Will.

8 hours ago, Sergei Pilin said:

More contrast needed, look how immediately much more readable and easier on the eyes the whole thing becomes with just one simple slider move in Photoshop

Pay close attention to Collins post. 

Great free compressor from the team who brought you ZL Equalizer. 

https://github.com/ZL-Audio/ZLCompressor/releases

On 6/8/2025 at 6:08 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

Correct. They're is no such thing as input dithering. 

Neutral response.

Not all interfaces sync automatically with the DAW(s). If you have your Asio driver set to 32bit, but your project is set to 24bit there's a conversion happening here with the obvious analog to digital converters - not so? 

You are more than welcome to do any test required. This is clearly from what I've read in the reference guide | and | from the tests I have done with various testing scenarios and software. Dithering actually happens at recording too - believe it or not. 

Then the reference guide clearly tells us that dithering happens when you bounce or freeze tracks too irrespective of the bit So, any rendering done using melodyne or vocalsync dithering happens when it's enabled in preferences. 

17 hours ago, Xel Ohh said:

Please tell me why I have to sign in to Facebook to sign into my Bandlab account. This is not something I want to do. I do not want my accounts linked that's why they have different logins and sign ons why on earth do you think I want bandlab to attached to my Facebook. What's worse is that it doesn't give you another option to sign into your bandlab account it's Facebook or nothing . What if I didn't have a Facebook account how would I use Cakewalk? I don't know if others have had this issue but I will not be doing this. 

Bakers please let me know what I have to do not to sign into Facebook.

Thank you

It's been minute. What's good? 

Log in to your bandlab.com account via your browser of choice.

• Go to your account/profile
• Settings
• Linked Accounts 
• Remove all social media and other accounts linked to your Bandlab account.

Follow these steps and you should be good. 

This happens from time-to-time, I'm not sure why. 

5 minutes ago, T Boog said:

Thanks for that man!

My pleasure. 

5 hours ago, T Boog said:

Cheers guys.  Often times when I stretch an audio clip then play it back, I get clicking/popping sounds. This also frequently happens when I add effects to a clip. 

A few minutes ago, I stretched an audio clip and it started clicking. But this time I tried something new....   I undid the stretched edit, then I bounced the clip to itself first. Then I stretched the clip and it worked perfectly with no clicking.

I realized that I mostly have this clicking problem on my lead vocal track. And my lead vocal tracks are usually chopped up into dozens & dozens of clips. I'm probably answering my own question but is this the likely cause of the clicking problem (The fact that there's SO many clips on the track)?  And if so, can someone briefly explain to me why bouncing the clip back to itself helps correct this problem?  Thanks! 

Thats mainly because the clip wasn't cut at a zero-crossing point within the sound wave - so there’s an abrupt change that is happening on the clip. Cakewalk still see the clip as a whole clip, but just in a cropped version. When you bounce the region, the DAW basically isolates that part and knows where to focus the algorithm on entirely for a smoother operation. 

What you want to do is make a cut, do a small fade until you can't hear the clipping anymore. Depending on the creativity you're introducing, most times it won't be necessary to bounce the clip once it has a fade on where the cuts were made. Try to aim your cuts on that zero-crossing point in the waveform though. You might never use a crossfade anymore. 

56 minutes ago, HOOK said:

I'm not going to debate you when you consistently show your willingness to edit your previous responses to make it look like you weren't confusing the hell out of yourself with something you read on the internet.

Lol. Excuse you? 

FYI! Im editing typing errors. Since when was it a problem to correct our typos or to put emphasis on something? 🤔 

18 minutes ago, HOOK said:

Show me where you control input dither in Sonar or on your converter.

Exactly your interface cant do this. So your recorded file from ANALOG to DIGITAL is now just 1s and 0s living in your DAW. If you import a file thats 32bit - does the DAW dither the  file automatically during the process or when you apply effects? 

7 minutes ago, HOOK said:

It's not.  He's wrong.

Show me evidence how am i wrong when your source gets converted to digital during recording. You're not recording to tape in a digital enviroment. 

5 hours ago, AB9 said:

I am not finding what you are writing, in the article.  Maybe I missed it.  Here it states that one should dither when changing bit depth and almost no other time. https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-dithering-in-audio.html#:~:text=Dithering should always be off,bit to 16-bit).

