Robert Bone

I used to get random pitch bend data generated from a midi controller, and until I replaced the controller, I turned the pitch bend wheel off on the controller, and my random data issue was instantly resolved. Maybe you can figure out which knob/button/ghost is causing your errant data and either filter it out or find a way to disable whatever is causing it. Bob Bone

I do not have any such problems - that sounds like a nightmare. Can you please elaborate on the nature of your issues with this? Bob Bone

Rather than turning off Avast (I use it too), but the same issue can exist with other antivirus programs, try adding Exclusions or Exceptions (terminology may differ), for the following: Cakewalk Projects folder, Sample libraries, program folders for synths and apps used in Cakewalk (including Cakewalk), basically, telling the antivirus software to skip scanning of those folders, so they don't bog the performance or cause any other issues by accessing/scanning files and programs used in a Cakewalk session. Think about it - your sample libraries - these are static files, thousands and thousands of them for just one piano patch - once written to your hard drive on their installation, these files are not updated, so there is no need to have them get scanned while trying to stream them while working on your piano track. Setting up folder exclusions allows you to leave your antivirus software active, without bogging down your performance during your Cakewalk session. Do this once, and you don't have to worry about it again, and don't have to remember to temporarily shut down or disable the antivirus processing on the whole system. There is the other school of looking at it, which is that you shouldn't access the internet while working in Cakewalk, and that is fine, but a bit of overkill, and I may want to look something up in the middle of working in a project, or respond to a text or FB message, or whatever, so I prefer to leave using the internet as an option during sessions, so this is why I just set up the exclusions, so that I can both record and browse safely and not sacrifice performance in the process. Just a thought. Bob Bone

What is your current ASIO Buffer Size? Also, does the issue go away if you temporarily bypass all effects? To check, hit the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard, and then start and stop your playback as you had been doing, to cause the issue to pop up. (The letter 'E' is a keyboard binding shortcut in Sonar/Cakewalk that toggles On/Off the Bypass of all Effects). If your issue goes away when all the effects are bypassed, then you likely have plugins loaded - effects - that require a large ASIO Buffer Size to properly process. Typically, Convolution Reverb and Linear Phase types of effects are meant to used during mixing, and not during recording, due to their need for large buffers. For the rest of time, if you are recording, you will need to make sure your ASIO Buffer Size is small enough to keep latency lower then can be detected by human ears. I suggest 128 samples as a reasonable starting point, and if your system can go lower and still process properly then you could go down to 64 or possibly 32, but 128 is a good place to start. On the other hand, once you move on to mixing, you will need to make sure your ASIO Buffer Size is HUGE - to give the more robust effects room to do their thing - I suggest either 1024 or 2048 samples. Once your ASIO Buffer is set this large, your playback will be fine, however there will be too much latency to record while using that large a buffer, due to the lag between hitting a note and hearing it play, and you won't be able to properly sync with what you are trying to record to. SO - Recording = Small ASIO Buffer Size, and Mixing = Giant ASIO Buffer Size - forever. All of the above is possibly what is happening, or as others have noted, you may have one or more unauthorized plugins, etc... Either way, the above guidance is valid, and I hope it helps you.... Bob Bone

The location name is the name of your computer, and is not a folder name. Your computer has a name of Jon-PC. When you Deactivate a license, it returns to your account as available. At the top of the iLOK Manager software, there is a tab called View, and you can view all available licenses - meaning ones that are available for Activation. As users, we are not supposed to physically do anything with the actual license, so wherever they actually store something is not something we have to deal with. It all comes down to using the iLOK manager app to control Activation and Deactivation using the software. Choosing the right items to view is a little strange until you get the hang of it. Bob Bone

I go through the Deactivation of: Composer Cloud Plus, UVI Synth Legacy, Eventide Blackhole, and EW SSL FX Global Pack - MULTIPLE times in any given month, and that makes those licenses available to be associated with other computers I have - usually my laptop. Once the license(s) are Deactivated on my desktop computer, I then launch the iLOK Manager software on the laptop, and then Activate those licenses on the laptop. This process can be repeated as many times as I want, and over the past year I have done this DOZENS of times, back and forth, from desktop to cloud to laptop, and then from laptop back to cloud and back to desktop. The only time this process pisses me off, is when I have forgotten to deactivate the licenses on the desktop, then drive off into the sunset with my laptop, for a remote recording session, because unless those licenses are in the cloud, (from being deactivated on the desktop), the iLOK software will not allow me to Activate the licenses to associate them with the laptop. It just means my driving back to the house and making sure to do the Deactivation, and then I have no issues with doing the Activation on the laptop. Bob Bone

