Robert Bone

Is it possible your audio interface is getting disconnected because of the Windows USB Selective Suspend default? You can check this and fix this at the same time, EITHER by: 1) Go into Windows Device Manager, expand the USB Serial Bus Controllers tab, then for each Root/hub go into its Properties, and for every such root/hub that shows a Power Management tab, go into that, and remove the check for the option to let Windows shut off power to that device. 2) You can alternatively go into Windows Advanced Power Plan Settings, expand the USB Settings, then expand USB Selective Suspend, and make it Disabled. So - maybe check on the above, and then see if your audio interface still has problems shutting off or disconnecting. Bob Bone

Can you please give me some specific ensembles that do not work? I will give them a shot on my system, and try to help you figure out what is happening. Bob Bone

I would add that during recording, the ASIO Buffer Size should be kept relatively small - but not so small as to put too much a burden on the CPU, and then when moving on to mixing/mastering, the ASIO Buffer Size should be jacked way up, to give room for the types of effects that add lots of latency - like the Linear Phase or Convolution Reverb effects, to do their thing. While I could go smaller, I usually run at 128 samples during recording, and then change it to either 1024 or 2048 for mixing/mastering. Running at 128 samples gives me low enough latency to where the CPU isn't taxed too much, but is still small enough to where I do not experience audible lag during recording. I may change to 64 samples for recording, just to see if everything still hums along nicely. Bob Bone

Just to be clear - anytime I load up multiple instruments in a single Kontakt instance, they are left to be separate instruments, on different midi channels - and not layered into a composite for a single multi sound. And, everything gets properly reloaded when I load up the project again, without having to save anything beyond simply saving the project. Yeah - I probably have literally more than 50 free Kontakt libraries, and some number of purchased 3rd-party ones, as well. I LOVE Kontakt, and the many libraries available for it. Bob Bone

Hi - that is your ASIO Buffer Size, at 128 samples. I mean the Prepare Using buffer - Preferences > Midi > Playback and Recording - there is a buffer adjustment you can make there. The default is 250, but many folks find it better when set to either 500 or even 750. If set too low, sometimes notes can be skipped - meaning they won't sound. Bob Bone

Might still be something else - Can you please detail how you added Kontakt to the project, and how you loaded up the instruments and made track assignments? Bob Bone

Sometimes, the default Key-Switch notes set up for some instruments happen to be high enough on the low-end of the keyboard, where I accidentally hit one of them when I play octave notes with my left hand, and I will find the articulation has suddenly changed. Since I never want accidental key switch notes hit - I will alter those key switch note numbers, to go 1 or 2 octaves lower, and then save the instrument with my name added to the front of the instrument's name (example, Cellos would become Bob's Cellos). Take a look at your Key Switches. Kontakt also automatically increments the midi channel with every loaded instrument, so 1st will be assigned to respond to notes on midi channel 1, 2nd load instrument would get midi channel 2, etc... Then, on a given instrument's midi track, you would set the track's output midi channel to the appropriate one for the desired instrument. This way, the different instruments loaded will each play only when their midi channel gets data from its associated midi track. When a midi track is brought into focus, it automatically turns on the Input Echo for that track, and midi data will be transmitted for the midi channel set for that midi track's output midi channel (right under the FX bin). Additional sounds can be either recorded or simply heard (like a layered sound), by turning on additional midi Input Echo On buttons of additional midi tracks. Hope any of this helps - loading multiple instruments into a single Kontakt instance is VERY powerful and useful. Bob Bone

Please do not let my posts about a weird glitch I have, with how I load up instruments, take anything away from how absolutely awesome Kontakt is. I absolutely LOVE Kontakt, and despite having East West Play (and the Composer Cloud Plus libraries), along with SampleTank , Kontakt is by far, the most used instrument plugin in my Sonar/Cakewalk projects, and has been, for many years. I hope you have an absolutely fantastic time of getting to know Kontakt - don't forget to take a look for all the completely free libraries that are out there for Kontakt - you can really bolster your choices for instruments with these. Congrats on picking up Kontakt Bob Bone

