"Upgraded" to Windows 10, Cakewalk performance has suffered greatly

[Michael Fogarty]

7 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said:

FWIW, It's a good thing the conversation is over, when it comes to PCs, you really don't know what you're talking about.

well, that was pretty straight coming from you Jim. But Steev, you must realize. There are professionals  on this forum whose main thrust is to keep their machines maintained and running smoothly because they are busy producers. I am one of them, and Jim makes hi - end (I don’t use the term lightly) DAW’s. You are pushing Scarletts and other gear down our throat and we are living in the MOTU/Studio 192/Apogee/ Quantum/RME world. There is a reason they cost more - the same reason that we all shell out $1000’s for the Synthogy Pianos, Omnisphere and Keyscape Plugs, UAD and Waves Plugs and know which company makes our converters. There is no pride in this. It’s just who we are and what our clients expect from us. I think Jim has shown an amazing amount of patience and restraint up to this point. 

Now Jim, the Asian rep of Presonus gave me a Studio 192/DP88 combo and Studio One to make some music on and post. He said the 192 may have problems with Sonar/Cakelab/Cubase and other DAW other than Studio One latency wise.

I have found that to be the case.

But Quantum is different?

[msmcleod]

7 hours ago, Steev said:

What Planet are you living on??????? I never even mentioned Clarrett interfaces. I pointed out tha you can't plug a Scarlett USB 2 into a USB 3 port and expect it to work.

I know NYC is considered a hick town in the recording industry, maybe that's why you would get laughed out of town by even mentioning Windows computers in a pro studio, and bitchslapped for bring up Presonus in ANY professional recording studio ANYWHERE, where, please sit down for this so you don't hurt yourself, they all use Macs PRO TOOLS "HD" AS THE INDUSTRY STANDARD which has absolutely NO support for Quantum interfaces.

 But PT HD doesn't support Scarlett USB 2 interfaces either, but loves Focusrite RedNet. ?

This conversation is over.

Maybe it's my relatively ancient motherboard, but my both my Scarlett 6i6 and 18i20 are working fine plugged into USB 3 ports. When plugged into a USB 2 port, I couldn't get it to run reliably with less than 6ms latency.

When plugged into the USB 3 port and until the Windows 1809 update, I was running the latest "release" version drivers (MixControl v1.8) for the mk1 6i6 / 18i20. I could run at 2ms latency with no issues.

For some reason the 1809 update upset things, so I moved over to the latest beta drivers (MixControl v1.10b3) which has changed the drivers considerably (the ASIO panel is now separate from MixControl). Still plugged into the USB 3 port, I'm running reliably with a buffer of 64 which gives me a latency of 1.5ms.

It can run with a buffer of 32, but not without the odd pop & click.

But in any case, Scarlett + USB 3 works well with my setup.

[Jim Roseberry]

2 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

well, that was pretty straight coming from you Jim. But Steev, you must realize. There are professionals  on this forum whose main thrust is to keep their machines maintained and running smoothly because they are busy producers. I am one of them, and Jim makes hi - end (I don’t use the term lightly) DAW’s. You are pushing Scarletts and other gear down our throat and we are living in the MOTU/Studio 192/Apogee/ Quantum/RME world. There is a reason they cost more - the same reason that we all shell out $1000’s for the Synthogy Pianos, Omnisphere and Keyscape Plugs, UAD and Waves Plugs and know which company makes our converters. There is no pride in this. It’s just who we are and what our clients expect from us. I think Jim has shown an amazing amount of patience and restraint up to this point. 

Now Jim, the Asian rep of Presonus gave me a Studio 192/DP88 combo and Studio One to make some music on and post. He said the 192 may have problems with Sonar/Cakelab/Cubase and other DAW other than Studio One latency wise.

I have found that to be the case.

But Quantum is different?

Hi Michael,

Quantum works well with Studio One 4.1.2 (especially with their Hybrid Buffering scheme), but it also works well with all other native DAWs.

With Cubase 10, I can run Helix Native at 96k with a 32-sample ASIO buffer size.  I can do the same in Reaper, Samplitude Pro X4, and CbB.

