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Cakewalk playback intermittently muted - not an Audio Dropout that I can tell


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Hello Forum!  I am experiencing about intermittent muting of my Cakewalk project(s) audio upon playback.   These mutes last about 2 seconds.   This is happening on all of my existing projects.  I know what Audio drop-outs feel like.  I have been using Sonar since Sonar3.  This feels different.  The processor and disk meters are not pinning at all!  There is barely a pulse of activity showing on the SSD drives.  And the playback does not cease or stutter.  Yet the audio mutes and unmutes for about 2-seconds every 30 seconds or so.  But it is NOT in the same place each time in the songs.  It does not appear to be in the tracks.

I just upgraded to a new Windows 10 Home HP pavilion PC.  I cloned the Windows OS drive onto a 6GB/s SSD drive, and then I added a SATA3 Controller to the PCI-e bus and added a 2nd 6GB/s SSD Drive to house my /Cakewalk Projects folders.  This PC has 16GB of DDR4 memory and brand new i5-7400 Processor.

After installing my Focusrite Scarlett Driver software and installing Cakewalk by Bandlab through the Bandlab assistant, I installed all of my owned Cakewalk ProChannel Plugins and Addictive drums and a few Waves Plugins.  Everything installed OK - and I worked out some registration issues so everything is licensed properly.

Yet all of my projects experience these 2-second mutes periodically.  I deleted the AUD.INI and let it rebuild.  I removed any non-installed plugins from older projects.  None of this helps.

Please advise, as I was so excited to have all of this SSD power, and never expected such an issue.  I have been with Sonar and Cakewalk for over 15 years.  I'm confident there must be a fix for this.   Bandlab has done a superb job with the Cakewalk code thus far!  Thanks for that!  Can anyone help?

Rick DeAngelis

 

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If your using 6gb SSD drives (where did you get them?), I would say that's the problem!  : )

But I am thinking it's just a typo and you really mean 6TB.

 

Have you tried another DAW to see if it still happens? Or even try a media player to see if it's something system wide or isolated to CbB.

 

Edited by Grem
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25 minutes ago, Grem said:

If your using 6gb SSD drives (where did you get them?), I would say that's the problem!  : )

But I am thinking it's just a typo and you really mean 6TB.

I think that's not size,  meaning 6GB/s (Transfer speed of SATA3)

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Oh, ok! Transfer speed. Duh!

 

First thing that I really thought about was a cable somewhere. I know it's simple, but we all have been caught/bit by that bug once or twice. Jack not shoved in all the way. Can't be the brand new cable!! Can it? LOL!!

Edited by Grem
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I agree with @Base 57 . This definitely sounds like a plugin not authorised.

You say you cloned your drive? It's likely Addictive Drums needs re-authorising.  It gets upset at the smallest thing - even major windows updates.

Just fire up the XLN Online Installer, remove your computer and re-add it again. 

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Thanks for everyone's input.  Still having the 2-second mute issue, but I  have more data points to share.  This is like a puzzle...

1.  My Addictive Drums installer is authorized and fully "green" in color and happy.  Plays fine too.  Doesn't seem to be it.

2. There are no other plug-ins to remove on the problematic projects.  I reviewed and removed them all.  Still the same issue.

3.  I have 5 projects with the playback issue.  But I have 2 similar projects that play fine!  And the 2 that play fine have a ton of the same plugins and are larger track-counts!  In any case, it is definitely project specific!  Not the system hardware.  Some projects play stellar.

4.  Even when I strip all plug ins off, and resave a new version, same issue.

5.  My one suspect is TruePiano, which is no longer included in Cakewalk.  But I removed all tracks with TruePiano instantiated.  And I removed TruePiano from the Synth Rack.  But the staggered mutes still happen.

Hope this helps someone to recognize a potential cause?  Thanks to the Forum for your help!!

Rick DeAngelis

 

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Yes Grem,  I did check cables and wires and drivers, etc..  And again, some projects work consistently great.  And one of them that works great has many tracks and many synths and plug-ins.  But not a glitch!  While other projects consistently have the 2-sec muting issue.  To me, that minimizes the chance that the problem is computer hardware related.

I agree more with the theory of a demo plugin that is timed out, or a missing plugin authorization.  But, I have never known Cakewalk's plug-ins to use that method of licensing enforcement.  Waves maybe, but there are no Waves plug-ins on many of the problematic projects.  I use mostly the Cakewalk ProChannel SSL and 1176 and the CA-2A.  I use mostly the ProChannel EQ.  I use the VX-64 Vocal Strip??  Is that authorized as part of CakeWalk by Bandlab?

I'm pretty sure it is project-specific and a software problem.  But I am at a total loss for ideas at this point.  If any Bandlab Support Engineers are reading this, I'd appreciate any advice as to where to look for a cause.

Thanks - 

Rick DeAngelis

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Thanks to everyone who contributed!  Great advice!  But my new friend Scook just nailed the issue!  It was an unauthorized CA-2A Plug-in.  I checked the old Forum for the offline authentication process, and got it done in under 5 minutes!  Thank you Scook!  Seriously!  

Some of the affected projects did not even have the CA-2A actively in use!  But it must've been there somewhere, causing the audio drops!

Base57 - thanks for the tip of using "e".  I was looking for that.

I have been using Sonar since Sonar 3, when it was owned by Twelve Tone.  I have helped troubleshoot a lot of Cakewalk issues, but this one was not in the Forum that I could find.   And I was not getting it done without your help.  Thanks!

To be gracious to all questions asked, I am using a new Focusrite Scarlett 2nd Gen 18i8 USB Interface.  The Output routing is pretty idiot-proof, and it all looks OK.  Was the CA-2A.

I think this new Forum is great!  I am going to hang here more often, and help where I can.

Thanks - Rick

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/22/2019 at 5:32 PM, Richard DeAngelis said:

Thanks to everyone who contributed!  Great advice!  But my new friend Scook just nailed the issue!  It was an unauthorized CA-2A Plug-in.  I checked the old Forum for the offline authentication process, and got it done in under 5 minutes!  Thank you Scook!  Seriously!  

Some of the affected projects did not even have the CA-2A actively in use!  But it must've been there somewhere, causing the audio drops!

Base57 - thanks for the tip of using "e".  I was looking for that.

I have been using Sonar since Sonar 3, when it was owned by Twelve Tone.  I have helped troubleshoot a lot of Cakewalk issues, but this one was not in the Forum that I could find.   And I was not getting it done without your help.  Thanks!

To be gracious to all questions asked, I am using a new Focusrite Scarlett 2nd Gen 18i8 USB Interface.  The Output routing is pretty idiot-proof, and it all looks OK.  Was the CA-2A.

I think this new Forum is great!  I am going to hang here more often, and help where I can.

Thanks - Rick

Thanks for your work on this Richard, I'm currently having the same issue you had and will try your methods to see if they work for me.

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