Chris Ward

Hi All, After much investigation and various tests AND YOUR HELP & GUIDANCE, I have concluded that the cause of my problem has definitely been Soundtoys Superplate and Little Radiator. I feel it is worth making my Last Post in this thread by listing all the things that I've learnt along the way. 1. Cakewalk is a sound platform able to record, mix and master to a professional standard (subject to your skills). 2. Get to know your rig's abilities quickly - create 'test' projects and start loading them up with VSTs, tracks and plugins and see at what point it 'falls over'. Don't expect the impossible. 3. Think hard about what latest changes you have made to your hardware or software. 4. Be MOST suspicious of newly added plugins. 5. Never buy a plugin without testing it by way of a free trial, no matter how good a reputation the company has. 6. Be methodical in your investigation and take plenty of notes along the way. You don't want to go around in circles. 7. Turn to the CbB Forums for experienced advice and always be polite. 8. Never dismiss any advice. Investigate all. 9. Show evidence of cause of problem to help others. 10. Thank all responders for giving their time and knowledge - you may need them again !!! Page 1 of this thread : @Craig Anderton and @Resonant Serpent Beware of errant graphics card drivers. See extract fromThe Huge Book Of Sonar Tips and Tricks. @Starship Krupa Install LatencyMon (free). Tweak BIOS settings (if you know what you're doing !!) and Power Plans. Refer to Pete Brown's guide to tuning Windows for DAW use. @John Vere "It's always a plugin". Install Samsung Magician if you have Samsung SSDs to see condition of your Drive. @Mr No Name Try out Waves StudioRack (free) to reduce plugin load on your CPU. @Craig Anderton Open CbB in 'Safe' mode without plugins and see if the app runs without L/Buffers. If so, start adding them one by one to find the culprit. @msmcleod Great various tips (see his post). @Craig Anderton Refer to previous post on this forum regarding Soundtoys Superplate. @DeeringAmps Stretch to 3x SSDs if you can - 'C' Drive for OS and Cakewalk plus plugins; 'D' Drive for project files; 'E' Drive for samples. THERE HAVE BEEN MANY MORE RESPONDERS, BUT IF I LIST THEM ALL, YOU WOULD FALL ASLEEP !!! SINCERE THANKS TO ALL. Evidence & Testing : @limpet and any other interested party. Intel i7 (12x core) @3.7GHz 32Gb RAM Win 10 Pro Steinberg UR44 Interface NVidea GeForce RTX 2070 Problem project consists of 4x VSTs; 5x Audio tracks; 11x plugins total (including Superplate and Little Radiator). With 'Play' button stopped and at 96 Samples / Aud. Process 11% / Eng. Load 50% = Late Buffers soaring 20-25 every second. (Expected at such a low Sample Rate). At 2048 Samples (max) / Aud. Process 7% / E.Load 30-45% = 2x L/Buffers. Sometimes they would keep climbing at a rate of 1 per 30secs even after the engine had stopped. With VSTs frozen and all plugins disabled @2048 Samples / Aud. Process 0.19% / E. Load 1.3% = No L/Buffers. Engage Nectar 4, Silk Vocal & Superplate on Lead Vox only Aud. Proc. 2.7% / E. Load 26% = 2x L/Buffers. Opened a 2022 project with 3x VSTs 'live', 12x Audio tracks and 69x plugins total (NO Soundtoys) @ 2048 Samples Aud. Proc. 56% / Eng. Load 50.8% = No L/Buffers. Able to get down to 348 Samples with No L/Buffers. Back to my current project with all plugins deleted and VSTs 'live' At (min) 32 Samples in 'Stable' mode (11msec roundtrip) = No L/Buffers As above in 'Standard' mode (6msec roundtrip) = No L/Buffers As above in 'Low Latency' mode (5msec roundtrip) = No L/Buffers As above with Waves MV2 added on 4x Vox tracks = No L/Buffers You will have noted from my earlier posts that I went to the extent of creating 'test' projects and copy/pasting each individual track into them. Whenever I added either of the 2x Soundtoys plugins, the L/Buffers started striking - even if they were the ONLY plugin onboard. I tried deleting the plugins from my problem project and loaded it with 60x plugins from my old 2022 project and had no L/Buffers. This proved my latest project was not corrupted and could handle many more plugins AS LONG AS THEY WEREN'T SUPERPLATE OR LITTLE RADIATOR. I did far too many tests to list here and the one common denominator that caused Late Buffers (even if they were the only plugin onboard), were the Soundtoys mentioned. My Effects Rack from the same company works fine. The above data serves both as evidence of the culprits but also as a reference as to what CbB can support at various Sample Rates. If you are on a lesser rig, the suggestion would be to record your VSTs individually in a temporary project to a metronome, refine it if necessary in Piano Roll view and commit to it by bouncing down before bringing it in to your 'master' project file. You can always save your temporary VST folder by another name in case you want to come back to it to refine further. Do this for each VST only if necessary. Send multiple audio tracks to a Bus if they use the same plugins and settings or use Waves Studio Rack. If you have a similar rig as mine, then you can see from the above data how far it can take you. I believe I could have loaded more tracks and plugins from my findings. But in the words of @Byron Dickens Keep It Simple S...... ? I shall wait until the latest version of Superplate is released and get it on free trial to test it out thoroughly before making a decision to buy. I shall also wait to see what you all say about the imminent new Cakewalk Sonar. I started this post having no friends (maybe ?), but at the end of it I feel I can count all you responders as my friend. Thanks a whole lot, each and every one of you. I also hope this helps new Cakewalkers with similar problems. Take care all and Happy Music Making. ?️