I did that to myself, too - moved to a different computer without deactivating my licenses on the old computer. I ended up sending an email to support, though I do not recall if it was to Pace ILOK support or EastWest - (might have sent Help Me messages to both - it has been 3 years since I did that). Anyways, for software using the ILOK licensing unless it has changed, some licenses were required to live on a dongle, which sucked royally, while newer licenses were more likely to be activated using ILOK software in an installed app on the computer it was licensed to, and if you wanted to use the software on another different computer, that was permitted, however you would have to deactivate the licenses on the first computer, which then returned the licensing back to your account in the 'cloud', and then you could activate that license from the 2nd computer, which would then assign the license to that specific computer. You could go back and forth however many times you wanted - and I ran like that for several years, with my EastWest Composer Cloud and Composer Cloud Plus subscriptions - so that I could move from my main recording desktop, to a mobile laptop, and have access to all of the Composer Cloud libraries on whichever computer I was using for a given session. Bob Bone

I concur, ABACAB - that was why I took a stab at asking if it was that sort of wah wah sound that seemed layered with the discernible piano chords I seemed to be hearing at those specified times. Without confirmation from the OP, I am not sure how much time and effort I will put in on the task of helping to locate a MAYBE sound. Hopefully, the OP will confirm or further explain the target sound. I am certainly happy to help, but without additional engagement from the OP on nailing down which sound is the target of the search, well.....I am following this post, so if the OP responds again, I will see it and hopefully be able to better assist. Bob Bone

The TX816W is a mighty fine freeware program, for sure. I am not sure what sorts of sample libraries or sounds are available for that, however. If it meets your nees, WAY kewl. As far as commercially available sampler software and libraries go, Native Instruments makes Kontakt, which is in my opinion the best sampler available, and it has a huge number of sounds/libraries available for it, both through Native Instruments and through 3rd party commercial libraries, AND there are a large number of free sample libraries available for Kontakt, too. Kontakt can be bought separately, or can be bought in a bundled fashion, in their Komplete bundles (multiple flavors of additional separate synths and different combinations of included sample libraries). You can also download a FREE Kontakt Player from Native Instruments, which gives you a set of good quality sampled instruments for you to hopefully fall in love with and then maybe you would buy into the full-fledged product. The sampled instruments that come with the free Kontakt Player are quite good - there just aren't that many of them, but there are enough to give you a good idea of what its capabilities are - and they are quite impressive. Please note that you would not be able to download the free Kontakt Player and then be able to buy some Kontakt formatted libraries and be able to play them through the free Kontakt Player. You would at that point need to buy the full-fledged Kontakt to play additional commercial libraries. Another choice would be the EastWest Play sample engine - similar to Kontakt. I personally like Kontakt better, and currently have both installed on a couple of my computers, but I am letting my subscription to the EastWest Composer Cloud Plus libraries lapse later this month, because that set of libraries (about 1 TB huge number of instruments), costs about $500 a year, and I only ended up using a small handful of its included instruments. They have a cheaper subscription package, called simply Composer Cloud, and it runs about $29 a month for access to its libraries. The Composer Cloud Plus libraries are recorded at 48k sample rate, with 5 different mic positions, while the regular Composer Cloud libraries are samples at 44.1k with I believe 2 mic positions. Both sound good - I just have upgraded my Kontakt through having their Komplete bundle since Komplete 2 (now on Komplete 12 Ultimate), and once you own Kontakt and whatever libraries you end up with, you will always be able to play them - rather than having to keep paying for the EastWest rolling subscription model. (EastWest libraries CAN be purchased in smaller chunks of groups of libraries, but you do not get anywhere near the bang for the buck that you do with Kontakt). Anyways, I hope I have given you some helpful info. I DO suggest you try the free Kontakt Player (they also have a free Reaktor player, and a free Guitar Rig Player) give those a shot, and see if you like them, and go from there. Bob Bone

