Lord Tim

No there isn't, it's a proprietary format with chunks of data in it from what I recall, so I'd assume there would be checksums in there as well to see if anything has been altered/corrupted.

I don't believe so, sorry, but people smarter than me might have a different answer for you

What I'm seeing here is that if you select a time range on the ruler and then go to a specific clip and try to drag down the envelope, the cursor will change but the envelope won't move. On the other hand, if you select a range on the clip itself and drag down, this works as expected. Not sure if this is a bug or a counter-intuitive UI thing, honestly. @msmcleod is this as designed?

Sometimes updates change the Class ID of the plugin. It's supposed to migrate but manufacturers don't always get it right, unfortunately. The easiest solution is to put in the new version of the plugin, I'd say, and thankfully L2 is fairly basic as far as what you usually adjust on it.

Pictures corrupt sometimes. Try right-clicking the waveform and choosing Associated Audio Files, then press the Recompute Pictures button. Failing that, it's safe to close Cakewalk and then delete everything inside the Picture Cache folder (typically that's at C:\Cakewalk Projects\Picture Cache ). When you open your project next, it'll just recreate all of the waveform pictures again and should solve the issue.

Roland Cloud has one which would likely fit the purpose: https://www.roland.com/au/products/rc_sound_canvas_va/ This actually has the exact SC8850 sound sets in there, in fact. However, as great as all of the synths are in there, this is a subscription service rather than a one-time payment for a synth, so that might not be a good option.

MME is the worst driver model you can use, and is really there as a last resort. What audio interface do you have? WASAPI Shared should work with most things, but if it's a proper interface, then you'd use the official ASIO drivers for it.

TTS-1 is great but it's problematic, and is a cause of crashes for some people these days (it regularly crashes for me on an otherwise rock solid system). I'd definitely advise looking for a more updated GM synth for a start. I would start to suspect things sharing a channel as the first place I'd look. For example, if you have three tracks all going to TTS-1, and you have track 1 set to Piano with MIDI channel 1, track 2 set to Bass with MIDI channel 5, and track 3 is set to Strings and set to MIDI channel 1 (which is already being used by the Piano track) then lowering the Strings volume will give you all kinds of wacky results, usually affecting the wrong instrument. Related to that, you might find there are some automation or controller information in a track that's adjusting things for you automatically - it's easy to draw that stuff in if you've had your Automation Write button accidentally activated on a track.

The really wacky thing is that every other operation seems to be normal, it's just the import speed, yeah? And, aside from Chrome being pegged when things are importing (which is suspicious, mind you), everything else seems to be functioning normally. A failing disk would affect everything. An infected system would likely show more symptoms than this. CbB seems to be playing back OK so there's no issue with reads and writes from disks... all of the usual suspects are pretty much ruled out. The only thing that could make any sense is some aggressive scanning by an antivirus or some other app while a file is being read (possibly something to do with Chrome? Who knows), but that doesn't seem to be the case either. I'm also inclined to think that it's not hardware related at all, so that really takes us back to Cakewalk, Windows or some hidden malicious actor that is oddly specific. We're all just guessing at this point, unfortunately, even with the great info you've given us. I'd definitely start with doing a thorough virus, malware and rootkit scan, then try a clean CbB install and see if that helps. If not... then yeah, it might be system related as I said, but it's a big job to start over.

Just bear in mind that if you do that, it might limit the video types to older kinds, like .MPG rather than some flavours of .MP4 The video engine could definitely use some love one day, I'll agree.

Yeah, this is bizarre. The Chrome usage is another weird thing too. I'd almost suspect malware on your machine. What I'd probably suggest is taking a full system image of your computer (using Acronis or something like that), backing that up to an external drive, then first trying a clean install of Cakewalk to see if that makes any difference. If it doesn't, then I'd suggest a clean install of Windows. You'll be able to go back to your existing image of your machine in minutes from the backup so you'll have a safety net if you don't want to commit to this kind of undertaking yet. I'd ordinarily not recommend going as far as nuking your OS but this is definitely an outlier. You'll at least be able to rule out hardware or virus related reasons for this. And, ultimately, this might be a real butt-pain in the short term but those import times are absolutely ridiculous - you'll save in the long run.