ME : "You haven't answered why the VST2 version is not installing." THEM : "There's no difference between VST2 and VST3 versions, they're just different formats of the identical sound. Because you're using an unsupported host DAW, I'm not sure I can be all that helpful with your DAW issues. I'd suggest reaching out to BandLab instead for issues with your DAW." If only they knew !!!!!!! (I underlined the "different formats"). Why can't they just tell me why the VST2 version isn't installing ??!!! What an incredible brush off. They're now clearly saying it's a DAW issue.

@mettelus @Glenn Stanton @John Vere @ptheisen Gentlemen, thankyou for your continued help !!! My PC Engineer is coming tomorrow to collect my rig and make a backup of my 'C' drive. He will then install a new Samsung 990 Pro NVMe M2 SSD. I have already used Samsung Magician (thanks guys) to ascertain that my existing 'C' Drive is "good". When I get it back on Friday, I will start the task of reinstalling all of my imaging apps and others to the new SSD, leaving ONLY the OS, CbB and Band in a Box on my 'C' as advised. The new SSD will take my plugins and samples, whilst my internal 2Tb Hard Disc will accomodate all my imaging and other apps. Whilst making these changes, I will give great attention also, to going through once again all the helpful fine tuning tips that you have given me in this thread so that I move forward as 'clean' as possible. I will even try installing the VST2 version of Superplate again. I will then report back and hopefully conclude this long thread. Cheers.

Update : Disappointing response from Soundtoys regarding refund - Regarding returns, as per our EULA: You may obtain a refund within 14 days if purchased at the Soundtoys online store, by contacting support@soundtoys.com. Since your last purchase was 54 days ago, no you will not be able to return this product. You can also try downgrading to the previous versions of your OS and DAW that your plug-in previously worked on. You can also try using an officially supported host DAW that we guarantee our software will be compatible with: I cannot offer a timeline for our next release, though it's looking like it should be pretty soon. And there was no response as to why I cannot install the VST2 version as much as I have tried. Cheers.

Update: The Beta version they are suggesting I try is for the NEXT release of Superplate and is not a Beta of the current version I'm using. I think I shall just wait for the official release of the next version as I don't want to upset my install of EffectsRack. Cheers