I didn't forget - I spent some time yesterday, and have not yet found it yet, but will look some more tonight and if needed, tomorrow. Bob Bone

Do you mean that sort of Wah Wah sound? If so, I will take a listen and see if I can locate it for you within the Dim Pro sounds. If that is not the one you are looking for, please let me know, so I don't invest a bunch of time into looking for the wrong sound. Bob Bone

Thanks! Good to know. Bob Bone

I know you are looking for more inputs than this, but I have multiple audio interfaces, and for my laptop, I use an UAD Apollo Arrow, which is a Thunderbolt 3 interface - FANTASTIC little interface. Bob Bone

I randomly experienced this issue about a year ago, never resolved it, using EastWest Gypsy Violin. It would play back perfectly when the project was first loaded, and then after that, it was hit or miss on whether or not the notes would be super abbreviated. No key switches were used, it would just decide to lop off almost the entire note's duration, for the whole track. Bob Bone

And the Cakewalk community has spent the last year sharing and helping each other, and LOVING that Cakewalk has not only survived, it has flourished, with constant and productive stability and feature enhancements. I think THAT is maybe the best news of all, thus far. Bob Bone

I certainly do not understand the ins and outs of DPC latency (much at all). My earlier post relayed my own experience, where nasty latency spikes instantly went away, on my Dell laptop, which had a battery pack that was beginning to get long in the tooth, the moment I removed that battery pack, and the ACPI drivers were either disabled or did not load (cannot recall which). I ran that laptop for about a year without out its battery pack, and as long as it stayed plugged in, everything ran wonderfully, with an ASIO Buffer Size of 128. This was approximately 85 performances over that year-long period, in addition to rehearsals with the band, and practice at home, plus my working on Sonar projects in between everything else. Bob Bone

YAY! I was wondering why your Kontakt 5 went away, by the way, as the installation of Kontakt 6 would not disturb your previous Kontakt 5 install. I would like to add that I wish they would have given Kontakt 6 the actual name Kontakt 6, instead of just Kontakt. (minor annoyance to my personal sense of versioning, and not an actual problem). VERY happy you are back to being able to access your Kontakt 5 instances now. Bob Bone

I think it is an issue with a Kontakt version upgrade, rather than an inter-release update - I suspect this is what you meant when you referred to "major update". If so, yes, changing from Kontakt 5 to Kontakt 6 would be a completely different VST to Cakewalk. Bob Bone

I don't think Kontakt versioning issues in Cakewalk occur with inter-release versions of Kontakt, only when going from any flavor of Kontakt 5, to Kontakt 6. When I installed Kontakt 6, it also did not get rid of my Kontakt 5 modules, so I am not sure why yours would not be there anymore. In any case, I would think if you install any Kontakt 5 version, it should fix the issues. Your project date in your screen shot of the Project Scope would be consistent with some flavor of Kontakt 5 - 2018. Bob Bone

I had an issue with the latency spiking on a laptop - I removed the battery pack, and just kept it plugged in while using it for music performance/production. This instantly resolved ACPI issues I was having, though it did leave me exposed to instantly shutting down if the power connector got bumped too much, or disconnected. I ran for well over a year in this fashion. Might be worth a shot. By the way - not related, but seeing you are running a laptop, this jumped into my head - lots of folks have issues when their WiFi is enabled, and they either temporarily turn WiFi off using, usually, some sort of function key on some laptops, or a hardware switch - and if neither is present, they would temporarily disable the WiFi drivers in Device Manager, right before starting a Cakewalk session, and would enable the WiFi again after finishing their Cakewalk session. Bob Bone