Yup - I set up a track template for every drum kit I use - in my case I use Battery 4, but the same approach works for drum kits loaded into Kontakt. I set every kit piece (each cymbal, tom, the snare, hi-hat closed, hi-hat open, hi-hat pedal, and kick) to have its own output(s) (some are mono and some are stereo), and I create a track folder in Cakewalk, with audio tracks for all of the kit pieces, and one midi track to record all the drum midi data. I also make sure I get each kit piece properly level-balanced with the other kit pieces, and I additionally set up several buses for the kit - a toms bus, a cymbals bus, a parallel compression bus, a drums master bus - and then when everything is setup the way I like, I select all of the tracks for the kit, and export it as a track template. Over time, I have developed a number of these drum kit track templates, and it is INCREDIBLY effortless and fast, to insert all of the above, simply by inserting the desired track template. For other instrument groupings that I routinely use - like the various instruments I use for the Genesis tribute project I am getting things together for, track templates work equally as well - in this case, I have the all the tracks, instruments, buses, gain-staging, effects, etc., all set up - for the various instruments Tony Banks used (Yamaha Electric Grand, L122 organ, Mellotron, ARP 2600, Synclavier, ARP Quadra, ARP Pro Soloist, etc.), and it is just effortless to bring all of that in with a single track template. I save all of my track templates to sub-folders of my creation, so that they are easy to manage - like to copy over to a new computer, and because they are all in their own folder structure, they never get overwritten in Cakewalk updates. Track Templates ROCK - have a blast with them, they are insanely powerful, and great time and effort savers. Bob Bone

I looked at doing it that way - but I do not use any particular number of instruments, certainly not like a giant orchestral setup that many Kontakt users set up. I generally prefer to load up just the instruments I need. That being said, the reason I have always one my instrument and output section configuration on the fly - meaning per instance of Kontakt, is because (starting from the original default 1 output channel and a aux channel configuration of the Kontakt Output Section), I always found it much faster to first load up 5-6 instruments, then I would run one of the Batch Functions - the one that clears the output section and inserts a stereo output channel for each loaded instrument. I find doing it this way faster than setting up the default output section with - using your example - 16 stereo output channels, because doing it that way, when I would load up the same 5-6 instruments, they would all start off set to use St.1 output channel, and I would have to go into each instrument and change its output channel to use different ones from the 16 channels the modified default would bring in. I also always rename each output channel to something short that goes with the associated instrument, (and this is the same work doing it with your modified default output section or by my use of the batch function to automatically set up the output channels for each loaded instrument), so if a loaded instrument is called Bob's New York Grand Piano With Overtones, the batch function would have pretty much named its output channel some crazy mashed up attempt at it - like squishing it all together - I would manually rename that output channel as simply: Piano, etc. for the others (maybe Organ, Strings, Brass, Rhodes, Bass, whatever). SO - it has always been that there is some sort of naming and/or presentation issue resulting from my use of the Batch Function to wipe out the existing output section channels and set up 1 channel for each loaded instrument, and THIS is why I have always limited the number of loaded instruments in a single Kontakt instance to 5 or 6. I truly wish the approach I use didn't start messing up the list of available Kontakt output channels in assigning a Cakewalk audio track's input. I don't know if it is an issue within Kontakt, or with Cakewalk somehow getting confused. IF I didn't have the issues with the goofed up list of audio track input sources when using my approach, it does work faster, but if I want to load more than 5-6 instruments into a given Kontakt instance, I will have to use the method you outlined. In any case - I did NOT mean to skew this thread so far off base - it started with my simply offering up a couple of tips that I found work well with using Kontakt, and I apologize profusely. To ANYONE contemplating upgrading to Kontakt 6, or buying into it without an upgrade price - Kontakt is quite simply, in my opinion, THE best sample engine on the market - it IS my go to instrument plugin, and despite the now rather lengthy discussion about setting up multiple instruments in a Kontakt instance, I HIGHLY recommend folks buy and use Kontakt. It is amazing, in its massive number of available libraries, its included libraries, and its functionality. Bob Bone

