msmcleod

The motorboating sound (constant hum) is a common issue with Focusrite drivers. I get this intermittently too with my 2i2, 6i6 and 18i20 - all on different machines. I found that a higher ASIO buffer does reduce the frequency of this happening.

I use Sonarworks Headphone Edition for headphones, and IK ARC 2 for speakers (which is basically IK Multimedia's equivalent to Sonarworks Studio). Both have made a huge difference for me. I can't say whether ARC 2 is any better or worse than Sonarworks, but essentially they're doing the same thing. If I had to choose again, I'd probably just go for Sonarworks Studio so I was using the one solution for both headphones & speakers, but Sonarworks wasn't around at the time I bought ARC 2. Is it worth 300 bucks? Definitely.

Are you using a Focusrite interface? This is a known issue with the Focusrite drivers. Starting/stopping the engine cures it, but in most cases just pressing the space bar to stop/start the song again will cure it too. I've found it happens less with a larger ASIO buffer size. Unfortunately upgrading to Windows 10 will not make this one go away.

I noticed it last night - clicked on the Game Mode within Control Panel by accident and noticed it was on.

I experimented with a 9 hour MP4 and couldn't reproduce your slowness, but I guess it all comes down to the combination of video / audio codecs. The only thing that took time was the importing of the audio part on first import. There's a few things you could try: 1. Converting the video into a different format, and perhaps reducing the video part to something like 360p to further reduce CPU load. 2. Splitting the video up into sections. Once you've got a stereo mix, you could start a new project with the original format to combine everything.

I'd been wondering why projects that used to play comfortably were now starting to use up more CPU, and in some cases cause clicks & pops / dropouts. Turns out that one of the recent Windows updates had turned Game Mode on.... So yet another thing to look out for after running updates!

Everything shown in your Downloads folder is an installation file. As long as you've already installed it, then it's perfectly safe to remove it. I can't see anything in there that would need to be there after installation. In saying that, you might want to create backup copies on to a removable disk (e.g. external drive or thumb drive) to save you having to download them again if you need to re-install.

Assuming you're not still on 32 bit, you should check out the latest Cakewalk release. Fixes to take lanes & automation lanes are the main focus of this release. It'll quite happily live alongside your SONAR install.

Sounds like a Windows upgrade that has caused this. It affects XLN stuff every time there's a major one (e.g. 1809 to 1903) You're half way there by re-registering your PC online. Now you need to run the "XLN Online Installer" locally to re-activate your local licenses. Not sure about the other VST errors (screenshot is way too small to read), but sounds like its related to the Windows upgrade.

I think the Scaler plugin does this... https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/3-Studio-Tools/72-Utility/3933-Scaler It's got a trial version so you can give it a try.

Freezing tracks is definitely the answer, and yes, you can unfreeze them afterwards.

Ah ok. There's been issues in the past raised about HDMI audio devices causing issues with other audio interfaces. Follow @scook's advice and disable it within Device Manager.

Only just noticed this message is for your on-board audio device. @scook is correct - disable it within Device Manager.

I've not got the previous installer - all I have is a backup of my C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core It's highly unlikely the 2017.07 is the cause of any of the issues you've described. In my opinion, it's by far the most stable release to date.

This has happened to me more than once in the past. In every case, the cause has been a bad USB cable.

The previous installations really shouldn't be using that much space. My X2 installation takes up 109MB, X3 takes up 125Mb. In saying that, I've no duplicate installs of things like Dimension Pro etc. Everything lives in the common Cakewalk folders and is shared between all versions. This is a pretty new OS install, so everything was all installed using the default paths. If you do indeed have multiple installs of dimension pro, I'd check to see what the current one is and where it's files are. Fire up regedit and go to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\dp , you should see the "Contents Folder" and "Multisamples Folder" paths. Those are the paths that Dimension Pro is currently using, so any other path that isn't under those will be duplicates. Similar keys should exist for all the other Cakewalk products under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software Try renaming all your other duplicate paths, and check that DP etc still work. If everything is working ok, you should be able to delete those duplicate folders. As far as what X series things you can delete, this depends on the program. Some instruments/effects require that version to be installed whereas others don't care. Seeing as the core X series program is less than 150Mb, I'd suggest just keeping them.

After reading this, I checked mine and had to re-authorise. It did succeed though. [Edit] - Just checked my other boot partitions, and they were all fine and didn't need re-authorisation.

Maybe a sample rate mismatch between your project and the samples within SF2 files? I'm not sure how well some players cope with differing sample rates. Have you tried Plogue Sforzando ? https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando.html . Although it doesn't support sf2 natively, it will import them and convert sf2 to sfz.

Sometimes if your CPU is overloaded, recording will stop. If you're using ASIO, is your ASIO buffer too small? You could also try freezing some tracks to free up some CPU.

Scotland - just North of Glasgow.

@Matthew Sorrels - are you using one 4K monitor or two? I only ask because this is the second issue I've seen specifically with a two 4K monitor setup.

FYI, driver modes in order of preference (best first): ASIO, WASAPI (Exclusive), WASAPI (Shared), WDM, MME ASIO & WASAPI should give similar performance depending on your audio interface. In general external audio interfaces that have a dedicated ASIO driver will perform better with ASIO. On board sound devices (especially laptops) will perform better with WASAPI. Exclusive performs slightly better than shared, but in exclusive mode, only one program can use the device at a time. WDM might be your only choice for older devices if ASIO is not an option, or if you're not using Windows 10. MME performs the worst.

The answer is, it depends. If it's switching from ASIO to WDM, I just copy in windows explorer. If I'm switching from my Focusrite to my Yamaha mLAN setup, this involves more stuff so I've got a batch file to do it (with a shortcut to it on the desktop). This also involves a reboot, so quitting Cakewalk is the least of my concerns. Cakewalk reads AUD.INI at startup, so yes, you do have to quit Cakewalk each time. To be honest though, for what you're doing you shouldn't need to quit Cakewalk. Changing to WDM should be fine within Cakewalk. Swapping driver modes constantly back and forth between WDM & ASIO can mess up AUD.INI though, so once you're finished with WDM, quit Cakewalk and copy your "clean" ASIO AUD.INI back.

A few things to try: See if you can reproduce in a fresh project - try to use the same drum kit or program you used before. If you can't reproduce, then maybe your original project has somehow become corrupt, otherwise it points to an issue with SI Drums. If it's an SI Drums issue, try uninstalling the SI Instrument Suite, and re-installing from the BandLab assistant. If its a corrupt project issue, there's a number of ways you could proceed (each with pro's and con's), but probably the easiest is: CTRL + A to select all tracks, then right click on one of the tracks (not the one that is crashing!) and save it as a track template Make sure you've got "Allow only one project open at a time" unchecked within Preferences->Advanced, and create a new project so you've now got both your old project and the new project open. Insert the track template you created the new project. Select all the tracks in your old project, then go to Insert->Copy Special and all the options you want copied across. Then on the new project, click on the first track created when inserting the track template, and paste. If this doesn't work, the best advice I can give is to contact support@cakewalk.com.

I've noticed this too - I think this behaviour only happens in Comp mode. I guess the idea is to make sure that the clips in all lanes are lined up, so that you're dealing with equally sized clips when comping. This doesn't happen with say Sound on Sound with mute previous takes (not a suggestion... just a comparison ?)