BTW, If anyone has noticed, when monitoring at ultra low latency, that's a scenario that's not particularly well suited to using multiple cores.

This is why high CPU clock-speed is absolutely paramount.  I'm currently running a 9900k (8 cores, 16 processing threads all locked at 5GHz).

As I mentioned before, prior to Quantum, I was not a huge Presonus audio interface fan.  

When a company "gets it right", they deserve kudos for a great product.  Quantum is a great ultra low-latency performer.

Is Quantum the best fidelity money can buy?  No.  You can buy better, but it's going to be significantly more expensive.

When it comes to ultra low-latency performance, you (currently) can't do better than Quantum.

As someone who's job it is to push the limits of ultra low-latency performance, I'm always on the lookout for great performers.

To me, it doesn't matter if it's RME, MOTU, Lynx, Presonus, UA, etc, I want a rock-solid audio interface that yields the lowest possible round-trip latency.

 

 

[ien]

On 1/17/2019 at 11:38 PM, Jim Roseberry said:

The motherboard has to have a Thunderbolt-3 controller onboard... or it has to have a Thunderbolt-3 header and BIOS support for a Thunderbolt-3 AIC (add-in-controller card)

 

Do you have any experience of a Quantum interface being used on a motherboard through an add on controller, as opposed to the board natively supporting it? I ask as my board doesn't support it natively but has the add on option and i think i read presonus say that the board needs to support it natively (although i didn't find the remark when just looking for it. I don't think i imagined it though).

[Steev]

9 hours ago, Michael Fogarty said:

thanks for the input Steev. Do you use this machine you are referring to? Have you recorded with it? What type of converters does it have? Do you run cpu hogging programs like Omnisphere/Tape Emulation plugs and get good latency with it?

Was the OP asking for recommendations for a new interface/mixer for live applications?

No Michael, the OP was not, but he wasn't asking about the Presonus Quantum either which I'm sure is quite impressive as it is quite expensive.  And I believe to be an ill suited recommendation for an audio interface specifically "optimized" for Presonus Studio One software, and where the OP specifically centered the thread on Cakewalk software and Focusrite audio interfaces.

 My main reason for choosing Behringer as a comparison to Presonus is they are quite comparable to each other and competitive in their respective market.

 I have also conducted and participated in several sound quality double blind shoot out tests between the two. And every time while all participants universally agree that Presonus XMAX mic preamps sound great,  all participants universally agree that Behringer's Midas design preamps sound AWESOME!

 I am very familiar and experienced with the Behringer X 32 and have mixed FOH (Front of House) and recorded directly into SPLAT which providing 4 to 6 individual custom monitor mixes for several live shows with it.

 That would typically require 3 separate audio engineers, one for FOH sound reinforcement, one for the monitor mix, and one for the multi-track recording session recording at 24/48.

 I easily managed these tasks single handedly, by my self with a 100% success rate, which, any anyone in the business will agree is ultimately impressive. What is bone chillingly impressive is the sound quality.

 And how GOOD does the unit sound? Well that depends completely of your mixing and skill levels of course

 I have had the pleasure of using and setting up the XR 18 once and controlling it with my Behringer X Touch DAW controller for a friend's band. One of the beauties of digital mixers is and getting the band's mix sounding tight and right, you save it as a mix scene then you never need to adjust EQ, Compression, FX, monitor mixes, etc. ever again. All you need to remember is what channel to plug the mics and line inputs, and outputs in to and you are DONE.

 Also with Behringer X series digital mixers have EXCELLENT very low noise high gain MIDAS preamps, you do not need to add any extra third party plugins such as Omnisphere/Tape Emulation plugs, although you can if you want to, but the X series has over 50 of it's own built in very high quality plugins which run 4 of it's own 40 bit floating point sound engines. Very high quality, very LARGE selection of very usable modern day FX to a very familiar models of vintage FX in fact, like Lexicon reverbs, Neve EQ and compressors, a Teletronix LA2A, to name just a few. It also has very good test and diagnostics built in including a 100 band RTA spectrum analyzer EQ.