Sure - the post started out in a different forum and got moved to deals, no probs. I LOVE Kontakt - it is my go to instrument plugin - it may be caused by how I do something in my use of it that results in Cakewalk having issues displaying the available input sources. Or maybe I am somehow causing to have Kontakt pass Cakewalk a messed up list of available sources for assignment to audio tracks. You mention loading up loads of instruments into a single instance - can you please let me know how you load up the instruments and set up the output section, when you load up a large number of instruments into one instance? THANKS, Bob Bone

For whatever the worth, I have a couple Nektar midi controllers, and I will be going over to my rehearsal space on Wednesday, and will bring them back with me, at which point I will see if I can get them properly mapped and the transport controls correctly triggering the correct functions in Cakewalk. I will follow up to this post sometime on Wednesday evening, hopefully with some good news. Bob Bone

I am a bit mystified as to why a Focusrite ASIO driver would not sound WAY better than a SoundBlaster. Did you have the Cakewalk Driver Mode when using the Focusrite , set to ASIO? And if so, what was the ASIO Buffer Size set to? Also, what Record Bit Depth was specified, and the Sample Rate? Also, if your sound quality issues were during recording, can you please tell me if your sound quality issues go away if you hit the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard, prior to hitting Play? (The letter 'E' toggles off/on the bypassing of audio effects, so if your sound quality issues are caused by one or more effects plugins, you would instantly hear things sounding better by temporarily bypassing the effects by hitting 'E' - once you do this test, hitting 'E' again will resume the processing of any effects that had been bypassed). Quite curious, Bob Bone

1) Sending in the dump was/is helpful to CbB support folks, and even more so if a good recipe for replicating a crash can be determined, and sent in to them as well. 2) As noted by others above, that particular error is a pretty common thing - trying to access memory not owned by the application, in this case the plugin. Things that can cause this are varied, and example would be if a memory pointer had not been valued - and contained all zeros, or wasn't repopulated properly due to falling through some set of If/Else conditions, and thereby executing code that should not have been reached in the normal programming logic. 3) If an error occurs within a plugin, there is pretty much no way for CbB to recover from it, as that plugin had control when the error occurred. If the error had occurred in some location within Cakewalk, you would have almost certainly seen Cakewalk as the failing module, and an offset within the program, rather than the way this crash message was displayed, (with the plugin being named as where the error occurred). 4) AWESOME, that you were, however weird it was, able to workaround the error, by using the VST3 version of the plugin. I have never before seen it go THAT way before - it has been (with some Waves plugins, mostly from what I recall), usually where a VST3 version fails but the VST2 version works. Congrats for even thinking to try using the VST3 version, AND for it allowing you to keep working on your project, and moving it forward. 5) Even when SOME plugins have gone belly up in the past, there have been occasions where the Sonar support folks were able to tweak the Sonar code to have special code to deal with some failures within some failing 3rd-party plugins. No guarantees this will happen here, or ever again - but it was pretty darned nice of those folks to do what they could to keep folks afloat by creating special logic to deal with some deficiency in one or more plugins that weren't their responsibility. Bob Bone

The vast majority of folks are running Windows 10 at this point, where maintenance to Windows, or even the version of Windows running, isn't the wild wild West it was, back in the days of Sonar (several flavors of Sonar 8, X1, X2, X3, and Platinum, on top of various Windows versions and maintenance levels of Windows, not to mention drivers, firmware, BIOS, etc...). There were, all kinds of different combinations of environments - and at times, a Sonar update version wouldn't play nicely because someone's Windows updates looked like Swiss cheese. Folks that chose to do rollbacks of Sonar had the freedom to choose how far back to go, or not to worry about it. I found it useful in trying to figure out if a given update version had broken something, versus my just not realizing a particular function hadn't worked in a while, or whatever - I found it QUITE helpful to be able to go back and forth as desired, with Sonar versions. I also frequently rolled back in my attempts to match some other user's version, to help them track down why something wasn't working any more. I hadn't considered retaining multiple versions of CbB and any associated folders, but may do so now or soon. Thanks for this thread - good idea, I think, to have a way of approximating rolling back. Bob Bone

