Teegarden

Thanks, this helped me rethink what when wrong. Half a year ago I finished my template after watching some gain staging videos and reducing gain on all tracks and busses with appr. 18dB. I had understood from gain staging tips that you should try to get all input levels -18dB (with peaks to -12dB) somewhere in the process, so thought let's start with that on all tracks and busses, not realising that from bus to bus the volume would actually decrease further with each step, leading to no sound at the last ... Guess gain staging, volume and gain are not my best skill yet? In standard view I didn't see both gain and volume levels next to each other in the track pane. The overpopulated template makes it hard to keep oversight of all settings in all tracks and busses. Thanks to the "send level controls" suggestion I started thinking that maybe choosing only volume and gain related items selected from the track control manager could show clearly where things went wrong. After doing this I put the track + following bus chain next to each other in one view which showed very clear the output volume and input gain next to each other with a big drop from on bus to the other. Putting all gains back at 0 solved the problem. I have no clue why I didn't see it earlier after wasting several hours. This was certainly not my first recording, so stupid me... Many thanks to you guys for paying attention to my question!

Thanks for responding! Yes, and strangely enough when I create new busses in the same template and route the tracks through them the volume is more or less the same level? Could there be a hidden setting (one of the menus) that could cause a volume drop from a track to a bus and from a bus to another bus? It makes me crazy?

Half a year ago I finished making a huge standard template full with instruments, FX plugins, FX busses etc. with everything ready to go on whatever project I could imagine. Finally found the time for composing and using my precious template. BIG SURPRISE: when I started with a piano VST track I didn't hear anything (despite active volume meters in the track)... Trying the other instrument busses gave the same result... After hours checking all settings I couldn't find anything that could have caused this, except that Instrument Track -> Keys Bus -> Mix Bus -> Master Bus -> RME Stereo Out had huge volume drops with every step. When I routed the sound through new busses for every step the volume stayed the same. Comparing the new busses with the old ones does not give me any different setting (as far as I can see). Are there hidden settings I might have overlooked? Can anyone please give me a hint where I might have changed a setting in the past that could cause this? I would like to prevent to have to redo many dozens of tracks and busses incl. inserts... Here are my findings so far: All volume meters are at 0. All gain is at 0. Original problem situation: Instrument track (virtual piano): Meter Peak -1,6dB Keys Bus: Meter Peak -19,2dB Mix Bus: Meter Peak -17dB Master Bus: Meter Peak -30dB RME Stereo out: -44dB Test with one bus replaced: Instrument track (virtual piano): Meter Peak -1,6dB NEW TEST Keys Bus: Meter Peak -1,6dB Mix Bus: Meter Peak -17dB Master Bus: Meter Peak -30dB RME Stereo out: -26,5dB Test with two busses replaced: Instrument track (virtual piano): Meter Peak -1,6dB NEW TEST Keys Bus: Meter Peak -1,6dB NEW TEST Mix Bus: Meter Peak -2,6dB Master Bus: Meter Peak -16dB RME Stereo out: -12,4dB Test with three busses replaced: Instrument track (virtual piano): Meter Peak -1,6dB NEW TEST Keys Bus: Meter Peak -1,6dB NEW TEST Mix Bus: Meter Peak -2,6dB NEW TEST Master Bus: Meter Peak -3,3dB RME Stereo out: -6,9,4dB

RME makes very solid professional interfaces which they update regularly during many years. Don't know which of the few PCIe cards you have. I've got the RME PCIe AIO . Model is from 2009 and this year an improved PCIe version was introduced. When looking at the specs and changes I couldn't find any improvement regarding latency/speed, just better audio quality, less potential distortion caused by the environment, increased signal-to-noise ratio and a lower output impedance at low reference levels etc. This indicates that the more than 10 year old cards from RME can still be up to the task. There were both a driver and a flash update for my card as recent as this month. My PC (AMD Threadripper 1950X, 32GB Ram, SSDs) runs fine with larger projects. I noticed no difference with the latest Windows updates. Considering you didn't have problems before the recent Windows updates I guess the problem is not the Card. Just some wild thoughts: Maybe some RAM going bad, HD failure, other hardware component failure Cables that are not properly plugged Another thing: after an update, Windows sometimes has the nasty habit of resetting custom settings, sometimes also re-enabling USB selective suspend... I would definitely double-check those Maybe the updates have also introduced incompatibility with some of your FX plugins ( in case those are loaded as well) and they might need to be updated? Are the Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes up to date? Did you check processor scheduling in CbB? You could try to play with those settings Are sample rate and bit depth the same as Windows? Do you use the ASIO driver in CbB? Can you recall what you had changed before the issue came back? To find out what goes wrong on windows: try Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Security and Maintenance\Reliability Monitor => click on the alarm signs to find out the details try other tools in the same Security and Maintenance directory like Windows Memory Diagnostics try Windows event viewer. Explanations for use are in the hyperlink. This records anything software does on your PC and might pinpoint a problem you have. try Whats my computer doing

