Bill Phillips

I have a separate Resources drive and use separate 64-bit & 32-bit 3rd-Party VST folders. Example "3rd-Party VST/64-bit/Sample Tank" for the Sample Tank VSTs. 

On 3/23/2019 at 3:43 PM, Gswitz said:

I buy things there when it's financially defensible.

I've always had good experiences.

Me too. I appreciate their service, straight talk and product knowledge. The candy's not bad either. 

On 2/12/2019 at 12:26 PM, abacab said:

A MIDI keyboard can always be used to send MIDI notes to play virtual instruments, and record the note data into a MIDI track without issue. Just ensure that the input device is selected and recognized under MIDI device preferences and at the track input, and MIDI input echo is selected correctly.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Playback.35.html

The documentation at this link may solve my long term intermittent MIDI input problems as well. Thanks abacab. 

On 1/28/2019 at 1:03 PM, Brian Walton said:

However, never update in the middle of a project, it just isn't a good business practice.  

If I waited till the end of a project to update, I'd never update. 🤣

On 2/9/2019 at 12:02 PM, Billy86 said:

https://masters-of-music.com/1st-gen-focusrite-scarletts-work-with-2nd-gen-drivers-for-lower-latency/

Note that this article and others that it links to were posted in 2016. 

2 minutes ago, scook said:

May be confusing WDM and the newer WASAPI modes added to Platinum. As a rule, a manufacturer supplied ASIO is still the best choice but feel free to try the other driver modes.

Woops. I meant WASAPI. Thanks for the correction. I'll try WASAPI if I'm still not happy with Focusrite's 1.10 beta drivers.

11 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

I've been using this firmware since it came out. I'm happy with it, and it's not caused any problems for me, however:

1. They are beta drivers, so I can't guarantee you'll not have any issues and;
2. As I said previously, once you've upgraded you cant go back unless Focusrite can offer a way of downgrading the firmware.

WDM works fine, but I've not used it in anger. The only time I've used it was to test simultaneous recording from my MLAN setup along with my 18i20  (48 simultaneous tracks )

WDM is a pretty old driver technology. Compared to ASIO it sucks. I doubt if you'll get lower latencies with WDM drivers than you will with ASIO.

Thanks. I'm going to try it. Tomorrow morning.

Are you still happy? I'm happy that they are updating firmware and the drivers. From the release notes, it looks like this update is an attempt to might be what's needed for better performance with Windows 10 version 1809. At least I hope so. But I worry that being an early adopter might cause me more problems. Let me know.

I noticed some mention of WDM which also encourages me.  Does the new driver allow you to select WDM instead of ASIO drivers? If yes, have you tried them and how do they work?

My understanding based on very little information is that WDM audio is Microsoft's attempt to provide low latency native audio drivers.  About the time that Gibson was shutting down Cakewalk, I remember reading some encouraging words from Cakewalk folks about achieving very low latencies with WDM drivers, but haven't heard anything since.

Thanks.

Please consider adding CD and streaming distribution processing to Cakewalk. I've noticed that audio distribution finalizing products like CD Architect and Sound Forge have been vertically integrated into audio/video production suites that cost $1,000's per year. CD Baby seems to be the only cost effective PC based distribution alternative for indpendant artists. Why not add that meta data integration capabilities to Cakewalk to provide a complete PC based audio production suite. 

17 minutes ago, azslow3 said:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/618474-audio-interface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html

Note that many interfaces/conditions are not in the first post, googe the thread for almost all interfaces RTL tables. Note that not all posts there have equal "quality". And "traps" are not only numbers taken from "some DAW", but also RTL screenshots when the interface has some build-in route and so the "loopback" was performed without DA-AD conversion. Also these numbers should be interpreted as "the best you can get". So, if you are able to use some mode (like 96kHz/32), you will get the same numbers. But it can happened the particular mode with particular interface/driver is not usable (on particular computer, DAW, project, etc.).

