Teegarden

8 hours ago, John Bowles said:

My experience is I can find stuff I need much faster by doing google and You-tube string searches.

If I need to find something about CbB I go straight to Google and usually find exactly what I was looking for. Often it points me directly to a threat on the forum that I was looking for (or one of the excellent video tutorials made by forum members). 
I never had problems being stuck with posts that are outdated. Its not hard to find recent relevant info through Google.

When trying to find the same threat I found with Google through the forum search function I often get tons of posts that I don't need and it can become like searching for a needle in a haystack.  It seems hard to beat Google's advanced search algorithms.

However, IMHO the forum search function could be improved...

4 hours ago, bdickens said:

67 years old, master whiz self-taught computer programmer and all that and you don't know how to use a table of contents or index?

I use the manual/reference guide regularly,  but  in my experience the forum posts and tutorial videos explain things I look for better. They provide more real user case information often together with additional information around the subject helping understand (the relations between) functions and workflow in a way that you'll never get from the manual.

Would great if when loading a project missing plugins are immediately shown together with an option menu for each plugin that lets you to instantly replace a missing plugin on all instances with a single operation by another plugin or the option to disable the plugin in the project and maybe even a delete from project option.

I wouldn't worry if your system is not Win 11 ready. Several tech websites (Techspot for example) that ran performance tests comparing Win 10 and Win 11 showed a slight increase in latency when upgrading to Windows 11...

Standard installation seems sometimes to lead to longer boot times as well, especially on lower spec systems. There are several websites that give you tips on how to improve booting. Ironically, one of the culprits appears to be the Fast Startup setting. If you suffer from slow booting you can consider turning it off: 

"Control Panel" => "Hardware and Sound" => "Power Option" => "Choose what the power button does". If the "Turn on fast startup" is enabled, uncheck the box to turn it off.

You also need to check if Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) is enabled. By default, Windows 11 install disables the feature, but apparently some desktop and laptop PCs have VBS enabled by default which can tank gaming performance by up to 25%.

+1 for Bus templates!!!

1 hour ago, Lord Tim said:

For Bus templates, what I do is create a dummy track that's got links to every Bus I want to bring into a project (assuming they don't exist already - if they do, the new ones won't import over the existing ones). So I'd do this:

1. Add all of your busses (eg: reverb, long delay, short delay, master, etc)
2. Make a new track
3. Add sends to each one of those Busses
4. Save that track as a Track Template

On a new project, import that template, and it'll automatically add the Busses with all of the effects intact. Then just delete the dummy track.

I always do this, but the custom colour is not retained... And on top of that you need to delete that dummy track...

Having to check each time what colour I had used for my "precious" custom Bus is a pain, especially if you have 40 or more specific Buses (I've already got 7 Buses just for for different room sizes and FX reverbs)🤧.

The alternative is using a template with all Buses and tracks predefined but that takes a really long time to load (even with all tracks archived on my way above average fast PC).

1 hour ago, George D said:

Thanks @Teegarden for the analytic answer but I've already tried the plug-in load balancing and thread scheduling model with no result. 

LatencyMon, with no result too..

About the overclocking, the problem here is that Cakewalk doesn't uses all the processing but only 25% of my cores. 

The same project in protools running without any problem.

 

In that case I would post a support request and see if the staff can get to the bottom of this.

1 hour ago, George D said:

Unfortunately not.

I would anyway select Multiprocessing Engine together with Plug-In Load Balancing:  

"When Use Multiprocessing Engine is enabled, the Plug-In Load Balancing option allows you to distribute plug-in processing across multiple cores".

You also might want to play with the Thread Scheduling Model settings (2 and esp. 3 as a more aggressive setting)

I've got a Threadripper 1950x and all cores are used very well...

If you want more juice, you could consider overclocking (I know it is usually not advised to overclock, but in this case the experts seem to agree, including our Microsoft developer on the forum Pete Brown) your memory. Especially Ryzen benefits from it. Here's some information Ryzen RAM overclocking.

Just staying on the safe side I already managed to get an overall increase of 20% by "mildly" overclocking only memory on a former PC build.
A slight GeForce overclock card can also make your system feel much snappier without making it instable:   

If you want to go really deep, you can also have a look at this guy's YouTube channel: FR33THY Windows Tweaking

There are plenty of good YouTube videos where they explain everything in detail.

Don't forget to use tools like LatencyMon in order to identify possible issues (oh, and of course, all the other standard Windows 10  tweaks, like disabling powermanagement on USB ports, WIFI etc. You can find much about that on the forum).
 

