Noel Borthwick

As the thread says VST3 does support program changes but it is very poorly supported by plug-in vendors. Most don't implement it at all and many who try and implement it do it poorly. In 2019.09 we added support for program changes via a new Preset parameter that can be automated. This is unique to CbB since other DAW's don't allow this. You can even assign this to a widget in the inspector to change the program change value from CbB. This will only work if the plugin actually implements VST3 program changes properly.

Some pix from day 1 posted

Load balancing is not designed to improve latency. It requires at least 128-256 samples to function. While tracking at low latency its best to leave it off. Its more intended to use while mixing when you have lots of expensive plugins and don't require about low latency, esp in the case where some tracks or buses have many plugins in series, as is often the case when mastering.

There are no plans for BandLab to charge for the core application. Meng has said on many occasions that BandLab believes in removing barriers to music creation. We may charge for add on's at some point. That is expected and the error code will reflect that.

Do you have the same OS on the two machines? Sometimes these bugs esp if they involve memory corruption can be hellish to track down since they may not show up on one system but show up repeatedly on another. It could also be hardware specific / graphics driver related etc. I have seen crashes with ozone in prior versions when changing presets but not in this version.

Could you send us the dump please? I couldnt reproduce the crash.

One tip I missed is use Mix Recall to play with different settings without leaving the main project. You can even create mix recall presets for each song which swaps in specific bus and track effects that vary across the songs.

One tip I missed is use Mix Recall to play with different settings. You can even create mix recall presets for each song which swaps in specific bus and track effects that vary across the songs.

I'm interested in the error code displayed if you ever see this again. Please contact me if it happens.

I'm a bit confused. BandLab assistant doesn't show a demo mode error. It is a standalone web app that needs to be periodically updated independently of Cakewalk since the back end changes. So the error you are referring to above is the fact that BA's automatic update failed for some reason. Did you get a demo mode error (toast notification) within Cakewalk itself or was this exclusively in BA?

Windows 10 low latency audio support refers to the newer mechanism that Microsoft added to WASAPI and only applies to applications using the Windows Audio Engine. It doesn't apply to ASIO. Cakewalk uses the Windows audio engine via WASAPI shared mode. When using this with onboard audio devices there is now a way to use latencies less than 10 msec if the driver and chipset supports it. There is some Microsoft Win 10 documentation on this if you want to read more about it. SOS also did an article some time ago and here is one I wrote back in 2015.

That is very strange if you had 2019.07 since that shouldn't have timed out. You sure it was 2019.07 and not something from earlier this year?Did you see the message AFTER you ran BandLab assistant or did you launch Cakewalk first, see the message and then launch BandLab Assistant? The only other thing I can think of is something changed your system in a way that confused the activation. Did you happen to save a screenshot? It would have listed an error code which will tell us why it displayed that message. That code would also be in the about box. Of course now that you installed again its fixed. Please note that if it happens again.

>>If you were running X2 it was with the VST2 version. Are you running the VST3 version now? If so it may be related to their VST3 compatibility. NM I see you posted that it was VST2. Do they offer a VST3 version?

You likely are running a very old version of CbB if it prompted you. Periodic online activation is a requirement to use the software (as is the case with most other products). Its a small price to pay to get a full blown DAW with no restrictions. The newest update will give you advance notice when activation is required and won't block you ever while you are in a session, in the unlikely event that the rime rolls over. You also need to periodically update BandLab assistant which is the delivery mechanism. Its also in most users best interests to update the software periodically since we are constantly making the software better.

WASAPI will be more stable than ASIO4All. Its easy enough to try, Just switch the driver mode to WASAPI exclusive or WASAPI shared.

You're on the daily build program. Kidding No, build 70 just had 2 or 3 fixes after the main hotfix release last week. One was to address a regression with the fade selection fade UI that was making it difficult to edit fades. That was the only reason why we did the the extra release. There shouldn't be any more updates now until the next main release.

Plugin's with hybrid mono stereo (eg stereo in/mono out) get set to the minimum supported interleave so would get internally set to mono. I'll look into it for a future update and see if we can improve the handling of this case but its not very simple. This is a bug. We'll fix it.

Its almost surely some optimization case they are not handling in the plugin GUI. Its not something we could investigate on our end. It could be that they are relying on some DAW specific behavior to update their UI its hard to say. After investigating the issue internally if they need any clarifications about Cakewalk behavior they can contact me.

@bitflipper Disclaimer is if you want to run heavy duty plugins on it you need a fast CPU. The Surface book 2 is very capable and has 8 cores. However for simpler projects I think any decent laptop with a robust onboard audio chipset should be ok for lighter work and song idea sketching.

@Ellsworth Hall Can you share that project file so we can take a look at it?

The GUI responsiveness issues you mention would be something the plugin vendor needs to address. We don't have any control of how responsive a plugin is. It sounds like something they need to optimize in their code so I suggest that you contact their support with the issue.

And its not just small projects that work fine. I just loaded up a big project that we're using for AES. Contains Video, Lots of audio tracks and tons of Slate digital plugins. This plays glitch free at 192 samples on the surface book 2 all going through WASAPI shared mode. The I7 Surface book 2 (with graphics acceleration) still hasn't received the 1903 update so unfortunately I can't see if there is a further improvement. It does have the latest Surface firmware updates however.

Clip effects and Clip automation can be very useful esp in this scenario where you have many songs in one project. You may not want the same processing for all songs so adding an effect to the track would apply it to the entire project. (yes you could automate bypass but it gets confusing) There are different ways to do this such as by using bussing but clip effects are a convenient way to do clip specific processing. Like JL says, using too many clip effects can quickly add up the load while processing since they are always active (streaming silence) even when the clip is not playing.

@Ellsworth Hall It should say VST3 on the plugin window toolbar at the top. Post a screenshot of the plug-in window. The vst properties are available from there. SONAR X2 did not have vst3 support so it's possible that you are running into a vst3 incompatibility with that plugin.

Some things to check. Are you running the 32 bit version or 64 bit. Also is it vst2 or vst3.