Hi Folks, I got a response from Soundtoys regarding my issues with Superplate and Little Radiator and they have pointed me to a page of Beta downloads. I have to uninstall the final release and replace with the Beta version WITH THE CAVEAT BELOW !!! "The installers linked to on this page are BETA versions. This means that these builds have not completed full testing by us, and more than likely contain bugs or other incompatibilities. Use of beta versions are at your own risk, which may include the risk of catastrophic issues. If you are not ok with this risk then we recommend you wait for the officially released version. Please visit our beta forum for the latest information - such as known issues - and to provide feedback." Well, I did wait for the officially released version and paid good money for it. I'm not sure if I want to take the risk and just ask for a refund. The polite e-mail they sent also mentioned this : "Just a heads up, Cakewalk is not one of our officially supported host DAWs". Should @Noel Borthwick perhaps pick up the phone to them and press them to be included ?? Seems a bit of a cop out. I now have to go back to them and ask why Effects Rack seems to work. Surely the part of the coding that makes it OK in Cakewalk would be ported over into Superplate. Since I'm not a software programmer, I wouldn't know the answer to that. @rsinger you've not had problems with Echoboy Beta. Is there anyone else who's had experience in going this route?? I worked further on my latest project yesterday with Superplate and Little Radiator removed and had no Late Buffers. All the best.

Update : I've sent a message to Soundtoys and now have to sit back and wait at least 24hrs for a response. If we have to back and forth with messages, this could take some time. In the meantime I thought to open a new 'test' project with 1x audio track and insert Superplate only. Got no Late Buffers even after playing back 3x times. Loaded Little Radiator with it and started getting audible Late Buffers. Deleted Superplate, leaving Little Radiator and still got L/Buffers. Deleted that and put Superplate back on, on its own and now got audible Late Buffers. Pushed the boat out and deleted them. Brought in Soundtoys Effects Rack and loaded it up with 6x effects. Max Engine Load only around 12%. No L/Buffers. Then thought to go further and insert a further 6x instances of Effect Rack, each with only 1x effect. Max Engine Load only up by 1% and no L/Buffers. Played through now several times and always clean. Effect Rack includes the full Radiator which was loaded. Verdict : I can remove Little Radiator as I have the full one and is behaving. Superplate (which is my very recent purchase) is the culprit. So to make it clear and in fairness to Soundtoys, I am not experiencing any Late Buffer glitches with Effect Rack. Superplate is in my sites. Let's see what solution they come back with. Standby.

@Sal Sorice Hi again Sal, Thanks for heads -up on Memtest86. Have downloaded it just now and will run it on Friday when the PC Engineer comes. It's worth doing even though I am now convinced my issue has been with Soundtoys, not only from the thread on this forum, but also from those at KVR and Reditt. I'm now going to attempt chatting with Soundtoys Helpline and will post back with results. @rsinger Thanks for your message too. Cheers.

@Glenn Stanton @John Vere Well, there it is gents. You responded to my post before last, as I was writing the previous post. This issue has indeed already been covered on this Forum with some resolved and some not. But clearly an issue with buggy Soundtoys plugs. They may be amongst the hungrier of plugs John, but clearly the issue is with inherent bugs and lesser to do with the number of plugs in a project. Both of course contribute to Late Buffers one way or another - there's no arguing that. Thankyou guys !!! I shall contact Soundtoys Help Line as my next step and if they steer me towards a bug free condition with their plugs, I will then be judicious in how I use them. Otherwise I now know to dump them. Does this bring us to a resolution with this thread ?? All the best.

Update : I'll take back what I said about Soundtoys plugins wanting to be the only plugins in a mix. In the last hour since my above post, I'm still getting Late Buffer glitches with ONLY the 2x Littla Rad. and Superplate plugins in the project. I strongly believe that it's Soundtoys plugins being the issue after reading through Reddit and KVR Forum threads. Loads of people on different DAWs and either on Windows or Mac have stated the very same issue. Some claim to have overcome them by rolling back to earlier releases or from VST3 back to VST2. Some of you might be thinking at this point that the simplest resolution is to take Soundtoys off my PC. I might well end up going that easy route. Their selection of plugins are covered by other plugin companies after all. However, that route leaves me feeling it's a bit of a cop out. If there is a solution I can find (it might be what I have read in those other forums), I want to be able to come back here and state it, in order to help Cakewalkers. It's the very least I can do considering the time you kind folk have given to my problem. The fact that I removed plugins from my current 'problem' project and loaded up with 60x plugins from yesteryear is good proof, since none of them were Soundtoys. I could even create a new test project and load up VSTs and any audio tracks and start filling up with plugins other than Soundtoys as a further means of evidence. I just always like to come to an understanding and a solution, but for now I am focussed on this route. But please give your own experiences with Soundtoys. Cheers

