WASAPI Shared vs Exclusive

[jkoseattle]

I've been trying to get so I could use CbB remotely, using the drivers that come with the Surface Pro,  but it's never worked out. I have learned that I need to change the audio driver from ASIO to WASAPI Shared, but last time I tried that, CW crumpled to its knees and I get audio dropouts constantly - unusable. No buffer slider manipulation seems to make any difference. I read about WASAPI Exclusive, however, and thought that might be a better solution, but I only get an error that it is unable to open audio playback device. I tried with an empty project to which I added tracks manually, but same problem.

What is the magic trick here? This is a beefy machine, and I'm not asking for the moon. I've gone to a great deal of effort to get so I can work on music away from my studio, and I'm willing to make plenty of tradeoffs as needed, but come on....

[reginaldStjohn]

The "unable to open audio playback device" could be a result of the project sample rate and bit depth not matching what is set in windows. In exclusive mode it could be that something else already has the driver open and won't let Cakewalk have access to it.

As far as the drop outs go you would have to use a program like https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon to see what other system element might be causing you problems.

[John Vere]

If your trying to use WASAPI mode with an interface or device that normally uses ASIO that device might not support both or none of the WASAPI modes. My Tascam us1641 doesn’t. So try WDM which is next best. Just don’t try any recording of overdubs as the will be out of sync 

[Nugget]

If you haven't fixed it already, try changing it to MME. That worked for me in the past

[Will.]

On 8/17/2021 at 12:41 AM, John Vere said:

If your trying to use WASAPI mode with an interface or device that normally uses ASIO that device might not support both or none of the WASAPI modes. My Tascam us1641 doesn’t. So try WDM which is next best. Just don’t try any recording of overdubs as the will be out of sync 

I believe he is talking about his computer. I could be wrong.

On 8/16/2021 at 5:13 PM, jkoseattle said:

I've been trying to get so I could use CbB remotely, using the drivers that come with the Surface Pro,  but it's never worked out. I have learned that I need to change the audio driver from ASIO to WASAPI Shared, but last time I tried that, CW crumpled to its knees and I get audio dropouts constantly - unusable. No buffer slider manipulation seems to make any difference. I read about WASAPI Exclusive, however, and thought that might be a better solution, but I only get an error that it is unable to open audio playback device. I tried with an empty project to which I added tracks manually, but same problem.

What is the magic trick here? This is a beefy machine, and I'm not asking for the moon. I've gone to a great deal of effort to get so I can work on music away from my studio, and I'm willing to make plenty of tradeoffs as needed, but come on....

I own the surface studio 2 with no issues in this department. Is your windows up-to-date? What's your default playback device within windows? 

I've downloaded the Free Waves Studio Grid and it messed with my Audio Device in Windows changing it from my interface drives to that of the waves grid drivers. 

There's also some video apps doing this and some audio conversation applications. Try looking at these to make sure you're on the windows default drivers. 

Another thing: My Surface Studio only came with USB3.0 ports. So I had to buy an extra compatible USB 3.0 Cable for my interface and Midi Keyboard.  Some of these devices comes with a cable that works in both 2.0 and 3.0 ports. For some reason my Focusrite and 49 Keystation as a bundle did not (This was of course 6 years ago.)

Edited August 18, 2021 by Will_Kaydo