Hi - for sure - the issue I referred to is NOT with Kontakt, but with how the list of available choices are displayed by Cakewalk, when assigning an audio input for a Kontakt instance when there are more than 4-5 loaded instruments in the Kontakt instance. I have hopefully created and properly shared a screen shot of the issue I refer to, where the list of available sources to assign as an Input to an Audio Track gets messed up, after 6-7 loaded instruments. Here is the link to the screen shot - look what starts to happen with the list - I outlined the area in the list with a red rectangle: https://imgur.com/lI3cCpn Now, in the above, the displayed input sources start to get messed up with the 6th and 7th instruments - you see Strings Left (Mono), and the next entry SHOULD be Strings Right (Mono), but instead, it improperly shows Choir Right (Mono). The actual order of instruments loaded into the single Kontakt instance are: Bass, Organ, Trumpets, Rhodes, Jazz Gtr, Strings, and Choir, for a total of 7 instruments. After loading up the instruments, I used the Batch Functions to delete the output section entries and create a stereo output channel for each loaded instrument, and then renamed each output channel to something shorter and clearer for each instrument. Now, if there is some way to have these available input sources display properly - by CbB, I would LOVE to be able to have more instruments loaded into a single Kontakt instance, I would love to learn about it. Bob Bone

FYI - I have had, in the past, Windows Update updates reset the USB Selective Suspend option in the Advanced Power Plan Options, so it is worth checking to see if that has gotten reset - don't know if this applies to the settings on individual Driver Management hub entries. One other thing - there are Power Management options for other USB connections, not just Root Hubs, for instance, I have several of these (maybe there is some sort of Intel flavor of these, as well, on Intel-based computers): "AMD USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0 (Microsoft)" - I don't know what connects to them, but I also made sure these too all had the Power Management selective suspend option unchecked, as well. Bob Bone

While I have owned most of the Komplete series, going back to Komplete 3, and am now running Komplete 8 Ultimate, with additional updates (but not the Ultimate versions), of Komplete 9 and Komplete 11. I did not see much of a reason to keep paying the extra money for the Ultimate versions, and even the regular Komplete versions did not really offer any new instrument upgrades. I DID review Kontakt 6, and bought that one specifically, as a stand alone product. This is a quote from a KVR site post about what's new, with Kontakt 6 (their spelling below - not mine): "Three new instruments, in the Play Series: Sonically rich sample libraries (Analog Dreams, Ethereal Earth and Hybrid Keys) that combine powerful sound design with simple playability. Each offers eight intelligently mapped macro knobs giving you a wide-sweeping, intuitive range of control. They all showcase KONTAKT’s new wave table module, each offering two blendable sound sources and a unique take on a speciality style. Five new Effects (including 3 Reverbs) Wavetable Synthesis Creator Tools: A a standalone application designed to improve the workflows of library builders and instrument creators. It consists of two elements: A Debugger, for identifying and fixing problems in KONTAKT script, and an Instrument Editor, which can load and run Lua scripts to automap samples, duplicate and batch rename groups, and copy settings from one part of an instrument to another." I made the decision to go ahead and grab Kontakt 6, and am quite happy with it. They don't release whole version-level upgrades to Kontakt very often, so I deemed it worth grabbing. That said - there is nothing wrong with Kontakt 5, either. Bob Bone