Consider freezing tracks if you still have issues 

@LittleStudios, jJust missed your latest post. 

In your new video again a crazy amount of difference...
(Cool tool that Metaplugin, didn't know it). 

My remarks still stand...

3 hours ago, LittleStudios said:

I've taken 5 minutes and through together a quick video demonstrating how audible this is.  I use a tone generator.  Run the signal through a saturation plugin.  I then sweep through the frequencies.  The first run is the oversampling disabled.  You can clearly hear the "radio frequency scrolling" effect when the frequency sweep is in the upper end.  Sounds like the old timey computer sounds they used to use on the Enterprise (Star Trek).  I then run a sweep with oversampling enabled.  The sound of the "radio frequency scrolling" effect starts much higher in the frequency band and is much much quieter.  I perform the test one more time with oversampling first disabled and then enabled.

Here's a link to the video: https://youtu.be/9yS1CTu4kJc.

Incredible! Never thought it would such a huge difference... Even with suboptimal/cheap hardware you will be able to hear this kind of artefacts. I thought it would be audible, but not as pronounced as you've shown in your video.

Like you say, if you add up all the different tracks contributing to this, you end up with a lot of unwanted noise. I can't imagine the horrible noise that you create when using plugins that produce harmonics, saturation or any type of analog non-linearity (I guess there are quite a few plugins that do so; personally I like to use something like Black Box HG-2 on most of my submix busses and I guess at the same time I also use many other FX that add to the equation).

So, the conclusion is that it is absolutely worth using oversampling at a 48 kHz project.

Although, if your next project is an SF movie, you clearly might want to avoid oversampling😁

You did not test higher project sampling rates. In your test it seems like just 2x oversampling at 24bit/48kHz is enough to even out the artefacts. So how much more oversampling is still worth the resources (88.2, 96, ...192 kHz with 2x, 4x,...oversampling). How do we know where to stop? (just guessing that not everybody wants to play hours with sinus waves in order to find out...)

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

If you take a look at the results of the tests I ran, I came to the conclusion that if you want to experiment with the possible benefits of oversampling, running at 88.2 incurred a significantly lower performance hit than enabling all the plug-ins. But the plug-in that caused the biggest hit (no pun intended) was a synth, not a processor. My Plugin Alliance elysia mpressor, alpha compressor, and Millenia NSEQ caused much less performance hits. AIR Hybrid, much less of a hit than A|A|S Player.

What I don't get is that you get better results with the whole project at 88.2 kHz than with just a few plugins at 2x oversampling. This is also in contrast to the Reference Guide, that seems to indicate that the opposite should happen (which is also more in line with what I would expect). Could it be that your particular hardware/DAW setup and project is diverting so much from an average project and DAW PC that you get other than expected results (can't think of anything specific, but it seems there must be something different. I've seen weird unexpected things on PCs, usually older, less performant ones, where a particular part of the hardware led to other than expected results)? 

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

One of the things that led to confusion when I first started using Cakewalk was its use of the term "global." I've always understood that to mean "in the entire program," but that's often not what it means in Cakewalk. If you turn your ProChannel off on one track, the button to do that is labeled "Global," but it only means that all ProChannel modules on that track will be bypassed, not in the entire project. With plug-in oversampling, "global" means that if you enable it in one specific plug-in, let's say elysia mpressor, all instances of elysia mpressor will be oversampled. The "2X" button better fits my usual idea of "global."

Thanks! I've been breaking my head over Cakewalks interpretation of the word "global"... I think the Reference Guide could be much clearer on things like this.

Still the question remains if using the "global" 2x setting on top of a 96 kHz project still has some added benefit, or that at that point it just becomes wasting resources.

@LittleStudios, thanks for the useful info! 

Question is: does using higher project sample rates like 88.2 kHz or 96 kHz not give the same results or better as 44.1 kHz with global sampling (2x) + activated plugin? And does a 96kHz project with the global sampling (2x, -or 4x, 6x,... times) + activated plugin again provide better results?

Of course, there's always a trade-off between high quality settings and system resources, so where to draw the line? Any particular plugin that would specifically benefit from over-the-top settings (look-ahead plugins, IR-reverbs, Scheps Omni Channel, any other VST)?

What I still don't get from the manual:

To globally enable/disable upsampling for a plug-in, click the FX icon in the upper left corner of a plug-in window, and select
Upsample on Render or Upsample on Playback on the drop-down menu. These options globally persists for all instances of the
plug-in in all projects, so it only needs to be set once per plug-in.