^^ Yeah, absolutely this. If it's a USB-only mic, you're kind of back to square one because ASIO can only use one device (or more accurately one driver) at a time. The interface should be your only device, and you'd plug your mic into that using an XLR cable, like Greg said. Cakewalk will only see what Windows can see, so like I said earlier, make sure you install the drivers for your interface first, then plug in it and let it detect in Windows. If Windows can't see it, Cakewalk won't either. Once you know that's all working, you'll want to go into your audio preferences in Cakewalk and choose only that device, and change the driver model to ASIO. If you get that far and it's all connected and working for both Windows and Cakewalk, but you don't hear any sound, you may need to set the hardware outputs to your new interface, but we'll cross that bridge when you get there.

MIDI is just data, so fades don't affect MIDI at all. MIDI sends that data to an instrument that plays that data. Your options are freezing or bouncing down the instrument to turn it into audio and fading those created clips, or creating a volume or velocity automation envelope on your MIDI track and drawing in fades for the end. Or, if you want to work more destructively, going into your MIDI track and changing the velocity to taper off the notes, but I'd recommend against that - envelope automation is more flexible and undoable.

Ah, that's great! Well, definitely do NOT get ASIO4ALL in this case, make sure you put in the M-Audio ASIO drivers first, and choose that in all of the options I mentioned. That should sort it all out.

Your setup is really complicated for any app to do any audio with, unfortunately. Video card sound is pretty terrible in general, USB headphones (especially wireless ones) are particularly susceptible to latency and crackles, and switching between them is going to cause you nothing but misery. My biggest recommendation is to drop $100 or so on a cheap audio interface like a Focusrite Scarlett Solo or similar. You'll get MUCH lower latency and much better performance. It's sometimes down to that if you just want the damn thing to work without messing around. But in lieu of that, in your Audio Recording and Playback devices, choose something appropriate in the Input devices (it's a little irrelevant unless you're recording live audio), and in your Output devices, choose the first VN279 device. This will at least send your audio to the monitor if that's what you're listening through. ONLY have ticks in those devices, none other. In the Audio Timing Masters, choose whatever devices you had ticks in on the previous screen. I'd probably recommend taking the tick out of 64 bit engine too, just to troubleshoot. Get everything else working first. Press Apply. Then go to the Playback and Recording Settings options and see if you can choose WASAPI in there. Press OK and see what it does. If it works, great! You'll get lower latency with WASAPI Exclusive but you might run into problems with other apps using the driver. WASAPI Shared will work in that case. If WASAPI isn't available, try WDM next. If none of these things are working for you, my last option is to go against all recommendations and suggest ASIO4ALL. That's not a proper driver and in a lot of cases can cause issues with other devices that do use real drivers, but it can make WDM look like an ASIO driver (ASIO is the best choice of drivers on a professional sound interface), and might solve the issue for you. This is a last resort and the only thing preferable to resorting to MME. But try everything else first, it's not a great option. I'd definitely also echo the comment above and say you should update Windows too - best to do it now before you get everything working and the update decides to reset everything on you. It's worth it from a security point of view if nothing else. But my ultimate suggestion is to get an audio interface. That will solve every single problem in one go.

Or a second set of hats - that's very common on a lot of the big kits I record. Can't say I'm a big fan of djent style drums though, personally. They somehow sound more like a drum machine than a 1984 Frankie Goes to Hollywood 12" remix ?

That usually happens if you run Cakewalk with your devices unplugged or changed, or you've changed which USB port they're using at any time between each performance. What I'd do is this case is make a backup of your .ini files (aud.ini, cakewalk.ini etc) and copy them back in before each performance, overwriting the "wrong" ones. Great news about the heat thing, that's encouraging!

