windows 11 Windows 11 audio glitches

[Tony Beveridge]

I'm hoping someone can help me here. Until recently, I was using Windows 10 with a 3rd gen Focusrite solo, and Cakewalk (latest), on a 16GB memory machine, with i7 quad cores and a fast SSD.

I upgraded to Windows 11 recently.  For simple projects, Cakewalk and Focusrite work (sort of ) OK. However, any project with more than 4 tracks, and I get all sorts of engine drop outs, pops, crackles when I try and record a new track.

On Windows 10, I had a few projects with > 16 tracks, and never experienced any issues at all.

If I want to record e.g. bass, guitar, midi, Focusrite gets set down to a buffer size of 64 samples, or else the latency is awful. If I want to mix or master, then I have to set Focusrite up to 1024 samples, or the engine keeps dropping out. 

I followed a Focusrite 'Optimize audio for Windows 11' (https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4408057193362-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-11) and still have issues. I found a few other Cakewalk and Windows 11 blogs that offered a sub set of what Focusrite suggested.

I've run out of ideas at the moment. I am past the 'revert in 10 days' window of Windows 11, so going back to 10 would be awkward. 

If anybody has any ideas or further links, I'd be most grateful.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Tony Beveridge
Note issue when recording on larger project

[Herky Acuff]

Same problems, similar set up and gear... Frustrating!

[Tony Beveridge]

This may also help. I find that if I deactivate the Izotope Ozone 9 Elements mastering plugin I had on the master bus and one track, the glitches practically disappear when recording.

Just means that I need to bump the Focusrite buffers up to 1024 and activate izotope when actually mastering.

What do a lot of blogs etc say? Have you installed or used any different plugins? ?

Which is obvious when you think about it ?

Edited December 28, 2022 by Tony Beveridge
Expand description

[Bill Phillips]

14 hours ago, Tony Beveridge said:

If I want to record e.g. bass, guitar, midi, Focusrite gets set down to a buffer size of 64 samples, or else the latency is awful. If I want to mix or master, then I have to set Focusrite up to 1024 samples, or the engine keeps dropping out. 

I usually use separate recording, and mixing/mastering projects. For recording I use a minimum of low CPU/OpenGL impact plugins required for for the musicians' monitoring mixes. The recording and mixing/mastering projects can share an audio folder so that incorporating new recorded tracks into the mix is relatively easy. You'll still need to toggle the buffer size but that can be handled in the Preferences for each project. I'm not sure if having both projects open at the same time will cause a problem but I don't think so.

[HOOK]

This problem, with certain plugins, has always existed.  Some of my favorites cause latency and droputs if I try to track with them in-line.  The trick is to figure out which ones and only use them when mixing or mastering.

Soundtoys, Cakewalk, Slate, Waves...I have plugins from each of these that make it impossible to track with them.

Like Bill, I also have a template set up for mastering, and do that completely separately from the project after I settle on and export a mix.

 

 

[David Baay]

18 hours ago, Tony Beveridge said:

Until recently, I was using Windows 10 with a 3rd gen Focusrite solo, and Cakewalk (latest), on a 16GB memory machine, with i7 quad cores and a fast SSD

Laptop or Desktop? Power management on laptops can really mess with DAW performance. Even if you're on a Desktop, you need to make sure all the CPU throttling mechanisms are disabled in BIOS and the Windows power profile is High Performance. And check for WiFi, Bluetooth or other hardware drivers causing spikes in Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) latency:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

I haven't really found that Win11 is any more troublesome than Win10 in this respect, but access to 'advanced power management' settings has been further obscured in Win11. IIRC, I had to go through the old Control Panel UI to get to them.

[Tony Beveridge]

1 hour ago, HOOK said:

This problem, with certain plugins, has always existed.  Some of my favorites cause latency and droputs if I try to track with them in-line.  The trick is to figure out which ones and only use them when mixing or mastering.

Soundtoys, Cakewalk, Slate, Waves...I have plugins from each of these that make it impossible to track with them.

Like Bill, I also have a template set up for mastering, and do that completely separately from the project after I settle on and export a mix.

 

 

Thank you HOOK and Bill for the comments re separating recording and mixing/mastering projects. I like that idea a lot. 

Seems I still have a bit to learn with cakewalk! 

[Tony Beveridge]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

Laptop or Desktop? Power management on laptops can really mess with DAW performance. Even if you're on a Desktop, you need to make sure all the CPU throttling mechanisms are disabled in BIOS and the Windows power profile is High Performance. And check for WiFi, Bluetooth or other hardware drivers causing spikes in Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) latency:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

I haven't really found that Win11 is any more troublesome than Win10 in this respect, but access to 'advanced power management' settings has been further obscured in Win11. IIRC, I had to go through the old Control Panel UI to get to them.

I should have mentioned it is a desktop. C states and performance plans covered off in the focusrite link, as well as a bunch of others. 

Thanks for the link to the latency monitor, that is well worth a look. 

[chris.r]

16 hours ago, Tony Beveridge said:

in the focusrite link

I took a quick look as it's from focusrite and for win 11 so must be current, and funnily enough they still advise setting processor schedule to background processes, same as everyone else since about over last 20 years as far as I remember, but just recently I've read in a thread somewhere here on forum, where Noel popped up surprised about it and saying that it should be always set to programs! Go figure out .

[Herky Acuff]

Everything works great, and then a Windows or something update. Cakewalk Bandlab folks can't be expected to keep up but they do an amazing job. The good people on the forum here have helped me many times, though can only troubleshoot so much. Windows etc will do more updates to fix previous update problems. And bring new problems for everyone.  Rinse and repeat. It's all as regular as the tides! But Cakewalk 2003 worked fine for me on a basic laptop in its day, and hoping things get better with all the horsepower, teamwork and knowledge we have today!

[Tony Beveridge]

10 hours ago, chris.r said:

I took a quick look as it's from focusrite and for win 11 so must be current, and funnily enough they still advise setting processor schedule to background processes, same as everyone else since about over last 20 years as far as I remember, but just recently I've read in a thread somewhere here on forum, where Noel popped up surprised about it and saying that it should be always set to programs! Go figure out .

I toggled between both and it made no difference, especially running cakewalk as the only foreground process. I think it may make a difference for perhaps slightly older processors, but I don't have any proof of that. 

In reality, it was my naivety in having ozone 9 elements active when trying to record. I'm now experimenting with Bill and Hook's suggestions. 

[Tony Beveridge]

5 hours ago, Herky Acuff said:

Everything works great, and then a Windows or something update. Cakewalk Bandlab folks can't be expected to keep up but they do an amazing job. The good people on the forum here have helped me many times, though can only troubleshoot so much. Windows etc will do more updates to fix previous update problems. And bring new problems for everyone.  Rinse and repeat. It's all as regular as the tides! But Cakewalk 2003 worked fine for me on a basic laptop in its day, and hoping things get better with all the horsepower, teamwork and knowledge we have today!

I completely empathise with your frustrations. I really enjoy using cakewalk in the main, and have some better than newbie knowledge that I am loathe to throw away. 

[chris.r]

47 minutes ago, Tony Beveridge said:

I toggled between both and it made no difference, especially running cakewalk as the only foreground process. I think it may make a difference for perhaps slightly older processors, but I don't have any proof of that. 

In reality, it was my naivety in having ozone 9 elements active when trying to record. I'm now experimenting with Bill and Hook's suggestions.

An older processor, or perhaps any processor on the edge. Normally I would skip that info but since we're using Cakewalk and he's the developer it's hard to ignore even if it's one word against rest of world .

Ozone and the family are well known to be hogs. Overall I'm fading away from iZotopes.