Starship Krupa

Now that's great info. Thanks. Obviously your system is more than up to the task of running any level of project you want with Cakewalk, so we can eliminate resources as a possible issue straightaway. It happens with a very common instrument plug-in that used to ship with Sonar, AAS Strum, so it's probably not that. That lets you narrow it down to maybe an issue with how the program interacts with the ASIO driver, which it seems to be. I'm curious, just as an experiment, whether it happens if you use the Focusrite in WASAPI mode? Sometimes there can be problems with the way Windows is talking to USB devices if you've disconnected a device from one port and then plugged it back in to another port. The way to check for that is to run Device Manager and select View/Hidden Devices from the menu and see if you have duplicates of the Focusrite. If there are any, uninstall all entries pertaining to the Focusrite. Then unplug it, plug it back in and let Windows reinstall it. As for the clips issue, please do try the EAP release and report back. It is packed with fixes and feature updates to Take Lanes and editing, and even if it doesn't solve your issue, you'll find it a big step forward.

We're talking about sforzando, but I don't think there's been a link to how to download it yet. For those who don't already know, it's a a sample player, specifically for the SFZ format. If there's anything else to explain, I'll leave it to the experts! What I know is that there are a lot of free sampled instruments in the SFZ format available for download and this VSTi plays them like a champ.

One of my favorite compressors for the drum bus is Audio Damage Rough Rider 2. I think you can get an idea just from the name, but if you want to get all squashy on a drum mix, this is a very good tool. There's also an interesting fuzz plug-in for free on the site.

There's also the Windows 10 Fresh Start, which keeps only your personal files and starts your system with a fresh copy of Windows. Something to try before getting a whole new computer. It gets rid of all of your apps and settings, though, so it's a last resort.

Ugh, the Dell Touchpad. While you're at it, see if you can figure out how to get Windows 10 not to turn my desktop into little shrunken versions of everything whenever I move the cursor diagonally upper left-->lower right. Since down at the lower right is where the Synth Rack shows up, imagine what fun I have whenever I happen to invoke Synth Rack view from the menu, which is in the upper left, then try to zip the cursor down to the lower right to interact with the Synth Rack I just made visible. And anyone thinking of offering the suggestion that I instead invoke it with Alt-9, just don't.

This issue must be something that is occurring when the Channel Emulator is used in a certain way. If it weren't, the forum would be full of complaints and the development team and beta testers would have noticed it a long time ago. The Console Emulation is a commonly used module. There must be a plug-in, module, way of routing, something that is happening on your system. If it's a bug, it's one that's exposed in combination with these other factors, so please post more about what other plug-ins and ProChannel modules you are using, where the track is routed, etc. The Console Emulator adds a bit of gain, so it may even be that the gain inherent to the module is causing something to go into oscillation. It also has its own resonant peak.

I think it's becoming clear from the responses in this thread that reverb, depending on how it's applied can be both a special effect and a means of creating a virtual space, even in the same mix. I tend toward creating the virtual space, because I like to end up with mixes where I can close my eyes and picture just such a virtual space with everything placed in it. Having said that, I loved Robin Guthrie's production with Cocteau Twins where everything was just doused in reverb. I turn off synths' internal reverbs because I find they muddy things up, especially VSTi's that are based on sampled instruments.

One big feature that Cakewalk by BandLab is still lacking, in my opinion, especially for EDM work, is inclusion of a software phrase sampler. While there are a few choices out there, the one I've found that's closest in functionality and workflow to the ones I'm used to in other DAW's is TX16Wx. It has such a rich feature set that I'll probably never delve deeply enough to really find out what all it can do, but it quickly and easily does the bit where you get some phrases in there and trigger them with MIDI information, and that's what I want my phrase sampler to do. It has good tools for editing and pitch shifting as well, so I look nowhere else. They recently updated it with a bunch of new features like a more scaleable GUI.

Also, don't get a copy of Eckhardt Tolle's The Power of Now expecting it to have anything to do with Cakewalk.

