online help Audio engine dropout

[Derblukenkat]

Hi so I recently downloaded Cakewalk and the first time I loaded up a new project it immediately said audio engine dropout (0) and my mouse cursor would just would just stay on the blue loading circle so i couldn't do anything, this happens every time i try to make a new project no matter what I do.  I tried restarting my computer and it didn't help. Does anyone know how to fix this?

[StudioNSFW]

First thing to check would be the driver mode you are using I think. If you don't have an ASIO capable interface you need to select WASAPI or something else.

 

It in the preferences pane near the top.

[Robert Bone]

Do you have an audio interface?  Because if you do not, you will likely not find any satisfactory performance.

The process of converting anoalog sounds into digital data, or the other way around, requires a boatload of calculations and such, and if that is all left to be handled directly by your computer's CPU, it will bog down, and cause you to have a very frustrating experience.

What fixes that, is to buy an external audio interface, which is purpose-built to contain circuitry to do all of those conversions back and forth between analog and digital, and its software drivers take care of splitting that work off of the CPU and it routes all of that data to the audio interface to handle it.

There are still some considerations for configuring your audio interface - so if you DO have an audio interface, please list the make and model of it, and we can look at your settings.

A decent audio interface, with a couple of mic/instrument inputs, connecting through USB, can be picked up for around $150, and they go up in price when you start looking at additional inputs and such.

Bob Bone