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Performance Settings


Fawudd

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4 minutes ago, Robert Bone said:

It is all about what works for you - should you ever decide to take another look at Cakewalk by Bandlab, I would hope that you can get whatever audio issues you were having with it resolved - I happen to have multiple DAW software suites installed - and each have different methods of performing common functions for music production.  Best wishes for success with your music projects :)

Bob Bone

i was using cakewalk\sonar since 2005 wich is a great DAW,but i decide to move on reaper for personal reason..

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2 minutes ago, martsave martin s said:

i was using cakewalk\sonar since 2005 wich is a great DAW,but i decide to move on reaper for personal reason..

Kewlness - I don't have that one, but in addition to CbB, I have Pro Tools, Ableton, FL Studio, Studio One, and Studio One (I think that's all of them - my brain melted some number or hours ago).

Have a great weekend - filled with music :)

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I've been using Cakewalk since 1995 and when they originally ceased trading I checked out other DAWs thinking that I would eventually have to swap.

The thought of throwing away thousands of hours of muscle memory and workflow optimisations filled me with dread.

When Bandlab came along to rescue Cakewalk as a freebie I was sceptical and thought it was going to turn into a beatmaking app and I'd have to buy a baseball cap and a hoodie to keep using it!

I'm so far pretty impressed with the ongoing developement. There are one or two small quirks as with any complex software but I'm sure they'll be ironed out in time. Nothing that gets in the way of my workflow though.

As regards performance I'm running at an ASIO buffer of 64 and haven't yet encounterd any track or plugin limits meaning I don't have to think about it if I want to record loads of simultaneous tracks of external instruments or run as many VSTi/VSTs as I like.

I'm happy.

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First of all, thanks to everyone for chiming in, and thanks in particular to Bob Bone, who spent about 2 hours with me by phone going over settings both within and outside of Cakewalk. I offer the following as constructive input to Bandlab. Fortunately, and for reasons which continue to escape me, the majority of new users do not have an experience like mine, or the future trajectory for CW would be compromised...

1. I expect that most new users will be looking at a few options within a low budget. I was using $0-$100, so free had an instant advantage if it was competitive. However with Free, you also look at support, community, etc. Cakewalk remained a finalist.

2. Feature/Functionality is somewhat personal depending on goals. One man's bells and whistles are another' mandatory requirements. Cakewalk remained a finalist, but multiple solutions met my basic needs to record, track, manipulate, mix, and master.

3.  Workflow is highly personal IMHO. The extent to which it is achieved out of the box, vs after some tweaking and adjustment, vs not-at-all is in the eyes, ears, and fingers of the beholder. Cakewalk was the leading finalist for me at this point.

4. Configuration and Performance became a deal killer. I did not initially know this was an important differentiator. My 2 machines, i5 Desktop 16GB SSD, and i5 Laptop 8GB SSD, were above minimum for all finalist DAWs. It is only when I noticed the crackles and pops that I paid attention. I could see that the engine within CW was overloaded and was losing buffers.  I tried to look for solutions. I did RTFM 🙂, and I did look online.  I found multiple threads and even a few videos on the performance topic (mostly non-complimentary and devolving into zealot-fests). I applied some of the suggestions for buffers, etc but the issue persisted. CW itself had little in the way of help/advice.  I assumed I was up against CPU/Memory limits.

At this point in my evaluation, I shifted focus back to my original plan which was to create the same project in each and take it through the mixing phase. For kicks and giggles, I exported the midi project from CW, imported, added the exact plugins, and hit play. Strangely, the crackles and pops were gone. Since they were somewhat random, I ran this multiple times. I did the same on the laptop. Also gone.  Same hardware, same interface, same ASIO drivers, same buffer, same project, same plugins, same everything. I tried a 3rd non-finalist (although this was an abbreviated test).  Gone.  I then created this original post hoping to get an official from CW and/or the community to set me straight on CW configuration.

Even with further suggestions, I could not resolve the issue, so I abandoned ship and concentrated on Reaper.  In a final attempt for kicks and giggles, I watched Windows resource monitor while opening, loading and playing the file in both, and it seemed to confirm what Cakewalk's performance monitor suggested, that it was consuming many times the resources and hitting limits. The story would have ended there, but Bob Bone reached out to me weeks later, and offered to walk me through some helpful changes. He did, and he is to be commended for his efforts.  I mentioned to him several times that CW should employ him to make and post videos with the suggestions on their site. They could also reach out to Mike from Creative Sauce, but I digress. 

My desktop was now at 32GB, but even with Bob's improvements, I still had the same issues, just fewer of them!! My trust in CW was shot, and I am moving on after this promised post to the forum.  The fact is that even if you can find fault with some of my diagnostic steps, or the research I did, I am probably similar to others.  Even if you suspect my hardware, this experience is across 2 separate devices. I had another solution that was within my paltry budget, which performed well, had a more robust manufacturer support infrastructure, and what seemed like an equal or stronger community (I don't actually know the size comparison). It has its own plusses/minuses, but running well on average hardware and being multi-platform are enough to overcome some UI and workflow advantages!  Even if you discount my individual perception, CW's own performance monitor says it is overloaded and losing buffers. Threads on CW forums, competitor forums, and from "defectors" 😁 create a perception that CW does not manage resources well and/or that the engine is flawed in some way.

