TTS-1 Generating White Noise?

[Michael McBroom]

Well, the title pretty much sez it all. But here are a few more details. I'm running the latest version of Cakewalk on a laptop that still has Win7. It runs Cakewalk pretty much without issues -- except for this odd situation.

TTS-1 is handling 10 tracks of MIDI instruments, and I also have a Roland GR-33 guitar synth hooked up to the system via my USB audio interface's MIDI ports. 

This doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough to be annoying. What I'm doing right now is editing a track that I've laid down with my GR-33. Getting rid of spurious notes it generated mostly, which is a common enough issue with the GR-33, especially if one is playing fast scale passages. So, after cleaning up maybe a measure or two of the GR-33's track, when I hit Play to see how it sounds, all the TTS-1 instruments now sound as if they've been converted into a roaring sort of white noise.  The GR-33's track still sounds okay, but none of the TTS-1 tracks do. I first tried just stopping and restarting the piece, which didn't help. Then I found that, if I clear the piece from CW by hitting the 'x' in the top right corner, then reload it, everything's back to normal. But what I'm finding is, after editing a couple measures of the GR-33's track, the roar comes back. So I have to save, exit, and reload again. This is annoying behavior and I'd like to find out what it is about my activities that is causing Cakewalk --  or TTS-1 -- to behave in this manner.

I don't have any VSTs loaded -- just two instances of TTS-1, but only one of them is doing anything during this section of the piece. No audio items are loaded at all, except for the TTS-1 audio outs, of course. Any ideas?

 

[John Vere]

Possibly the TTS-1 is getting old and has health issues. I only use it to listen to downloaded midi files these days. It's pretty rare that it is used in a song. There are just so many better sounding instruments out there.  The TTS-1 is a DXi instrument and I'm no expert,  but I'm not so sure that it is a fully supported format in W10 anymore. 

I certainly have had issues with TTS-1 since W10 and Bandlab. It works fine to OPEN a midi file and play it.  But If I insert it to a song I will have different issues. The most common is that a project will tell me TTS-1 is not available and it will be greyed out in the synth rack.  This just happened again a few days ago. As a test I opened the same project in Sonar Splat and the TTS-1 was fine.  It's sort of become unstable just like some of my 32 bit VST's. So I avoid them all. 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by John Vere

[Michael McBroom]

Hmmm, interesting behavior, but totally different from my own experiences. Prior to this one issue, TTS-1 has been extremely stable on my system and I use it a lot because of its very low drain on CPU resources. I also find that many of its instruments actually sound pretty authentic. I am in the final stages of finishing up three CDs of original compositions, in which I've made heavy use of TTS-1 and I've had zero problems with it, except for this white noise issue.

Just this morning, things seem to be getting worse. Working on the same piece as above, when I loaded it and clicked Play, the white noise was there. First time I've run into this when loading a tune for the fist time. So I exited the piece, then reloaded it, which worked before, but no joy. So I went ahead and shut down the laptop and rebooted to see if that would make a difference. Well, it cleared up -- for now. I hope that I don't have to reboot the machine every time this problem appears now. 

I suppose it's at least worth mentioning that I don't know for sure that this is a TTS-1 problem. It just so happens that it is the only multitimbral synth -- or any synth apart from my GR-33 -- that I've been using when the problem appeared. 

Incidentally, what multitimbral synths do you use now that you find to be better than TTS-1?

 

 

[John Vere]

The biggest improvements will be the resolution. I think TTS-1 is very low resolution so sounds flat to me.

For drums I use AD2 but also use SI drums and Session Drummer depending.   SI drums is a 10 fold improvement over GM kits.  I still use TTS_1 for some simple Percussion and brushes.  

For Bass I use the free Ample P bass lite. I will also use SI bass and for acoustic bass I really like the DIm Pro offering. GM rock bass is definitely a weak point. It's so bad that a lot of files seem to use the Acoustic bass which is more passable. 

Piano for sure everything else is much bigger! I use the free demo version of Addictive Keys. It's missing a few octaves I don't use.  I used to use True PIanos which came free with Sonar. There's also Airs Mini grand but I had issues with it changing effect settings so stopped using it. 

For organ I am still on a quest but the Air DB33 is the winner so far. I also use this freebie ComboV which is very 1960's. 

I use a lot of Whurlitzer and electric piano parts. Once again Addictive Keys MarkII is my go to. I also use Lounge Lizard and my best is Mr Tramp. Mr Tramp sounds the most authentic but it's 32 bit so I am careful how I use it. The SI electric piano is also not bad if you run it through effects.

For strings I use SI strings. 

That said an upgrade from TTS_1 is at least use the SI stuff as it's a big jump and it's not CPU intensive at all. Very stable. 

For guitars I use the free version of Ample Guitar lite. I used to use Strum session which came free with Sonar but Ample seems fuller. 

For Horns and stuff I use Dim Pro or even better my Air Xpand stuff. Air Xpand  is forever on sale and I got mine for under $30. It came with the DB33 organ , strike drums ( don't like) and a bunch of stuff that takes up a lot of hard drive space. Good thing I put it on a data drive. Xpand is a 4 part multitimbral synth. 

I have dozens of others and I paid very little grabbing freebies and deals over time. 

 

 

[Michael McBroom]

That's quite a variety. I'll make a note of your preferences for future reference. But getting back to the problem -- the white noise issue -- since it is an intermittent condition, I realize the cause is harder to trace. But once it hits, it stays put until the piece is reloaded, or in a worst case, until I've had to reboot. Any other ideas?

 

 

[John Vere]

My only solution would be to use different VST's. If I have a problem with a VST instrument I most certainly try others to see if the problem goes away.  I realize you might have a lot of stuff assigned to the TTS-1 but it's worth the effort to at least try replacing tracks with at least the SI stuff.   I have taken 12 tracks of midi GM stuff I downloaded and swapped out all the VST's plenty of times. It's what I do to create backing tracks. If there's a song I want to do I first look and see if I can find a good track off the internet. If it's so, so I just re do stuff using the original as a kind of guide to the songs arrangement. If its a good track then it's a simple matter of replacing the TTS-1 GM sounds with proper sampled instruments.  I mosty am looking for good drum tracks. 

[Michael McBroom]

Noted. Using TTS-1 is probably due in a large way to laziness on my part because it's so convenient and it provides decent sounds, for the most part. Yes, I also use SI instruments -- especially strings -- when I'm looking for something with a bit of extra quality. I have dozens of VSTs on my machine in addition to the Cakewalk ones, so I have plenty to choose frome.

Last night the white noise returned. Reloading the file didn't work. Rebooting CW didn't work. I had to reboot my system to get things back to normal. Annoying. 

[John Vere]

What I did a few years ago was create a song template which had my "band" all ready to go. I also have track templates that quickly insert a midi and a VST all ready to record. 

If It's a downloaded file I can insert a track template and just drag the corresponding midi track to the new VST midi track. I will be a coloured and set up with the correct sub mix buss too. Only bug to this is I sometimes end up with 2 master busses.