Teegarden

So you're sure it was working on the former version of CbB, crashed when updated to the early release and after that the former version didn't work anymore unlike before updating? Also, did you install and try the latest version: Seems like something has been corrupted and maybe a reinstall or clean install of the former version might be worth trying (although that can be quite some hassle), or maybe you can revert your whole system with Windows system restore or a backup from Acronis etc.) and see if the problem is gone, that way you're sure it is related to the latest CbB version. I've seen several different reports about iZotope issues. It would definitely send them the crash dumps, next to sending them to the bakers (maybe they find something useful in the crash dump as well), as advised in the announcement of the latest CbB release: If you're convinced it is related to the latest release you can report it here as well: 202104-feedback Here you find the general problem reporting info: better-problem-reporting IZotope is going to work closely together with Native Instruments. So, any CbB incompatibility that between iZotope and CbB might worst case further extend to NI products as well in the future. Hopefully they are willing to take reported issues with CbB serious and find a solution.

Which driver have you installed? Focusrite had problems with CbB and released a driver beta driver to solve this: • Improved an issue that could cause glitching in WASAPI applications • Improved an issue that could cause glitching in WDM applications at 44.1/48kHz sample rate, 1024 sample buffer size • No longer teardown WDM filters when changing buffer size • Fixed an issue that could cause a crash in Cakewalk by Bandlab • Fixed an issue that could cause some WDM filters to fail to automatically populate on computer restart

@Pete Brown I like the way you guide a user through the whole tweaking process! Just read your power plan switching guide update. It might be easier for most users to just install PowerBuddy. No need to use the command prompt. It installs a little taskbar button which let's you immediately choose any of the Power Plans you have configured in the Windows Power Options menu. I use it all the time when changing between DAW and other PC tasks.

@garybrun, please find my template in the link as promised! The template is a combination of several template tutorials I’ve followed: Mainly Building a DAW Mix Template (since I consider that one the most useful for my workflow and kind of recording –mainly pop, jazz, rock, soundtrack, classical- hardly any EDM) and some others worth mentioning: Andrew Scheps mixing & template tips, and Mikael Baggström’s Youtube channel (who gives his own interesting twist to templates and workflow) Notes: Notes field: contains guidelines about calculating time settings for delay and compressor Many tracks and busses have info (Track Properties -> Description) that explains what and why All tracks (repair, test drum, test vox, reference tracks, Mock-up) that are not meant to be in the mix are routed to the NoMix bus (clearly visible, in order to avoid mistakenly messing up the mix), which is muted when mixing Orchestral tracks are limited for scenarios. I’m planning to make a separate full orchestral template. Metronome bus is placed to be the separation between instruments and FX busses Master bus inserts => FreeG (very clear, big faders for gain staging - found thanks to CbB Gain Staging, one of the great tutorials of @Creative Sauce)+ AB plugins I haven’t figured out yet which EQ settings are the best start per track/bus. So far, I’ve mainly shelved off some low frequencies in a part of the tracks in order to start with a little cleaner signal. Also, still figuring out what FX settings would be most efficient as a start point for each of the busses in the template. Feedback on this (and other parts of the template) is very welcome! Remarks: Having many plugins preloaded (even when all are frozen/inactive) as was shown in the tutorial I’ve followed made loading the template annoyingly slow (despite a using a Threadripper PC with fast SSDs). However, having all preferred plugins readily available already inserted where you need them has been proven to save me lots of time. While making the template I noticed that is very easy to lose custom colours (for some reason the ones I save are lost after a while from the colour options menu)) and that it is not so easy to copy a colour from let’s say a bus to a track folder. I noticed after uploading the template there are still some colours different from what I intended In the link are the template + pictures with my mainly custom icons used in the template (the custom pictures are not saved with the template, I think it should be optional to choose to do so or leave them in the standard icons folder). I’ve tried to insert pictures in my posts, but dragging them into the post field has not worked and uploading them to another server and inserting a hyperlink has also not worked. No clue what goes wrong? Template in the link below: CbB template

You really make me hesitate...?