Hi to all and huge, huge thanks for keeping up with this thread. Your patience and willingness to help, make sticking with CbB more of a no brainer !!! Over the last 2x days and having followed all your hints and tips and thoughts, and with a painstakingly methodical approach, I finally discovered that SOUNDTOYS plugins seem to be the cause of all my recent issues on my current project. @John Vere you said it in the plainest of language "..... it's always a plugin...." and to @msmcleod who pointed to another thread about Soundtoys Superplate (which I purchased about a month ago) that steered me to this revelation. You will see from one of my earlier threads that to start my investigation, I loaded up the 60x plugins I had successfully used in my very first recording from yesteryear into my CURRENT problematic project. With 4x 'live' VSTs carrying a few of the 60x plugins and the 5x audio tracks hosting the remaining, the project sailed through 6-7 times over with no Late Buffer strikes and therefore no glitches. The Engine Load maxed at around 50% and the Audio Processing was around 30%. This was also after experimenting with smaller Sample Rates as I wanted to find out where my rig would topple over. I got down to 384 Samples. Feeling encouraged, I left it till Sunday gone to start the next stage. This was to load my current project with the plugins I had started to use on it and do so one by one, playing the song through at least twice every time. After loading the 1st plugin and finding no Late Buffer strikes, I deleted it and even closed down BbB before restarting it and loading the next plugin. I did that till I had gone through the 11x Plugins one at a time. When I got to Soundtoys Superplate (being the only plugin loaded), I got a Late Buffer strike at a max Engine Load of 962.0%. The same with Soundtoys Little Radiator - but wait !!! Something told me to recheck my Sample Rate in my ASIO driver. It was still set to 384 Samples and keeping in mind the other fellow who had issues with Superplate, I increased the sample rate to the max 2048. Even now as I'm writing this, I am playing the project through with only Superplate loaded and at 2048 Samples. On its 2nd playthrough and zero Late Buffers. Audio Proc. = 1.9% (max 8.14%, Engine Load 10.2% (max 15%). What's wrong with that you would say. 2048 Samples when you're in Playback mode shouldn't matter. Lowest Sample rates are only necessary in Recording mode. And so I have started loading 2x instances of Little Radiator and iZotope Nectar 4 and lo and behold, with Audio Processing at 3.8% (max 17.6%), Engine Load 19% (max 24.7%) until I hit a Late Buffer at 170% max. SO, it's not a simple case of Soundtoys plugins being the problem, but what other plugins you add them to on your project. Look, 2x instances of Little Rad, 1x of Superplate and 1x of Nectar 4. That should not be demanding on my rig and the proof is there with the Engine Load count at a low 24% until it hits a Late Buffer at 170.0% max. I have now deleted Nectar 4, leaving 2x instances of Little Rad and 1x of Superplate (both Soundtoys plugins) and played through 3x times with NO Late Buffer glitches. So Soundtoys seems to like to behave as a Cuckoo in the nest. They don't like to share with others (I have to be careful here as I don't want to be had for libel). I have now added a Waves plugin and played through with no Late Buffer strikes. I have now added a Sonitus plugin on top and got a L/Buffer strike. I deleted it and went BACK to 3x Soundtoys and 1x Waves plugins. This time I did get a Late Buffer (my head's spinning). I have now deleted the Waves and am left with 3x Soundtoys. NO Late Buffers. Oh heck - wait ...... on 2nd and 3rd play through I got a Late Buffer strike each time ........ and on 4th - 7th time NO Late Buffers again. Oh heck - wait again ... with the play engine stopped, I've hit another Late Buffer - and now 3x and slowly climbing !!!! Have I arrived at the cause ??? Do I have resolution ??? It's still a little up in the air on account of my paragraph above. I honestly thought that when I got up today to write this post, it was going to be my last - the conclusion, all the investigation was done - but now, perhaps not. I do believe I'm very close though. I would ask all contributors and readers of this thread to post here as to whether or not you have the same issues with Soundtoys plugins. This is important to help readers of this thread. I shall now go to see if Soundtoys has a forum and poke around there. PLEASE FELLAS - post here any experiences you have had with Soundtoys - good or bad. Cheers.

