Sven

Billy86's answer was the quick solution for me if this can help anyone else.

I got this unit last year and it sounds fine with Sonar but it apparently has a design flaw whereby the input volume 'jumps' dramatically at around 3 o'clock. One thread I read said that PreSonus called this a 'feature'. It has this 'feature' whether I'm using a SM-58 or my AT-2035 with phantom power and has the same problem with both input channels. I seem to always have to 'jump' to a volume just past 3 o'clock to have adequate input for vocals or acoustic guitar but then have no way to back off the volume a little if I want more proximity effect. Another issue is that I wish I had bought a unit with input volume meters . The logical replacement would seem to be the PreSonus Studio 24c USB-C I guess. Does anyone have any experience with this unit? Does the input gain increase smoothly with no volume 'jump'? Is there any other unit anyone would recommend for around this price range (<$200)? Would a budget of $300 buy something much better? I'm open to all idea...this is something I will be using for many years and would rather pay more for something I'm happy with. Finally, does any particular brand of audio box interface actually sound or work better with Bandlab? Are they basically all the same as far as the sound quality you will hear in Bandlab? Thanks.

Hi msmcleod, Sorry for the extremely late reply. Your suggestion was great and it does indeed work. I'm still trying to sort out which of the older songs which only used version 5.6 can now load properly in this new configuration. This should save a lot of time anyways and I very much appreciate your very helpful reply. Thanks again!

I used Kontakt 5.6 for a long time but recently bit the bullet and installed version 6.3. I had no compelling reason to upgrade before and was worried about what problems might arise. The Bandlab projects that used the older version open fine but the Kontakt Soft Synth is no longer functional. I can then reinstall a Kontakt Soft Synth with version 6.3, and that works fine. Then I can copy/paste the old MIDI parts over to the new version, set the Soft Synth to the correct Kontakt plugin I was using, relabel everything and I'm up and running again. The problem is if I have a song with 10 Kontakt Soft Synths this can take a long time. I there an easier way to do this? Can you tell Bandlab to change all instances of Kontakt 5.6 to now use version 6.3 with the old plugin settings retained? Thanks.

Hi msmcleod, It did seem to have been a problem with a pitch bend message. I turned that setting off and it seems to be working fine now. Thanks! I had the 4 cores support turned on so I didn't have to change that. I thought I had turned all the extra MIDI controls off previously because of a different problem. There were some extras check boxes still on for some reason including the pitch bend. This is usually how I have my settings: I'm using an ancient KeyRig 49 and I usually only care about MIDI notes and velocity. Thanks again.

I love Bandlab but I've never liked Kontakt. I especially hate the interface. Unfortunately, there are several plugins I like that only work with it. I'm still using version 5.6.5. I've never had any serious performance issues when I've added multiple Kontakt Soft Synth instances into Bandlab projects. In fact, I've been quite impressed at how well Bandlab keeps up with the many Kontakt plugins I've used at the same time even without my freezing them. My computer isn't the fastest but Bandlab does a great job even when I add 50 tracks or more including many Soft Synths: I did notice a few hiccups using Symphobia where a string section or whatever might start to sound out of tune after a while (player fatigue?). I attributed it to a lack of memory or cpu resources but it was easily solved by deleting the plugin in Kontakt and reinserting it again. Not sure why that worked. I could then freeze that track just fine and move on. Recently I started using Evolution Rick 12 and it worked fine until I started recording a track in Sonar. It sounds fine at first and then suddenly starts sounding way out of tune (rock and roll guitar player realism?). There are no error messages and it's also not crashing. It just makes dogs run frantically from the room. My old Symphobia delete/reinsert trick doesn't work this time. It seems like if I free up as much computer ram as possible things maybe get a bit better. I tried increasing the setting below but I don't think it does the trick. Maybe I didn't change it correctly: I generally don't touch any of the Bandlap ASIO driver settings because things seem to usually work fine: Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might improve the performance of this plugin by changing any Bandlab or Kontakt settings? Thanks.

The project has been open for a long time as I continue to work on it. It seems that this message pops up when I take a break and go back and look at the screen again . It doesn't seem to pop up at all when I'm working actively.

I've seen a few posts regarding this error message but none that solves the problem. I started getting this message recently and I'm guessing it might be related to a plugin: Is there any scientific way to understand and fix the problem that's causing this error?

John Vere, Thanks for your response. For the record, this system is Windows 7 64 bit. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how well SONAR does with this system. The song I'm currently working on has 45 tracks, many of them Kontakt SoftSynths. I rarely have processing lapses and I can always freeze tracks or archive them to improve performance. I'm not a big fan of Windows 10 so I'll stick with this until I have a compelling reason to change.