I do not see how recording is changing the bit depth.  Maybe I am missing something here.  

It says clearly: Dithering is an important yet often overlooked technique used in digital audio production. Dithering is the process of adding a small amount of random noise to a digital audio signal in order to reduce the distortion caused by quantization error. This technique is crucial for maintaining audio quality during the conversion process from analog to digital, and it can greatly improve the overall sound of a digital recording.

I also never said dither your recording and import ot back into the DAW. Seeing that most interfaces dont dither during record it is best to enable the playback and recording dither option to give you a better understanding what is going on in your Record Audio File at 24bit. The option is there to project what you will here in the end result to your audio files. Experiment with it. Then we can have the conversation again. 🙂

Then it also says during:

Bouncing, flattening, freezing: No, we’re not talking about some obscure food preparation method. Different audio workstations operate in different ways, but most offer some method to commit a complex audio effects chain to a file. If you’ve not explored the options for doing this in your DAW, it may be time to give them a look.

5 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

Not sure if this has been covered already, but the only time you should use dither is when you're exporting from a higher bit depth to a lower one.

The classic example of this is when going from 24 bit to 16 bit with the intention of burning a CD.

At all other times it should be disabled

You do realize that digital quatization happens during recording too right? Your interface is computing a file from analog to digital as the file gets written to digital in the DAW. Dithering is needed when ever you "Bounce" a file too. You are working in a digital enviroment not analog. Dithering was needed for exporting to CD in the analog days - these days its needed in your DAW too, because you're in a digital realm.

@Scott C. Stahl

Feel free to read.

11 minutes ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

#2 The Gen 4 recordings are way too off. They are really exposed in real world mixes. My examples posted here minimize the differences due to their being no effects

But TBH I've swapped out the GEN 4 and 3 So many times to test again I've kinda hit my limit. 

As I have stated - The Gen 4 has brand new | and | different preamps than the Gen 3. It is literally a brand-new unit with major upgrades regarding sound quality and circuitry.

Auto-Gain & Clip-Safe Mode are settings I personally leave off. They, sound awful - if I could disable them completely I would. Then again there are lot of users that like these two features. 

16 hours ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

These are all without Effects. Taste varies on warmth, but the smoother they start out and you add compression, eq, etc. that gets ugly fast. No music as I sung these lines. Tried to maintain exact same voice level and mic position. Obviously not a good vocalist, but I hope this gets the point across

And how does the unit sound to you with tge Air mode off? You have to press it three times. The Gen 4 has 3 Air Modes. 

Keep in mind the gen 4 is designed more brighter, clearer and upfront than what the Gen 3 sounded. It has bettet pre-amps. I believe its housing some ISA preamps. So, the airy sound you hear in the Gen 4 comes from the preamps. Between the Focusrite Gen-4 and my Audient iD14 I dont hear much of a difference in my recordings - with focurite now having real analog feel in their budget units. I do lean more towards the Audient for my vocals, but thats only because I know the audient really well. Where I use the Focusrite is wihen I do my mixing. For me the Gen-4 has better (cleaner) outputs than the Audient - so my monitors gets a boost there. 

You might be dealing with the exposure that the Gen 4 is projecting in the vocal. Its more upfront, you might be hearing the flaws in your vocal recordings in more detail. 

1 hour ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

I went and checked the settings and did need to change my settings on this machine to import at 24 bit all the time as I had on my previous machine. So I double checked the vocals again... first with the gen 3 i had hooked up, then with the gen 4. The gen 3 recording sounds great, the gen 4 sounds terrible. I even double checked if maybe the settings were improper in the driver or unit and made sure the air was not turned on accidentally.

It was not. The air actually helped a bit surprisingly, but everything still sounds terrible...just with air and air + presence

It was worth a try. I would rather had been embarrassed and found out I screwed it up rather than this. So my gen 4 is not happening, but at least I haven't gone completely senile yet! It was a good exercise and helped me find a lurking problem. Thanks, Will

Last attempt for the focusrite 4i4. 

