bitflipper

I'm enjoying the Purple Audio MC77 on vocals, but it's only marginally more capable than the Prochannel 1176. I've also used the Noveltech Vocal Enhancer occasionally, when I want something a bit more aggressive than Saturn. It's a dangerous effect, though. Oven mitts are recommended.

Seriously, Ed? How many vintage/classic/modern/magical EQs can one person handle before their head explodes from excessive mojo infusion?

Yeh, wi-fi can kill audio performance. Network interrupts take priority over audio interrupts, and that sneaky little bugger is constantly chatting with the world, probing for any of his networky cohorts to start a chat. Best to kill that chatty CPU thief when you have better things to do than search for printers. Every version of Windows enables services on initial installation, including some processes that you don't need when your laptop has just one purpose. When you reinstalled Windows, it likely turned on a bunch of things that are either new services or services you'd previously disabled under Win10. LatencyMon is a good start, but it'll only tell you about a specific type of problem (DPC overhead) and may not tip you off to other background processes that are hogging the CPU, memory or I/O bus. You'll still have to painstakingly run down the list of running processes, identify which ones are eating resources and figure out if they're necessary (e.g. antivirus realtime protection). Check out the link that Larioso posted above. It's specifically about using laptops on stage.

And that's not guaranteed. Not because of Win10/11, as they'll be able to read a floppy no problem. However, diskettes can become corrupted over time, and unless the original drive and the drive you're reading from were/are aligned correctly (or equally mis-aligned) the diskettes may not be readable on the new drive. Unless you have other drives available, you'll be outa luck.

First principle of software troubleshooting: figure out what changed. Assuming it's the same laptop with the same applications installed on it, can we assume that the Win11 install is the only thing that's changed? If so, then my first guess would be that the Windows update re-enabled some background processes that weren't running under Win10. For example, were you disabling Wi-Fi previously when using this laptop on stage (recommended)? Maybe Win11 turned it back on. Running LatencyMon could provide a clue.

It's been ages since I've done this, but I used to have desktop shortcuts for switching audio devices with a single click. Embarrassing admission: when I was first getting started with digital audio, c. 2004, I incorrectly believed that video games would not be able to use my outboard audio interface and that I'd need to switch back to the motherboard's integrated audio for non-musical applications (a presumption carried over from DOS days). Of course, that's not true and I've long since disabled the onboard audio. But for a few months I'd switch interfaces for different applications. That was under Windows XP, but I think this method will still work under Win10/11. Back then, I used a free tool called NirCmd. It's a command-line utility that lets you do all kinds of cool stuff, among them setting the default audio device. Put it in a batch file and create a desktop shortcut. For example, on my system this command would select my Focusrite interface as the default device: nircmd setdefaultsounddevice "Speakers (Saffire Audio)" 1 while this command sets my audio to the HDMI audio built in to my display monitor: nircmd setdefaultsounddevice "LG Ultrawide (2- NVIDIA High Definiton Audio)" 1 Note that the device name has to spelled out like that and match the Windows description. If you don't type it in exactly, it won't hurt anything but it just won't work.

Short tutorial: don't do it! Best way to humanize a MIDI performance is to actually perform it by hand. Even if you don't have keyboard skills you can still subsequently fix the timing on obvious mistakes where necessary. But avoid any tool labeled "Humanize", as it is a scam. Yes, it's true that live players' timing isn't perfect, but neither is it random.

It's free but you still have to have an iLok account and install the Pace driver. Wouldn't want an miscreants stealing it and depriving honest data aggregators of expanding their mailing lists.

This is a crucial first step when troubleshooting audio. Cakewalk does not discover drivers itself, but gets that information from Windows. If Windows can't see it, Cakewalk can't see it. This may not be relevant in your case, but Windows does have an annoying habit of switching to sources you didn't specify. Last week I plugged in a vocal effect processor that had a USB interface for installing firmware updates and editing settings via a computer-based editor. All audio was then disabled in my system when Windows decided that device was my new audio device.

Can you post the relevant sections of the scan log? The scanner does not delete registry keys outside of the HKCU\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software tree, and wouldn't affect Windows or other applications.

Bapu beat me to it. At least the inventor of ASMR was intelligible without amplification...

Yes, you initially focus on peaks for individual tracks, making sure they all have at least 6dB of headroom (preferably 12dB or more). Cakewalk will do that for you without any additional metering.