Speakers are JBL 3MkII. I can test them with a non-Cakewalk sound source to see if that's the problem. I usually only use them for Cakewalk. Thanks.

I've notice that often when I hit play for the first time after loading a song it takes a half a second to hear the first audio parts. If I simply hit play again it's fine and the music starts perfectly. I thought it might be a setting like "Suspend Audio Engine When Cakewalk is Not in Focus" but unchecking that doesn't fix it. Does anyone know how solve this?

QUICK UPDATE: I haven't had any major problems with Kontakt plugins since I changed my MIDI settings as shown above I'm using a keyboard MIDI OMNI input and not even assigning individual MIDI channels to the various Kontakt synth plugins. What's strange is that occasionally I'll still see a MIDI synth input volume light up when my focus is on playing a new part. All the other MIDI synth Kontakt inputs behave nicely and remain silent but one might perk up 'listening'. I checked all the settings and it seems there's no difference between the 'listening' plugin and the well-behaved quiet plugins that also don't have the current input focus. So I'm trying to add a new Kontakt synth and one older pesky channel is playing along also even thought I'm finished recording that part. The easiest way to fix this seems to be to insert the 'listening' plugin again and copy/paste it's MIDI data to the new channel. Then it's well-behaved again. I'm not sure what causes this behavior but it's a bit annoying. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I've got a project with about 50 tracks but it now seems to have a new lag time 'processing audio data " before it starts the export mix ("mixing down audio"). In the past with large projects it would start chugging along export/mixing right away and I could monitor the progress immediately. Is there some setting I might have changed that is causing Bandlab to need to process audio data first before export/mixing? The tracks are a combination of audio tracks. soft synths, and archived tracks of both types. Everything is the project is the same as in my previous projects. Thanks.

Sports Update! Things seems to get better when I changed SONAR to only record MIDI "Notes" (see below). I'm still testing this but turning off the Controller and other check boxes might be what's helping keep the volume consistent. Film at eleven...

I actually don't think it's the keyboard. Once the keyboard records a simple part such as a 'triangle' on 4 downbeats in a measure that records and sounds perfect it's no longer in the equation. The playback mode through the Kontakt triangle VST that once sounded fine suddenly has no volume without any change to the original MIDI recording by the keyboard.

It's an ancient keyboard but I'm not sure about a dirty pot being the problem. I can try another MIDI input device leaving this keyboard out of the equation and report back.

I still haven't been able to solve this problem but I can at least say what doesn't work. I tried any solution I've seen on forums or in this thread without success. Here's what I do know: This only happens with SONAR using Kontakt plugins. It has the some same problem regardless of which plugin is used. The volume suddenly disappears during playback or monitoring. Unchecking SONAR MIDI settings "Zero controllers when play stop" doesn't seem to change anything (or perhaps it does...please read on...). I only use the KeyRig 49 as an input device and nothing else: Changing the Kontakt instrument Options to uncheck the two controller options seems to have no effect. It makes no difference if you use OMNI for the MIDI input channel or select a specific channel number. When you first insert any Kontakt plugin everything sounds correct whether you use the mouse on the plugin's keyboard or use an external MIDI keyboard. The volume disappear after a seeming random amount of time even if you don't start recording or move the transport. It's like a time bomb waiting to create almost complete silence of anything you input. If the master fader in Kontakt is at 1.76 you will not hear almost any volume. If you turn the master fader up to 36.00 and do nothing else you will again hear the volume normally again. It may sound extremely loud at some future point in time after doing this. If you leave the volume after 1.76 but click 'X' to close the program and then immediately insert it in again the volume (usually) magically is restored to normal. Again, all this happens without recording or using the SONAR transport. When it's "happy" the MIDI keyboard volume and the audio channel associated with it via "insert soft synth" show normal volume levels. When it's quiet and "not happy" the MIDI input volume appears the same but now the audio channel shows a slight volume but it is now dramatically reduced. Removing the plugin and inserting it again usually makes everything sound perfect again. You can even record a track and freeze it if you're lucky. This is the MIDI event list when it's not working: I said that turning of the instrument Controller check boxes has no effect but that may not be true. If I turn them off nothing happens immediately. But if I remove the plugin and reinsert it again having unchecked those boxes it will sound okay again. If I don't uncheck them you may not hear the normal volume after reinserting the plugin. I'm not a MIDI expert but I gather there's a volume control request being sent to my MIDI input channel for some reason from some other place. Perhaps someone can advice me where this might be coming from and how to prevent it? Thanks again.