FANTASTIC! You made a great purchase. There are some free libraries out there, and the ones that come with Kontakt are a good starting point. Do a Google search for the following search terms, and you will see a bunch of links to free Kontakt libraries: free Kontakt libraries As far as paid libraries, Digital Sound Factory has a bunch of them - there is a DSF Proteus Pack that has HUNDREDS of really nice sounds from all of the various Proteus hardware synths that were produced - that is well worth its reasonable cost. Here are some links to a bunch of free Kontakt libraries, to give you an idea of the kind of things out there: https://www.flstudiomusic.com/2017/03/38-best-free-kontakt-libraries.html https://www.standalone-music.com/2017/05/01/list-of-free-kontakt-libraries/ https://www.productionmusiclive.com/blogs/news/top-free-ni-kontakt-libraries-in-free-orchestra-guitars-pianos-vocal-world-instruments Do not limit yourself to the above - just go look for free libs, and you will find a bunch of them - I have just shy of 200 of them. 2 other tips, I would offer: 1) When you load up multiple instruments into a single instance of Kontakt, make sure the 'Output Section' is made visible (up at the top of the Kontakt window there are options for what gets displayed). Anyways, here is a good helpful practice: Click on Batch Functions, then on the option to clear the output section and create a separate stereo output for each loaded instrument. THEN, what I do is to rename each output in the output section, to a more concise name than it gives them. (it tries to stuff each output channel with a squished name of the associated instrument). So, instead of leaving it as some long garbled instrument name for the grand piano instrument I loaded, I rename that output channel to simply say Piano, and same with the other output channels. It just looks better that way. 2) I never load up more than 4-5 instruments into a single instance of Kontakt, because (at least at one point), otherwise after somewhere around 5 (might be 6) or more instruments in the Kontakt instance, when you are assigning the Outputs for the audio tracks for each instrument, the displayed list of Kontakt output channels starts to get garbled up. Leaving the max number of instruments for a single Kontakt instance at 4-5, and that issue does not occur. 3) When you DO pick up additional libraries, unless they have paid Native Instruments a fee for it, those libraries will not display in the regular list of Kontakt libraries on the left side of the Kontakt instance. You CAN switch the display to Files, rather than the default Libraries, but that gets annoying. I found that I can add any of my free libraries or even the paid ones that still do not display like the ones that come with Kontakt - anyways, I can add whichever of my additional libraries I choose, to end up being accessed through the factory-supplied libraries in their default display list. What you do to make this happen: Scroll down the list of factory included libraries, until you get to the Kontakt Factory Library, then click on the little arrow to the right of the 'Instruments' tab that is right below the icon with Kontakt Factory Library - this will open a little drop-down menu. Click on 'Open Containing Folder', and it opens up the folder where all of the Kontakt Factory Library instruments live. Double-click to get into the Instruments folder, and you will see folders, such as: Band, Choir, Orchestral, etc., just like you would see if you opened up Instruments from the main Kontakt window for the factory library. Then, add a new folder within that list of folders - I suggest calling it User Libs. Once that folder is created, you can copy/paste your free Kontakt libraries into that User Libs folder, and from that point on, you can stay on the default display list of Kontakt libraries, and when you want to go to one of your additional libraries, just go to the Kontakt Factory Library, expand the Instruments tab, then navigate to that User Libs folder, and you will have access to any libraries you added to that folder. Ta-Da. I hope the above helps - congrats on picking up the full-fledged Kontakt. WAHOO! Bob Bone

You can copy many folders to alternate locations and then update the paths in Cakewalk: Edit>Preferences>File>Folder Locations. I would suggest doing the same with the Sonar folders. When done, you can go back and delete old folders AFTER making sure everything copied OK. Look first in Preferences, to see which folders can have paths altered. Bob Bone