This give me the impression that there's still something that can be significantly improved in CbB regarding latency. It should be possible for the DAW to allocate a separate process for demanding plugins, especially on PCs with many cores (fortunately quite common these days). Also, it would be nice if CbB could give a clear overview that shows the latency caused by each plugin in a separate latency monitor window, so you can choose to not use that plugin at a given time or replace it with another one that could provide similar use but without the same heavy latency.

I couldn't agree more and have given quite some examples why it could be possible in the topic can cakewalk use a graphics card, but you're asking in the wrong place, see my previous post: you need to post a feature request in the Feedback Loop subforum...

Very good question. We had a long discussion some time ago: can cakewalk use a graphics card You could post a request in Feedback Loop. I'm convinced that CbB could be adapted to benefit from the power of GPUs (but writing the code for it might not be so straight forward...). There was even a guy who had posted some YouTube videos where he showed a DAW running latency-free with the help of a GPU based on software he was developing. Unfortunately, can't find him anymore, but was a great example of the possibilities. Many seem to think that the GPU is just useful for the graphic interface, but GPUs are some much more than graphics accelerators... Edit: just found one of the examples back: GPU Audio showcase Proof of technology. 1 ms audio buffer at 96 kHz showcase. Near 0% CPU usage, eGPU support, and some product demonstration. Reaper with several audio tracks and some FX open on a PC with Tractor Audio 6 USB audio device, running on a GeForce GTX 1080 at 96kHz, 96 samples, 1 ms buffer at as good as 0 % CPU. There is more info on the net about, but I lost track

Do you mean the browser on the right? or one of the modules in the browser? to show the Audio FX in the browser: Ctrl + A Midi FX: Ctrl + M If you don't see the browser window maybe you just need to click the double arrow completely on the right just under the control bar to unfold the browser or use shortcut: B When unfolded you see FX on the top of the browser module If this is not what you need please give more details

Great, so that's covered?. Exactly at the time of our discussion AnandTech published a test investigating performance of multithreading on zen 3 and amd ryzen 5000/5 . It still confuses me a bit. However, there is some interesting feedback in the comments section that give more info and suggestions. I've had the free version of Process Lasso (the Bitsum software you refer to) for a long time, forgot about it and never used it. Maybe this is a good time to start using it... Any recommendations on how to use it to finetune CbB CPU optimization? I also noticed another program on there website parkcontrol which could be useful too, but its functionality seems also included in Process Lasso. " With ParkControl, we revealed hidden CPU settings that control core parking, and wrote about how CPU core parking and frequency scaling can affect performance of real-world CPU loads. Put simply, these power saving technologies come with a performance trade-off, so they should be disabled when maximum performance is desired. Both ParkControl and Process Lasso offer a power profile, Bitsum Highest Performance, that is pre-configured for ultimate performance. In this power plan, your CPU always remains ready to execute new code. Core parking is disabled and the CPU never drops below its nominal (base) frequency. Since you probably don’t want to be in this power plan all the time, we include automation to switch the active power plan when specific applications or games are running (Performance Mode), or only when the user is active (IdleSaver). Process Lasso also allows for specific power profiles to be associated with an application in case you want to use different power plans. Finally, the IdleSaver feature of Process Lasso will switch to a more conservative power plan when you go idle. Similarly, ParkControl has a function called Dynamic Boost that is essentially the opposite of IdleSaver – it raises to a more aggressive power plan when the system is active." If it works as advertised it is a very handy addon: I've used Power Buddy to manually switch to max performance when using photo or audio editing software. I regularly forget to switch it on or off... Now this can be done automatically without having to think about switching to a more efficient power plan when the hard work is done and vice versa!

Sounds interesting, I wonder if you can separate the OS cores from the cores used by the DAW, and if you can give certain (hyperthread)cores priority to DAW tasks that have the biggest impact on pops. cracks and dropouts. Maybe the others on this thread could give more feedback to your suggestions (I'm a PC hobbyist, but this goes above my head, unfortunately). I don't know how it works between software developers, but is it not a good idea to try to get in touch with a Windows 10 development team that is concerned with OS-CPU communication development? That way you will understand better how MS deals with multicores and hyperthreading and they might also be interested understanding the needs from DAW developers/users.

