John Vere

What really works for me is a year ago I started working exclusively at 48 . Seems the internet is mostly 48. I even converted older projects to 48 as I re visit them. But possibly part of your issue is the Mackie driver. Not all ASIO drivers are created equal. Example for years I used 44.1 with my Tascam and Focusrite interfaces and never had the conflict issue. The minute I got the Motu I couldn’t open a web page and even go back and play Cakewalk. Because I’m working with multiple apps open including movies and editing software I decided to try 48 globally. It works but with only one pitfall. I can’t record new audio in Cakewalk after any movies or ?? Have been used. The Audio is fluttering. I have to completely re start the computer. I’ve gotten used to this and it’s not a huge deal I just try and start my day with recording audio and move on. If I know the next thing on my list is recording I restart the computer. I understand lots of people just use on board audio for everything other than Cakewalk but ASIO is also the driver for many of the other apps I’m using with Cakewalk running. As long as they are all set to 48 it works other than that one recording issue.

This thread has gotten too long so I missed this which is pretty important info. You need to deal with this. You can’t run any DAW when that is red. It may or may not be at the root of the problem but overall to use a computer for music it needs to run clean an green. I believe you said this is a Dell laptop. If it is this could be issues in the BIOS as I have personal experience about 8 years ago with similar issues. Dell wouldn’t deal with it. We sent it back and they said it wasn’t broken? $1,500 no good for audio. Still have it and it’s fine for all else. Bought a $600 Acer that never had issues with Audio once bloat ware was removed.

To test that it isn't truly your controller, open the Virtual Keyboard. My Akai Synth station has an intermittent dead note right in the middle.

I have a easy to follow tutorial on how to do this. Sorry it's not a slider it's a few steps but once you are set up all you need to do is change the tempo in the Transport and you can try different speeds. Always back up your project before you do these things as it's destructive editing. Make sure the back up has it's own folder and audio folder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0sm8cWrjIw&list=PL7YqVth30eGsdimFV6w1niyBN07M2uhRj&index=19&t=8s

I'm pretty sure the CA 2A , both the VST and pro Channel module were only included with Sonar. But the PC 2A Leveler is identical in all respects other than it does not have side chaining. This is why the OP can't find the CA 2A if they never used Sonar.

@scook The OP is using a Mac so I think they are talking about the Bandlab App which I do believe works on all OS platforms. First thing comes to mind is you can get older PC computers for almost free. I see them in thrift stores for $20 all the time. Cakewalk by Bandlab will run on Windows 7 still. Problem solved. It' the reason many of us keep older systems running. You never know when you might need a time machine. I have a old XP only Epson printer that prints directly to CD's. So I keep this 2003 Laptop someone gave me years ago just for that.

I had bought the Windows 98 for Dummy's in that year. When XP came out I found a copy of XP for dummies in a thrift store for $1. It was exactly the same book with a bit of editing done to update a few obvious features. I later found a copy of Windows 7 for dummies and it was also still the W98 book with yet more editing. The one I liked best was "Window Vista for Fools" I find the mention of this book interesting because I pondered using that for my series. Cakewalk for Dummies. I ruled it out because that's not true. Just because you are a beginner doesn't imply you are a dummy. You are actually smart because you are using Cakewalk and didn't get hoodwinked into paying $500 for a top notch DAW.

I just thought of something that I didn’t see mentioned yet. Run Resplendence Latency Monitor and see what is going on. It is a laptop I do believe. They can be more problematic https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

@Starship KrupaAs I said it was just one track and further investigation was it was right at a point of a split in the track. which was a copy paste of the Harmony track which was also abused by me with Melodyne. I have learned that if you want problems then fill a project with a zillion edits and clips. The solution I find is to export the tracks as 48/32 stems. Then delete the mess and drag the nice fresh track back and now everything is fine. So it was not Wider to blame per say, it was a combination of things that created the dropout or glitch. I have been using Wider for over a year and it’s actually one I trust. This was the first time it was accused of having issues by me. I use a lot of plug ins I got for free and what you say about many of them come from very reputable developers. I always sign up for newsletters and through that have scored many great upgrades and deals. I’ll edit my other post so as not to scare anyone away from Wider.