I use iZotope's Insight, but that's overkill and $$. The Youlean loudness meter is probably your best choice, primarily because it's free. For $39 you can get the "Pro" version, which adds a few nifty features, but the free version is all you really need. Another freebie that everyone should have is Voxengo SPAN. Although a spectrum analyzer, it does have decent metering and can be set for K-system metering. The K-system was a precursor to LUFS, and I used it for many years until EBU R-128 came along. The K-14 standard is nearly equivalent to the LUFS-14 standard.

Back then, software did exist for transferring files over parallel ports via FTP. I remember using it, but that's all. Given that you can still find Pong and Pac Man online, there's a chance some antique software enthusiasts have preserved it. Of course, that assumes you have a computer with a parallel port on it. Cool that you still have your old modules. I have none of mine. Fortunately I used descriptive track names, else I'd have had a hard time of it.

Good news! Jon Lord didn't use a Leslie. Life just got simpler!

Oops, sorry. He's still got the Reset button, though, which might fix the problem.

Open Preferences and go to File -> VST Settings. 1. Under the Scan Options section, click Reset 2. Check the Generate Scan Log option 3. Re-scan If the instruments still aren't there, open the scan log with Notepad and search on their file names (e.g. keyscape.dll) and see if they are even mentioned. If not, then the appropriate folders are not included in your scan path. If they are mentioned, see if their initializations failed or succeeded.

I refuse to resort to medication...oh, you mean the diskette drive. Yeh, I had to dig through some boxes to find one.

OK, here we go again...

I'm not sure what this is. It's weird, funny and cheesy. Frank would have loved it.

I found a floppy from around 1988 that contained projects from Cakewalk 1.0. Loaded right up into the current version of Sonar.

Yes. For awhile I was using an inexpensive Axiom 49 controller for just this purpose. It has 9 assignable sliders, but as you say it never had the tactile feel of Hammond drawbars. Today I have a Nord Stage 3, not the piano version but the one with synth-style keys, very Hammond-ish in feel. And not the one with the digital drawbars - my particular model has real indented drawbars that I use to control my Korg Kronos (which has a superior Leslie emulation over the NS3). So in the band I often play organ parts on the Nord but produce the actual sounds in the Korg. Making that NS3 the most expensive MIDI controller in the world, I think. btw, when I record Hammond parts they're all played on the NS3, but only its MIDI output is recorded. Afterward, I insert B3-X into the project and route that MIDI track to it. That way, I never have to worry about latency while recording, never have to adjust audio buffers, and get that "real" feel during the performance. But then subsequently enjoy all the benefits of a virtual instrument.

It may not be related to Cakewalk at all. If you google the entire error message, you get lots of results that all pertain to MS Office (Excel, Word, Access, etc.) Office does have some background processes that run periodically (and aren't needed) and one of them could be raising the error at unexpected moments, resulting in confusion as to which application is causing it.

Unfortunately, the B3-X's Leslie is integrated into the instrument and not available as a separate plugin. However, it's the same Leslie that comes with Amplitube, so if you have that product it's do-able. There is a distortion effect included in the B3-X, but it's a Tube Screamer and a bit over the top. Also, you can't route it in series with the Leslie, only in parallel. My favorite Leslie for dirt is Meldaproductions' VintageRotary. I wouldn't consider it an all-around Leslie sim, but it's pretty good for gritty tones. GG-Audio sells their Leslie emu, called Spin, separately for fifty bucks. It's pretty OK but also doesn't quite nail the overdrive effect. I've had good results placing FabFilter Saturn in front of it. For pretty tones, I like to stick Valhalla Ubermod in line with a Leslie. Also, I've never been a big fan of the Hammond spring reverb, so prefer to run the Leslie into Valhalla Plate (or vice versa - reverb in front of the rotor is a quite different effect). So much fun to be had with an instrument invented in the 1930's by a clock maker looking for a cheap alternative to pipe organs for churches. And who hated the Leslie speaker and forbade Hammond dealers from carrying it. For hardcore Hammond enthusiasts I recommend a book titled The Hammond Organ, Beauty in the B by Mark Vail, published by Keyboard Magazine.

You don't even need to own a Suzuki Hammond. There are numerous dedicated drawbar controllers (and foot pedals, too). This one's $200, from Crumar, the people who make my hardware faux Hammond (Crumar Mojo). And yes, you can also control your Hammond/Roland/Crumar/Nord registrations from the same MIDI track that drives your IKM B3-X. I like this one. It's got all the controls. They actually sell a model called "FC-3 VST Organ Controller, B3-X Edition". It's double the price of the one shown above, though.