kappn

There's no need to be rude. I'm just asking how to make this program work like it's supposed to. No need to comment on the issue if you don't have any suggestions for a solution. Though, if you'd like to send me money for one, go right ahead.

Recommended, not required. Though, if Cakewalk cannot function without external audio hardware, perhaps it should be listed as required, not recommended. I've used other DAWs in the past on this machine that worked just fine. Unfortunately, my license ran out for that software, which is why I'm trying Cakewalk instead. I wanted something free to use with more features catered to music production, rather than just using something like Audacity. I shouldn't have to buy external hardware just to record some song covers for fun, especially when other DAWs have worked on my machine in the past. Again, I appreciate all the advice surrounding the equipment, but I'm really just doing this for fun. Cakewalk should run on my machine as-is. I would appreciate it if anyone has some insight as to how I can troubleshoot the issue with the WASAPI driver I'm having.

I appreciate the recommendations! However, I'm really only doing this as a casual hobby, so I'm not looking to invest into an audio interface right now. I'll keep these in mind for the future though! WASAPI Shared still has the same playback issues as WASAPI Exclusive, except now it also doesn't let me use my headphones and it claims the device is in use. If I switch it to another source (my external speakers), I still just get a brief blip of noise and then the playback stops. Mind you, this issue doesn't occur when I start a new project, at least not for the first two tracks or so. Then, I add a third audio track, and nothing plays once again. At this point, Cakewalk is just completely unusable.

I'm using Cakewalk to record audio, no MIDI or anything. Originally, I was using the WASAPI driver, and it worked fine for a day. I close the project, come back the next day, and it won't play. Constant audio engine dropouts, and I'm not getting any sound besides a brief blip when I hit play. I do a bit of research and everyone says to switch to ASIO. I download ASIO4ALL, and it works fine for a day. I close the project, try to open it the next day, and it's stuck on the "Opening Project, Almost done..." screen infinitely. If I go into preferences first and change back to WASAPI, it opens the project, but of course, it won't play with WASAPI. So, I switch back to ASIO, bypass the compatibility warning, and Cakewalk freezes. Since ASIO4ALL isn't compatible with Cakewalk, my next step would be to try downloading another ASIO driver. However, I have no idea how to go about that. I'm pretty tech savvy, but I'm not familiar with audio drivers, and googling to find an ASIO driver for my machine has led me right back to ASIO4ALL so far. My motherboard is running the Realtek ALC892 codec. I'm currently trying to download the driver for that from Realtek's website, which for all I know may be a pointless thing to do. It's also taking forever to download for some reason, so I won't know for sure if it's not pointless for probably a few hours at least. Am I downloading the right thing? Should I be looking for something else? Is there something I can do to make WASAPI work instead to avoid all this mess? I'm running Windows 10 with an i5-6600K and 16GB RAM.