Christian Jones

Great post and informative as usual dude, thanks. I got 8gb ddr3 as it turns out, but I'll go ahead and score a 16gb deal. I can buy any vst I want but I mess w/ some of these free ones cuz some of them are cool and I like weird sounds.

Just curious, what type of performance issues where you having? Like, when you'd go to load those demanding drum libraries, would they just not load up properly, or would they load but maybe they would glitch or have some click/pop/other noise artifacts during playback? Because I have only 8gb of ram on Windows 10 (don't recall if it's ddr2 or 3), and when using the Synth Magic Quadra vst, it will load but many of the sounds have this weird static/clip noise right at the beginning/attack of, say, a bass note - but just right at the attack of the note, not the whole duration of it when sustained. Steve from Synth Magic thinks it's my dated audio interface (RME 9632), though I'm able to play many as his other Synth Magic vsts with no problems so I'm wondering if maybe it's the limited ram (8gb - which I thought would've been enough for vsts if they even use the ram as I think some vsts stream from disk). Steve did say the Quadra was very demanding. Anyway thanks for the post. Maybe I should score a 4th of July ram deal.

Thanks abacab. Are you bothering to do anything about Cortana? Apparently MS doesn't want you messing with it though apparently a hack can disable it - though I also read that doing so could put the hurt on search functions. Also, what are you using for an av.. Is it Defender? If so, are you temporarily disabling it prior to a session?

Just upgraded to Windows 10 recently and went over this list here I found online https://bandzoogle.com/blog/20-ways-to-optimize-your-windows-10-pc-for-music-production - and was wondering if anyone has anything to add to it? Here's a link to a great post made to me by abacab on how to tweak the Windows 10 update process (I'll be finally doing this tonight): https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/4476-should-i-upgrade-from-windows-7-now-what-are-you-using/&do=findComment&comment=39497 I've seen some of you talk about "reining Windows in" and I've read over SPAK's recent thread and I was just hoping to make sure I've implemented all the tricks so that I too (and anyone else) can retain a comprehensive check list of tweaks to go over and re-tweak anything that may have been bothered as a result of a Windows update. I've gotten rid of my 3rd party av and am using Windows Defender at the moment at Sweetwater's advice, so tonight I'll be looking into tweaking that real quick so it doesn't scan constantly. What all is good to disable in general and especially in the Group Policy Editor (other than the auto updates - instructions for that at abacab's link above)? I've uninstalled OneDrive completely, but still need to do something about Cortana. Any other tweaks that can be added to that list of 20 up there? Would be cool to have a nice list going in one spot. If there's a list on here already somewhere feel free to point me to it. Thanks!

I'm having some issues tonight w/ CbB freezing intermittently but frequently soon after launching a new session and w/o really doing much more than adding a midi and audio track (before even recording any midi or audio data), so I may post a different thread on that soon if my troubleshooting is not fruitful. But first I just wanted to ask--because maybe this is the cause--if free kontakt libraries sometimes cause problems the same way that some free plugins can? I mean, I use the latest update of Kontakt 5, so on the one hand since Kontakt 5 is stable you'd think free libraries causing crashes like some free plugins can would be a non-issue since the host is stable, but is that really the case? I'm messing w/ this free kontakt library called Trumpette and when I'm using it that's when I seem to notice the freezing but that may just be coincidental and it's not always the case either so it's one of those things where I'm trying to narrow it down, but I also have no major issue cutting that library loose if I have to. Thanks

Nightwish is pretty rad. Back when I worked at the Starbucks corp office I used to come blasting that very album into the parking lot in the morning w/ the windows down lol. They did a pretty dope cover of Floyd's High Hopes, which when I heard it I was both ecstatic and let down.. let down because a long time ago I had planned to cover that song and when I heard their version, that's pretty much how I would have done it, more or less ?

Lol yeah dumb question now that I think of it.. I mean *obviously* you back the stuff up somewhere, I need to stop over-thinking everything. I *was* curious though how many hard drives bapu had

My Windows/apps drive is 500gb and lately it's down to around 20gb. All my audio files and libraries are on their own drives, but then I remembered all the instruments/libraries I've downloaded and the zips are still on the Windows drive. Just wondering how everyone goes about archiving them. I assume you don't delete them and rely on the vender to provide you with them again if need be, as venders go out of business and products just stop being available. Like Bapu, how do you archive all that stuff - many large drives? I see no other way other than just backing them up to a drive somewhere but thought I'd ask in case there's anything special I could/should be doing..