Question - do you have any effects loaded into your projects, that use Look-Ahead processing, such as a convolution reverb, or a Linear Phase type of effect? If so, you shouldn't use those during recording - those kinds of effects are meant to be used AFTER you finish recording, and have moved on to the mixing stage of your project. Please conduct a simple test, with this project - hit the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard, which will toggle Off/On the processing of any loaded effects in the project. If, when you have hit the letter 'E', to bypass the effects, your dropouts go away, then that is a clear indication that one or more of your effects are causing your audio issues with the ASIO Buffer Size set to its current size. You will either want to temporarily swap out those kinds of effects (convolution reverb or linear phase types), or record with the effects bypassed, but doing the swap out is what I would recommend. After you move on to mixing, and crank up your ASIO Buffer Size to either 1024 or 2048, THEN you can swap back in any convolution reverb or linear phase effects. Generally speaking, you want a pretty small ASIO Buffer Size when recording, to keep latency down - I run at 128 most times, and though I could and sometimes run smaller, 128 is a reasonable balance between latency and CPU usage. On the other hand, once I finish the recording phase of a project, and move on to mixing, it is THEN that I adjust my ASIO Buffer Size - all the way up to either 1024 or 2048, and that allows me to THEN be able to use convolution reverb and Linear Phase type effects, which NEED large ASIO Buffer Sizes to work properly. So, recording - buffer set to 128 - Mixing - buffer set to 1024 or 2048. And, hitting 'E' again will turn your effects processing back on, by the way. The 'E' key simply toggles on or off the effects processing. Bob Bone

The Local On/Off midi parameter controls whether or not the external synthesizer's 'engine' reacts to any notes pressed on its keyboard. If Local is On, then when you press a note, the synth engine will see that and produce sound (if the note pressed is within the playable range of the sound). Local Off severs the synth engine from the notes on its keyboard being pressed. It does NOT stop midi data from being transmitted through a MIDI Out port, if connected, or through a USB connection to a computer, if that is how the external keyboard is connected. If you have an external synth connected to where the DAW sees it, and Local = On, then for every note pressed on the external synth's keyboard, the synth engine will see that note event, and will produce a sound (if a playable note for that loaded preset, and the synth's audio outputs are connected to speakers or headphones), AND the external synth will ALSO send that midi event data to the DAW, which may also send that back through a midi out port or through a USB connection, if the synth is designated as a midi output device. When you have Local On you may end up having the synth engine attempt to produce sound TWICE for every single note played on its keyboard - once from it having local control between its keyboard and its synth engine, and another note coming back from the DAW. Generally speaking, IF you plan on using the audio outputs of an external synth, then you would want to turn Local to OFF, to prevent that note-doubling. Bob Bone -

I fully concur with scook, and I too suggest you work with 64-bit plugins whenever possible, because 32-bit plugins need bridging software to run in a 64-bit DAW, and many 32-bit plugins are simply not stable in that mode of running, and can frequently crash, or otherwise not work correctly. If you need to run a 32-bit plugin and the included, and automatic, BitBridge bridging software results are problematic, you might consider the purchase of a license for a 3-rd party commercial bridging program, called J-Bridge, which runs about $20. You may experience better stability with some 32-bit plugins, while others may still crash or behave erratically. (there are no guarantees either bridging software will make any particular 32-bit plugin run properly, or even run at all, in a 64-bit environment). Bob Bone

I suggest you first start with the steps I had supplied in my earlier example, get one soft synth playing and recording midi data and then playing it back, before you start getting more complicated. (Please also note that my steps were but a single example of doing this, and that there are additional/alternative ways of this, and other things, with Cakewalk, but the steps I had outlined do work, and are a reasonable place to start). Bob Bone

A lot of it is simply connecting the dots kinds of actions, if working with audio only, you would simply insert the appropriate audio tracks needed, and then set up the Inputs for each audio track (like which input from your audio interface. For midi, you have to have either a stereo audio track, or a left and a right mono audio track, and you need a midi track, and you need a soft synth - with a preset loaded, and then you play connect the dots, routing the midi data that will be generated on the midi track, to connect it to the soft synth, and connecting the routing on the audio track(s), to pick up the audio output from the soft synth. Lastly, you bring your midi track into focus (which sets the midi input echo on), if working with a soft synth, which will let you hear whatever you are playing on your midi input device (like a midi controller or an external synth that is being used to generate midi note data). For hearing your audio track input (like a guitar or mic that is plugged into your audio interface), you want to turn the input echo on to 'On' and then you should be able to hear your guitar or mic in either your headphones or main speakers, and you should see the audio meters on the audio track(s) move, as well as your master track's audio meters. Bob Bone