 The X series are highly field tested which a years long track record, and are already HIGHLY acclaimed by highly acclaimed professional engineers.

 And being the XR 18 also provides  6 independent physical AUX sends PLUS and "additional" independent 18 in x 18 out USB 2 audio interface, it provides for 3 independent stereo monitor mixes with ZERO LATENCY MONITORING. The XR 18 is more then capable and powerful enough to be used as a central audio interface "hub" to monitor input, output, and a DAW at the same time, as does the and in the same fashion as a Universal Audio Apollo.

 But does the XR 18 sound better then an Apollo? well that totally depends on you audio engineer skill level, and or whether you prefer apples to oranges. And when someone tells me they are upgrading from a Universal Audio Apollo to a Presonus Quantum is, well, umm, I'm sorry that's simply to far of a stretch of the imagination for me, not even believable to even compare Presonus favorably above UA. Sorry, can't wrap my mind around that. The very idea Presonus bests UA to even be considered an "upgrade" simply echo's off the hollows of my brainpan.

 Only thing I know is I for one am MUCH more impressed with a great sounding mix done on inexpensive gear then I am with an OK sounding mix done with expensive gear, and this happens all the time in the year of 2019 boys and girls, as technology and manufacturing techniques refine and improve, the prices drop to the point of even broke musicians and hobbyists can now afford to play with the big boys toys they could never even dream of doing 10 years ago.

 For instance, as much as I have always loved my aging Teletronix LA2A, I get exacting results with the Cakewalk CA2A VST plugin. The only difference is I have an unlimited amount of CA2A's, and now I don't need 2 LA2A's to strap across a stereo buss.

And oh, BTW, Behringer's model of the LA2A can achieve identical unmistakable LA2A results, and it's vintage Neve EQ's are mistakenly and totally identifiably Neve and with full and total parameter control al all.

 The XR 16 has all FX covered, so well, you don't have to rely or use any plugins in your DAW to make great sounding recording projects, and that saves an enormous amount stress on your CPU. But of course you can if you want to..

 And so what's the purpose of having so many inputs and outputs if you can't even use them?

 

[Starship Krupa]

On 1/17/2019 at 9:42 AM, Jim Roseberry said:

I use the Adobe Creative Cloud (good use from it), but they are the worst at having applets running in the background.

Even with services set to "manual start", you have to manually stop creative cloud processes.  They won't stop upon closing Photoshop, Premier, After Effects, Audition, etc.

Don't I know it, no matter what I do, if I run a web browser on a computer, I will at some point find that the Adobe Updater Service has started up once again, along with its insidious buddies, the Apple Updater and all the iTunes and iPod/iPhone helpers.

Kept disabling them in Services, CCleaner, Autoruns, whatever.

I finally put on my pith helmet and made my way deep into the recesses of Task Scheduler, where I found the Adobe services, the Google Crash Handler, the Apple Updater, all those sniveling little creeps hanging out not only waiting to start in the wee hours of the morning, but I learned that at some point in the 16 or so years since my certification lapsed, Task Scheduler had gained much wider ability to launch tasks based on event monitoring, such as another process terminating, which is why I'd wind up playing Whack-A-Mole with them: iPod Service was set to launch upon shutdown of iTunes Handler, which was set to launch on shutdown of Apple Updater, which was....

So I sometimes use a utility called Process Lasso. Steev, if he knows about it, probably loathes the very fact of its existence, and will tell me that my occasional use of it is one of the reasons that Cakewalk (besides insufficient RAM, no SSD, not enough Waves plug-ins, and an overall lack of Focusrite) and my system in general wasn't running so hot when I first upgraded it to Windows 10.

It's the antithesis of the "DUDE!!! don't touch anything!!! don't even point to it!!! Microsoft needs to tune your system via TELEMETRY!!!" school of thought.

Process Lasso allows the user to do some nifty things like set Priority for certain processes and make that stick (for when you're running Process Lasso), as well as designate certain processes to be terminated on sight. So for instance, I can set cakewalk.exe to Above Normal and have it be that way whenever Process Lasso is running. You can set Priority in Task Manager of course, but that only persists until you terminate that session of the program.

