Misha

mettelus, Thanks! Good wealth of information. (digesting :)) Actually turning off ACPI from control panel + disabling network discovery as you suggested, got me where I need to be. Part of Lenovo update was "power management firmware", I can not unroll it. I guess that what is happening... It manages processes differently than it was prior to update and somehow encroaches on my Cakewalk. Wondering if it is possible to move ACPI process to another core? Will do some reading later today. This forum is a treasure. I want to thank everybody who helped! Big thanks to mettelus! P.S. Now, that problem of what was chewing my Cakewalk is narrowed, I will post back when/if I find a solid solution without disabling ACPI.

HIBI, Thanks. Double checked. Not the BIOS. All power "savings" turned off. ---------------------------------- mettelus, Excellent suggestion! Thank you! Got much better. My issue is definitely resource related, but not very obvious. Processor is i7-8850H which is fairly decent for my tasks and it was pulling everything very well (30+ tracks whole bunch of VST FX/synths) without any issues/hiccups for several month. This recent "update" was not very polite... Turning off discovery, reduced latency significantly. Last thing on the list was (is) ACPI.... And that is telling me that it is power management related item. As soon as I switched that off in CP, Cakewalk started to behave like a good child. This is not a permanent solution as by turning ACPI off turns off battery charging, but at least now I know where the evil is coming from. I found one other item that now, I feel worth investigating. If I turn FX off in Cakewalk, everything runs smoothly... We had a discussion here a couple of month back about plugin "load balancing". To my understanding, this feature in Cakewalk was designed to spread the load of VST's onto multiple cores. Looking at CPU cores in Latencymon, while playing back VST heavy project, I saw that only first core (out of six) is taking most of the load... In Cakewalk monitoring window (upper right) it shows that all cores are active pretty much equally... Not sure how to explain this. In task manager CPU usage shows around 35-40% under full load., maybe Cakewalk has these dropouts because it is using less cores and putting more stress on these than it could...? Thank you.

Thank you to all who tried to help! Still, damn thing doesn't want to cooperate. Couple of more hours tackling the issue. Tried: Parking CPU (through regedit) Reinstalling Chipset drivers Creating new "High Performance" power profile Rolling back Realtek driver to previous version / reinstalling new Rolling back USB audio driver / reinstalling freshly downloaded Checking USB ports in device mgr for power saving... Even tried go back to one of restore points before the issue started about 6 days back... but got BSOD, so had to come back to latest build. I even thought that it might be Spectre and Meltdown patch related, as Microsof noted to expect decrease in performance... My machine falls into a 1 digit performance decrease (after the patch), so I doubt it is that. Do not know what else to try...

Spoke too soon., it is not wireless adapter. LatencyMon shows this wonderful thing: Wdf01000.sys that has issues. /creating latency. Not sure if IT is the actual problem, but the dropouts/audio engine has been stopped unexpectedly thing is not "occasional" ., Cakewalk starts acting up from first few seconds. Anybody? Thank you.

ok, getting some clues. I was looking at CPU monitor when dropouts occurred, and did not spot anything suspicious, but then I saw a spike on network window. I turned network "off" seems like it is helping. Caught that right before I left home, so need to do more testing. I know it considered to be "good manners" to turn off network when working with audio...but I am not very well mannered guy, as this was never an issue that effected me. Can somebody point me to the right direction to fix Network+Cakewalk issue? Is it to: give priority to programs and not to background services setting or something else? Thank you.

msmcleod, Thank you for trying! followed that.... did not help. I even reinstalled Cakewalk too, when suggestions failed. I do not believe it is directly related to specific card (internal or external), because both were working before without any issues and now both of them exhibit same pattern of behavior. Almost as computer does not have enough resources...But I know it has plenty because same projects were working absolutely fine last week. Man, I wish that little Cakewalk "Audio Dropout" pop up would have a specific cause of the issue. Not sure what else to try...