Ok, from posting your preferences screenshot we can see that you're using MME mode for your driver, which is the worst option. That's definitely one place you're getting crackles from. Secondly, you have your audio output going through your video card, which is never great, and likely a huge problem too. I would recommend these steps: In your 3rd screenshot, untick everything in each box for input and output drivers. I would typically say put a tick only in the Realtek related ones but we need to know how you're listening to the audio. What are your speakers or headphones plugged into? You need to choose that device. After we know this, we can advise which boxes to tick. Next steps: In your second screenshot, you choose the things you ticked for input and output in the 3rd screenshot for Playback and Timing Masters. Then, in your first screenshot, you'll want to choose WASAPI as your driver model. WASAPI Shared or Exclusive will work, but they both have their own pro and con. Worry about that then you're hearing sound. A lot of this stuff is covered in the Cactus Music Owners Manual Tutorials, but the first step is to find the best way to get sound at all in the Input and Output Drivers in your 3rd screenshot. My suggestion for output drivers there, as I said, would usually be one of the Realtek ones, but the Bose one is probable too. Try to avoid the ones going to your monitor/video card. Only try one at a time, and don't forget to press OK or Apply after each change. Then work through this post to choose the right Timing Masters and Driver Model.

You may want to start a new thread for your problem rather than tacking onto this one. But I would start with a clean install: https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034066393-Clean-Install-Cakewalk-by-BandLab Start a new thread with your system specs if you can't get it happening and as much information as possible and I'm sure that someone will help you get more than a minute's worth of use out of Cakewalk.

I'm working on a country/folk/pop album right now for an artist and I've been brought in to also program drums (they're usually an acoustic duo) and do keyboards on the tracks, as well as production. The mantra is As Simple As It Can Be, As Complex As It Needs To Be with this stuff. The basic beats are crazy simple (especially compared to the metal stuff I do) but treating the drums as part of the ensemble where the rolls accentuate certain parts, or the kick pattern grooves with the bass makes all the difference to how well it works. From a programming point of view it's not much different complexity-wise than doing mostly 4-on-the-floor 8th note grooves, but getting it locked in and going back to refine it to work in the context of the track is definitely key here.

We'll be running an isolated stage monitoring system via CbB once we get properly back out there eventually, but certainly for clicks and backing synths first up. How are you finding your machine dealing with the stage heat and humidity? I've got no doubts about CbB's stability on a well set-up machine, but things get pretty toasty for us sometimes!

^^ exactly this. Going by the screenshot you posted, that's using a MOTU M... something. Great. That tells us what brand of device it is, but nothing about the driver model Cakewalk is using for it, the latency settings, etc. or what other drivers are installed for other devices. Even having a certain Magix or Steinberg driver on a computer that Cakewalk isn't even using can cause these kind of issues, but we simply don't know what you have. I'm not sure if that's your system or the one from John's video that you're showing, but the problem remains the same. Sharing the audio settings inside Cakewalk Preferences will actually let us help you. You'd never go to a doctor and tell them your stomach hurts and you'd like them to fix it but not show them anything they ask for, and I certainly wouldn't be happy with them guessing the solution. Even if something is in a different language, people here will be able to see what you're actually dealing with and make better suggestions for you.

What driver mode are you using (ASIO / WASAPI Shared or Exclusive /WDM etc), what driver is it, and what latency have you got it set to? I'm guessing it's a Realtek of some kind being that it's the most common inbuilt one, but how you have that set up can make all the difference. But details will save us all from just guessing.

When it hangs next, capture a minidump as per Noel's explanation here: You'll want to zip that file and upload it to a sharing platform (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.) and get it to Support. They'll be able to tell you where the fault lies (be it in Cakewalk, or a plugin or whatever) and advise you on what to do next.

The other option you can do is create a new audio track, then freeze the original track. In Freeze options (right click the freeze button on the track header to get to that), you can choose if it splits the track and how long the tail is between each split, which will preserve effects tails. Then shift+drag the frozen clips to the new audio track. It's a few more steps but it both gets you exactly what you want, plus if you unfreeze the original track, that'll have the unprocessed audio, which you can archive and hide just as a backup.