It took me a while to understand that many (most?) people are not interested in low latency. They do not use in DAW monitoring, except may be MIDI for which latency is less important. So even some "high end" devices have big latency.

azslow3, thanks. It would be nice if that information was available when we're making interface buying decisions.  However, the tests were done with Windows 7. I would hope that performance with Windows 10, which I think is reported to have better audio performance, and newer more powerful processors.

Looks like the successor to my 828 mkII didn't fare very well. My Scarlett 18i8 is probably most similar to the Scarlett 6i6, which didn't do to well either, in the testing. However my 18i8 has a buffer size settings range of 1-20 ms not in samples as shown in the charts.  At  the 1 ms setting Cakewalk reports 45 samples. At the 20 ms setting 883 samples are reported. Looks like it's about 44 samples/ms. 

12 hours ago, Cactus Music said:

If it was me the first thing I would do is try these few things  as it is possibly your hardware or your drivers  that are not performing correctly.

The driver you can try and re install.  Go to the Focusrite support page and get the latest.

Also try a different USB cable and/or a different USB port.  Older interfaces didn't like USB 3 ports.

Last thing to try is if  there is someone or a music store you can borrow an interface from try that too. 

For sure turn off your internet while troubleshooting. But I doubt that's an issue judging by your screenshot.

 

Thanks Cactus Music.  I've verified that I have the latest Focusrite drivers though they appear to have been written back in 2014. It's hard for me to imagine that that driver could be tweaked to improve performance with the Win 10 1809. The drivers I have for my ancient MOTU 828 mkII are newer than that.

I use the INTEL Driver Assistant to keep other drivers up to date. 

13 hours ago, abacab said:

Bump up your audio buffer size (increase latency) when mixing and see if that helps. If your CPU is not maxing out when you get dropouts, your audio buffer is probably too small.

You could also try freezing several tracks at a time to test for any specific track/plugin combinations contributing to the issue.

abacab, thanks. I've gone from minimum (1 ms) to maximum (20 ms).  I currently have it set at 15 ms because settings below that periodically stop playback. So far I'm avoiding freezing tracks because I bounce around a lot.

On 2/1/2019 at 9:52 AM, Jim Roseberry said:

FWIW,  With Thunderbolt-3 under Windows 10, you've just got to be aware of all the details (leave nothing to chance).

• You've got to have a motherboard with integrated Thunderbolt-3 controller... or one that specifically supports a Thunderbolt-3 controller AIC (add-in-card).
• You've got to be running Win10
• Your audio interface needs drivers that support "PCIe via Thunderbolt"
• Most Thunderbolt audio interfaces are Thunderbolt-2, so you'll need a Thunderbolt-3 to Thunderbolt-2 adapter

 

We've used motherboards from both Asus and Gigabyte... as well as custom laptop shells from Clevo.

In all cases, whether the Thunderbolt-3 controller was integrated or AIC, performance was 100% reliable.

Presonus recommends the StarTech Thunderbolt-3 to Thunderbolt-2 adapter.

We've tested the Apple TB3>TB2 adapter under many different configurations (desktop and laptop)... and it's always worked fine.

 

I moved from an Apollo-8 Quad/Satellite Quad setup... to Quantum... because it yields incredibly low round-trip latency.

It's a gas to run Helix Native with 1ms total round-trip latency.  I believe the hardware Helix has ~2ms round-trip latency.

 

A note about USB-C audio interfaces:

Though the units connect via USB-C port, all the models I've seen thus far are actually USB-2 (not USB-3.1 as you might expect).

Jim this is very useful information for me. I have an ASUS X99 DELUXE II motherboard with the ASUS/INTEL ThunderboltEX 3 PCIe card. It's good to hear that, once the prices drop to within my price range, I'll be able to use a Thunderbolt interface and benefit from the extremely low latencies they are capable of.

On 1/5/2019 at 9:35 AM, scook said:

It would be nice to have search available for the CbB help. Until that time, here is how I located the urls for posting here:

1) use the web search to generate results for old Cakewalk products

2) narrow the search for Platinum, Professional and Artist Documentation using the link at the top of the search results

3) select a topic

 

This works for me most of the time. I'm usually looking for help using functions that  I don't use often and have been available for a long time. 