54 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

With no upsampling, engine load hovers around 45%, with a spike up to 62%. With all 10 plug-ins set to upsample 2X, it hovers around 80%, with multiple late buffers, stutters and usage spikes up to 146%. Clearly, this suggests there is some expense involved in upsampling.

If you've set it to global, it doesn't mean that it is active on all plugins that support it automatically? You still need to activate it per plugin first?

If not, keeping it on globally means a serious hit on overall performance according to your results (if you didn't realise that you need to (de)activate per plugin)...

Interesting result, since the manual implies that it should be less heavy on the system:

"While you can work around these problems by using higher project sample rates like 88.2 kHz or 96 kHz, doing so can also add CPU load to the project due to the higher data bandwidth."

54 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Interestingly, switching the sampling rate in Preferences to 88.2KHz resulted in smooth playback, with usage spiking up to the high 90's. Barely viable, but less expensive than per-plug-in upsampling. This suggests that the tradeoff will be as Chris says, the amount of room that recorded and rendered audio will take up on the hard drive. If space on your SSD is dear, but you have a faster, modern processor with many cores, per-plug-in may be the answer. Since for me it's the other way (as it is for me, I just swapped my DVD+R drive for a second SSD on the portable and don't need to archive projects on it anyway), if I wanted the potential benefits, I'd run at 88.2. Rendering at that rate would mean an extra rate change before distribution, though.

So, according to your results when using  my standard 96kHz setting, sound quality and performance should be even better without the 2x setting... Or, does de 2x oversampling still double the sampling of the 88.2 or 96 kHz settings (resulting in even more performance hits)? From the manual:

"Cakewalk provides another solution, which lets you specify whether a VST or DirectX plug-in effect or instrument should be
resampled at 2x the project sample rate when bouncing, rendering, freezing, exporting, etc., or during playback."

And if this is the case, would it be useful to still use the additional oversampling for certain plugins (resulting in at least 4 times oversampling)?

I've still got the feeling I'm missing something here...

On 9/26/2021 at 8:51 PM, Noel Borthwick said:

Essentially the 64 bit engine uses double precision floating point numbers from end to end assuming that plugins support it.
The main advantage of 64 bit computing is that its very tolerant of errors that build up over thousands or millions of computations and has a massive dynamic range. You can literally do multiple mixing gainstages that clip > 0dB or go to very low levels and then scale back up with no audible errors creeping in. In fact the original white paper had a test project that did something like that.
Not only is it advantageous for mixing, it is actually more efficient for modern CPUs to process. 

Is the 2x (plugin up-sampling) button related to this? I never really understood how and when to use it, but thought it also has to do with things like the 64 bit engine. As far as I got it right you need to manually enable it in each plugin? And some plugins have build-in internal up-sampling and others not? So when and how to use it? 

On 9/19/2021 at 6:07 PM, pwalpwal said:

@Teegarden care to join the discussion?

Sorry, a bit late to the party...😌

Here is my humble opinion:

Why posting in English?

1. Most importantly, because one of our highly appreciated bakers kindly asked to do so: Please post in English
2. Because you are more likely to get responses from other users (as explained in the inserted post here above)
3. It takes more time to read the posts and try to understand what's been written if you first need to translate them with one of the online translation options. I don't have much time so I automatically skip non-English posts
4. Personally, I don't like the idea that I would bother someone else with a question that he/she first needs to translate (btw, English is not my mother tongue).
   Luckily, there are always nice folks on the forum willing to pay that effort (for me that spirit is one of the reasons this forum is so great!)    
5. (from another internet forum): Machine translations (e.g. Google Translate) can be inaccurate, and even human translations risk distorting the intended meaning of the post. It's up to the author to make sure that their post fits the quality standards of the site; if they don't, it reduces their chance of getting a good answer (in the case of a question) or that their post will be well-received

19 hours ago, Xel Ohh said:

So no one wants to have a zero point for Panning...  So I'm the only one... Lol .. so everyone want to use Cal scripts that might be going away to do panning ..WHY..🤔

Please just put a +1 if you think it would be a good idea. Since we are trying to add feature that will help everyone work faster.

+1

Next to the fact that you prefer it, for newbies (that don't yet get how the midi standard 0-127 works, on hardware mixing desks you also don't use these numbers, -100 - 0 - 100 just seems logical in a decimal numeral system world) it will probably be easier whenever they are in need of this.