The WA-47 and the WA-47 Jr. are available where I live. The price for the WA-47 is about 160% more than in the States! It still sounds like what might be my best choice. The WA=47 Jr. is priced more reasonably here but sounds like it's not in the same league based on online reviews.

I've seen other users ask about this but I haven't seen an answer that solves the problem. When I add a Kontakt plugin into Bandlab it works fine no matter what the particular plug is. If I immediately record it in Bandlab all is fine. Later it seems like all bets are off. The playback of the original recording is generally fine but there are intermittent issues doing other tasks. If I just click on the MIDI plug in again at a later point and play my input keyboard I may hear nothing. I can increase the volume in the plugin and usually hear it again but then later the volume jumps up to an extremely loud volume. Sometimes when you're playing a part the volume drops out but will sound fine again if your press "Play" in SONAR first. I saw this listed as a solution in a couple of posts but it doesn't seem to solve the problem: Any thoughts?

Sorry for the delay replying to this thread. Thanks for all your responses. Perhaps I should explain my situation a little clearer. I'm retired in a lovely country but in a city with no professional recording studios and only a couple of music stores that might have a professional mike available. I could probably locate a professional recording studio to visit with a 1-2 hour plane ride that might have mikes I could sample. I can't try anything where I am. There is also about a 10%-20% price increase based on taxes or whatever compared to normal Sweetwater prices from what I can see. Having said that, this Rode mike just happens to be available here which is why I inquired about what people on this forum think of that particular mike. I can order any mike from anywhere in the world but I'll probably have to pay high import taxes. I've been told by other musicians living here that it's easiest to buy within the country. That's why I bought my M-Audio FastTrack Pro, PreSonus USB 96, ATH M50 headphones, AT 2035, SM-58, and JBL MK II Series 3 monitors locally. The last mike I used in the States about 18 years ago was a Marshall MXL-2003A but I don't have that here (yet). I liked that mike at the time. There's nothing particularly wrong with the AT. My budget has increased from what it was at the time I got my previous mikes. So my idea was to get a higher priced 'better' mike that seems like a safe bet to please most vocalists...I realize there's not one 'best mike' for all singers. I've been writing and recording music for 40 years but at the end of the day I'm a songwriter, not a professional recording engineer. I just try to make things sound as good as I possible given my budget at the time. I'll check out the microphones mentioned in your responses to see if they might be available here and what the prices would be. The WA-47 looks like something I might enjoy using. Thanks again.

This song is almost finished but has gotten slower and slower to work with because of the sampling rate problem. I thought of starting a new project with a 44.1 sampling rate and bringing in each individual track just to work within a faster environment. I don't suppose there's an easy way to export every audio track to a .wav file quickly instead of doing each one individually? Then I could import each of them pretty quickly into the new 44.1 project and finish.

I finally fix this today. It ended up being one problem guitar track that I had done Process-Apply effect-Gain and also Fade Out. and other audio adjustments. I got rid of that track in the otherwise good project, fixed that isolated guitar track error message, and then added the guitar back to the project. It wasn't fun and I'm still not 100% sure why it happened. I had also muted a couple of split clips at the end of the track which might have been the real cause. Thanks for your help!

I've isolated the problem to 5 guitar tracks. If I delete those tracks the error goes away when reopening. I'd like to find the easiest way to delete the 5 tracks from the current (error message) version and get them from a previous version a few days ago that doesn't have the error message. I can Copy Special/Paste between the projects but I want to get the VST effects also and I don't want to freeze the tracks. If I save the 5 tracks only from a previous version and delete the 5 tracks from the latest version (that has the error message) can I easily import the older 5 tracks only into the new version including their VST effects? Then I can save that new version and I should be all set again.

I'm currently using Bandlab with an Audio-Technica AT 2035 as my main microphone for vocals and acoustic guitar recording. The mike goes through a PreSonus AudioBox USB96 and into a Win 7 64 bit computer system running Bandlab. For some reason I'm not enamored with what I'm hearing with this microphone and I am considering an upgrade. It may not be the microphone that's the problem (God knows it's not my singing ability!) but I think I would like to try something else. My Tele guitar going through the same PreSonus box using Amplitude 4 sounds great. Where I'm living there are not a lot of microphone choices without a special order being placed. One microphone readily available in stock here is this one: https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/rode-nt2000-review-2/ https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/rode-nt2000-nt1a Although this isn't a Bandlab specific question I do enjoy this forum and find the answers to be quite helpful. Has anyone had any good/bad experiences using this microphone? Does anyone have any other suggestions for microphones in a similar price range? Thanks.

"This would sometimes happen using Process- Apply affect- Gain" I did indeed do this several times on this project. I think I know where I applied it so I'll start by looking there. Thanks!