On 1/19/2019 at 12:43 PM, Cookie Jarvis said:

I miss the days of printed manuals. I could hold it in my hands, I could read it anywhere.

 

The SONAR PDF was over 2,000 pages and hadn't been available in printed form for years.  I doubt that there was ever a more comprehensive DAW reference manual. I still use what I think is the last version ever issued. 

On 1/29/2019 at 8:29 PM, Cactus Music said:

I have a 6i6 1st gen and it's not a good performer RTL wise.    

I have a 1st gen 18i8 and agree 1st gen USB hardware, firmware & drivers were not up to par. My ancient MOTU 828 mill firewire has lower latency.  I wish there was some way to know that before you buy. 

I need help understanding and hopefully improving the performance of my DAW PC.  While mixing, I experience more or less constant dropouts though the dropouts aren't so bad as to prevent me from mixing and making adjustments.  At no point do, either the Cakewalk Performance Monitor or the Windows Resource Monitor show any CPU thread exceeding 25%.  Why isn't my CPU working harder? What can I do to improve performance.

I've run through Sweetwater's DPC Latency recommendations and results look good. (See 4 attached results screenshots)

I've run through Sweetwater's DAW PC Optimazation recommendations and provided more details about my DAW PC in the attached PDF summary.

I have Use Multiprocessor Engine and Plug-in Load Balancing ticked. (See attached Audio Driver Settings screenshot) 

My Focusrite 8i18 (original USB 2.0 version) audio interface adjust the Mixing Latency Buffer Size based on a user selected latency in ms. It's usually set to between 15 ms and the maximum  of 20 ms for mixing. A setting of 20 ms sets the Mixing Latency Buffer Size to 883 samples. (See Audio Driver Settings screenshot attached.  Also note ASIO reported latency values which far exceed the 883 samples.

During playback, all threads hover around the bottom on the Performance module. No threads ever goes above 25% but there's a lot of audible popping and cracking and I don't know why. I've only recently started using the iZotope Production Suite which I really like and I suspect that products represent a significant CPU load, but the CPU doesn't seem to notice them. Any ideas why this is happening or what I can do about it?

Mixing projects I'm working on now tend to have 8-12 audio tracks, 8-10 aux tracks and 3 buses.  Sample rate is 44.1 or 48 kbps and recording bit depth is 24 bits.

I usually record no more that 12 audio tracks at a time with no processing  and don't incur any problems. 

DAW PC Optimization.pdf

On 1/30/2019 at 9:05 PM, Misha said:

Twisted Fingers, I think you and I share the mania of using many instances of same VSTs    I  gave up on Izotope newer products for  this specific reason  (CPU usage - topic)  Their older stuff (Nektar 2 suite) runs fine with multiple instances with several modules ticked on each.  They make nice plugins, but only if you have a rocket of a machine or use only a couple of instances to have things run smooth.  I found that switching to other, similar plugins made major difference in CPU usage.   I guess the key here is simply keeping the balance of resources available.

 

Misha, I think you are right. I really like iZotope's user interface, dynamic EQ and compression, the Tonal Balance display and the Masking view. I'm not ready to give up yet. I thought I had a rocket of a machine, but so far it's sputtering and I don't know why. I suspect that I'm doing something really stupid, but being really stupid, I can't figure out what it is. 🙄 I'm going to take scook's advice and make a separate post asking for help with that.

19 minutes ago, scook said:

@Twisted Fingers

The OP asked two questions. It would be best to create a thread per question but this did not happen. That said, adding additional questions to the thread is not a good idea.

Because of they way replies get reordered in this area, The CbB General area may be a better place to discuss your issue.

Extreme settings in general are a bad idea. Having to run the ASIO driver at its maximum setting may be a problem in itself.

Understood. That makes sense. I'll do that. Thanks for the patience.

18 hours ago, scottfa said:

I believe Noel has suggested unchecking unused inputs and oututs to help with crackles etc.

Thanks scottfa. I did that and it didn't appear to help.

