Cakewalk not recording audio reliably

[David A. White]

Now Cakewalk is not allowing me to record audio all the time. I select the proper input, check the level, arm the track, hit record and the other tracks playback, but the track I am trying to record on doesn't draw a waveform or record anything.  Intermittently it records, but that is not acceptable performance. Pretty embarassing when I was recording with other musicians and even more frustrating now that I am trying to complete a project that has a time dependency. I've tried recording audio with the same setup on my old version of Presonus Studio One 2 and it recorded just fine. So what's up with Cakewalk?  Not sure I can continue using this product if it is so unreliable, but that would be devastating since I have 15 years of recordings on Sonar/Cakewalk and there's no easy way to convert. Plus I'd have to learn to use Studio One 2. Ugh! HELP! I have opened a ticket to Bandlab, but no response yet. 

[Lynn Wilson]

I assume that you previously had no problem with CbB until lately?  Without any more information, I'd suggest that you check to see if you have auto punch engaged.  I've missed this one myself.  Good luck.

[Gswitz]

Yeah.. +1 on punch.

Noel, when punch is engaged and a user hits record and stop a bunch of times without crossing the punch point, perhaps there could be a punch reminder?

[Robert Bone]

Could the picture cache be causing the wave form drawing issues?  Back in the days of Sonar, if wave forms were not being drawn or displayed, folks would often find it fixed after deleting the contents of the Picture Cache folder.  Sonar, and almost certainly now Cakewalk by Bandlab, simply recreates any drawn wave form data it needs, if the wave forms aren't found in the Picture Cache folder.

Here is a link from the old Sonar forums, it is to a post within a larger thread about the Picture Cache, and confirms that any data you clear out will get rebuilt as needed.  This used to be something folks would just need to do sometimes - not sure I ever saw reasons as to why there were occasional issues with the Picture Cache data.  One other thing I had not known, but it is suggested that the Picture Cache default location be left to be created on the C:// drive.  (I have relocated the Cakewalk Content and Cakewalk Projects folders, but have not had any issues with Picture Cache contents, thus far).

http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/633036 

Bob Bone

 

[chuckebaby]

When trying to troubleshoot Audio problems, it is critical to leave details. Ones that are missing from your OP... Like what your using to record Audio with ?

Almost nearly next to impossible to guesstimate.  We could throw every idea in the book at you but it might not even pertain to you.

Leaving info about -

Windows OS

Version of Bandlab

Audio device (interface)

Sharing the notion that "Said DAW works fine" wont get Cakewalk working like you want, more details will.

[CJ Jacobson]

Yea, 2 things come to my mind, (1) auto punch and (2) your hard drive that is designated to record/store the audio doesn't have enough space or doesn't spin at 7200rpm 

[msmcleod]

Have you changed your audio driver settings recently, or updated any drivers?

I've found that after any driver changes, or even just changing from ASIO to WDM to ASIO again, can occasionally mess up AUD.INI, and can cause the problems you describe. 

While you're not running CbB, try deleting AUD.INI from %APPDATA%\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\  - CbB will create a new one the next time it starts.

[Noel Borthwick]

The first thing I would try for troubleshooting is to Restart your PC, then launch Cakewalk and create a new project with the blank template.

Add a single audio track arm it and try and record. Does recording work? If not there is some instability with audio on the system. Also make sure you have ASIO selected assuming you have an ASIO driver. If you are still having issues we can certainly help troubleshoot it.

[David A. White]

Noel:

Thanks for responding. This is "daveny5" from the old Cakewalk Sonar Forum. Over 20K posts. I've been using Sonar probably as long or longer than you. 

BTW: I've now added my equipment / specs to my profile. 

I've added a new project and armed it to record, set the input to my Tascam US16x08 audio interface that I've been using a for a few years now. When I press record, most of the time, nothing records. No red line, no waveform. Now I have accidentally discovered that if I set the metronome (which I rarely ever use) to MIDI instead of audio, it records every time. If I switch it back to audio, it only records sometimes.  So I think this is a clue to why it's not working. 

I am using the ASIO driver. Your help desk person also had me try WASAPI Shared, but I get the same problem. 

