MikeyT

Really great to hear that, very much appreciated.

The LP-suite of plugins that have been part of Cakewalk for ages no longer seem to work. I've got them everywhere (hundreds of Cakewalk files stretching back decades), so a huge issue for me. These are VST plugins and I believe they are 64-bit but the only way I know of telling that is that they are in C:\Program Files rather than C:\Program Files (x86) I raised a separate topic for this here before I saw this feedback thread: And I see someone else raised it too, here:

No, 64 bit plugins - well, at least they reside in C:\Program Files and not C:\Program Files (x86) - I cannot see an obvious way of confirming they are 32 bit versions

I have exactly the same problem - raised a separate thread on this. I'm using LP-64 Multiband and LP-64 EQ all over the place (I've got hundreds of Cakewalk files going back decades). As far as I can see, this is VST and 64bit. Other VST, 64 bit plugins are working okay, it just seems to be the LP onces that are not working. This is quite disasterous for me - it's only a hobby but I'm involved with lots of collaborators and all the tracks I've been working on with them no longer play properly and need re-wiring.

Hi, I've been using Cakewalk since about version 5, i.e. for a couple of decades now and have hundreds of project files from different bands. I am finding the following problem with Sonar 31.07.0.084: Files that have a VST2 plugin in them will load but the track will be muted unless the VST2 plugin is disabled. If I try to load one of the VST2 plugins, Sonar locks up and never responds, so Task Manager is the only way out. Is anyone else having this? The particular VST2 plugins that are causing me problems are LP-64 EQ and LP-64 Multiband, both of which were introduced as standard plugins early on with the original Cakewalk. I've got them everywhere, so if they are not going to work, it's going to be a bit of a headache. Many thanks, Mike

Many thanks to everyone for their responses. Sadly, the motherboard died on the Dell Precision 7920 desktop shortly after Craig's post, so I have not been able to explore further. As the 7920 was a freeby from a dissolving research group and was underwhelming in its performance, I've decided not to get it fixed but will instead invest in a new desktop and canibalise the 7920 for parts. The new desktop will definitely *not* be a Dell as they seem to have quite a few foibles around the RealTek audio that interfere with ASIO audio interfaces.

@scook - I don't have "Dell SupportAssist Remediation” running (or any other Dell stuff for that matter). Also, I've downloaded and run LatencyMon and it seems to think the PC spec is good for running real-time audio without dropouts. Which it does, to be fair - like I said, I'm just comparing two PCs with different specs and not seeing an improvement of functions like freezing a track in the more powerful one. Related to all this is I bought Arturia's Buchla Easel software - this runs fine on the low spec laptop but goes crazy on the dual-processor desktop with audio-dropouts etc. No other synth plugin does this and I'm talking to Arturia to see if this is a dual-processor thing. But to be fair, without someone very knowledgeable coming and looking at my PC, it's difficult to see how anyone is going to be able to help me with this all. I was just hoping there were some Cakewalk settings that could make it utilise the power of this desktop.

Many thanks for the replies, all much appreciated. @Pragi @John Nelson Thanks for your responses - the Precision 7920 has got two of these processors in it and although they are at 2.2GHz they "turbo" up to 3.0GHz as required (I don't fully understand Dell's Turbo Boost thing). Furthermore, each processor has 10 cores each. So, I think the desktop probably does have more than enough power required by the minimum Cakewalk spec. But what I'm talking about here is the comparison between a modest spec laptop (one circa 1.80GHz processor, 16 GB RAM, STATA drive) and a super-powerful desktop (two 2.20GHz processors with 10 cores each that can turbo up to 3.0GHz each, 96 GB RAM, running everything of SDD). I'd just expect to see the desktop be able to freeze a track faster than the laptop. But it doesn't, they take about the same time. So, I don't think Cakewalk is taking advantage of the resources in the desktop and I don't know how to fix that. Unfortunately, I don't know much about PC config - I expect someone with better knowledge would be able to tune this desktop so it ran faster. @scook - thanks for the pointer to the thread on "Dell SupportAssist Remediation”, I will check that out.

Hi @scook - many thanks for that, I will look into this. However, what happens for me is that Cakewalk just hangs, it doesn't crash and display a crash notification. It hangs, saying "busy" but never comes back, so I have to kill it in task manager.