Anyone else having issues with Scaler 1.8 updating previous versions of scaler already loaded in a project prior to updating? I'm getting the "plugin missing" pop up and so is another guy who uses CbB on Scaler's forum. I can manually load Scaler 1.8, but it's not updating it in projects it was loaded in prior to the update. I guess the devs are looking into it.

So I deleted AUDIO.INI and TTSSEQ.INI from Cakewalk Core, uninstalled/reinstalled my RME audio drivers and deleted AUDIO.INI again, restarted pc once or twice in there, tried opening that one project that gets stuck on "Creating UI" and still the same two problems where it still hangs on "Creating UI" and freezes when trying to close. The other day though I re-saved that project to something else in safe mode which allows it to open up in regular mode now and that fixed the freeze upon closing issue too, so I guess that's still the plan forward, which is fine at least they're salvageable. But perhaps deleting those two files may prevent someting else bad from happening later. Anyway I'll see if support is interested in looking at any of this for their own sake. Thanks for all the tips.

Right on everyone. Yeah, I pretty much learned Cakewalk through trial and error too right up until I found the old forum not that many years ago. There was that 3" thick manual, but I don't recall ever cracking it open. I mostly hung out in the piano roll w/ my Z1 and DM5 back then. When I finally got Cakewalk working good in '97/'98 I remember blowing my own hair back w/ the first song I made lol. My sounds were good as I sequencing a Korg Z1, but this song I made, I just couldn't get over it. I still have it and hearing it today, I could see where I was coming from ?. Lol man I miss those days. I know a lot of people are well versed in several daws, but to be honest I really want nothing to do with any other daw. Not because I'm married to Cakewalk. For me the daw was always a necessity. I don't really enjoy it. That's not what I mean. I dig working in Cakewalk and knowing it well enough to be able to do what I want to do and that's cool. But I'm really a performer and songwriter at heart and the whole daw thing was something I got into to be able to make music w/o relying on/paying someone to do this and that. I'm just set in my ways is all that is. If Cakewalk vanished and it was forever I'd probably go to S1 only because it seemed to look a bit like Cakewalk last time I saw it.

Rad! Kinda wish it wasn't on a Wednesday but I live a block from a theater so I'll probably catch it alone real quick as no one I know really likes Rush. I need some Rush friends.

What would be the fear of losing the data in those files? What data is in there?

Thanks msmcleod I'll do that tomorrow when back at my daw and I'll see if that lets me open/close projects (that I haven't already re-saved in safe mode) w/ out "Not Responding" when closing. I'll report back tomorrow if it made a difference there or not, but perhaps it'll make a difference somewhere else. I'll reinstall audio drivers too, good idea man.

Lol $125 for a gat dang umbrella? What is that, per hour or what? I'm from Seattle.. don't you live around here in Everett iirc? If so I wouldn't imagine you even considering an umbrella for *any* reason. Anyway, someone once told me (I think it was Rich "the Tweakmeister" - RIP) that if you're going to go so far as to actually go to Vegas, you should at the least rent a Ferrari and cruise it out to the desert. Have you done that yet?

I don't know if this qualifies as bloat, but for me there was a bunch of start-up apps running that I currently have no use for, such as OneDrive, Edge, and just a bunch of stuff that didn't need to be running on my internet daw so I disabled them. You can search "Start up apps" and see what you want running at all times and what you don't.

That's cool, how would I set it up so they could get the project the way they'd need it? Save it as a bundle file or something? Actually it's probably that method Noel talks about I can search for it. Thanks again dude.

So in safe mode w/ the project that was hanging on "Creating UI", I saved the project under a different name, closed it, and it let me open it in regular mode and it opened quickly and seems to work - and it also closed w/o hanging on "Not Responding" this time. So opened another project that always opened fine in regular mode on my new Windows 10 and did exactly as above; first opened it in safe mode, saved it as something else and was able to open the new version in regular mode fine same as previous version, only now this new version will also close w/o doing the "Not Responding" routine. So, I guess what I have to do is basically open the individual projects in safe mode and re-save them? Because that at least appears to fix both issues I've reported here - though a tad tedious it ain't that bad considering and once it's done it's done I guess. Does that sound about right? In any case thanks a bunch, scook, you saved my stuff. I'll make a note of this for other projects that this will likely have to be done with as I get to them.

So in opening the project in safe mode I allowed *all* of the vsts to load and the project opened quickly and all the vsts worked except there was no synth rack, though there were instrument tracks of the vsts. Lol so, I guess, what should I do now that I've made it to *this* point? At least I can get the midi data out as I was afraid the song might've been lost. But how can I tell which plugin was causing the problem, since they all seemed to load fine under safe mode?