This was your argument: "Am I mistakenly to find that Reaper projects the sound differently than Cakewalk? My plugins sounds way fuller in Reaper. I really don't know how to explain it - but have anyone experience something like this? I hear compression better, the plugins are more sensitive there as what it is in CbB. The same with a Reverb - it sounds more true and natural than what it does in CbB. This is the same for every plugin. I use the same plugins in both and in CbB and there's a highly noticeable difference." I merely pointed you to a possible tool that could help you figure out what is really going on i.e. different DAWs have different settings which also goes for the plugins in those DAWs. Just try a tool like this (there are similar tools as well) and maybe the other DAWs and the plugins in those DAWs don't sound so different after all. And this kind of tool seems to help getting faster and better mixing results.

This article is from 2017. I read beginning of this year somewhere that Windows 10 since the spring 2020 update has made significant changes under the hood that better support multicore CPUs and more specifically benefit AMD processors. Here's another article from the February 2020 (before the WIN10 changes) that adds some info to your article: https://www.techjunkie.com/disable-hyperthreading/ From what I understand so far, disabling might be beneficial as long as you have pc tasks that don't exceed the maximum the amount of cores. When you cross that number hyperthreading is probably more beneficial (also according to many benchmarks). With large projects in CbB I've seen that all my 32 hyperthread cores are being used, so I wonder if disabling hyperthreading would benefit that situation. Interesting finding! I get that many things could play a part in the code under the hood and that CbB might still not be as efficient as possible with new AMD CPUs. Apart from that, however, when you use only 16 cores in CbB and have more than 16 processes (CbB + Windows + others) that need CPU at the same time, Windows will still use hyperthread cores because of operating system tasks (and maybe some other software that is running alongside CbB) as long as you have not physically disabled hyperthreading in the BIOS. Maybe most of the time the non-CbB processes are limited and CbB can still use the majority of the cores without hyperthreading. Or, when you set the amount of cores, they are completely claimed by CbB , but that would mean that the operating system has no cores to run... Anyway, I would like a scenario where I don't need to switch off hyperthreading and don't need to use only my logical cores in CbB (can't get rid of the gut feeling that more cores is better?) , considering that I also use the pc for photo/video work, which are known to significantly benefit from hyperthreading. Hopefully CbB can still be improved regarding multicore use.

Maybe something like this could provide you with an answer: Gainmatch (I discovered it through a feedback request post from feedback request post from Niko Panunggal) The website lists several common problems: Does It Sound Better, Or Just Louder? Have you ever seen a plugin that sounds so much better when you put it on? And later discovered that it just adds 1 dB of gain on everything? Or maybe a new compressor, that has a fixed 2 dB steps output knob? So that comparing before and after is a pain? Or maybe a saturation plugin with no output gain, so that it's almost unusable? Seems to me that it might address many of the discussed issues in this topic

Very nice plugin indeed from what I've read and seen in the video. Covers all the goods of the established reference tools with level-matched A/B testing like Perception and Mcompare and adds extra useful functions. Seems like a real time saver. I would like to know how it compares to ADPTR AUDIO Metric AB. Would be great to have something similar built in...

What I can vaguely remember is that with the introduction of the Windows 10 2020 spring update multicore processing incl. AMD was better supported. I've got no clue if SMT is also better supported from that moment on, but it would surprise me if Microsoft is not working on better ZEN support considering Ryzen's growing market share. I would highly appreciate if CbB could dive into this in order to assure best possible performance with ZEN architecture. I've been playing around a bit (not enough time to really go deep into it, unfortunately) with the settings and did notice better stability with the latest Thread scheduling model 3 recently, but if it is faster/better performing under demanding workload I can't tell yet (Threadripper 1950x). I hope to be able to switch to a Ryzen 9 5950X next year, so any CbB compatibility improvement is welcome. I found this article about from May 2020 about how Windows 10 uses multiple CPU cores This article about Windows 10 threat priorities And on the Cubase website this tool to test the Multimedia Class Scheduler service (MMCSS). It tests the amount of threads used by your machine/OS. How to use mmcss-test: Double-click it to run it (by default, this will test 128 threads) It is possible to use this tool to test any amount of threads: Type run in Windows Search Click on "Browse" Locate the mmcss-test.exe (e.g. on your desktop) Add a space character and the amount of threads (e.g. C:\Users\<username>\Desktop\mmcss-test.exe 512) You can use it to test the limitation as well as to test that limiting the amount of cores used has been applied correctly. The tool will output the amount of MMCSS priority threads and the amount of threads which failed to set MMCSS priority.