@limpet Hi Keith, Perhaps I should be the last one to answer your post because I'm the one who started this one - but ...... Late Buffers are definitely the cause of audio glitches. In my recent experience this happens when Cakewalk's Engine Load exceeds 100% Max. The second it does, you hear a glitch. If you have read through this thread from the beginning, you will note that over the past years I have been using Sonar (now CbB and soon to be Sonar again), I have been able to track and mix projects with VSTs unfrozen and 60x plugins going and that was on a lesser machine !! Everyone who has responded to my initial post are extremely knowleagable folk who have 'grown up' with Sonar and have FAR more insight into its mysteries. Hopefully they will help you with more detail than I, but what I have said above should answer your questions. I am now coming to a sort of ending to this thread (but it only starts another !!!!), so please stayed tuned whilst I continue on the following post. Cheers

It's 02:30 in the morning here in the UK and I'm ready to hit the sack. However, after a marathon session of troubleshooting my problem, I do believe that I have come to the solution with the help of you all. There's too much to explain now, so I'll take a nap and give you my findings tomorrow (later today !!!!). G'night.

@John Vere (I got the hang of this @ thing). You couldn't depress me John. I've lived my whole life not having high expectations of anything or anyone. It has served me well, as I've never really been dissapointed about anything !! Well, I've spent yesterday and today loading up my current, troublesome project with 60x of the plugins that I used on my reference project of yesteryear (which had no Late Buffer problems). I even added duplicate backing vox tracks to accomodate them. And so, with 15x tracks of which 4x are 'open' VSTs and the rest audio, I can tell you (after playing through 30x times) that I have not had any Late Buffer strikes. The 'Performance' window tells me the following : At 2048 Samples for playback - Audio Processing = 16.5% (Max 34.48%) Engine Load = 27% average (Max 37.8%) These were very close to the same results I was getting when yesterday and the day before, I played through the project of yesteryear. This immediately confirms 2x things. Firstly, my current problematic project does NOT have a resident bug or is not corrupted (even though it refused to open twice the other day). Perhaps it was a bad coincidence. Secondly that the 60x plugins now on my current project in place of the 11x I originally had, CAN be handled comfortably at 2048 Samples on this machine spec. I don't think I'm sticking my neck out when I say that, since I have played it back at least 30x times with the 'Performance' window constantly giving me the same figures within 1-2% each playback. SO, folks, I am now going to delete all 60x of yesteryears plugins, save the project in its pluin-free state and start putting back, one by one, the 11x plugins I had initially put onto the project. I will play through with each plugin inserted and jot down the performance stats. If I don't experience what I was experiencing before, then I'll be damned, because that will mean there is no obvious solution to the issue I've had !!!! I will work on that now and update later tonight or tomorrow. It's great being retired and single - all the time to myself. (Now THAT'S selfish !!!) Cheers

Hey Byron - The recording I refer to was my first ever - about 15yrs ago (or even more) and as a beginner I was just throwing the kitchen sink into every track just to see what it would do. I'm different now. Thanks. And Glenn is quite right - I too have seen many a Pro's video sending tracks through umpteen plugs for reasons that MY ears don't always hear. But that's not me criticising them - they know far, far better than me and I'm sure that their ears are also far better tuned. I did say I wouldn't add more to this thread - but whilst here to acknowledge the above posts, that mix I did from yesteryear was me playing it through at 2048 (max) Samples. An hour ago when I felt like playing it through again, I had left my ASIO driver at 32 Samples and boy, did it rack up the Late Buffers. So at 2048 I will start adding the plugins I used back then and see how many my current project can take. When it starts to glitch, I can make comparisons and then start replacing with the plugins I started with on this current project, to find the culprit. That would be my conclusion. The solution would most likely be better as another thread - what to expect on a given system/rig and how to go about tracking and mixing to overcome the limitations. That would be very interesting because I'm fairly sure there would be a whole lot of different ways coming from each of you. Cheers