OK that got me into safe mode and I chose "no to all" so no vsts would load and the project opened right away, but of course the soft synths are missing. It looks like I had Kontakt and Battery loaded as well as some distortion pedal vst but I can't tell what one. So I guess the next step is to open project is safe mode again and allow one vst to load at a time until I find which one causes the hang..

I found just now that if I create a new project and leave it totally empty (no vsts, no tracks etc), I am able to save it, reopen it and I can close it w/o CbB hanging in "Not Responding" mode. So it appears to be previous projects created on Windows 7 that won't close, if that means anything. I haven't tried loading up any vsts in a new project to see what happens yet.

Yeah I'm running CbB as administrator via the "Run as an Administrator" box being checked by right-clicking the CbB icon then Properties->Compatibility tab. Unfortunately this didn't fix anything. I also tried opening the project in safe mode by holding down Shift while opening it to which I get some popup that says something like "Cakewalk will now personalize your user settings by copying application data files" - this didn3fix anything either... but I also thought "safe mode" wasn't supposed to load any of your vsts, however all of the vsts did get loaded so I'm not sure what safe mode is supposed to do here. I also tried opening that project (that hangs on "Creating UI") with SPLAT and it basically just hangs and doesn't even scan the vsts that would be loaded. I tried opening it w/ X3e and it said the CbB project is not even compatible for X3e. There's just no way to open this project since I've upgraded to Windows 10.

Hey everyone, so the other night I upgraded from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro and it went well. Today I tried firing up Cakewalk (CbB) for the first time after that and there's one project that hangs forever on "Creating UI" and it won't advance beyond that. First it would hang on "Loading Kontakt" for a good while longer than seemed usual then it finally gets past that and then gets stuck on "Creating UI" and project now won't open. So far it's just one project that hangs like that--and of course happens to be my best current song I'm working on. Other projects seem to load just fine... But when I try to close any given project Cakewalk just hangs and goes into "Not Responding" mode and has to be closed via either that "Close Program" popup or Task Manager. Here's what I've tried so far: In Edit->Preferences->Display I unchecked "Show Project Load Notifications" - this did not fix either issue. Cleared Picture Cache (I always keep it clear) - this did not fix anything either. Right after upgrading to Windows 10 I made sure the video card had latest drivers, which is an old AMD Radeon HD 5700, but it worked fine under Windows 7 and currently is reported to already be using the best drivers available for it. I read that I could try to update my mobo BIOS and chipset, but I've also read that sometimes updating that could cause more problems, so I wanted to ask here before doing anything else. There might be other projects that get stuck on the "Creating UI" as I haven't checked them all, but so far it seems to be just that one project. But ALL projects hang on that "Not Responding" upon trying to close them and have to be closed the hard way. All this after upgrading to Windows 10. Anyone know what's going on? Would it help to run Cakewalk as Administrator? I was actually reading about that the other day and I think skook said it wasn't necessary. Many thanks for any tips. Here's my computer info - don't now how much of this is info pertinent but here's all of it anyway (geez, hope my social security number isn't in there): OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Version 10.0.18362 Build 18362 Other OS Description Not Available OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name CHRISJONES-PC System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. System Model Z97X-UD3H System Type x64-based PC System SKU To be filled by O.E.M. Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3400 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s) BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. F7, 6/17/2014 SMBIOS Version 2.7 Embedded Controller Version 255.255 BIOS Mode Legacy BaseBoard Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. BaseBoard Product Z97X-UD3H-CF BaseBoard Version x.x Platform Role Desktop Secure Boot State Unsupported PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32 Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.18362.145" User Name ChrisJones-PC\Chris Jones Time Zone Pacific Daylight Time Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB Total Physical Memory 7.86 GB Available Physical Memory 5.07 GB Total Virtual Memory 15.9 GB Available Virtual Memory 12.9 GB Page File Space 8.00 GB Page File D:\pagefile.sys Kernel DMA Protection Off Virtualization-based security Not enabled Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, TPM is not usable Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

Man that's awesome and way more helpful than I expected thanks man.

Thanks a bunch abacab. If I may bug you (or anyone else) once more regarding this.. How do you have your win10 updates options set up? It looks like disabling updates is no longer an option but I guess you can pause them for a month or so. Is that basically how we do it now? Like before opening a session just go into updates real quick and make sure they'll be paused for the duration of the session or something?