I got the impression that over time Cal scripts might become too dated, so it would be nice if every Cal script function could be baked in the DAW, be it as standard DAW function or by means of another more up to date way to program your own customised functions.

And yes, it would make sense to upvote anything that helps, even if it is just for just a few of us to get a faster workflow (and doesn't jeopardise the workflow of others - can't judge if this request would lead to that-). In the end it's up to the bakers to decide if it is feasible.

Off topic: I love the relaxed, nice and clear way you do your tutorials. Highly appreciated added value to the community!

Looks nice!

I don't have this library, but will try to study how you've put this together.

Do you know if Spitfire uses most of the common articulation the same way in different orchestral libraries? If so, it might be possible to use this as a quick starting point and adapt it to the library of choice?

On 7/24/2021 at 8:29 AM, jerrydf said:

Dave - that's a nice demo of SWAM, but I don't hear much detail of the violin.  I had a look at SWAM and it looks interesting from the point of view of playability,  variations,  etc. It seems there's a selection of violin bodies.  Would you say there are fiddles in SWAM suitable for folk (Bluegrass,  Celtic,  etc)? 

SWAM instruments are as far as I've been able to find the most expressive virtual instruments imaginable. However, in order to really let it shine you need a dedicated controller like the TEControl USB MIDI Breath Controller (I use this, but there are some other nice options as well). There's also a food controller that adds  more expression options. I would certainly check out more of their videos to get an idea of the possibilities. And @bitflipper just pointed to another video in another thread: a very cool gesture controller

Another bit older but interesting discussion about fiddle VSTs: fiddle virtual instrument

Two other comparisons that at least give some idea about the strengths/weaknesses of the different violin VSTs:

best violin vsts (July 2020)

Best Violin VST Plugins of 2021 – Round-up Review
 

16 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I'm impressed. How did you ever find the time to become creative and flexible with all those instruments?

Heck, I didn't even know what "Bartok Pizzicato" was until it appeared in a string library, and still I had to look it up.

When you use a wind controller like the TEControl USB MIDI Breath Controller, you have all articulations at hand and once set up correctly makes it much easier to create realistic articulations. You can use it to play any kind of instrument. Mostly used by keyboard players, but I've also seen demos on the internet where guitar players use it to play different VST instruments in a DAW. I use one next to the articulations in orchestral libraries, especially for solos.  

Nice idea. Don't know when I've got time to test it. Not making much music lately😥

35 minutes ago, garybrun said:

I have a good computer...  but no TPM 2.. so I fail.  🙂

Same for me: first generation Ryzen.

But all is not lost. The current Windows 11 Insider Preview works on systems without the earlier stated requirement and yesterday MS posted that it will test to identify devices running on Intel 7th generation and AMD Zen 1 that may meet their principles.  
 

Also, there are tweakers already working on solutions that might bypass the TPM2 problem with software and/or TPM2 hardware module solutions.

On 5/25/2021 at 11:29 PM, Olaf said:

Thanks, man, I'm glad you agree - I mean it would be useful and beautiful to see all those things implemented.

I've stopped updating it, because it seems they were left largely unanswered, and there is a resistance to change - and even the two that were implemented when I last updated, could have been implemented in an a lot smoother and more intuitive way, in my view.

Since then I've had maybe another 10-15 ideas about improvements or workflow corrections - like setting all the VU visualizations settings from a single dialog window, for all the views and work modes, instead of 5 or 6 separate menu items, in two views, each with separate submenu items that need to be clicked individually, going at least 20 times through the menu tree, like now. Or registering all the customization and Preference settings in a single file that can be saved and reloaded on a fresh install - including menus, lenses, visualizations, you name it. I've stopped adding the new ideas, because it seems there's no point.

I've cut D17 on the list. I hadn't even noticed it. To be honest, I haven't worked a serious heavy session in CW for a few months now. I'm still waiting for some serious betterment in terms of that list, and especially stability, but I hadn't noticed that change announced in any release notes.

I really appreciate the list and the effort you've put into that. Maybe most points needs to be put in a separate feature request in order to get the attention they deserve just like this single feature topic. It's a pity to see them disappear from the radar knowing they could really make a difference. 

Yes, animated tutorials is a great way to learn. Would even be greater when there would be a complete up to date manual with animated GIFs (at least for the most important functions) and/or a repository where all posted animated GIFs for diverse questions and functions can be found together with an index.