I also have an old version of PreSonus Studio One 2 and I tried that on the same computer with the same hardware, and it works just fine.

So I'm stumped at this point. 

I have a lot of VST plug-ins. Most purchased or came with Sonar, but a few freebies. Could that cause this problem? 

Anti-virus and malware all find no problems. 

Thanks everyone. I forgot to check back in here and was working with Cakewalk support which has been helpful, but still hasn't figured it out either. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jonathan Sasor]

1 hour ago, David A. White said:

Noel:

Thanks for responding. This is "daveny5" from the old Cakewalk Sonar Forum. Over 20K posts. I've been using Sonar probably as long or longer than you. 

BTW: I've now added my equipment / specs to my profile. 

I've added a new project and armed it to record, set the input to my Tascam US16x08 audio interface that I've been using a for a few years now. When I press record, most of the time, nothing records. No red line, no waveform. Now I have accidentally discovered that if I set the metronome (which I rarely ever use) to MIDI instead of audio, it records every time. If I switch it back to audio, it only records sometimes.  So I think this is a clue to why it's not working. 

I am using the ASIO driver. Your help desk person also had me try WASAPI Shared, but I get the same problem. 

I also have an old version of PreSonus Studio One 2 and I tried that on the same computer with the same hardware, and it works just fine.

So I'm stumped at this point. 

I have a lot of VST plug-ins. Most purchased or came with Sonar, but a few freebies. Could that cause this problem? 

Anti-virus and malware all find no problems. 

Thanks everyone. I forgot to check back in here and was working with Cakewalk support which has been helpful, but still hasn't figured it out either. 

 

Are you using new projects with stock templates or an existing projects/custom templates? If you're changing the metronome and getting different effects, do you currently have a count-in set for it? 

[David A. White]

On 4/29/2019 at 12:56 PM, Jon Sasor said:

Are you using new projects with stock templates or an existing projects/custom templates? If you're changing the metronome and getting different effects, do you currently have a count-in set for it? 

Yes, its a new project using the stock basic template. With or without a count-in, using the audio metronome, sometimes it records and other times it doesn't. On the time when it doesn't record,  it clicks once and then nothing happens. Since I switched to WASAPI Shared it seems to be better, but it still fails to records about 1 in 5 times when using the Audio Metronome. If I use the MIDI metronome, it works fine.  So I guess it's usable at this point using the MIDI metronome. I rarely ever use either metronome so it doesn't matter to me which one I set it for.  I finished my project using Presonus Studio One (which I had to learn to use since I 've had it and rarely ever used it. Actually was not too different than Cakewalk.) 

 

[Noel Borthwick]

Hi @David A. White

I'd be surprised if the metronome had anything to do with it since many use a count in while recording. As Jon asked what happens if you have the audio metronome selected but turn off the metronome count-in on recording?
Do you have a different audio interface by any chance to try? We no longer have any TASCAM gear to test with. 
 

[Lord Tim]

Just as a point of reference, I'm also using a 16x08 (current firmware and drivers) and I haven't seen anything like that happen here, either in ASIO or WASAPI modes. But that said, I've heard other users have big issues with this interface so it's probably a good idea to test with something else if you can.

[msmcleod]

On 4/29/2019 at 4:35 PM, David A. White said:

... Anti-virus and malware all find no problems. ...

Have you got your projects directory / picture directory & global audio directory excluded from the your virus scans?

If it's not excluded, I've seen it crash Cakewalk, but it's conceivable that it could just be interfering with the recording process.

[Tezza]

Can you uninstall Cakewalk, restart the computer and then reinstall Cakewalk?

[Tezza]

13 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

last resort surely!

Is it? Never done it in Cakewalk yet but was pretty much common practice in video editing and some other DAW's, especially for problems like this where it seems there is some miscommunication between the audio driver and the software. I have done it in Studio One and Vegas Pro, there was no problem, easy to do. Why would it be considered last resort in Cakewalk?