@Tarrell Freeze That is a great idea. to try a different interface. Troubleshooting 101- swap out components until the issue goes away.

This was the first thing I though of when I saw the thread title earlier. It's always a plug in. Today I was just getting ready to mix a finished song and there was this terrible glitch that always happened in exactly the same place??? Knowing the Gospel of using Cakewalk " IT SHALL BE KNOWN THAT IT IS ALWAYS A PLUG IN" I bypassed my effects and of course the glitch was gone. Took about 2 minutes to find the culprit " Wider " by Polyverse a free plug in. Odd thing is I had it on 3 tracks and only this one track with low harmony caused the issue. I removed it and re inserted it and it still glitched. Edit: further investigation was the glitch was right at a split point on a track that had been copy pasted as well as Melodyne had been used . Solution was to export the untidy track as a stem delete it and import the new track problem solved . My conclusion is my computer is old and Cakewalk has problems when asked to process too much data Editing crests a lot more data to process . That one point in time as example contained more than my system could process. I got caught by the demo mode voodoo a few weeks ago too.

Good call because Presonus does install a Generic ASIO driver when you install the DAW software that comes with the interface. But the statement about WASAPI being louder than ASIO cannot be accurate. That’s not how things work. Hopefully they will watch my Audio set up video which will rule out a dozen or more possibilities. Otherwise threads like this go on for pages of questions and answers.

I wonder if @jesuswill return to the Forum on April 9th?

Update dead link

True but what most people need is something to get started. The documentation is not really a user manual because it makes no effort to teach step by step. It is a reference guide and more or less has too much information for a new user. New users need to be instructed step by step. And how many of them are we aware of that never even get going because the don't have their audio working yet? My Movie maker software has a built in tutorial that gets you set up and explains the basic layout and features. It sure helped me a lot to get going, and it seemed like something that any software could have built in. Take the tour. You Tube rules for monetization program. After 3 years I'm only half way there. I most certainly never started this with making money in mind. And then once you make that goal, you might not even get very good offers from advertisers. Videos about recording hopefully will get offers from Music Gear and software companies as the whole idea is targeting markets. I pay for You Tube so I never see the ads. I think very successful creators can do pretty good, I'm not sure, It's most certainly a full time job to do a good job of producing quality content. I'll probably never see any money because the new rules are stacked against me now. I don't make those stupid shorts that are a big fad right now. Don't ever try and turn a hobby into something that makes money. It will take all the joy out of it.

Yep. Keyboard short cuts are your friend. The ability to customize is brilliant. One of the hugest time savers for me is to take keys I never use and re assign them to thing I do a lot. My newest is Z opens Melodyn for the clip in focus and X renders it when done. Those 2 moves used to involve digging through a few menus with the mouse. But problem is things like you are doing are not on the shortcut list. Not sure if you can create a Macro for that. But Midi can most certainly control anything that moves or turns on and off in a project. Problem is it's not global. Only per project unless it was part of a template originally.

I was lusting after a video card last winter because I now use video editing software and rendering in real time sucks. It’s like not having a good audio interface. Not sure if this changed but you couldn’t even buy a mid price card. They were sold out everywhere and part of problem was the shortage of chips. There were warnings to wait it out. Prices had doubled etc. I might try again but now my whole computer probably needs replacement because it’s at least 12 years old.

Yes printed books are no longer an item as they would also cost money. Even as an e book. You tubes seem to be what the public wants. There are now hundreds of free tutorials about Cakewalk by Bandlab. That actually makes using You Tubes as difficult as reading a 3,000 page owners manual. The documentation is kept updated and you can easily search topics. I use them a lot for my research to make my tutorials. in researching I also watch tutorials. There’s the professionally made ones produced by Cakewalk and they are still possibly worth watching but they are also very outdated now. But I like the fact that this series is accurate and actually teaches properly. No BS or self promotion. The rest are amateurs creating the content. These will run the scale from boring to entertaining as well as not helpful to very educational. There are many containing errors and wrong information. And lots of outdated stuff. My complaint when searching topics is many video presentations take way to long to show you the answer to your question. They are trying to entertain and not actually teach . I think these are the most popular because people like being entertained. There was a thread a few years ago with the OP complaining about this. They where looking for a Course about Cakewalk. Like going to school. Step by step instructions with out the BS and self promotion. This was the birth of my series. The first 12 videos on the playlist are designed to take you step by step to understand Cakewalk and all the options and features. As a music teacher of 30 years or more as well as having a professional teacher as a daughter who specialized in learning disabilities. I understand that not everyone can learn from a video. Next’s winters project is to take my narrative and with the aid of screen shots put together a text based tutorial to place on my website. Gigs are being booked already so time to get out of the house.