Thanks for the clear answer! I guess that's not the case when your PC power profile is set to maximum performance all the time (and good cooling to avoid throtling)? And what is the influence of the soundcard regarding latency? I've got a ten year old RME PCIe AIO card that gives effective latency of 2.7 ms with 256 buffer, 24bit, 96kHz, 64 bit double precision buffer (ASIO reported latencies: input 3.1, output 3.7, total roundtrip 6.8ms). That seem relatively good figures to me (working without glitches when all unnecessary background processes are eliminated)? And the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD's? Don't they also improve latency? The 10900k has only PCIe 3.0... I agree regarding the cost/performance of the 10900k, but I'm quite interested in the new AMD, will just wait till its available at reasonable price?

That's what I wondered about from the start, why on earth do I have problems when my CPU performance is at 15-20%? After some time I started to understand that it is more the engine load and late buffers that indicate if there's a problem. Even a slightly older CPU should still be up to recording an average project without too many problems. My impression (after reading tons of topics) in our case is that it has to do with the impaired internal latency of the former generations AMD CPUs, unfortunately. I guess @Jim Roseberry can say more about this. I've managed to improve performance by tweaking my Threadripper system to the max, but at the cost of way too many unproductive hours and now my hardware is starting to wear out. So now, when I can finally record something decent, I might need to replace things again?. No clue how much attention under the hood optimisation has compared to new features. As good as each new release I see improvements that also relate to latency and overall speed. It needs to be a fair balance to keep the majority happy. My impression is that we are in the minority group (most users seem to be reasonably satisfied, Intel systems...?), so probably not first in line to be served. And if it really is the AMD internal latency problem the only real solution is getting the latest hardware. There's a recent topic that I can't find back where they were referring to that (I guess it was a comparison with Reaper that doesn't crash when a plugin fails) and gave a hyperlink to a webpage explaining that separate plugin sandboxing like in other DAWs is not a solution in the end. I do need to add that I don't really suffer much from instability. My main problem was latency related at lower buffer settings. Did I mention that I have 32GB RAM so I switched of my paging file? That might also have helped. And since two weeks I've slightly overclocked my system (many advice not to do so, but I like to think that I know what I'm doing, so...) . Temperatures have not really gone up (got a good cooling), but everything is much more responsive. No crashes so far. With ryzen-dram-calculator you can find stable better settings for you RAM. It gives significant improvements. Next to that (at least for my Threadripper), the CPU is also flexible with slight overclocking (I use Ryzen Master to do so). If you consider such thing, read carefully the overclock forums first! I hope to have the budget in a couple of months... Anyway, there's a shortages of the top Ryzen CPUs, so they are overprized at the moment. I think that in about 4 months prizes and availability will be better. Thinking about the Ryzen 5900X or 5950X + 128 GB 3600 RAM. Also there are new, faster PCIe 4.0 SSDs coming out with 2 to 4 TB. I would like to see how they compare in tests the coming months. I'm especially looking at the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB SSD (thinking about getting 2 of those). GPU: one just under the top (because of the outrages cost for the fastest). Still waiting for info on whether a Radeon or NVidia is better compatible with a DAW and which one plays better with Ryzen. There have been some significant changes and improvements on both sides... I can survive till then. CbB works right now and I can do all the other things I need to do too. My real time backups ensure no risks in case of crashes.