You indicated 32 ms for your buffer, but it is actually referring to the number of samples, so your setting is currently at 32 samples. (Just trying to explain it for you - no issues - just correcting your initial referral to the buffer size). Anyways, it is possible that one or more of the effects loaded into your Cakewalk project is adding enough latency to where it affects the sound at that setting. You can easily test this out, by loading up your project with the audio issues, and hit the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard - this is as Cakewalk shortcut to toggle on or off the bypassing of effects in the project. SO, hit 'E' once to bypass effects, and if your crackles go away, then that tells you that one or effects are the problem. Hit 'E' again, to stop bypassing the effects. It is also possible that 32 samples is just cutting it too close - and you may find it necessary to bump up your ASIO Buffer Size to 64 Samples, and see if THAT makes the audio issues go away. You should be well lower with latency - at 64 samples, to where you shouldn't hear any lag between playing a note and hearing it back. I actually COULD run at either 64 or 32 samples, but I just run at 128 samples for my buffer size, because I still don't hear any lag when recording, and everything hums along nicely - performance wise. The lower your ASIO Buffer Size, the more you are making your CPU work, and at some point - usually at either 64 or 32 samples, it gets to where the CPU cannot quite handle it, and you end up with some crackles. Bumping up the buffer size should get rid of the noise for you. If you found that bypassing the effects got rid of the noise, then you might have accidentally used a plugin that is too consumptive - meaning it either needs a larger buffer size to do its thing, OR it is CPU-intensive. Either way, if this is the case, you can either turn off that effect until you move on to mixing, where you WANT a super large ASIO B uffer Size, or you can temporarily swap that effect out for something less 'needy' of buffer or CPU, until you finish recording, and then when you bump up your ASIO Buffer Size (1024 or 2048 samples), for mixing, THEN you can swap that effect back into your project, and the larger buffer size should allow that plugin (like a convolution reverb) to do its thing without causing crackles. Bob Bone

If your sounds are from an external synth, make sure you turn Local Off, on the external synth, because otherwise each played note will trigger a sound in reaction to a key being pressed, and Cakewalk will ALSO send the midi data for the triggered note event, back to the synth, causing that same note to be triggered again. By turning Local Off on the external synth, that severs the connection between the keys being pressed and the internal sounds - leaving only the midi data sent back by Cakewalk properly triggering only 1 note event. Bob Bone

I happen to have a Dell Alienware 17 R5 laptop, that I picked out of looking at several, because it had Thunderbolt 3 port, and it had support for M.2 2280 NVME drives (2), plus a 2nd hard drive. I picked up a UAD Apollo Arrow audio interface, which uses Thunderbolt 3, which transfers at up to 40 Gbps, which is insanely fast. (it have only 2 mic/line inputs, and 1 Hi-Z input, but that is fine for both my performing and mobile recording needs - I can always use my Presonus 1818VSL interface and the expansion unit for it, to give me 16 mic/line inputs if needed - usually that would be for drums). The laptop is primarily used for live performance (I am a keyboard player and all my sounds live in the computer and are triggered by me playing on midi controllers). Anyways - they also make a version of the Alienware laptop with a 15.6" screen, rather than the 17" mine has, in case you wanted to save some cash. This laptop is way more capable than is actually needed, however it is insanely fast, and easily meets my needs. Bob Bone For live performance

Hi - I have a 64-bit version of LP EQ and LP MB in my VST plugins folder, as VST 2 versions, and they are also BOTH in the VST3 folder in C:\\Program Files\Common Files. I think they came out in 2016. So, I am not understanding why you believe Cakewalk would have loaded 32-bit versions into your project. LP EQ shows up in the EQ category, and LP MB shows up in the Dynamics category. When I insert either one, it loads the VST 3 version, by default. Try looking in your C:\\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 for the LP EQ and LP MB plugins there, and if found, simply rename them temporarily, and then you should see both LP EQ and LP MB VST 2 versions displayed in your list of audio effects in Cakewalk - try loading each into a new project, just to see if the same issue persists. (don't forget to rename the VST 3 versions back to their proper names when done with this test). Bob Bone

And, as mentioned earlier - did you get a chance to check to see if those particular plugins are VST 3, and if so, did you try using their VST 2 versions? This HAS occurred in the past, with some Slate plugins, and others, so worth trying. There is no audio difference between using VST 2 versus VST 3, but MIGHT make it work better to use the VST 2 versions. Bob Bone