Hi, here are things that I regularly use in order to prevent and solve problems and improve DAW performance: check that all drivers are up to date. For example, use a freeware tool like Dumo. If it finds outdated drivers just go to the hardware manufacturer's site directly and download it from there (in general I find that safer than to use a tool to do it for me) run Windows update to be up to date and to and make sure that no update has been downloaded that is still waiting for install or reboot (this has been a cause of sudden malfunctioning for me several times and is very easy to solve. However, considering your story I assume you've restarted enough and probably are up to date with Windows 10 itself) check that all other software is up to date. For example, use a freeware tool like SUMo. If it identifies outdated software versions, update the software from the software itself, you don't need to use the tool (or support the makers and pay for the function to let it download the software for you) to make sure you've got all the latest runtimes there are two handy downloads: AllinOne Runtimes (contains the following: .NET Framework 4.8 + Updates, Java Runtime Environment 8, DirectX 9.0c Zusatzdateien, Allgemeine Runtime Dateien, Microsoft Visual C++ Runtimes (v2005 - v2019), Microsoft Visual J# 2.0 SE, Microsoft Silverlight 5, Adobe Flash Player (Opera, FireFox, Internet Explorer), Shockwave Player 12. Each can be selected or deselected for installation) and Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes All-in-One (This last one might be a bit more up to date but has only the C++ updates) run the different windows repair tools (Windows File Protection, Component Store Corruption, System Components, Rebuild WMI Repository, Reset Windows Update, Windows Installer (MSI)): you can find them by searching the web and find explanations for each how to do it or you can see if you can get a free trial of Window 10 Manager which has a very handy repair centre tab where you can execute them with one click use CCleaner to get rid of junk files, clean the registry (you can select what the program will check, will deleted and what not! If you don't understand how to use it don't but it is one of the few really reliable programs that perform this kind of actions so recommended to check it out. It also has many other functions, like startup manager where you can see which programs automatically start with Windows and prevent them from doing so if you don't really need them to start with Windows, etc.) check that PC power is set to maximum: 1. Set your computer's power for high performance - Go to: Control Panel>Power Options - Choose "High Performance" - Then click the "Change plan settings" button. Make sure both power options are set to "Never" check that no USB adapters can switch off power. On the Properties screen, click on Power Management tab and uncheck the option for “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” and click on OK. Disable power management for USB root hubs in the Device Manager. Open the Device Manager and expand the Universal Serial Bus controllers category. Right-click each USB Root Hub, click Properties and click the Power Management tab. Uncheck any boxes next to “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.” Check this after each big Windows update. Windows has the annoying habit to reset many options after an update... disable network cards, WIFI and Bluetooth if not used (Device Manager => network adapters, right-click and select disable device) check that you your graphics card doesn't install audio and other things than the driver itself. If you have an NVIDIA GeForce you can use NVcleanstall to get the latest driver, do a clean install and deselect everything that is not the main driver (other software, audio driver, telemetry etc.). check in device manager under 1) audio inputs & outputs that only the desired audio controller is being used (e.g. Focusrite) and no other device is being used (like NVIDIA) 2) sound video & game controllers (see 1)) On the same page as DUMo and SUMo you'll find many other tools to find problems (KC softwares). Other sites with many handy tools that might help you are Resplendence (LatencyMon, WhoCrashed, WhysoSlow etc.), Nirsoft and SoftwareOK (I regularly use many of the tools from these websites for different purposes, also to improve my workflow with windows and other programs) To find out what goes wrong on windows: try Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Security and Maintenance\Reliability Monitor => click on the alarm signs to find out the details try other tools in the same Security and Maintenance directory like Windows Memory Diagnostics try Windows event viewer. Explanations for use are in the hyperlink. This records anything software does on your PC and might pinpoint a problem you have. try What's my computer doing Hope this helps!

Thanks for sorting this out. I didn't know this in Cubase, but it covers for a large part what I had suggested earlier as options that I would like to see in a Chord Track. I would mainly use it in a comparable way: to help me get out of a writers block, boost my creativity and preferably: provide me other than the simple, standard chord progressions that are mostly used suggest other than standard voicings for different instruments Right now I use Toontrack's different options and Scaler and some other software once in a while, but having something build in would speed up things, and I would not be depending on some VSTs and have to exchange parts between VSTs. It might be complicated to implement a Chord Track that meets most of the wishes in this thread, but looking at the recent CbB improvements I think that the bakers are capable of surprising us more and more!