Personally, I prefer YouTube or learning by doing over reading a manual. However, animated GIFs are directly to the point, much more efficient than having to go through a whole video.  
It's been suggested before, can't find a dedicated threat though. 

I rarely RTFM (of course when I don't find a solution for something specific I do read it before bothering others with questions...)... More animated GIFs, please!

Guess this should be posted under "Feedback Loop" as a request

Hi I don't use an external controller, but SD3 works just fine in CbB. ASIO is good. 
It must have to do with your input & output settings (look at "Preferences" as well as midi input and output on the SD3 midi tracks in your project) and selection of the right hardware in Preferences-> midi devices -> Inputs.

There are several topics that explain how to get this up and running. Here is one that probably will answer your questions:

How do I use an external synthesizer as a MIDI controller?

Some extra info: CbB manual External Devices

You also might want to have a look at how to use the Enhanced ‘Instrument Track Per Audio Output’ feature.

Not quite sure what your problem is with playing along on the fly but if you've got the above working, you should be able to play on your hardware and have the sounds come out of CbB while listening to on your phone.

Hope this helps.

Please let know if you need more information.

11 hours ago, rfssongs said:

Just go to key bindings and you can see all of what is baked in & all of the ones you assigned together. You can also make your own list from that take a snip and put it on your desktop background.

Pretty handy if you use two monitors.

This doesn't give an efficient, quickly usable overview like "Keyboard shortcuts" in the manual. It needs a lot of clicking and scrolling , so at least for me it is completely useless. I've got all key bindings from the manual printed out (after changing the format in Excel, so I can have more info on a single printed page) and that works well, I can quickly check anything and highlight the bindings most important to me. I write new bindings on it as well, but it starts becoming a huge mess, Too much new information with new updates over time. I'd love to see a regularly updated version.

Also, I would like to see next to an updated list with full overview per item that I can print out (or use on the PC) an additional column showing tips next to the shortcut name/description column that shows the most used action(s) (just like the help module when you hover over something, but permanently visible in the shortcut list) 

Maybe a button could be added to the main interface, e.g. left of the double full screen arrow that opens a condensed full shortcut list, including tips.

IMHO, shortcuts are essential for a DAW's workflow, so anything that can provide clearer and faster information would be more than welcome.

Hi, did you also install the 202104-update-1-early-access? There are several new fixes in there and a new official update is close to release.

Do or did you use a custom theme? Then the issue might be like described here:

On 5/4/2021 at 6:08 PM, Ben Staton said:

My immediate thought was that it looks like a custom theme issue. I realize you're using Mercury, but can I ask if you were using a custom theme before that? Nothing wrong with that, but if Cakewalk starts up with a custom theme that isn't up-to-date, it's possible you could run into this issue even after switching back to Mercury. One way to find out is to set Cakewalk to the original Mercury theme and then restart it. If that solves your problem, then you probably need to update your custom theme.
We also introduced a theme compatibility warning in the latest release, which you should see on startup if your custom theme needs updating.

I would definitely report this at the dedicated place to report issues that related to the latest version in the specific version feedback thread: 202104-feedback
 

If you need to revert to the 2021.01 release, you can download the Cakewalk 2021.01 Rollback installer.

If you still need help you can try one of the options provided on this page additional support, like directly contacting support at support@cakewalk.com

13 minutes ago, Philip G Hunt said:

I don't know if this will help with trouble shooting.

I uninstalled CbB via the normal Windows 10 'uninstall' method and then tried installing Build 2020.08. I'm still having the same issues as above (more than 1 Spitfire instrument causing audio dropout - cannot load more than one instance of AAS) So I decided to try and deep-uninstall using Shampoo Uninstaller, and I get the following message:

Any idea why I should be having trouble with this temp file?

No clue about this temp file, but don't you have a regular system backup like EaseUS or Acronis that backs up your whole PC installation in an disk or partition image?

Each time I run into this kind of trouble I revert to a recent image from a time I'm sure everything worked and all problems are gone...

Alternatively you can try a registry restore if that has been switched on in Windows:

1. Search bar: type "system restore"
2. "Protection Settings" check under "available drives" if "Local Disk (C:) (System) protection is set to "on" (the configure button lets you set the amount of dis space that can be used for registry backups)
3. In case System Restore was already set to on: select "System Restore" button
4. Click "Next"
5. Choose a restore point from a date where you were sure everything worked fine
6. Click "Next"
7. Follow the instructions on-screen to finish the restoration