Many thanks @Jacques Boileau and @msmcleod for responding to me - in answer to your questions: Laptop: cakewalk and all the VST plugins are running from an SSD, the project running from a standard SATA drive Desktop: everything (cakewalk, VST plugins, project) running from an SSD @msmcleod - "1.8Ghz / 2.2Ghz isn't particularly fast." - yes, that's the laptop spec, with a single processor. The desktop spec is two Intel Xeon Silver 4114 CPU @ 2.20GHz processors, so considerably more than the laptop, which is why I would expect to see things like freezing and track and mixing down to be faster. But it's not. I'm guessing your old i7-3770 is overclocking in order to run at 3.4Ghz? I guess I could overclock the Intel Xeon Silver 4114 CPUs (although I'd need to read up on that). Do you think the limiting step is the CPU speed then? I've also got the NVIDIA Quadro P620 graphics card, which I don't know that much about but it is set to help with computations as well as displaying graphics. Just had Cakewalk crash again, although using a ten-year old plugin - the old plugins I use may be a factor in the stability I guess. Many thanks, Mike

UPDATE TO THIS TICKET: The motherboard died on the Dell Precision 7920 shortly after the last post on this thread. So, I never go to the bottom of this issue. Many thanks to everyone who did respond. Hi, I'm struggling to get Cakewalk performing reasonably on a high-spec machine and would appreciate any pointers from anyone else who has had similar trouble. In particular, I'm looking for settings in Cakewalk that can help performance (I'm already using the "Use multiprocessing engine" and "Plug-in Load Balancing" options on the desktop - see below). So, I have Cakewalk installed on two machines: 1. My laptop (which I take out for recording): A Dell Inspiron-15-5570 with a single Intel i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz and 16 GB RAM 2. My desktop (which I use for mixing): This is a beast of a machine - A Dell Precision 7920 desktop with two Intel Xeon Silver 4114 CPU @ 2.20GHz 2.19 GHz processors, a total of 96 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA Quadro P620 graphics card. As mentioned above, I'm already using the "Use multiprocessing engine" and "Plug-in Load Balancing" options on this machine. For both, I am using a Steinberg UR22C over USB 3.1 On the basis of the above specs, I would expect the desktop to be: quicker when doing tasks such as freezing tracks and exporting mixed projects more stable, particularly on projects with a lot of plugins However, I am finding them to be much the same in terms of performance. So, for example: Freezing a track takes roughly the same time on each machine Extracting a final mix to a WAV file takes roughly the same time on each machine I simply take it for granted now that Cakewalk will crash at some point during a session and both seem to crash - to be fair, the desktop does seem to be a little more stable than the laptop, especially with plugins So, are there any settings in Cakewalk that I am not taking advantage of to help the desktop speed things up or to make the system more stable? Many thanks Mike

FIXED: The issue was caused by me using the Zoom R24 as an audio interface. I bought a Steinberg UR22C and the problem described in my original post went away. Zoom last released a driver for the R24 in about 2016, so I guess subsequent Windows updates have broken it - it seems for older plugins (the Sonitus ones and Session Drummer 3 seem to be the problem issues for me). Zoom have been completely unresponsive - a real shame because the R24 (and the H4n that I also have) have been rock-solid until this recent issue.

Dear Scook - many thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I've got that option ticked, so regrettably that is not the root of the problem. I'm now fairly sure the problem is the Zoom R24 and its old divers. I've had no response from Zoom regarding updating their drivers, which is annoying, particularly as they continue to sell the device and the drivers are 6 years old. It is a great bit of kit and mine has worked reliably as an audio-interface for the best part of ten years now, not to mention a portable easy recorder for scratch recordings of full band setups. But Windows, Cakewalk, and hardware has all moved on and it is impossible to say where the fault lies. I have a work-around and am living with it. Eventually, I will need to buy a new audio-interface. It is the case that Cakewalk by Bandlab is a) completely free to use and b) does seem to be more functionally rich than every other DAW I have been trying recently (and that includes all the big name's demo software). So, I'm not going to complain here: it's fantastic what Bandlab are making available here and big thanks to them for that - I have a work around and I can continue to make my amateur-level hobby music to my heart's content.

Hi Aleo - thanks for your comments and sympathy. Yes, it sounds quite similar. The problem for me is that I cannot really identify where the fault lies - it could simply be the old Zoom drivers for the R24, which are now about six years old. Zoom are completely unresponsive to any queries about drivers. That is a shame because I've always found their kit to be pretty good. So, I have largely given up on this thread - I cannot see there will be any solution to my specific problem but for now I have a work-around that keep me playing. I find the rest of Cakewalk to be pretty amazing, considering it is free - I've spent some time trying out other DAWs and found them all a little lacking in comparison.

Thanks for the suggestion JoseC, much appreciated. However, this issue is a very specific one for FL Studio and its pre-installed ASIO drivers interfering with the Zoom R24 drivers. Cakewalk does not come with pre-installed ASIO drivers.