Nice list! I would like to see implemented (partly overlapping with your list): you give in the key (or play the bass note) in which you want to write a song. Then you play a chord (and as option for those who prefer to select chords instead of playing) and a chord track tool gives you a random and/or selectable list with suggestions for different (and more complex) voicings, like for example these "10 Best Neo Soul Chords" you put in a chord progression and get other chord progressions as alternatives for that same part you put in a chord progression and get other chord progressions as suggestion for a next part the option to select the music style and have chords, progressions and timing/rhythm generated accordingly (e.g. like in Superior drummer and EZbass) the option to select the instrument and have chords, progressions and timing/rhythm generated accordingly (e.g. a guitar voicings are not the same as piano voicings) Most preferably the above implemented much more in-depth than common time with just 4 standard chords like you hear these days in most songs...(I long for the sixties and seventies with The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, Chicago, Pink Floyd, psychedelic and symphonic rock,...when music was real music??)

Let's stop wasting time and let's make music, each on his preferred DAW ?

Apart from the possibilities that CbB provides for your problem (as indicated in the post here above which to me seem more quite good and fast), maybe you should try out the new Celemony Melodyne 5, probably the best de-esser around and a huge time saver for professionals?

Well, I think your review goes way beyond mine! Very informative?

Nice work! Now that it has been done maybe you could change the title to "Cakewalk and BandLab at KVR - Please vote!" I just wrote a review?. Curious to see how the KVR listing will develop...

I'm confused: so the advice from the CbB release is wrong (that leads to 512 KB Playback and 256 KB Record with interface at 256 KB (only one setting possible for both Playback and Record so it can only be in sync with one at a time)? Next to that I thought that for playback during mixing (especially with extensive projects) it's even better to use 1024 KB or higher driver buffer size (meaning that after tracking you always need to increase driver buffer sizes for mixing and vice versa)

My 10 year old RME PCIe at 96kHz, 24bit and 64 sample buffers gives me an effective latency of 0.7 ms and roundtrip of 3.4 ms I always wondered which one is the one you need to look at: roundtrip or effective latency? (I thought the latter when you're recording e.g. a vocal) However, I never felt that CbB was very stable at those settings, to be on the safe side I use 256 sample buffers (effective latency of 2.7 ms and roundtrip of 7.4 ms .

Thanks for all the feedback! I found out that I've changed the setting myself long time ago, when I started to get pops and cracks. It was advised by CbB in the Version 2018-09 release notes: "To optimize playback and reduce the potential for dropouts or audio glitches, we recommend a Playback I/O Buffer Size value of about 512 (KB) if you are experiencing any performance problems. You can change the Playback I/O Buffer Size value in Edit > Preferences > Audio - Sync and Caching." (So you think that both Playback and Record I/O to 256KB is better?) Later on I found out that it was "thread scheduling" value 3 that gave problems. This however seems to have been fixed in the recent CbB releases. Using a simple project (some EQ, compression and two normal reverbs + one convolution) and a few audio tracks + many inactive tracks and inactive busses with preloaded FX from my template) I measured it today against against "thread scheduling" 2 which now shows the following during playing: thread scheduling 3: Audio Processing 6% (Max. 16%, jumps to 21% during pause and jumps to 16 again during play???), 35% (Max. 55%, jumps to 103 during a pause???), Engine Load, 0 Late Buffers thread scheduling 2: Audio Processing 7,5% (Max. 17%, jumps to 22% during pause) Audio Processing, 38% (Max. 54% jumps to 110 during pause), Engine Load, 0 Late Buffers (numbers are rounded averages since they change continuously). So at first sight some small performance improvements. Strangely enough when I stop the project the Max. values jump up and when hitting play again the Max. values drop significantly? I've got the latest RME driver for my AOI PCIe card, so that shouldn't be a problem. I make sure to always have the latest driver and software updates for anything on the PC (has become a bit of an obsession?). Things go reasonably well right now. I expected my 16-core Threadripper 1950X with 32 GB RAM and fast PCIe SSD drives to run smooth all the time, even under heavy workload. Still, if you don't pay attention to the many different Windows settings (sleep timers, GPU audio, power settings, wireless connections etc.) and other background processes, such a system can be disappointing. After tweaking it at many sides it's finally becoming nice to work with. Because of the many uncertainties introduced by other software I now use a program (ProcessKO) to disable any background process that is not needed for the system when I run CbB. This also seems to help a bit. System is now running 96kHz, 24bit + 64bit double precision engine (I wonder how useful the latter is and if it uses more resources) with latency of 2,7 ms at 256 (both Playback and Record I/O, according to your advice) samples buffer size. What I don't get is why its still possible to get pops and cracks (which happens rarely at the moment, touch wood...) when you see on the performance monitor that Audio processing and Engine Load are way below 100%? I've never seen one of the cores max out during an audio glitch. And why in some cases late buffers seem to be building up when a song project has been opened but is not playing???