If you can list as much of your system specifications as possible, as I have done in my signature, it would be most helpful. OS, processor, audio interface, disk(s), RAM, etc. In this case, I'd like to know what kind of disk(s) you have and how you have them set up. SSD? Spinny? 7200RPM? One single drive? Projects on one, system and programs on the other? We don't know what operating system you are using. Windows 7, 8, 10? How much RAM? Since you mention that the problem has gotten worse over time, it suggests to me that it might be helped by defragmenting the hard drive where your projects are stored, if the drive is not an SSD. Your PreSonus AudioBox is a fine interface and should be able to run in ASIO mode, and since that is the optimum mode for it, my first order of business would be to get it working in ASIO mode. If you can't get it working in ASIO or WASAPI mode, it indicates that there are problems elsewhere that need to be corrected before you proceed. MME is a "last resort" to be used for legacy and oddball hardware, not currently supported products like your AudioBox. You won't get full capacity from your interface running it in MME mode. It's like running your car with half of the spark plugs removed.

I agree, but my hope for now is that they'll be "virtual stickies," that is, people will keep finding good freeware and posting them, which will bump the thread to the top. And if we keep the quality of the recommendations high, and stay on topic, we may very well wind up getting stickied anyway. Or the content may be used in a sticky. Maybe there is so much great freeware available that you can get close to putting together your own "Cakewalk Platinum" by substituting freeware for the premium content. Maybe not, but it's a fun idea. Cakewalk Aluminum, maybe? This, for sure. I see people asking about where to find a good Rhodes or drum kit or strings plug-in, and wonder if they've even tried them. The Rhodes is really good, the drum kit is good if you go through the sounds and find the sampled kit you like and then fiddle with the onboard FX and most importantly for any canned drums, mess with your velocities! Especially on the hi hat. The strings are good enough that I might not have bought the Sonivox Orchestral Companion if I had already had them. One of the problems with the Studio Instruments may be the interface, which I find makes it difficult to audition the soundsets. It's not immediately clear how to get at all the different kits or basses or pianos or string sounds. The Strings for instance, has synth pads and other different samples included, not just the default chamber orchestra, the Bass has synth basses, acoustic, fretless, and so on. There are at least a dozen different sampled drum kits, both acoustic and electronic.

These are some great links! Who needs a sticky when this keeps getting the bump? Of course I cheat it a bit by not posting the masses of links like mibby did! Boz Digital Labs has some good stuff, especially Bark of Dog, which is a bass management/enhancement tool that used to ship with Sonar Platinum as a ProChannel module. It's now up to Bark of Dog 2, which unfortunately doesn't come in a ProChannel module format. Boz is a good guy, though, and if you tell him that you're running CbB and ask him nicely, he might let you download the original, which will install both the VST and the ProChannel module. Another note about the Computer Music plug-ins, one of them is Sidewidener by Boz Digital and Joey Sturgis Tones, and it is my hands-down favorite way to stereoize and enhance mono sources like iPhone recordings. One challenge I take on for fun is to take mono rehearsal recordings, like where someone set their phone down at band practice, and polish them up as best I can using things like Sidewidener, iZotope RX, proximity eq+, iZotope Neutron's transient shaper and so forth. My friends marvel at the results and it's a fun challenge and a good way to learn what the tools are capable of. Sidewidener is the best.

Since the freeware FX thread is doing well, how about we have one for instruments? Razor already mentioned the huge collection available free for registering with Native Instruments, and I followed up with the free Kontakt drum instrument DrumMic'a. If you're into combo organs, the first two I recommend are Combo V and Combo F, excellent modeled Vox and Farfisa organs. The developer went on to work for Arturia and expanded both of them into commercial products. Dead Duck Software, mentioned in the Free FX thread, first released instruments that were the classic mda instruments with nice GUI's, one of which is one of my favorite Rhodes emulations, then came up with their own original synthesizer for last year's KVR competition. Laptop Musician Blog recently released a trio of cool tiny ROMplers, my favorite of which is Padspheres, sort of an ambient-in-a-box. There are also a couple of treated pianos. That's all for now, just a taste to prime the pump. All of my suggestions are going to be 64-bit and thoroughly tested with Cakewalk. The freeware repositories are littered with 32-bit VSTi's thanks to Synthedit having been a dominant development tool for so long, but I no longer even bother with them due to the extra overhead and extra potential for issues. Cakewalk is a 64-bit host and I suspect the developers are no longer paying much attention to compatibility with legacy 32-bit plug-ins. As you will see, there is a cornucopia of 64-bit freeware.

Just basic audio editing, I guess. Getting rid of spikes and clicks.

I should set this up. I have both Sound Forge and RX Elements. Anyone tried both of them and have a preference? I've been using Sound Forge outside Cakewalk and like it well enough, just haven't messed with RX much.