Saving project with 10 midi instrument tracks and no audio very slow

[Martin Schiff]

I just upgraded my computer to a Dell XPS 8960 with NVME drives and 64Gb of ram in Windows 11.  Both the boot/program drive and my project drive are NVME drives and are very fast. 

My projects with multiple tracks of midi instruments are saving VERY slowly. One that I did recently with 10 midi instrument tracks takes 50 seconds to save to an NVME drive. It loads in a fraction of that time. 

What's going on, and how can I fix this?

-- Martin

[David Baay]

I would guess antivirus scanning. Make sure Cakewalk projects/content and program directories are excluded at a minimum. Watching the Windows Resource Monitor while saving might help confirm that or give another clue. It could also be casued by large zip/archive files left on the Wndows Desktop or other paths the Windows Explorer-based browser might be indexing. This usually affects loading more than saving, but would be something to watch for, especially given you presumably just transferred a lot of data from an old PC to the new one.

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, Martin Schiff said:

I turned off real time protection in Malwarebytes, and the same project saves in about 4 seconds

I have yet to experience any computer virus that was as destructive to a computer's operation as realtime anti-malware "solutions."

While you're at it, go into Windows Settings/Update and Security/Windows Security/Virus & threat protection/Manage settings and scroll down to Exclusions. In there you can exclude folders from Windows' own realtime virus protection.

By default, Windows Defender scans every disk read and write. I exclude my Cakewalk programs folder, projects folders, plug-in folders, sample folders, anywhere I don't want or need realtime virus scanning. You might find that file I/O operations get even quicker.

I actually turn off realtime scanning entirely, but that's up to the individual. I'm fine with having Defender just scan my drives while I'm not using the computer.

[John Vere]

It depends on how many changes were made since the last time you saved. Like lots of midi editing and changing settings. All that will add to slow saving time.

So best to keep saving as you work. 
Other things that I’ve noticed are leaving regional effects un rendered and audio snap. 

Edited May 2 by John Vere

[Xoo]

8 hours ago, John Vere said:

It depends on how many changes were made since the last time you saved. Like lots of midi editing and changing settings. All that will add to slow saving time.

This has zero effect on saving times.

[57Gregy]

23 hours ago, Martin Schiff said:

One that I did recently with 10 midi instrument tracks

What is the output of these MIDI tracks set to?
A hardware device like a MIDI keyboard or sound module? Or the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth on your sound card? Or a software synthesizer?

[Martin Schiff]

1 hour ago, 57Gregy said:

What is the output of these MIDI tracks set to?
A hardware device like a MIDI keyboard or sound module? Or the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth on your sound card? Or a software synthesizer?

Each of the 10 tracks is set to Unify VST, which have mostly Roli Equator 2 synths loaded.

[Martin Schiff]

18 hours ago, John Vere said:

It depends on how many changes were made since the last time you saved. Like lots of midi editing and changing settings. All that will add to slow saving time.

So best to keep saving as you work. 
Other things that I’ve noticed are leaving regional effects un rendered and audio snap. 

This was timed with opening the project, and then saving it immediately with no changes.

[Martin Schiff]

4 hours ago, David Baay said:

I would guess antivirus scanning. Make sure Cakewalk projects/content and program directories are excluded at a minimum. Watching the Windows Resource Monitor while saving might help confirm that or give another clue. It could also be casued by large zip/archive files left on the Wndows Desktop or other paths the Windows Explorer-based browser might be indexing. This usually affects loading more than saving, but would be something to watch for, especially given you presumably just transferred a lot of data from an old PC to the new one.

Bingo! You win the prize. I turned off real time protection in Malwarebytes, and the same project saves in about 4 seconds.

Thank you!

-- Martin

[David Baay]

Cool. Glad to help.

[Martin Schiff]

On 5/2/2024 at 5:55 PM, Martin Schiff said:

Bingo! You win the prize. I turned off real time protection in Malwarebytes, and the same project saves in about 4 seconds.

Thank you!

-- Martin

Actually, it's closer to 2 seconds.

[Martin Schiff]

On 5/2/2024 at 1:16 PM, David Baay said:

I would guess antivirus scanning. Make sure Cakewalk projects/content and program directories are excluded at a minimum. Watching the Windows Resource Monitor while saving might help confirm that or give another clue. It could also be casued by large zip/archive files left on the Wndows Desktop or other paths the Windows Explorer-based browser might be indexing. This usually affects loading more than saving, but would be something to watch for, especially given you presumably just transferred a lot of data from an old PC to the new one.

I did just turn off Windows Defender as well. I didn't see a great deal of difference, but it might be a bit faster.

[David Baay]

Windows Defender also has a real-time scanning mode that can play hell with CW. At one time you could turn it off and it would stay off. Then at some point I recall it started re-enabling itself, and I had to add all the CW-ralated content locations to its Exclusion list on my main DAW. But now that you mention it I don't think I ever did that on the laptop, and it's not been a problem there. Go figure.

[Xoo]

You can still disable it using Group Policy (possibly only on Windows Profeasional,  mind).

Realtime scanning is a complete PITA for so many applications, not just audio ones!

Edited yesterday at 11:35 AM by Xoo