Hi Folks. Before I posted this, I tried tackling with the issue for good 2+ hours. Nothing seems to help, so here it goes. Never had such issues before on previous system or current. Current system: i7 (8th)Thinkpad 2.6ghz 6 core. 32Ram, nmve SSD. Since new system, I had been working with about 25 projects. Never gave me issue with audio dropouts. I stepped out for a few days from music making. Lenovo pushed some critical updates (Bios, Intel management and SSD firmware update) +Windows pushed their updates...Now I get: The audio engine has been stopped unexpectedly.... with same project settings in Cakewalk as before, when I did not have dropout issues. Before this thing happened on me, I was able to work either with native, Realtek chip with Asio4All set at 256 to 512 latency or standalone Asio card with similar settings. What I tried: Checked power plan. Everything is on High Perfomance. Tried native Realtek chip Wasapi Exclusive/Asio4All, pushing buffer to whooping 2048 Samples, just for the testing purposes. Same with standalone ASIO card, keeps droping that audio even with high buffer settings. Restarting computer, looking at BIOS (Power management is OFF, all set to High Performance) Task Manager shows the usage of resources at about 30% when playing project. Not spiking. -------------------------------------------------------------- Audio is crackling.... Getting that Audio Engine stop thing. I believe it is "update" related. But not sure what is causing this and how to fix it... The key here is: It was working fine now it does not. So not looking to "optimize" system, but to find the cause of the problem. Last resort scenario also looks bleak, since some hardware firmware was updated, I do not believe that re-imaging would help. Can anybody please try to help? Thank you!

Hi Folks / Bakers! Was thinking about this for a while. Maybe it is there, just bypassed me for some reason... When I finalize project for mixing, I usually try between 3 to 15 mixes, before I get it right. If it is something simple like volume levels of a couple of tracks, I just memorize that, but when it gets more complex, I try to do a "SAVE AS" project, so I have a copy of a previous, in case wind will take me to distant lands. I think it would be very cool to have snapshots of "mix saves" inside one project. So no file open/close thing. So it all happens on the background and user would only click, on lets assume choice of 10 "snapshots" to bring up any of the previously saved mix snapshots....

Ok, Figured it out! It is Sonic that is acting up. For those who might encounter same issue. You have to right click on individual Sonic mixer slider and click tiny menu "forget CC" on specific channel, then it would not reset on start/stop.

Scook, thanks for trying! Unfortunately disabling "Zero Controllers" in project did not help. Still some (not all) volumes snap to center after Stop-->Play... Any other suggestion please?

Hi Folks. Can somebody help me please. I have several Midi tracks in Cakewalk that I use with Halion Sonic. Sonic has 3 modes for program changes: Gm, Multi and OFF. Mine is set to OFF. I set my Halion Sonic mixer to desired values.... As soon as I stop and play from beginning, volume parameters are resetting in Halion Sonic... I have tried moving volumes to desired position and save VST preset and re-open, but have same issue. Is it possible to disable those program changes in Cakewalk tracks... or what would be the right way to deal with this? Thank you in advance!

oki doki

abacab, I do not believe I take your comments out of the context. My perspective is just a bit different from yours. I simply do not want an amazing DAW to become next fruity loop, just because it is hip at the moment. Again, I am all in for a sampler, especially the one which can accommodate people making all kinds of music, not based on only particular features for "certain" styles that is considered by some to be a market driver For me a good sampler should have GM2 / program change function. Rompler, freedom of importing my own samples or SF2 / SFZ libraries/ WAV etc., 16 channel internal mixer and a few other things. Actually, I think it would be very cool if Cakewalk would one day roll out a Sampler+Synth in one package that would replace TTS1 that is still used by many and which is due for update as it is 15+ years old. P.S. I am not going to throw names and dates here, I do not believe it will help the topic, I am somewhat familiar with electronic music . I just hope we are still talking about the sampler here....

abacab, I believe we seeing things differently. I think the beauty and a muscle of Cakewalk that things are modular. You can use what you need, resize what you need, display what you need. Sure new features! Yes for sampler! (Hopefully with GM2 on-board) But what you said here, I can not agree with: "Guitars and other real instruments are still cool, but electronic music seems to be the dominant market force now for computer based music." I strongly hope that Cakewalk would not become "tuned" for specific targeted group of beat "makers" or for any other "group" of music makers. It should be flexible and modular, to accommodate wide spectrum of artists of ALL genres.

