Cakewalk 2022.11 by Bandlab more efficient than PT 2022

[Dagg M.]

I have used PT 2022 version on the Intel I7 4770 3.4GHz and 16GB of RAM. After creating cca 6-8 tracks with virtual instruments and some EQ/Dyn  plugins it started to choke and was practically unusable so I finally abandoned it. Don't get me wrong I appreciate PT but on my system it doesn't work well.

Then out of curiosity I have installed new Cakewalk by Bandlab and was almost shockingly pleasantly surprised. On the same PC system I have managed to run 24 channels each fully loaded with virtual instrument, pro EQ  Dynamic and a hi quality reverb plugins. It used around 65% of my processing power, without glitches and pops. I have maxed it out at cca 28 channels. That was really a big surprise for me since on PT I have been able to use significantly less loaded channels, and even those with pops cracks and glitches.

The surprise was so big that I have started thinking of using Cakewalk permanently which I have never planned to be honest. My main concern is audio engine quality compared to the one inside PT. I would love to hear some opinions about it. And there is one thing that bothers me in Cakewalk, not large enough faders for smooth moving with the mouse, like PT has. Another thing that slightly bothers me is a 'christmas tree' busy look of the DAW that doesn't look very professional, where PT does look way better (in my subjective opinion). On the other side one thing that I really love in Cakewalk is the possibility to use DAW simultaneously with the other audio sources on the PC (WASAPI shared driver mode), like YouTube so I can compare things that I am working on with the reference music  immediately. That is not possible with PT.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Edited February 21, 2023 by Dagg M.

[Lord Tim]

If you hear a difference with audio engine quality between any of the major DAWs (not counting ones that are designed to emulate hardware circuitry) then that DAW that sounds different is broken. Aside from pan laws, which can differ between each DAW quite a bit, and - to a very small degree - dithering, you'll get more or less identical results from any DAW, that can be demonstrated in a null test.

Audio hardware can make a difference, but in 2023, it's getting harder and harder to find anything other than the cheapest entry level gear that sounds bad as such. Bad drivers can certainly affect the latency and track count though. You may even be able to use the interface's ASIO drivers and do YouTube at the same time, depending on the device. WASAPI is always an option, but if you use WASAPI Shared mode, it'll introduce an automatic 10ms latency, which is not going to be an issue with mixing at all, but will be if you play live synths or live effects, etc.

Your specs are a little old but you'll most definitely be able to get more out of a system than 6-8 tracks for sure. I was doing fairly big mixes on an ancient Core2-duo laptop with 8GB of RAM without too much trouble, until I started to really load it up. A SSD most certainly helps things though.

You can customise the look of Cakewalk either by changing the Workspace and hiding the things you don't need to look at, or visit the UI THEMES forum and grab an entirely different look. It's very flexible.

The faders thing I don't really have much of a suggestion with since I do most of my mixing in the Track View or with envelopes, but I'd suggest a control surface might be a great idea if you like to mix using Console View faders - it'll be a lot more tactile than using a mouse on a screen. Maybe other people might have better suggestions with this area though.

[Bill Phillips]

23 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

The faders thing I don't really have much of a suggestion with since I do most of my mixing in the Track View or with envelopes

@Lord Tim I do the same thing, I think, trying to leave all faders at 0. I use the output gain of the last FX in lieu of the track fader. For me it helps me keep track of gain staging. I may use the faders to make minor changes in finalizing the mix, should that ever happen. ? Are you doing something similar?

[Lord Tim]

Nah, I'm definitely from the old mixing desk school where I mix with the faders (but in this case, it's the track volume faders in the Track View, rather than using Console View). So long as I have the gain structure set up right going into the track effects, I'm cool just to turn the fader up or down if it needs it, and automate using volume envelopes, etc.

Having said that, though, I've definitely automated effects outputs in lieu of adjusting the faders if I know I'm doing something specific that requires it in a particular section. So, say, I have a harmony vocal line, I might actually adjust the level using an effect output first to get the intent of the track down but then I'll use the track volume fader for the overall track blend in the mix.

But yeah, 95% of the time, it's all volume faders or volume envelopes for me

Edited February 22, 2023 by Lord Tim

[msmcleod]

For the most part, I get the track volumes at a ball park, then route everything to buses - usually no more than 8 of them (although tracks may go through intermediate buses to get to the final eight).  If a combination of tracks need some detailed volume changes, I'll either draw or record volume automation.