Dont forget to go into Preferences > Playback and Recording and verify if the dither is set to NONE or Triangular. Triangular is the standard default setting for all DAW platforms. Bring out that golden baritone voice, record a line or two and verify if this helped. 

6 hours ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

Bad news for my personal setup, but another good clue to narrow things down.

Question: Do you use a template and is your Pro Channel on when you record by any chance?

EDIT: Just listened to the files attached . . . In fact, it sounds more like there's no dithering happening. Do you have it disabled in the DAW?  

On 5/13/2025 at 5:04 AM, Scott C. Stahl said:

I recently have been trying to track down audio issues when recording vocals. I complained to Focusrite about the recording quality on a new 4i4 Gen 4.

High bright kinda grainy quality.

They asked which DAW I used and I said Sonar.

They had me install Ableton lite 12. It was a pain, but once done I tried recording on it and it sounded fine.

2i2-Gen 4 here, and about 4 months old. No issues here with my recordings in Sonar. No floor noise or grainy sounds. 

7 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

Using this now on a cello track with Amazing results. Great for reverb swells . Very rich texture , width and movement if used subtly.   Never been able to get this sound before ..   Love it !      ms     

Great toy right? I've done awesome SFX effects with it. 

19 minutes ago, dougalex said:

But this is more like a corruption on this project: I have been mixing on Sonar for 20+ years and the export always has same mix (balance EQ effects) as the mix I had right before export. (i.e. the whole point of the DAW's existence 😐)

I've just downloaded the project - and yes, my suspicion was correct. The MATT track is barely audible. The difference is clear as daylight within the DAW 

PLUS: You even made it worse by lowering the gain and the volume.  The MATT track that is already the softest recording has its Gain lowered to -6.5dB and the Volume to -7.7db.

The Doug track that is the loudest track in the recording has its Gain raised +6.2dB and the track Volume is at 0.0dB

9 hours ago, dougalex said:

But after export it is opposite result, the lead synth is louder. 

This could be that one track has been recorded at a much lower level than the other. Reach for an analyzer tool | or pay attention to your peak meter digits.

The waveforms themselves is also a good visual perspective to look at for matching levels. If one is softer than the other, try to gain match them at the waveform level as you try to get both readings at the same peak level on the metering side. Aim for -18dB or -14dB meter level while gain matching the waveforms. Increase the gain on the Waveform that is the softest by +3dB while matching the louder one with a negative value of -3db to balance them out.  When satisfied with the levels of the waveform side you can then go ahead and balance the entire track on the mixing side with Track gain and Volume levels. 

Free for a limited time period. Grab it now. 

Soundtoys Spaceblender

15 hours ago, dougalex said:

Spent a lot of time on trying to quantize a live played drum beat but Audio Snap transient detection is too often not really close enough to the transient.

And sometimes the stretch is resulting in something sounding too crazy to really know how to get it adjusted. Trial and error trying to adjust the transients to fix those spots just makes it worse. 
My problems might be "user error".... so
Maybe someone has some tips and tricks on Audio Snap? Or "common mistakes" list. 

It work best when chopped up in smaller clips and moved to individual tracks. When you're satisfied with the outcome - you can always move them to one track and bounce them together. 

First make a copy - work on that and hide the original track. 

1 hour ago, Astraios said:

I had to reset my PC a few weeks ago. 

Theres your issue. Resetting you system probably removed a very important communication file from your OS it needs which only a clean reinstall of the OS might replace. 

I typically do a clean install of my OS system too 2or 3 times a year. It keeps my Overall performce smooth and eliminates DAW crashes. 

On 4/24/2025 at 11:50 PM, Astraios said:

There's no error message, and I can only close the program via the task manager. 
Hmm, the task manager doesn't say that Sonar has crashed either. 

Start a new two measure groove and when it freezes up again - create a dump file and send that in. You can send it directly to support, or attach it here. 

Lastly: Which OS are you on - not that this would matter at all. 

1 hour ago, Astraios said:

Cool, I had no problems with it a few weeks ago either - bad luck, it'll probably take days until I get it working again...  Good to know, thx for your comment

Try to reinstall it, but do a clean uninstall first. Remove it from the registry too, and look for any other vst dll an delete them all - then reinstall it.

Works fine here.