Rico Belled

I bought a fairly cheap Asus gaming machine with a 45W Ryzen and a GTX 1050, was easy to add a second SSD and 16GB of ram, the whole thing cost me $700 or so. The thing FLIES and is even reasonably quiet. R

This here is not really good information. You can't compare i7s and i5s across the board like that. Realize that a 65W i3 is faster than a 15W i7, realize that a modern i3 is faster than an i7 from 7 years ago at the same TDP. First off, THE most important part of getting low latency is picking the right interface. The fastest i9 with a USB Focusrite is gonna have worse latency than an i3 Surface Pro with a ZOOM UAC2. Really the only affordable interfaces with truly low latency are MOTUs and the ZOOM UAC series. Secondly, the type of device you get determines the power envelope a processor gets. Ultra Portables have 15W or even lower, gaming laptops are much better for less money. A modern i3 or i5 full size laptop is faster than an ultra portable i7. That said, after disabling ACPI Battery Control Method in Device Manager, my i5 Surface Pro 3 runs amazingly at low latency, even more so while using the built-in sound, but also with my UAC2. I've done many gigs with it running Ableton Live, hosting Addictive Drums 2, Lounge Lizard, Trillian, Kontakt, Dimension, Rapture all running in real time ALL NIGHT at 64 samples buffer size. Just about any computer you're gonna buy today is gonna be substantially faster than that machine. R

Great! It's helped me tremendously! R

So any news on how the system is performing? Did you figure out which of the two fixes did it? R

Have you disabled the ACPI Battery Control Method in Device Manager? On my XPS 18 it makes a huge the difference, and on my Surface Pro 3 it means I'm able to run Soft Synths on it at 64 samples buffer size all night long without a single pop or click. R

I think it's the best, free OR paid. In this here pandemic I decided to expand my horizons, bought a Mac Mini to learn Logic; it does some things great, and the included sound library is on point, but I still prefer Cakewalk overall. Protools is awful, Ableton Live does some things uniquely but has perhaps the worst UI of all. R

What does that even mean? LOL Bottom line is, once you work with full software input monitoring through Cakewalk it's impossible to go back. R

I have! A couple of times now, I'd send three Tom tracks to an Aux, which worked great for a session or two. Then I'd open it up later and no toms. No matter what I tried, of course with all the settings and ins/outs correct they just would not sound. Sends toms directly to mains: sound, make a NEW Aux track and send the toms there: sound. R

Dude, I know you're Polish but you know this application is 100% free, don't you? Just google and download the "Bandlab Assistant" and it will download and install Cakewalk! R

Now I have to take the other side: it's not "extremely unlikely" if, as stated the OP does, one uses large sample libraries. It's almost CERTAIN that more than 8GB will make a big difference. R

But it has "Grammy Winning Presets"! LOL

Well, then you DO fit the profile where a LARGE improvement could be noticed! Please let us know what you find out! R

If I had $1 for every person I know (mostly Mac users of course!) that bought more RAM to "speed up" his computer, only to find out it made ZERO difference, I'd have like 2 or 3 hundred bucks! If I had $1 for everyone that recommended to someone else to buy more RAM to speed up his or her computer I'd have enough to buy a 2010 Prius. I've done seriously big projects for years, with over 100 tracks, Addictive Drums, GPO, Kontakt etc. etc. I don't use a TON of big sample libraries, and as explained, if you DO a lot you're in a different situation, but I've NEVER seen a project on my system use more than 4 GB. I upgraded from 8GB to 16GB of RAM at some point and saw ZERO difference in DAW use. Some games on the other hand did use it so it wasn't a waste of time. Bottom line is this: buying more RAM without first seeing how much you're ACTUALLY using is kind of silly. And the important metric here is the amount CAKEWALK specifically is using in Task Manager, NOT the total RAM used by the system which is not exactly relevant. If you're doing Vienna Symphonic library type stuff, or to RAM video rendering previews, you could use 64GB, but for almost everyone else 8GB is more than likely enough. R