Agreed, from what I can see the CbB team does take possible bugs in the DAW itself serious. They are a small team with limited resources, so many things will be on the waiting list, probably with lower priority. I guess that's the downside of a free DAW, but I can live with that. I still think that it outperforms many paid DAWs and they've squeezed an impressive amount of bugs over the last two years. Sorry to hear about the many reinstalls (just CbB or the whole Windows operating system?), which is certainly not what most users need to do. There must be something specific to your configuration that makes it worse compared to most other PCs. What I do know, DAW independent, is that Windows becomes buggy over time. After a few years a PC really from a complete reinstall if you frequently use more complicated software. The majority of users will not notice these problems, but with complex audio-visual software or other professional software I've witnessed this regularly. Also, another piece of software on your machine might mess with windows settings, negatively influencing a DAW without you being aware of it. My system is not even four years old and I'm already looking forward to later this year when I hope to be able to afford a new one with an AMD 5900X or 5950X. My current PC is showing degradation of the EVO 960 PCIe SSD and other problems are starting to show up (and my first gen Threadripper is not yet optimised for audio latency). Software and probably also hardware issues are slowly getting worse. I use the machine heavily, so its no surprise. All electronic components are prone to damage due to changing currents and temperatures. Usually minor, but over time they might lead to problems and sensitive software will suffer faster from it than a simple text writer or game. I've witnessed this kind of issues from the moment I've started building computers for myself and others 30 years ago. Having said that, CbB graphics handling can certainly be improved. The team seems aware of that. In the last updates there were already some changes of memory management, also relating to the graphics buffers from what I understood. Let's hope they continue improving on that path. A well installed solid new GPU might provide some benefit. If you've got an NVidia card you can do the following: NVCleanstall for a clean driver install without extras and to make sure there's nothing from NVidia installaions left: Nvidia Control Panel | Manage 3D settings, set "Power Management Mode" to "Prefer Maximum Performance" uninstall NVidia Experience disable NVidia telemetry: NvTmMon -- Nvidia Telemetry Monitor -- runs C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\Update Core\NvTmMon.exe, NvTmRep -- Nvidia crash and Telemetry Reporter -- runs C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\Update Core\NvTmRep.exe NvTmRepOnLogon -- Nvidia Profile Updater -- runs C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\Update Core\NvTmRep.exe --logon) Did you also check the difference between VST2 and VST3 of the problem plugins? Steinberg didn't do a great job regarding compatibility when defining these standards...

Yes, the problem with problems is that the cause often is not clear...

That Facebook post is a very nice example of how complicated and demanding DAWs are and how problems in many cases are related to hardware and configuration and not necessarily to the DAW itself (not saying that DAWs are bug free..)!

@Colin Nicholls Thanks for the clear tutorial. I wish they would finally make a CbB webpage where there's a collection of all animated GIF tutorials. I think it works much better than just reading boring manuals (maybe it's just me, but I prefer trial and error over standard manuals. However, the animated one I do like to follow). Btw, I love the music on your website. Did you compose and record it all yourself? Very musical and original...Is it you singing? Nice clear voice! I'm really impressed?

Hard to judge what's going on without seeing it. Usually in Device Manager you can right-click a device and select "disable device". Do you run everything with administrator rights? Here's a link to programs that might help you: 6 Tools to Forcefully Enable Grayed Out Disabled Buttons

It was meant to be ironic?. I meant so overly processed and polished, that any natural origin is lost, and so is the soul/emotion of the voice. There's a simple, one fits all solution to this: use analog emulations to the max? (oh, and don't over-quantize?)

Glad you liked it. It think that everyone who's using a DAW should at least see a video like this once to really understand what he's doing. I'm al the time trying to get mixes sound as analog as possible, just because it sound way more pleasant and especially less exhausting to my ears... And then there's the virtually unlimited number of ways you can use that to create different sounds, fitting different styles. Regarding music from the past, todays vocals are virtually perfect and regularly slightly electronic thanks to Antares and alike. Recordings from the sixties and seventies don't sound perfect, are not always perfectly timed and are sometimes even false, but at least to me they sound warmer with lots of character and more emotion, exactly what I'm missing from todays recordings. And just like you say about the every day consumer products, in the analog studies there's been tons of development to get sounds perfected. No wonder there are so many plugin developers trying to get introduce the "latest, best emulation" of the renown analog hardware consoles and FX processors, including tape saturation.

I think the following video gives some nice insights on this topic: Why Are Synths So Difficult To Mix???

Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, hardware is an expensive hobby that gets outdated quickly... Hope that despite the suboptimal setup you can make some music?

Seems like a GPU related problem. I understood that the graphical interface of CbB could be improved with scalable graphics etc. Maybe the current state is heavier on the GPU side, which is too much for some older systems . BTW, sometimes certain graphics processes are done by the CPU. If that's the case I would change those to the GPU if possible. Did you try changing the GPU? Did you run LatencyMon for a while to check which process could be the culprit? Did you check Windows Reliability Monitor to see what crashed? IRQ sharing of the graphics card with something else?

