Playback pause on FX enable/disable

[Shane Taylor]

I'm new to Cakewalk, and have noticed a lot of times when moving around Cakewalk, doing various things, that Ca kewalk pauses playback for a split second, or interrupts it, rather. This seems to happen more in Cakewalk than in other DAWs I'm accustomed to, like Reaper, Audition, Resolve's Fairlight. In particular, I've noticed that enabling an FX chain on a track often interrupts playback, which makes easy A/B comparisons difficult. Even single plugins often causes this. It doesn't have to be a long chain.  I can create two separate tracks and use exclusive solo to A/B, but I find that sometimes even a single FX on a track will have a dramatic effect on playback. I expect it (and it occurs in other DAWs as well), with FXs like Reverb, but compression and EQ, not so much. Interestingly, even things like changing  preference unrelated to playback in the Preferences dialog interrupts playback for 1 second (even just closing it does this too).

What is interesting is that if I bypass the plugin in its own panel (either the plugin's own bypass or the one supplied by Cakewalk), there is NO interruption. But bypassing the same plugin in the FX rack causes an interruption to playback. What's the difference?

Am I missing a setting in Preferences that changes this behavior. I'm not recording, so I don't need low latency. Is there not a look-ahead function that can handle this sort of thing?

[abacab]

8 hours ago, Shane Taylor said:

Am I missing a setting in Preferences that changes this behavior. I'm not recording, so I don't need low latency. Is there not a look-ahead function that can handle this sort of thing?

I doubt it, if you are just referring to the normal brief blips observed as you insert things or enable/disable them. Cakewalk will usually pick back up without entirely dropping the audio engine. I believe this is just the way the audio engine was designed. Perhaps someone from the Cakewalk staff will chime in with a more technical reply.

You might try increasing your audio buffer size to see how much difference that makes. What ASIO buffer size are you currently set to?

 

[SirWillyDS12]

15 hours ago, Shane Taylor said:

What is interesting is that if I bypass the plugin in its own panel (either the plugin's own bypass or the one supplied by Cakewalk), there is NO interruption. But bypassing the same plugin in the FX rack causes an interruption to playback. What's the difference?

When you bypass the entire FX rack Cakewalk will re-calculate Plugin Delay Compensation and re-align the track\tracks... If your FX chain has considerable latency it can be quite noticeable... If you are using an effect with zero latency you may not get the interruption...

[Shane Taylor]

11 hours ago, abacab said:

What ASIO buffer size are you currently set to?

The max on my MOTU is 1024 samples, which is where it is currently.

4 hours ago, SirWillyDS12 said:

When you bypass the entire FX rack Cakewalk will re-calculate Plugin Delay Compensation and re-align the track\tracks.

Hmm... that makes sense, if that's what it is doing. I guess Cakewalk does this differently than Reaper, for example, because any interruption there only happens with the most intense plugs, like a high quality algo reverb added to an already long chain. Most times, even with 5-6 EQs, Comps, or even Consoles, I can bypass the FX chain without interruption.  Anyway, it is just something to get accustomed to, and use a different approach (e.g., duplicate tracks) to do A/B. A bit of a pain, especially if it is most of the time.

Thank you both for your help. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Cheers.