Paddy Posted July 15, 2021 Share Posted July 15, 2021 Hello everyone - this is my first post. Pleased to meet you all. I was hoping something with more experience could tell me why my laptop is performing so badly while running Cakewalk. It's an HP laptop with good specs - Ryzen 7/16gb/512. On paper it should cope really well with music production. But... Cakewalk crashes constantly. Latency while recording live audio tracks (guitar/voice) is almost unusably bad. It doesn't even run VSTs well. Should I just admit defeat and get a Mac? Would using an external audio card improve things? Are there basic setup things that I'm missing? Would be really grateful for your advice. Many thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Carzola Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 What audio interface are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Stoner Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 (edited) Ryzen's, from what was posted on here by a builder a couple years ago, are great for gaming and video production. Intel CPU's are better for audio and better latency. However, get the PC "cleaned up" before trying recording. Many PC's have vendor added programs that can cause Latency problems. Download and run the free (and popular) Resplendence Latency Mon. It should help you in locating what may be causing the problems. Look at startup, many programs in startup are not necessary. Some antivirus programs add to latency problems (I only use the built in Windows Defender antivirus, no Norton or whatever). Finally, a PC sound card (e.g. Realtek) has high latency and poor signal to noise ratio. Get a real recording interface. Resplendence Software - LatencyMon Edited July 16, 2021 by Jack Stoner 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reginaldStjohn Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 8 hours ago, Jack Stoner said: Ryzen's, from what was posted on here by a builder a couple years ago, are great for gaming and video production. Intel CPU's are better for audio and better latency. However, get the PC "cleaned up" before trying recording. Many PC's have vendor added programs that can cause Latency problems. Download and run the free (and popular) Resplendence Latency Mon. It should help you in locating what may be causing the problems. Look at startup, many programs in startup are not necessary. Some antivirus programs add to latency problems (I only use the built in Windows Defender antivirus, no Norton or whatever). Finally, a PC sound card (e.g. Realtek) has high latency and poor signal to noise ratio. Get a real recording interface. Resplendence Software - LatencyMon +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy Posted July 16, 2021 Author Share Posted July 16, 2021 Guys - thanks very much. Ryzen chip may be the problem. Probably more likely is the Realtek soundcard. I'm going to get an external soundcard and see if that clears things up. Really appreciate your time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 (edited) And like Jack said, be sure to get rid of all the bloatware. No doubt that laptop is packed with it, with about 7 million useless, BS, apps all running on startup. Edited July 17, 2021 by bdickens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezza Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 A half decent audio interface with a dedicated ASIO driver would be a good decision, the internal realtek cards on laptops are great for playing music but not so good for setting up recording/playing as you need in a music workstation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted July 25, 2021 Share Posted July 25, 2021 The thing is, while everything said here is true, a Ryzen 7 with 16G of RAM and an SSD is more than capable of running Cakewalk. Playback through the onboard hardware CODEC should be fine with WASAPI Exclusive. It's way more hardware than I use, especially my notebook system. There's something else going wrong here that buying an external interface is not likely to fix, although if you're recording guitar and voice, an external interface is essential. It's not the Realtek CODEC itself that's the issue, it's the circuitry connecting to it. You'll sound so much better with studio quality mic preamps and analog-to-digital converters. Definitely look into decrapification. HP is known for loading up their notebooks with tons of stuff you don't need and don't want on your DAW. Also, exclude your Cakewalk Projects and plug-ins folders from active Defender scanning. Resplendence LatencyMon is one of the system tuners' best tools for tracking down what's causing trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmu2002 Posted August 4, 2021 Share Posted August 4, 2021 The op didn't mention which ryzen 7 the laptop is running. There's a huge differencce difference between the oldest 1700 and the latest 5800. But any of them will work just great with Cakewalk and won't crash your computer alone. Like said above, don't use the internal soundchip for recording, it's not build for that at all and gets you nowhere. For playback it's fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Kerner Posted March 12, 2022 Share Posted March 12, 2022 Hi folks - another old Sonar/Cakewalker here - trying to move to a new platform - I have the Tascam FW-1884 - only firewire - no usb. I have a focusrite Scarlet 212 plugged into my Lenovo laptop - running new Cakewalk - I finally got it to half way record 2 tracks in real time. Playback is very distorted, choppy - program seems to be running ok - (in previous tries it was hanging up - I am running windows 11 - Intel core i5-6265U CPU - 1.6 GHZ (don't know what it means, but a buddy said should be good) - 16MB ram I ran the Resplenence programs - thanks so much! It said I have enough to run music programs. I'd like to get serious with this program - and computer - Just blew my budget on a new Korg Nautalis - and would even consider a digital board as a front end - if I knew I could record into the computer.....I've been looking at the Allen & Heath QU-16 - chrome edition. But don't want to invest in this if I find a need a different computer - Thanks in advance - Anythings I'm missing? thanks, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Anderton Posted March 13, 2022 Share Posted March 13, 2022 Everything said here about bloatware is true, but I'll add one more wrinkle: some of it is difficult to clean out. I bought my mom a computer and it ran super-slow. I uninstalled everything but it didn't make much improvement. Long story short: "uninstalling" Norton still left bits and pieces that slowed down the computer. Several pages deep in the Norton website, there were instructions on how to remove it completely. As soon as I did that, the computer zipped along. Also +1 to an external audio interface with ASIO (not ASIO4ALL) drivers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertWS Posted March 13, 2022 Share Posted March 13, 2022 2 hours ago, Craig Anderton said: Everything said here about bloatware is true, but I'll add one more wrinkle: some of it is difficult to clean out. I bought my mom a computer and it ran super-slow. I uninstalled everything but it didn't make much improvement. Long story short: "uninstalling" Norton still left bits and pieces that slowed down the computer. Several pages deep in the Norton website, there were instructions on how to remove it completely. As soon as I did that, the computer zipped along. Also +1 to an external audio interface with ASIO (not ASIO4ALL) drivers. Yep, I spend about 4 hours decrapifying phones and computers during the first weeks I have them. I like 'em lean and mean....just like my women! (PS: It's nice you take care of your mom). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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