I have Process Lasso set to kill all of the Apple crap while I'm doing DAW work and one day I checked its log and witnessed the tale of what had been an epic battle between Process Lasso and Apple Updater. Apple Updater I guess had decided that this time it wasn't going to stay down, and every 20 milliseconds it would relaunch, and in the next millisecond, Process Lasso would send it back to computer heaven. I think it went on for minutes, which when we're talking milliseconds, is a good long battle. Of course, Process Lasso was not going to give up either, and finally Apple Updater ran out of triggers or whatever kept starting it back up.

At the moment my system is practically snoozing since I turned off Windows Defender's realtime monitoring. I just looked at Task Manager's Performance display and all 3 disks showed 0% activity while I'm typing away in my browser. It's nice to have a computer that understands the meaning of "idle" again.

[Jim Roseberry]

3 hours ago, ien said:

Do you have any experience of a Quantum interface being used on a motherboard through an add on controller, as opposed to the board natively supporting it? I ask as my board doesn't support it natively but has the add on option and i think i read presonus say that the board needs to support it natively (although i didn't find the remark when just looking for it. I don't think i imagined it though).

The Quantum works just fine with Thunderbolt-3 AICs (add-in-controllers).

I'm using the Asus Thunderbolt EX3.

[Steev]

13 hours ago, msmcleod said:

WMaybe it's my relatively ancient motherboard, but my both my Scarlett 6i6 and 18i20 are working fine plugged into USB 3 ports. When plugged into a USB 2 port, I couldn't get it to run reliably with less than 6ms latency.

When plugged into the USB 3 port and until the Windows 1809 update, I was running the latest "release" version drivers (MixControl v1.8) for the mk1 6i6 / 18i20. I could run at 2ms latency with no issues.

For some reason the 1809 update upset things, so I moved over to the latest beta drivers (MixControl v1.10b3) which has changed the drivers considerably (the ASIO panel is now separate from MixControl). Still plugged into the USB 3 port, I'm running reliably with a buffer of 64 which gives me a latency of 1.5ms.

It can run with a buffer of 32, but not without the odd pop & click.

But in any case, Scarlett + USB 3 works well with my setup.

I'm still happily running 1803, I read too many horror reports and stories about losing files (actually being placed in new and different folders, which is pretty much the same results) to update to 1809.

 Never being one to jump to early into the early release pool, I dodged those bullets. And before I even considered, Microsoft quickly pulled the mandatory update rollout which I believe is still in effect, at least it is here in the US.

 I'm even getting notifications on my Mac to upgrade from OSx v13.xx High Sierra to OSx v14 Mojave. ? But it's not broke, no need to fix it, and I'll be happily kicking back and watching Mac Heads and Windows evangelists who can wait to get the latest and greatest beta test and burn themselves with these new and oh so mysterious updates. 

 I run Windows 10 Pro on my workstation which enables me to defer biannual  updates. I also have a crash test dummy Intel i7 computer in the living room which I use to test all Windows systems updates on before updating my workstation

 

My motherboard is about 6 or 7 years old ASRock 990FX, AMD FX 8750 CPU 4 g/Hz with 16 gigs of DDR3 PC1866 RAM in duel channel mode, SATA6/USB 3.1. It doesn't even recognize a Scarlett plugged into a USB 3 port. But I'm using the latest version of Mix Control 2.3.4. released about a year ago, which I believe prevents me from plugging into a USB 3 port. No need to. v2.3.4 has rock solid and trouble free so far, and fixed the issue with MixControl services not automatically starting upon Windows boot up reporting "No hardware" hooked up with AMD systems. It was weird because the 18i20 still worked exactly as I originally set it up with Focusrite ASIO drivers, but MC didn't see the 18i20.

 However now that you mention it, the early release of Scarlett Gen 2 series with M C v1.10xx Focusrite recommended plugging into  USB 3 port, but ONLY if you have problems using a USB 2 port

 I see absolutely no reason to run my 18i20 at anything but 128 buffers at 24 bit 48k/Hz on my system.