18 hours ago, scottfa said:

Maybe i am missing it but what interface and connection(usb,firewire etc) are you using? Also, what are your Asio settings? Perhaps you are expecting too much from the interface and drivers?

scottfa, I think all these questions in my earlier post quoted below. I've verified that my Focusrite 18i8 drivers are up to date and I'm using the intel Driver Support Assistant to keep other drives up to date.

On 1/27/2019 at 6:12 PM, Twisted Fingers said:

I have Use Multiprocessor Engine and Plug-in Load Balancing ticked. I'm using iZotope mixing, mastering and metering plugins. My CPU is a 6 core, 12 thread i7-6850K @ 3.6GHz with 32 GB memory. All drives are 256 GB SSD. Two have M.2 interfaces.  I have a Radeon R7 250 series video card.The projects I'm working on now tend to have 8-10 audio tracks, 8-10 aux tracks and 3 buses.  Sample rate is 44.1 or 48 kbps and recording bit depth is 24 bits.

My Focusrite 8i18 (original USB 2.0 version) audio interface adjust the Mixing Latency Buffer Size based on a user selected latency in ms. I have it set to the maximum  of 20 ms for mixing which sets the Mixing Latency Buffer Size to 883 samples. See screenshot attached.  Also note ASIO reported latency values which far exceed the 883 samples.

During playback, all threads hover around the bottom on the Performance module. No threads ever goes above 25% but there's a lot of audible popping and cracking and I don't know why. I've only recently started using the iZotope Production Suite which I really like and I suspect that products represent a significant CPU load, but the CPU doesn't seem to notice them. Any ideas why this is happening or what I can do about it?

 

Under CPU conservation option, I read the link but didn't understand how to implement GPU throttling. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I don't even know where the "pause" key is. 

Also, I keep the Radeon Settings app in the system tray for hidden icons and wonder if that could contribute to the problem.

On 1/29/2019 at 12:03 PM, scook said:

System issues are beyond the scope of this thread. 

Thanks scook. Do you mean the Q&A forum or something else? Also, is there a good place on the Cakewalk forum for system issues?

On 1/29/2019 at 12:03 PM, scook said:

Extreme settings tend to create problems rather than solve them. 

Are you referring to setting the audio interface to the maximum latency?

On 1/29/2019 at 12:03 PM, scook said:

There is a setting in Aud.ini to reduce sensitivity to dropouts but there may be more going on in this case, possibly DPC latency, background processes or a hardware issue.

Thanks for the suggestions. 

On 1/27/2019 at 6:21 PM, scook said:

Depends on your keyboard. Mine is the rightmost key on the line with the function keys.

Scook, thanks. I'd forgotten about those. Both the Pause and Scroll Lock keys are present on my desktop keyboard and work as described. They reduce dropouts but don't stop them.  My main question is why am I getting dropouts at all? My CPU seems to be idling along with plenty of capacity left, but I'm still getting dropouts? Is there anything I can do to make the CPU work harder to reduce dropouts? See quoted  DAW performance information below. Thanks.

On 1/27/2019 at 6:12 PM, Twisted Fingers said:

I have Use Multiprocessor Engine and Plug-in Load Balancing ticked. I'm using iZotope mixing, mastering and metering plugins. My CPU is a 6 core, 12 thread i7-6850K @ 3.6GHz with 32 GB memory. All drives are 256 GB SSD. Two have M.2 interfaces.  I have a Radeon R7 250 series video card.The projects I'm working on now tend to have 8-10 audio tracks, 8-10 aux tracks and 3 buses.  Sample rate is 44.1 or 48 kbps and recording bit depth is 24 bits.

My Focusrite 8i18 (original USB 2.0 version) audio interface adjust the Mixing Latency Buffer Size based on a user selected latency in ms. I have it set to the maximum  of 20 ms for mixing which sets the Mixing Latency Buffer Size to 883 samples. See screenshot attached.  Also note ASIO reported latency values which far exceed the 883 samples.

