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I'd contact Makemusic customer support - they're pretty on top of things. https://www.garritan.com/support/ For what it's worth, I'm not familiar with this problem myself. Good luck and once things are sorted out, hope you like the piano!

Yeah, I contacted Garritan Support (opened a ticket) and Sweetwater (where I purchased the product) some hours ago, haven't heard back yet.

After several hours of troubleshooting and fiddling around with possible hardware permutations, I finally found a way to launch it > have to disconnect my audio interface in order to launch the .exe, then reconnect it. Somehow the audio interface (or it's drivers) is interfering with the launch of CFX... weird!

Now I'm having another problem. It can't detect the midi input or the audio interface. So I'm getting no sound and no input (I've already loaded the 'default' preset). This is kind of strange behavior. Since with Pianoteq, I can just go to preferences and set everything up and we're good to go.

1. This might help you set up MIDI

https://usermanuals.garritan.com/CFXLite/Content/standalone.htm#set_up_midi_and_audio

Click on the triangle entitled "To set up MIDI and audio in the standalone player on Windows"

Make sure to select a box in the TOOLS>PREFERENCES> "Input MIDI devices". Also, fill in the 5 boxes below.

2. Another idea. If you are playing music out of your interface, you might need to go to your operating system Windows>Sound>Playback> right click and disable any output device you are not using. For example, when using my interface to drive monitors, I disable the default "speakers/headphones"

Feel free to summarise exactly what system and chain of music is. And include snapshot of the preferences screen

My guess is that for whatever reason, the stand-alone application is having problems with your audio interface driver - that would explain the app not starting when your audio interface is connected. The part about it not detecting your audio interface is more clear to me: I'm guessing the application detects all available audio/midi interfaces upon startup, and so if you connect the interface *after* starting the application, the application probably has no idea it's now available. This is a guess too, though to me it feels fairly likely.
My suggestion:
1) Try using the CFX VSTi in a DAW, or really just any VSTi host. Reaper is free to evaluate, though figuring out how to use it will likely be a bit of hassle at first. A free DAW is now Cakewalk Sonar (I haven't tried this) at https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk - it might be easier to figure out than Reaper, or not. You can load the CFX VSTi from Reaper or Cakewalk or whatever DAW/host. This would remove any problems with the stand-alone application launching or detecting interfaces. That job would be handled by the DAW instead.
2) If you really are interested in getting the stand-alone application going, disconnect your audio interface for a while today. Download ASIO4ALL and with all apps closed, install it. Then start the stand-alone (with your audio interface still disconnected), and choose ASIO4ALL under the asio driver choices in Tools | Preferences. You'll have to load a preset for the piano to make any sounds, but from that point on you should be able to click on the virtual keyboard you see in the app, and hear sounds. If your only MIDI connection is through your audio interface (and it's disconnected), this isn't really a workable solution though, even if you're ok with the idea of using ASIO4ALL. But the keyboard click test to see if you get sound with asio4all would help you narrow down what the problem is. Pragmatically, using a DAW/host may be a whole lot easier, since you'd have a chance at bypassing whatever issues the stand-alone (maybe?) is having with your interface driver.

I believe Jeff pretty much nailed it. His suggestion might do the trick.
Try it in reaper, since in that case reaper will deal with the interface drivers.
And the CFX only allows selecting midi devices that are already connected when opening the program. This was rather annoying, because if I forgot to turn on the piano before I opened the app (or if I didn't allow enough time for it to be detected by the computer) I had to close the CFX and re-open it, and this took some time. I have no such problem with PT, which allows me to turn on the piano afterwards.

Another thing I noticed is that there are a couple of extra seconds before the CFX opens after I got my new interface (Steinberg UR22 mkII). With the old interface there was no such delay. I think there is a small delay in PT as well, but I don't remember for certain. If there is it's smaller than the CFX. I'm only talking about the window of the program opening, not the loading of the samples. I'm pretty sure this is related to the drivers, since there is no other explanation.

Hmm, on my CFX (Mac), the MIDI list refreshes if you just close and open the Preference pane again, without having to restart the whole app (which would be annoying indeed).

I'm new to Virtual Piano's, and would like to thank everyone for their recommendation and input on this CFX Lite.

Just to sweeten the deal, SweetWater is currently having a 10% e-gift card promo (get 10% more on your giftcard) until June 18th.

So you can buy a $55 USD gift card, get %60.50 USD on the card, and purchase the Garritan CFX Lite VST for $59.95 USD.

I just did it, and got the confirmation email.

Now waiting on the download link/code/email.

Thank you all for your suggestions and help with troubleshooting.

After more fiddling I got it all to work, both the midi and audio interface which my monitors are connected to. The only minor hiccup now is if I want to play it, I have to; pull out the audio interface usb from laptop, start the standalone, replug it in, go to preferences and set it up every time.

As was mentioned by Jeff, it is definitely the audio interface driver clashing with the CFX Lite standalone program and/or the ASIO4All drivers. So I'm wondering if I uninstall the audio interface drivers (Behringer UCA-222), would I be able to use ASIO4All by itself with the audio interface?

