instrument. I was pulling my hair out trying to get violins to work on the chord pads. When I switched to cellos, it finally worked because they are tuned lower. You should probably use a full range piano instrument when first learning chord pads.