During playback, all threads hover around the bottom on the Performance module. No threads ever goes above 25% but there's a lot of audible popping and cracking and I don't know why. I've only recently started using the iZotope Production Suite which I really like and I suspect that products represent a significant CPU load, but the CPU doesn't seem to notice them. Any ideas why this is happening or what I can do about it?

 

Under CPU conservation option, I read the link but didn't understand how to implement GPU throttling. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I don't even know where the "pause" key is. 

Also, I keep the Radeon Settings app in the system tray for hidden icons and wonder if that could contribute to the problem.

On 1/25/2019 at 11:45 AM, scook said:

One other thing to consider, when running at low latency, plug-in load balancing may be turned off even when the option is enabled. The documentation covers how to adjust this feature.

I have Use Multiprocessor Engine and Plug-in Load Balancing ticked. I'm using iZotope mixing, mastering and metering plugins. My CPU is a 6 core, 12 thread i7-6850K @ 3.6GHz with 32 GB memory. All drives are 256 GB SSD. Two have M.2 interfaces.  I have a Radeon R7 250 series video card.The projects I'm working on now tend to have 8-10 audio tracks, 8-10 aux tracks and 3 buses.  Sample rate is 44.1 or 48 kbps and recording bit depth is 24 bits.

My Focusrite 8i18 (original USB 2.0 version) audio interface adjust the Mixing Latency Buffer Size based on a user selected latency in ms. I have it set to the maximum  of 20 ms for mixing which sets the Mixing Latency Buffer Size to 883 samples. See screenshot attached.  Also note ASIO reported latency values which far exceed the 883 samples.

During playback, all threads hover around the bottom on the Performance module. No threads ever goes above 25% but there's a lot of audible popping and cracking and I don't know why. I've only recently started using the iZotope Production Suite which I really like and I suspect that products represent a significant CPU load, but the CPU doesn't seem to notice them. Any ideas why this is happening or what I can do about it?

On 1/25/2019 at 11:17 AM, scook said:

A bus has no data to freeze but it may be bounced.

Bounce everything possible through a bus or two to create a submix and archive the bounced tracks/buses after bounce.

Aside from quick groups and control groups, folders are a quick way to archive a group of tracks.

As far as a CPU conservation option there is this.

Under CPU conservation option, I read the link but didn't understand how to implement GPU throttling. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I don't even know where the "pause" key is. 

Also, I keep the Radeon Settings app in the system tray for hidden icons and wonder if that could contribute to the problem.

4 hours ago, Wookiee said:

Still using Soundforge/Sony's CD Architect 5.2d here looks like Magix, who now own Soundforge, have dropped CD Architect.  However I believe that you can cut CD's from Soundforge Pro 12.

 

Can it embed the text album info and ISRC codes and anything else that comercial CDs have?

4 hours ago, Simeon Amburgey said:

CD Architect is now sort of baked into Sound Forge 12.

Also, since it's still apparently available through amazon for about $100 do you see any reason, other than it's been discontinued, that I shouldn't buy CD Architect and not Soundforge Pro 12 for $600, (on sale right now for $400)? The Soundforge Pro 15 features list seems to focus on Mastering capabilities that I do in Cakewalk rather than the CD production capabilities that I'm looking to get.

What do you use to use to produce songs for streaming and cd tracks ready for publishing? I'd like to make sure that the cds have the text information that some cd players can read and display (red book), and anything else that should be on a CD, and that both cds and tracks for streaming have any registration codes (like ISRC) needed for proper attribution. I recall hearing that Sony CD Architect was the gold standard, but when I look for information  about CD Architect all I get are download sites that seem questionable to me and amazon all referencing version 5.2. I looked on Sony's website and found nothing. Any online reviews or forum discussions (Cakewalk SONAR forum and the SoundonSound articles & forum )I find are really old. Any help appreciated. 

This article is the most recent thing I could find on CD mastering: https://www.audiorecording.me/how-to-make-a-cd-master-that-complies-with-red-book-cd-audio-standard.html

Also it looks like CD Baby offers lots of music publishing assistance but I haven't dug into what it will cost for them to produce tracks suitable for streaming and cd release.

Thanks.