Thanks for the explanation. Regarding synths and midi/audio: can't you just replace the synth on an instrument track while keeping the midi? That would save a track and keeps the overview simpler? In my template (a combination of different tutorials I followed to set up a full template, ready to go for any kind of project except for orchestral works), I start with an audio repair track, followed by a voice and drum track with looped sound on it so I can quickly check the result of different FX plugins. Then 3 reference tracks where I can put music on the kind of style I would like to reproduce, followed by 3 mockup tracks to sketch a song with rhythm, chords and melody. These all go to a clearly visible NoMix buss, so I can silence them quickly when recording and mixing the real project. After that I've the usual instrument and voice tracks. On some tracks I've prepared EQ and routing to reverbs. I was still in the process of deciding which kind of EQ I want to be active from the start. I guess your settings are a good idea! With the dedicated busses I meant one drum buss for all drums, keys buss for all keys tracks etc.? In the buss section I've got ready to go busses for any kind of FX, one for each kind of reverb, one for 1/16 delay, one for 1/4 delay, one for 1/2 delay and so on, all with many plugins already inserted and non-activated so I can try them one by one. The busses go to the MixBuss and that one goes to the Master which then goes to the hardware output. On each track and buss I've also placed pictures in order to quickly recognise them. Main disadvantage from my approach is the long template loading time, even on my fast PC. I've archived all tracks hoping that it would make some difference, but no? I think your noise buss is a nice addition to my template. It took a long time to build, now I need to start learning how to use it?. For the rest, any commend on how to improve it is welcome... Btw, I tried to attach two picture of my setup, it showed that they were ready for uploading, but they don't appear in the submitted message...

Hi, FWIW, I also had an AMD system about 10 years ago and despite latency I did manage to record music with Sonar. So if you have really strange and long dropouts there could very well be a configuration problem. After I tried the tips in the links I gave earlier I've noticed a significant improvement, so certainly worth trying. However, there were still some unexplainable latency issues. Once I looked for additional information in order to solve those and tried different suggestions those issues also became acceptable. Here are the latency issues + suggestions: NDIS.SYS: AMD? In the device manager, find "ATA / ATAPI IDE Controllers", select "AMD Sata controller" and disable it. Disable Driver Verifier: Open an elevated Command Prompt by right-clicking on CMD.EXE shortcut in your start menu and selecting Run As Administrator from the context menu. Type the following command: Code: VERIFIER /RESET Reboot the computer Check if the issues still persist and, in case they do, generate a new trace Disable AV or any program that filters internet packets TCPIP.SYS: Run TCPOptimizer Uninstall Bonjour. If you have a third party AV with firewall: disable "Windows Defender Firewall" service. Even if its turned off in Control Panel, the "Windows Defender Firewall" service (MpsSvc) can still be running in the background and causing issues. Completely disable the service via the registry and reboot. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MpsSvc Change "Start" from "2" to "4" Reboot the PC DXGKRNL.SYS Set NVIDIA Surround, PhysX to GPU, not CPU Check if an IRQ is shared between GPU and something else like USB. Check internet for ways to change IRQs. Tip: If you no longer use legacy ports, disable them in the system BIOS. Hope this helps

Interesting approach. I do have some questions: I don't manage to scroll up to the gain knobs completely on top of the busses. The flow you use does not allow for separate tracks to be placed in the 3D-field individually with the help of FX, since they all go to one mix buss with the same FX. Do you use dedicated track inserts to do that, which are not routed to an FX buss? Why do you use audio and midi tracks? I always use instrument inserts, which combine the two. Is there an advantage to do it different? I don't get how you use the noise buss. I assume you use some kind of noise signal of which you increase the volume until you start missing to hear certain instruments/voices in order to level them up or use FX to improve them and stand out more? What goes in the noise buss? What is different to the monitoring busses from the hardware outputs (the main faders for monitors/headphones completely on the right - usually hidden-) ? My routing is as follows: tracks -> dedicated instruments busses -> mix buss -> master -> hardware outputs FX on tracks -> FX busses -> mix buss -> master -> hardware outputs FX on instrument busses -> mix buss -> master -> hardware outputs (and some side-chaining) Any suggestion is welcome if it could/should be improved! A maybe dumb question: when you start mixing, do you first print stems or do you mix before printing and why?