 SPlat and CbB both report 2.7 msec effective recording latency and I can mix 50+ audio and MIDI tracks running with dozens of FX plugins by Waves, Cakewalk, Eventide and several VSTi synths Cakewalk TTS-1, Rapture Pro, Session Drummer 2 and or 3 Addictive Drums 1 and or 2 Addictive Keys Grand Piano, or what ever running, with out having to ever bother increase buffer size for heavy and complex mixing sessions.

Though I seldom run mixing session that large and complex, I run enough to notice that Cakewalk by Bandlab is in fact noticeably more computer resource friendly efficient then SONAR Producer running on Windows 10 Pro. And Windows 10 Pro is also in fact noticeably more computer resource friendly efficient then Window 7 Ultimate ever was.  

With Win 7 Cakewalk CPU meter would hover between the 50-55% range. Win 10 my CPU (both set to load balancing across all 8 cores in AMD Overdrive and Cakewalk control panels), the FX 8370 still runs cool and quiet and never even reaches to 50% mark with Cakewalk's CPU meter.

 Load Balancing only works on my AMD/ASRock system, it has absolutely no noticeable effect on my Intel i7/Asus systems for some reason.

With the i7 system, I can NOT mix 50+ audio and MIDI tracks running with dozens of FX plugins in CbB without cranking up the buffer size from 128 to 512 to smooth out pops and dropouts.

And while the Intel i7 system can score better in a video game bench test, AMD stomps the Intel for DCC (Digital Content Creation) in both Cakewalk and Sony Vegas Pro. Both computers have the same AMD FirePro GPU Accelerated Graphics cards. The AMD system is 20 to 40 % faster rendering, and can run more video FX plugins before video monitoring artifacts and latency occur.

 

Edited January 19, 2019 by Steev

[John Nelson]

1 hour ago, Jim Roseberry said:

The Quantum works just fine with Thunderbolt-3 AICs (add-in-controllers).

I'm using the Asus Thunderbolt EX3.

Jim,

Would that be an option for a Asus Prime Z370-P mb?  i7 8700K.

[Jim Roseberry]

6 minutes ago, John Nelson said:

Jim,

Would that be an option for a Asus Prime Z370-P mb?  i7 8700K.

Hi John,

Unfortunately, no... the Prime Z370-P doesn't have a Thunderbolt-3 header (nor BIOS support) for the Thunderbolt EX3.

The Prime Z370-A  does have the Thunderbolt-3 header (and BIOS support) for the Thunderbolt EX3.

If you want Thunderbolt-3 as an option, you have to be careful with motherboard choice.  Only a handful have the necessary header and BIOS support for the AICs

[Steev]

2 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Don't I know it, no matter what I do, if I run a web browser on a computer, I will at some point find that the Adobe Updater Service has started up once again, along with its insidious buddies, the Apple Updater and all the iTunes and iPod/iPhone helpers.

Kept disabling them in Services, CCleaner, Autoruns, whatever.

I finally put on my pith helmet and made my way deep into the recesses of Task Scheduler, where I found the Adobe services, the Google Crash Handler, the Apple Updater, all those sniveling little creeps hanging out not only waiting to start in the wee hours of the morning, but I learned that at some point in the 16 or so years since my certification lapsed, Task Scheduler had gained much wider ability to launch tasks based on event monitoring, such as another process terminating, which is why I'd wind up playing Whack-A-Mole with them: iPod Service was set to launch upon shutdown of iTunes Handler, which was set to launch on shutdown of Apple Updater, which was....

So I sometimes use a utility called Process Lasso. Steev, if he knows about it, probably loathes the very fact of its existence, and will tell me that my occasional use of it is one of the reasons that Cakewalk (besides insufficient RAM, no SSD, not enough Waves plug-ins, and an overall lack of Focusrite) and my system in general wasn't running so hot when I first upgraded it to Windows 10.

It's the antithesis of the "DUDE!!! don't touch anything!!! don't even point to it!!! Microsoft needs to tune your system via TELEMETRY!!!" school of thought.