Puddy, you might just overlooked... In case you did: "Again, I am all in for sampler +rompler+ tone generator and preferably that would have a full GM2 and other synths maps, that would eat SFz / SF2 / WAV, etc. formats. TTS1 is loooong due for overhaul..." I hope that explains my position. abacab, Thanks, interesting videos. Cool stuff. Sure, seems more robust than some 3rd party VSTs, but at the same time they would lack many things that 3rd party would offer. Every software title has some unique features. I am sure if Cakewalk would give a birth to sampler, it will have some unique features too.

CosmicDolphin, can you please explain what you mean by: "need something fast and deeply integrated" ... How is Kontakt or Halion VST's are less integrated or "not fast". Sorry if I sound silly, I am a learner and always hungry for new info. Puddy... I think you changed the subject a bit from requesting for sampler to a much wider request. Here is my take. If you walk into a bakery and request a cheeseburger... even if they make one on "special request" I do not think it will be a magical moment for the taste buds. And of course wise versa, if you walk into a burger joint and request a cannoli, I do not believe that would be worth spending money on. I tried whole bunch of DAWs. I always came back to Cakewalk. I love it dearly for the workflow, tracking, touch navigation, excellent forum etc. I guess it is closely related to the type of music I tinker with ... But at the same time I do not believe a DAW (any DAW) should be a Jack of all trades. I think Meng and Bakers took the right path by fixing things that were long due and polishing it, instead of rolling out completely new features without addressing stability issues. Again, I am all in for sampler +rompler+ tone generator and preferably that would have a full GM2 and other synths maps, that would eat SFz / SF2 / WAV, etc. formats. TTS1 is loooong due for overhaul... but for now, I wish to Meng and crew all the best, and to continue their great work in supporting the best free DAW that exists in the world today, giving a chance to people of all social strata to create music professionally.

A basic sampler might be good idea, +1, but I think 3d party stuff will always be better, just because developers of that soft been working on things for some time now. What about Halion or Kontakt? They do have samplers that can do pretty complex stuff.

Nice! Worked like magic! Synkrotron, Thank you for your efforts and graphics! I see what you are saying about buses, and it does make sense, but for my projects gain automation is exactly what I need. Noel, Thank you for confirming! Best regards, Misha.

Hi Folks. Please see attached image. I would like to know if it is possible to "tail" the effect (lets assume reverb or delay) of the piece in the red box? As you can see volume automation is set to mute the take lane after the phrase in red box.., so when effect is present in the bin, it will die as soon as it hits the volume node. So what should I do, if I want for effect to continue for "some time" after the phrase in outlined in red box? I must admit, I forgot how to do these kind of things. I used to know with older Cakewalk (20 years back), but I think the process has changed. P.S. I do not want to "render" FX to audio. Thank you in advance, Misha.

Craig, Thanks! I read and re-read what you said... I know that you are very familiar with Cakewalk, and I was surprised why the drag thing did not retain mutes and automation for me. Then.... I figured it out. It was closer than my nose. I was trying to create "new" audio track in destination project and paste things there, mutes were not retained from source...but when I dragged selected track from source to empty space of destination project it dragged over everything. Thank you!

Craig, ok... Thanks for post. Ok, so folder copy is out of the question (hopefully will happen one day) This is where I get stuck. Lets do it with round numbers for the sake of example. I have 5 tracks about 50 take lanes in each = 250 take lanes. About 200 are muted / 50 un-muted. When I drag, or copy and paste to new project, mutes on take lanes are not preserved I have all 250 takes play simultaneously.... ? I want those muted items there, since I might choose something over something at later time.

msmcleod, yep, that is the goal Here another scenario. One person does music/mixing another vocals. When I work on the song, I might have 200+ vocal takes of various elements etc. Intuitively, I would just share the folder to the person who does the rest, so they can "pick" what works better. And many, many other uses for the sharing track folder between projects. Before jumping to "request" section, I want to hear from veteran(s), maybe it is possible with some obscure workaround? Thanks.

And how exactly it will help? I will have a project with a single track folder with tracks and track "take lanes" in that folder, most of which are muted.... But how do I import that folder to another project?

Insert track template does not work, as it does not retain take lanes (places) and mutes. It imports a single take lane into new project. Freezing will not be good choice too, because it copies only "unmuted" lanes. Strange, I thought there would be a way...

Man, I saw that "template" thing today, but I thought, it has something to do with template without content. Bill, if it works, huge thank you! I am in the middle of the project, but will try it in the morning.