So conform to the robot, that's the best way of making music? I couldn't disagree more. Exactly metronomic music, made by human musicians, is why so much stuff is so lifeless and boring these days. R

Cakewalk doesn't need to do ANYTHING; the way it is is perfect, because not everybody quantizes all the life out of his or her music. There is already a way of doing what you're expecting and that is "move by" as described by Blogospherianman. What you call a "fix" for me would be a disaster! R

Except he said to use NO computer based effects and that's just BS. Of course you can overload that CPU, you can overload ANY CPU. Again, I used a 1st gen i3 for my second record, and ran all session for basic tracks with full input monitoring for four headphone mixes, EQs, Compressors, 2 or 3 Reverbs, live full drums (9 mics), percussion (3 mics), keys, guitar and bass at 64 sample buffer size for DAYS without a single dropout. Point in case, a modern i5 can do TONS of effects at ultra low latency, not a "few" and certainly not "none". I'll give you another example: I have a Dell XPS 18 with a i5-4300U, I've done hours and hours of gigs with this rig, running Ableton Live at 64 sample buffer size, streaming 20 tracks of audio, while running Trillian, Lounge Lizard, Native Instruments B4, Addictive Drums 2 without problem. R

You literally said: "Just don't use any computer-based effects while recording" and I'm sorry Bitflipper but that's BS. ANY modern i5, even ultra low power dual cores, will allow you to do a LOT of effects at 64 samples with full input monitoring, as in MULTIPLE Guitar Rig or Amplitube instances and all the Prochannel EQs, CA2As, Console Emulators you want. Of course you could find plugins that might overload it, but the generic YMMV, which is quite a step back from your original statement is still kind of unfair. R

DUDE! You should get a Mac if that's your attitude, because dumbing down a DAW because SOME people might not get it is ridiculous. It's a serious piece of software and that's why I love it. If it's going to be built for people who will only RTM when they're "forced" it's gonna suffer.... R

The CODEC is not the problem with just about any sound device. At this point a $1 IC can do near perfect DA conversion. The thing where onboard sound falls short is the ANALOG part, the actual output stage, and even more so when used with headphones plugged in directly. That said, if you're not recording audio, and even more so, if you're only arranging, creating and not doing a final mix, as long as you can get low enough latency for YOUR use, onboard audio is fine. As a matter of fact, lately I've been using the 1/8" out on my Surface Pro going to the 1/8" in on my Yamaha P255 for running live soft-synths and Ableton on gigs and it sounds EXCELLENT. Also, the latency, using ASIO4ALL, is incredibly low and super stable. I did have to disable the "ACPI Battery Control Method" to get it this good, but that was the case with my Zoom UAC2 as well, and that's the only interface I've tried that gets latency as low as my Motu 424s. R

BS, back in 2010 I ran sessions for my XR7 record on a FIRST GEN i3; it did FULL plugs on all instruments, drum set, bass, percussion and gtr, 16 to 18 inputs, with 4 individual headphone mixes, compressors, eqs, couple of reverbs, and here comes the good part: at 64 sample buffer size ALL DAY LONG. I did multiple sessions, full SOFTWARE input monitoring, without a hiccup. A modern i5 will do even better, with a good low latency sound device of course. R

Even a modern i3 will provide more than enough horsepower; more important is the audio interface, and no, more expensive is NOT better. R

A LOW power one. GT1030, passive perhaps? As a matter of fact, my experience is built on maybe 20 or 30 systems, but it seems these days that integrated Intel graphics might actually work better for low latency operation. Just know that getting a GTX2080 will not give you any advantage over a GTX1650 . If you want to hook up a 4K display, just make SURE you get a card that does 4k at 60 Hz will full color space. GTX 1050 will work great too. R

Don't forget the Sonitus Reverb! R

Wow, what answers you guys.... Anyways, what I think the OP means is what Ableton Live calls "exlusive" arm (and solo BTW) which means that if you arm a new track, any other track that is armed will get 'dis-armed'. This way it takes one command to be ready to record the next thing.. R

That's MORE than fast enough! R