Process Lasso allows the user to do some nifty things like set Priority for certain processes and make that stick (for when you're running Process Lasso), as well as designate certain processes to be terminated on sight. So for instance, I can set cakewalk.exe to Above Normal and have it be that way whenever Process Lasso is running. You can set Priority in Task Manager of course, but that only persists until you terminate that session of the program.

I have Process Lasso set to kill all of the Apple crap while I'm doing DAW work and one day I checked its log and witnessed the tale of what had been an epic battle between Process Lasso and Apple Updater. Apple Updater I guess had decided that this time it wasn't going to stay down, and every 20 milliseconds it would relaunch, and in the next millisecond, Process Lasso would send it back to computer heaven. I think it went on for minutes, which when we're talking milliseconds, is a good long battle. Of course, Process Lasso was not going to give up either, and finally Apple Updater ran out of triggers or whatever kept starting it back up.

At the moment my system is practically snoozing since I turned off Windows Defender's realtime monitoring. I just looked at Task Manager's Performance display and all 3 disks showed 0% activity while I'm typing away in my browser. It's nice to have a computer that understands the meaning of "idle" again.

Window telemetry doesn't tune your computer for DAWs it merely "trains" Windows 10 to your work habits. If you think you can out smart Microsoft's telemetry with Process Lasso and think it's going to stop and defeat telemetry processes, then you've got another thing coming.

 I don't need use Process Lasso, CC Cleaner, etc, because I use PC Matic.. It does all of those things, plus much and many more things that you would need a dozen more of free these Utilities and virus protection to do.

BTW, when using PC Matic's "SuperShield", Windows Defender shuts itself down, you cannot manually shut Windows Defender if you don't have a recognized Windows CERTIFIED VIRUS PROTECTION program actively running.

 Yep, and you aren't going to stop ANY required updates either. The best way to stop or actually slow these processes down to a low roar enough to get Window 10 up to full speed after updating from v 7 to v10 is NOT shut your computer down for a week.. Just reboot it at least once a day. Give it some alone time to do it's thing, and it will stop constantly doing it's thing

 

Apple Updater is another thing entirely, you can shut it down, but all your Apple software will stop working. Apple's iCloud, only necessary if you are collaborating and sharing files between a Windows computer and a Mac, iCloud is similar to Microsoft OneDrive, but they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The only thing they have in common is they both require setting up and maintaining accounts (as in logging in and Maintaining them and) will BOTH run in the background and send massive amounts of data back and forth if you don't maintain them and take out the garbage every once in a while. And there's also Google Drive which will do the same thing if you're not careful.

 And I've even noticed Bandlab.com high jacking control over my X Touch DAW controller if I open CbB with Bandlab running in Chrome. I keep hoping Bandlab's Mix Editor will suddenly start supporting MCU protocol , would be nice, but no such luck. And if it started supporting MCU and not HUI that would just start whining sessions like we're getting here in this forum.. Oh Boo Hoooo Why can I get my 20 year old piece of gear work with Windows 10??? Why do you need a new $2000 computer to run a Personus Quantum Thunderbolt 2 audio interface though a  Thunderbolt 3 port???????

Truth be told, I couldn't really give a monkey's arse, 'cause I'm running FINE with my Focusrite Scarlet, and so I'm thinking Bandlab, which support MIDI tracks is only looking for a MIDI keyboard controller, and most likely couldn't give a monkey's arse as to what kind of DAW controllers or audio interfaces anybody uses.

 And I really like the fact that if anyone BOO HOOs and SCREAMS about "BUT WHY ISN'T THERE A 32 BIT VERSION OF CAKEWALK?????????"

 Bandlab simply and quietly replies... " Because there isn't..."

 So suck it up all you cupcakes who think you have complete control and want everything to run forever and run for free, your sense of self entitlement only actually exists between the avenues of "Mildly Hilarious" and "Childishly Ridiculous", there never was anything that was free for life, and there never will be..  ????

[Steev]

40 minutes ago, Jim Roseberry said:

fHi John,

Unfortunately, no... the Prime Z370-P doesn't have a Thunderbolt-3 header (nor BIOS support) for the Thunderbolt EX3.