Two things you have not mentioned yet. Have you tried a Brickwall limiter, A Compressor needs to be used very lightly on a Master bus. But a Brickwall is designed for this. Also as above, did you look at your low end frequencies. Common mistake is adding way to much low end which will result in clipping a mix and nothing over 100Hz survives in the mix. I have made lots of videos on these topics. These 3 are most relevant to your issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24ZQIkY4fw&list=PL7YqVth30eGsdimFV6w1niyBN07M2uhRj&index=44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6RB3uSbCoE&list=PL7YqVth30eGsdimFV6w1niyBN07M2uhRj&index=48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc41XMPGQXk&list=PL7YqVth30eGsdimFV6w1niyBN07M2uhRj&index=15&t=74s

That's interesting. Add that to the second thing I learned this week. But it would seem that only a very , very small percentage of the people who use Cakewalk would be aware of that very, very hidden feature. I have a hunch the OP didn't even know that there was an input choice list. They got a reading on the meters and hit record.

I was just typing same answer but here's what it looks like on most Focusrite interfaces. The problem new people have is they wonder what happened to the even numbers? Its a long standing complaint. But if you uncheck the use friendly names box It will look like this So the Friendly version is actually not very friendly at all, it is confusing to some.

Yes and that’s great advice for the op @charles kasler Best way to get all the plug ins you want is to keep your eyes on the deals. I have a lot of $100+ plug ins I got for $10+. By paying attention. In the Instrument sub forum is a couple of threads that list freebies and deals. Also KVR has a newsletter. I always subscribe to emails with companies I want stuff from. I’ve ended up with Melodyne Editor for about 30% less from grabbing Essentials on sale a few years ago for $99, Then the next year they let me upgrade to Artist for another $99 and then this year it was yet another $99 to get Editor. that was a total of $300 and it's list price is $499. By the way I see all Melodyne versions are $100 off right now.

Yes the one on 50 free compressors took almost 2 months overall. But I ended up with too much info so made it into a 4 part series. Then this testing Midi had me doing more testing and trying to figure stuff out than I thought too. Best thing about the process is I really learn about about Cakewalk. Like I just discovered Aim Assist doing these. How come I didn't find that 1 year ago when I needed it! You never stop learning.

I used the BT 4 or 5 years but I was wondering why even though I'd set it for -1.0 db Wave lab would show it was -0.3 or even sometimes -0.1. It never went over but it most certainly never stayed close to the setting. So I'd set it at -2.0 db and then I got closer to -1.0. Then I started using the You Lean Loudness meter so I could work in real time and that's when I saw how bad the BT really was. I switched to the Loud Max Brickwall about 2 years ago and if I set it at -1.0 I mostly get -1.0 Odd time I will get -0.8. And believe it or not the Boost11 is very accurate too. I know a lot of Cakewalk users have dismissed Boost11 but it tested clean ( until pushed hard) and it does a very good job of limiting. IK makes good stuff but I like cheap or free! I'm really finding good things from Melda too.

It's simple to test the latency of a VST instrument. Use a Midi track and a Simple instrument track , Put some midi data in the Midi track and make sure it's quantized to the grid. Then freeze the synth. First you can zoom in and check using the M-B-T grid. Set timeline to Milliseconds and using Aim assist to read the difference in Milliseconds. Or use Samples which is a finer scale. The important thing to watch is where the actual transient is because that's what we hear. But we are talking music here and not robots. Real music was never this tight. 4ms is not really something you can put your finger on, but 50 ms is. It's been a common habit of long time midi users to nudge certain tracks back until they "sound right" slow attach of strings comes to mind. It would seems the case here as well. Use your ears.