I don't want to risk uninstalling it and mess everything up, since it took me a while to get it all (partially) working.

Got my code while at work today, installed on my work computer, and luckily had a spare USB-B cable to hook up my CASIO PX-160 to it and try out during my lunch break.

Couldn't get it to play for a bit, even though it showed as connected.

Was getting a "sample rate not supported" message or something when booting up the standalone, but eventually got it working (don't know what I did exactly, just random stuff troubleshooting).

I don't know if it's just me, but the volume was lower than expected, even with PC volume maxed and the volume was maxed in the standalone editor.

Again, I'm still new to this, so I'm sure I'm missing something.

Piano sound seems pretty good, although right now I still prefer the SK-EX and SK-5 sound samples in my ES8.

CFX is on the quiet side. I turn off the Limit and crank it up as needed. EQ if necessary.

OK, thank you for the tips Gombessa.

I will mess around with it some more, keeping those recommendations in mind.

I also noticed the ASIO drivers have less latency than the MIME drivers? I don't know what those are or what they mean yet, but I had to switch from the default ASIO to MIME to get it working (with some latency), then when I switched back to ASIO, it was working fine with much less latency, very playable.

Maybe some other parameters got refreshed while switching back and forth, I don't know.

I'm on a Mac so I don't have to deal with most of the driver issues on the windows side, but I've never heard of anyone NOT using ASIO drivers (unless they have custom drivers for their high end audio interfaces), precisely due to the lower latency. The sound output on piano needs to as real-time as possible, it's probably the single biggest issue to deal with when seeing up a VST system.

On Reaper, we have a dedicated WASAPI which bypass the Windows mixer and can achieve quite good latency with plain Windows driver. But ASIO can acheive better latency and is more available.

Right now I can't decide if I should upgrade the Lite version to the Full version. To me the Lite version is not better than using the built in Hi-XL voices from Kawai. (Especially the EX Concert.) The new Pianist renderings are much better except for an annoying ringing using headphones. On the other hand, the upgrade to Full is only $79 now at Sweetwater. The free version of PT beckons me to go in that direction for the Steinway D. Which sounds really nice. The Stage edition is only $129 at Sweetwater. I like the Steinway the most. (I like slow jazz and jazzy ballads.)

Tom, I would say take your time choosing, and go with your heart. It's simply a great time to have the options we do, and you just have to pick the one that sings to you the most. The only real risk is throwing too much money at the ones you won't actually use.

Gombessa, I think you are right. I don't really have a problem do I? If the NV only had the Hi-XL engine, I would be happily playing the Ex, the SK5, and the SkEx. Today I am visiting a large dealer in West LA. I am going to play Stardust on as many grands as I can get my hands on.

If you like how PianoTeq plays and sounds that might be a good option for you; the demo is a consumer's dream as you know exactly what you are buying. If you use headphones, there is a nifty binaural option I posted about a few days ago. I see on the PianoTeq forums that several people who used to spend a lot of time tweaking the software now just use default so they think the sound has gotten a lot better and are not using the advanced features of the more expensive versions. For me, this means the entry-level versions have a lot more value today. I like PianoTeq but some days it sounds like a toy to me.

I think the Garritan CFX Lite sounds mediocre; it does give some sense of the piano, playabitiliy, noise, computer performance. The close mics don't give much sense of the beautiful room. And they have typical irritating left-right phasing problems of close mics only. This plays and sounds a bit more like PianoTeq than the Full version does. To my ears, the Full is a great value if you like the CFX Lite. The extra mic set gives you the beautiful Abbey Roads room ambience. The extra mic set also neutralizes the left-right phasing and some other close mic quirks so the piano response is smoother. Somedays I get a bit tired of the CFX and use other VIs.If you really don't like CFX Lite, the Full is the same piano in the same room so take that into consideration. Other than the default two-mic pairs, I don't particularly like the other options (popular view here at PianoWorld).

I suppose Production Voices and VSL might release full Steinway sampled pianos in 2018; the PV compact (1 mic set only) has some really nice samples but the velocities and pedallng need to be "finalised". The new VSL CFX is quite popular with producers but has a few playability issues that are being sorted now (hopefully).

Why not get it direct from Pianoteq website, it's 100 Euros which translates to around $119 USD.

I didn't consider it as Sweetwater has the CFX cheaper that the Garritan site.

Thank you, and you also newer player. I just finished practicing using the SK5 sound on default, except I turn off reverb. It sure sounds good. I think I will forgo the hassle of VST's for now. You guys were very helpful to me, by the way.

You have a NOVUS NV10 TomLC?

Very nice.

Maybe I misunderstood, but doesn't the NV10 have the Kawai HI-XL engine for the SK-EX, EX, and SK-5 (as well as the ES8)?:

http://www.kawaius.com/hybrid/NV10/nv-10_main.html

Lovely samples.