The Prime Z370-A  does have the Thunderbolt-3 header (and BIOS support) for the Thunderbolt EX3.

If you want Thunderbolt-3 as an option, you have to be careful with motherboard choice.  Only a handful have the necessary header and BIOS support for the AICs

Well THAT sounds like a deal breaker to me? @Starship Krupa do you find this information useful? You might want to add a Scarlett or Clarrett Octopro to your budget if you fancy Focusrite preamps, you still won't have as may mic pre amps as you already do, but Presonus XMAX pre amps ain't too shabby.

Edited January 19, 2019 by Steev

[John Nelson]

15 minutes ago, Steev said:

Well THAT sounds like a deal breaker to me?

Not really.  I'm running a Babyface Pro on USB2 at 48 samples all day long.  But thanks for your concern.

 

[Jim Roseberry]

Babyface is an excellent performer.

When I was running a Fireface UFX (same core components), I rarely bumped it above the 48-sample ASIO buffer size.

Edited January 19, 2019 by Jim Roseberry

[abacab]

2 hours ago, Steev said:

 Yep, and you aren't going to stop ANY required updates either.

You can simply install or upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.  Then you can either turn off or have complete control over updates via "Group Policy Editor".

[ien]

4 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said:

The Quantum works just fine with Thunderbolt-3 AICs (add-in-controllers).

I'm using the Asus Thunderbolt EX3.

Excellent. Thank you!

[Jim Roseberry]

3 hours ago, abacab said:

You can simply install or upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.  Then you can either turn off or have complete control over updates via "Group Policy Editor".

Yep... you can completely disable all automatic updates (including notifications).

We do this for virtually all of our clients.  Those in commercial studios don't want to be hit-up with update prompts while clients are mid-session.

[Scott R. Garrigus]

On Windows Home, setting your connection to Metered will stop updates as well. Although, I don't know if that's just a delay or if it turns them off until you change the Metered option.

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://www.garrigus.com
* Cakewalk SONAR Video Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottGarrigus?sub_confirmation=1
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Publisher of the DigiFreq music recording newsletter: http://www.digifreq.com/
* Publisher of the NewTechReview consumer tech newsletter: http://www.newtechreview.com/

[abacab]

4 hours ago, Scott R. Garrigus said:

On Windows Home, setting your connection to Metered will stop updates as well. Although, I don't know if that's just a delay or if it turns them off until you change the Metered option.

That can work if you are extra vigilant.  But I have one computer with Home and one with Pro, and I had a major feature update slip past me on Home once when I temporarily disabled the Metered network  option in order to let my monthly security update run.  You will have to disable that to get any downloads to run. If you do so, you will effectively open up the download chute to any updates that are lurking when you check for updates. It is too late to pick and choose 'em at that point.  Boom!

I prefer the confidence that Pro offers to not get blindsided like that!

[Steev]

WRONG. You can only turn off Notifications. Windows update ALWAYS runs in the background. Windows 10 Pro allows you to "defer" major version releases. "Defer" i.e. to "put off",

 Windows Update which will and does download updates in the background as unobtrusively as it can.

If "Power" scheme option is  left to "Balanced", Windows equally "Shares" computer resources with "Applications".

If you select "High Performance" mode Windows give "priority", but certainly not ALL resources to the application. And this is about the only choice you have to give your DAW priority over Windows

 And NEVER ONCE will you ever be  interrupted or intruded upon and forced to update while  you are working.

 Choosing "Metered Connection" is only putting like putting a Band-Aid on a mortal wound, you still have to updates Windows, but at least it helps train Windows users to specifically pick a time when you aren't working on your computer so Windows can update to patch and fix holes.

 I've found the best time to do this is around the beginning of "Patch Tuesday" and Wednesday morning works for me. Simply let the computer run, OVER NIGHT or any time you are NOT using it, and reboot in the morning or when you want to start using it again.

Do that and you'll never have to worry about Windows 10 maintaining itself ever again..

Edited January 20, 2019 by Steev