First I read "cracks" where it's meant to be "tracks" (interesting font!) and thought, Oh, there we go...? Nice idea. I've constructed my (very extensive) template according to an old tutorial from Groove3, Building a DAW Mix Template (highly recommendable). I'm going to study how yours differs and hope to learn something new.

Weird that it started recently, I didn't get the impression that the bakers changed much in that respect under the hood. The cracks and pops that I have (or better had), were there also a year ago. I followed the instructions of "FULLY Optimize Windows 10 For LATENCY & Low Input Lag" and it definitely improved things. Make sure to backup the registry and experiment with the different tools provided in the download provided by the blogger. With some you can eliminate too many Windows items, it appeared I needed several of them so I reversed changes and started all over until I found the optimal tweaks for me. And one of the directories (the one regarding power plan) is not intended for AMD systems, don't use that one (as also advised in the video). FWIW, I also disconnect internet and switch off my antivirus when using CbB and switch off any at that moment unnecessary process in the background. With the new AMD systems that's all in the past. Just said for many that their old still properly working system is not up to date anymore...and not everyone can afford a new PC just like that. If you can on the other hand, I wouldn't hesitate! Still I think that with some of the tweaks in the tutorials I mentioned you might get better latency. I did for me anyway. What also helped me regarding system optimisation was a better understanding of Latencymon thanks to the explanation in "Win A-Z Pt14 ", so I got what I was doing when following the tweaks.

@Lord Tim, @Colin Nicholls Thank you guys! It works?

I've tried several ways to quote another forum member or refer to him/her with @ before the forum name. I've copied the hyperlink to their profile with @ added before as well al just plain text with @ before the name. I don't get the black hyperlinked name I'm expecting to see... I've tried to find it in the Q&A but I can't find any info. Any advice how to do it right?

Hi, I get you frustration. It seems like you've got a relatively old AMD processor. In one of the threads on the forum it was explained that AMD processors suffer from some internal latency that has nothing to do with system latency invoked by power settings, drivers etc. I also found this kind of information on other websites (unfortunately forgot which ones). With the introduction of the new Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 processors this problem appears to have been solved, see these threads: https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/22465-potential-cpu-otimisation-for-ryzen-cpus/ https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/23055-ryzen-5000-series-unfreaken-believable-in-cbb/ What surprises me, though, is that you didn't have problems with other DAWs. Maybe there's a also communication problem between AMD processors and CbB. As far as I understood the bakers develop everything on Intel systems, so they might not have experienced AMD related issues and therefor not solved issues related to AMD processors? I've got a Threadripper 1950X, 32GB Ram, a PCIe RME card and fast SSDs and despite my hopes at the time that it would solve all potential problems, I still had situations where cracks and pops occur even in simple projects, with e.g. a large sampled grand piano (at 24bit, 96kHz, buffer: 256, effective latency 2.7 ms). I never saw the cores in the performance part of the control bar go very high, which always surprised me. After lots of Windows 10 latency tweaking and improved power settings (some are usually hidden, you can unhide them with a program called PowerSettingsExplorer) like o processor idle demote threshold (changed to 100%) o processor idle promote threshold (changed to 100%) the latency was getting better, with less annoying cracks. What helped even more was some overclocking with AMD Ryzen Master which significantly reduced the cracks and pops, without overheating my PC. There's a lot of info on this YouTube channel regarding latency tweaking: FR33THY optimization for PC, gaming & Windows!. They also provided the first indepth latencymon explanation I could find, explaining the results and how to improve them: Win A-Z Pt14 There's also another good latency tweak tutorial for the latest Windows update: FULLY Optimize Windows 10 For LATENCY & Low Input Lag Maybe this will help you out a bit more. However, despite an overly large standard template filled with tons of tracks, busses, VST instruments and FX plugins I rarely have instability problems like you mentioned, probably because other than the internal AMD latency issue, the Threadripper is a more modern, fast and stable CPU. I'm planning to switch to a Ryzen 5000 series processor this year, hoping it will completely eliminate all latency related issues like it did for @Bill Ruys . Maybe switching to ZEN3 would also solve your problems.