Someone made a point about criticizing a free product, and it is valid. However, part of the rationale for making it free is to erase barriers to adoption, and seed the market. It is also far from free it it requires you to throw hardware (well above the stated minimum) at it in order to gain comparable levels of performance to others. I am hoping that CW continues to develop an otherwise competitive product, and that at some point, there will be an upgrade or bug fix that leads me back this way.

Thanks for your patience with this long post.

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@Fawudd - thank you for the kind words.  

I was hoping you would have coordinated that final set of testing, following the implementation of the changes to your desktop settings, because the issues you are/were experiencing are due to local environmental/configuration conditions, and because when you and I had spoken on the phone, all of our investigation was centered on your Surface Pro, which was using Cakewalk via the Windows audio drivers, rather than your audio interface.  (I recommend that you begin using your audio interface with your Surface Pro, by the way, because the audio interface takes the processing burden off of the computer, and that will always help)

That had been the last thing I had asked of you, to have you reach back out to me when you were ready to test out the corresponding changes you were going to apply to your desktop - if I recall correctly, you had to attend to a scheduled phone call or conference call, but were going to apply the recommended changes to the desktop.

If you should decide to give me the opportunity to take a look at the desktop, I believe we would be able to get your audi issues resolved - so I urge you to consider that, because were it not for your audio issues, you would have gone with Cakewalk based on what you like about it.  If you do end up deciding to let me do that, just shoot me an email, or text, or a message from here, and we can work out a time to do that.

In any case - best wishes for success :)

Bob Bone

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8 hours ago, Fawudd said:

Thanks for your patience with this long post.

On 5/10/2020 at 7:57 AM, Fawudd said:

BTW, running 2020.04

Thanks for taking the time to detail your experiences. Out of curiosity, did your final tests use 2020.05 or did you stay with the previous version?  I ask because on my PC (an older duo core CPU + PCI audio card system) I noticed major improvements on my system starting with 2020.05 EA2 in Cakewalk's success coping with Windows' siphoning of limited resources.  In other words, I experienced far less audio glitchiness at sub-par audio card settings under 2020.05 than 2020.04 (and earlier).  Under Cakewalk 2020.05 I was able to nudge my audio card's settings up less than before to reduce the impact the Windows v. Cakewalk competition-for-limited-resources.  

Thanks.

PS: I have a new-to-me PC on order and am asking in part as a prelude to setting up the "new" one when it arrives.

 

Edited by User 905133
to fix typo
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1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

Thanks for taking the time to detail your experiences. Out of curiosity, did your final tests use 2020.05 or did you stay with the previous version?  I ask because on my PC (and older duo core CPU + PCI audio card system) I noticed major improvements on my system starting with 2020.05 EA2 in Cakewalk's success coping with Windows' siphoning of limited resources.  In other words, I experienced far less audio glitchiness at sub-par audio card settings under 2020.05 than 2020.04 (and earlier).  Under Cakewalk 2020.05 I was able to nudge my audio card's settings up less than before to reduce the impact the Windows v. Cakewalk competition-for-limited-resources.  

Thanks.

PS: I have a new-to-me PC on order and am asking in part as a prelude to setting up the "new" one when it arrives.

 

@Fawudd may have left the forums for Reaper.  Perhaps he will circle back.

I would recommend you run with Windows maintenance current.

And if Fawudd returns, I will try to ask him what version he is running.

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2 minutes ago, Robert Bone said:

@Fawudd may have left the forums for Reaper.  Perhaps he will circle back.

I would recommend you run with Windows maintenance current.

And if Fawudd returns, I will try to ask him what version he is running.

Sorry if it wasn't clear I was asking about Cakewalk version 2020.05 v Cakewalk version 2020.04, not the version of Windows.  As for the new-to-me machine, I will see what the MS Authorized Refurbisher Updated Windows to and run my tests with that--while it is still within the 30-day return period.  Thanks for input about Fawudd's departure.  

 

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2 hours ago, User 905133 said:

Sorry if it wasn't clear I was asking about Cakewalk version 2020.05 v Cakewalk version 2020.04, not the version of Windows.  As for the new-to-me machine, I will see what the MS Authorized Refurbisher Updated Windows to and run my tests with that--while it is still within the 30-day return period.  Thanks for input about Fawudd's departure.  

 

You were clear - my brain had melted when I read your post - after close to 8 hours on the phone and remote, helping 2 friends of mine - brothers, get up to speed with music production.  It is 12:36 AM here, and I literally just got off the phone with one of the brothers, and had worked with the other one from a bit past noon, until 7:30 PM, then picked up the 2nd brother a little after that.

My brain is not speaking to me anymore.  :)

Bob Bone

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well, I run Cakewalk on an i5/16gb RAM with a Babyface interface at 64. I also have  one of the latest  MOTU interfaces that works almost as well. I have multiple songs of various genre I am working on now with 50 tracks. Omnisphere fully loaded, East West Play full loaded, Izotopes and Waves plug-ins on many busses and sidechains, Komplete kontrol wurlitzer, rhodes, Ivory, and Ravenscroft on the same song. CPU intensive plug-ins. I have to move that up to 128 when mixing with all this going on. Very stable. I don't think Reaper is superior. Computer system problems are hell. I don't think Cakewalk is the problem. 

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