Static spikes in my playback and exports [Solved]

[RexRed]

Since the latest Windows update and installing Izotope's pro subscription service I am now getting static in my playback stream and the static is also in my exported files.

In all my years 34 years of using Cakewalk I have never had static in my exports...

I was up all night trying to figure out what is happening.

It is like something is too loud and it hitting the ceiling and creating a large digital static sound.

I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

I have also had the problem another user has had of Cakewalk occasionally not being able to read Melodyne files and playing them as blank.

My AI buffer size is at 4096.

I have a 3090 Nvidia GPU and i just got a message from Nvidia that the latest Nvidia Studio driver is "not compatible with this version of Windows".

I am suspecting Windows 10 is having it bad right now... I am all updated too.

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by RexRed

[John Vere]

You shouldn't need a buffer that high. It actually might cause an issue, not sure. Mine has always been at 256 day in day out. 

Did you try bypassing izotope? 

[RexRed]

Thanks John Vere for your suggestions!

It is going to take me a while to figure this out and until it is fixed I cannot export my songs.

I have ascertained that the problem is not observed in Windows when I play videos from YouTube there is no static spikes.

 I will disable Izotope and some other plugins and see if the problem goes away.

I am wondering if maybe somehow the audio files were corrupted on the hard drive.

I need to try some other projects and see if the problem is there.

I already had Izotope ozone, neutron, nectar and number of other splice apps and Izotope support said it would not hurt anything to install the subscription without uninstalling the rent to own apps.

It seemed to start when I clicked this "loudness standard preset" in Izotope Insight, did that change Cakewalk somehow? 

It is either corrupted wave files or an incompatible or corrupted plugin.

I uninstalled all of the Splice Izotope rent to own apps and removed all of the dlls from the VST folders then installed the subscription Izotope apps.

Static spikes are still there.

It is like the loudness standard preset lowered the ceiling of acceptable Cakewalk loudness.

I will shut off plugins and see if that works maybe safemode would reveal some things. Like if my files are corrupted.

How do I access safe mode again? I will google it, I was up all night now I am exhausted. 

I will try the buffer lower at 256, I have 128 gb of ram and 12 cores but a lot of plugins and instruments in the project.

Edited June 3, 2021 by RexRed

[RexRed]

Well, I figured it out...

The problem was not Cakewalk, Windows, Izotope, Codecs, Plugin incompatibility, Vst3 vs Vst2, Melodyne... 

The problem was I put Blue Cat Gain in the bins of all of my tracks and did not set the unity gain right and the track volume was acting like the moon in front of the sun during an eclipse!  The corona was the static spikes, the spikes were coming from all of my tracks when they would peak.

 After getting the gain in the right ballpark, Cakewalk returned to its wonderful, beautiful self again giving me 96khz of pristine perfect flawless audio.

It is good sometimes to create artificial problems so you can go searching under the rug and lifting every stone to find things that aren't broken.

I need to learn how to set unity gain with the blue cat faders and the track faders... 

I understand the concept of unity gain well, unity in and unity out... but this particular task has got me a bit overwhelmed.

I will let all of this sink in a bit.

At least I know what was causing the problem.

Thanks for the help on this Cakewalk peeps!

Edited June 4, 2021 by RexRed

[Starship Krupa]

Look into the Relay function in your iZotope suite. I think it lives in Neutron. Also, doesn't your Pro subscription come with their swoopy metering software? Studying up on how to use that might shine a light.