[Christian Jones]

I've posted here in the past about similar problems. For me (and I never 100% got to the bottom of it) it at first *appeared* to be the user-created audio track templates I was using that had BIAS Amp sims loaded in them, and I still think there may be something to that. I know for a fact that user-created midi track templates on my system are problematic, where when using a midi track template I created rather than using the standard insert midi track command, when I'd go to record on it the now time time would hang for maybe 3 seconds before recording would start and the same would happen when stopping the track, the now timeline would hang for a few seconds before rewinding itself. I don't know if you stated whether or not you're using audio track templates but maybe something is wrong with your audio track template if you are in fact using them. For me the failed recording would happen every single time on my first attempt to record audio in a track the very first time I opened the session for that day - the first attempt always failed. After messing w/ the buffers it became an intermittent issue rather than every single time when I first opened the session, but still happened. I'd press "R" on keyboard to record and it'd go along and I'd look away to play my instrument, when I was done and would look up there'd be no waveform there. Other guys had this issue and one fix was to *uncheck* the "Allow arm changes during record" - that actually fixed the problem for some people, and I currently have mine set up that way, though some people complained because they actually use that feature, but nonetheless unchecking that box fixed it for some people so maybe give that a try.

Now prior to every session I disable my AV (and re-enable if I had to go online during a session) and I'd disconnect my pc from the network too, though I stopped doing that because I'd forget to. But I read Craig Anderton say something like he was able to record at super low latency (48 or something) after he disconnected from network (correct me if I'm wrong) so maybe doing so may help this issue is yours - and for some people disconnecting from the network doesn't seem to matter one way or the other, but then for some it does. I also keep a shortcut of the picture cache folder on my desktop and empty it out regularly just because. 

 

[Christian Jones]

5 minutes ago, Tezza said:

Is it? Never done it in Cakewalk yet but was pretty much common practice in video editing and some other DAW's, especially for problems like this where it seems there is some miscommunication between the audio driver and the software. I have done it in Studio One and Vegas Pro, there was no problem, easy to do. Why would it be considered last resort in Cakewalk?

I think it's just the idea of uninstalling and reinstalling something and having to worry about settings being retained and all that but really uninstalling Cakewalk is not that big a deal and I believe the settings don't get lost unless you really wipe it from the system and it's something that I also did when I was having this problem, though I don't recall if it helped or not, but everyone's system is different so could be worth it. 

[Starship Krupa]

9 hours ago, Chris Jones said:

user-created midi track templates on my system are problematic, where when using a midi track template I created rather than using the standard insert midi track command, when I'd go to record on it the now time time would hang for maybe 3 seconds before recording would start and the same would happen when stopping the track, the now timeline would hang for a few seconds before rewinding itself.

Hmm, the Cakewalk start delay symptom. I won't call it a bug at this point because that implies a single cause. Symptom was that when I started the transport for any operation, be it Record or Play, there was an ever-increasing lag.

I have had a transport lag issue in the past, nasty one. In my case, I theorized that it had something to do with all the unused audio clips that were streaming from the disk, so I started culling them from my Take Lanes and the problem went away. But the project where it was most persisten was a mixed MIDI/audio project now that I think of it, and I wonder if I was looking in the wrong place, that it might have had something to do with the MIDI tracks. It was worst on a project that was solely audio, though.

There have been a couple of times where I hit Record and it didn't start recording at all, but that's not enough times to call it anything other than a glitch or even operator error.

[msmcleod]

3 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Hmm, the Cakewalk start delay symptom. I won't call it a bug at this point because that implies a single cause. Symptom was that when I started the transport for any operation, be it Record or Play, there was an ever-increasing lag.

I have had a transport lag issue in the past, nasty one. In my case, I theorized that it had something to do with all the unused audio clips that were streaming from the disk, so I started culling them from my Take Lanes and the problem went away. But the project where it was most persisten was a mixed MIDI/audio project now that I think of it, and I wonder if I was looking in the wrong place, that it might have had something to do with the MIDI tracks. It was worst on a project that was solely audio, though.

There have been a couple of times where I hit Record and it didn't start recording at all, but that's not enough times to call it anything other than a glitch or even operator error.

I find shifting the whole arrangement over so it starts on bar 2 cures this for me in most cases.