I'll then ride the faders on my control surface as the song plays, recording volume automation for the buses.

If it's 99% of the way there, I'll manually tweak... otherwise I'll play it through / record automation again.

[John Vere]

Ya it's not an issue for me either as 80% of my tracks are set at a certain level and stay there. Faders stay mostly at unity and the tracks level is set using the gain not the fader. Like Lead Vocals, Bass, Rhythm guitars, background synths and pianos as example.

But then there's this, A midi track that needs dynamics I prefer to use velocity as that works more close to how a real musician would play quieter or louder. 

Audio tracks I then run automation and fine tune using the envelope pay attention to what the readings are ( - 12db etc ) The faders are not something I use much really. 

Of course there is as many workflows as there are users so what ever works. 

[Lord Tim]

The biggest problem using gain rather than the volume is that affects what goes into the track effects, so if you're using, say, a compressor or a amp sim on a track, the gain will really affect how that plugin will respond to the audio, and often won't really change the output level at all, just the character of the sound.

If you're not running effects, then yeah - absolutely, this is a valid way of working for sure.  

[Bill Phillips]

3 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

The biggest problem using gain rather than the volume is that affects what goes into the track effects, so if you're using, say, a compressor or a amp sim on a track, the gain will really affect how that plugin will respond to the audio, and often won't really change the output level at all, just the character of the sound.

If you're not running effects, then yeah - absolutely, this is a valid way of working for sure.  

Using the Output Gain of the last FX in the track or a Gain FX after the last FX for volume automation leaves the Track Fader  at unity and available for final tweaks.

[John Vere]

6 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

The biggest problem using gain rather than the volume is that affects what goes into the track effects, so if you're using, say, a compressor or a amp sim on a track, the gain will really affect how that plugin will respond to the audio, and often won't really change the output level at all, just the character of the sound.

If you're not running effects, then yeah - absolutely, this is a valid way of working for sure.  

Exactly why I use gain so that the track is at a solid pre determined  level. 

 

The gain control is the most important part of your track. If set wrong your either starving or overfeeding all those effects. Take the time to get this right!  Example- No point trying to use a compressor when the input gain is @ -20db.    I generally set certain peak levels for each instrument.  I have learned what those peak levels might be and how they will react with effects like compressors.  

Most VST instruments are very easy to set up a consistent level.  I find Vocals and Guitars are the most work. 

I'm always evolving my workflow and which settings, levels, effects, compression gets me where I want to be. Call me in a month from now and that will probably change.   

 It's the part I enjoy the most about recording and using a good tool like Cakewalk. You never stop learning and improving what you do.  Even though I work with clients from time to time, this is ultimately just a hobby like woodworking and making wine. 

Edited February 23, 2023 by John Vere

[Starship Krupa]

Wow, I gave up mixing in the track headers when I migrated from Mixcraft as my primary DAW. I love love love Cakewalk's Console View. Best I've seen on any DAW. I know of people who record on other DAW's and import their tracks to Cakewalk for mixing due to the Console.

Not that it's not without its issues; as the OP hinted at, it wastes too much space that could be used for greater fader throw. The fader throw should lengthen when other elements are hidden. I'd like to see the Send bin change height as the FX bin does, and I'd like to be able to collapse both of them to, again, create more fader throw.

I've started messing with the gain control more after watching @John Vere's video about it. I like the results, it makes for more flexibility and range when working the faders and automation.

On 2/21/2023 at 4:48 AM, Dagg M. said:

On the same PC system I have managed to run 24 channels each fully loaded with virtual instrument, pro EQ  Dynamic and a hi quality reverb plugins.

PT is a notorious resource hog, my suspicion is that this is due to an expectation of AVID's that their userbase don't mind opening their wallets to upgrade their hardware to accommodate its needs. Lazy coding, and the fact that the country where their development team lives is under attack by a superpower probably doesn't help.

Cakewalk, on the other hand, is a free program with many users who are frugal about their computer systems. One of the developers (the one who chimed in on this topic) is known to be using an i7-3770 system in his personal studio. In the 5 years I've been using it, it's gotten even more efficient. Its codebase goes back a long way, which can be a drawback in some ways. But in regard to efficiency, if the playback and summing engines' code goes back to when a Core 2 Quad with 8G of RAM was a rocket sled, it makes sense that it will run like a bat out of hell on your i7-4770 with hyperthreading and Turbo Boost and twice the RAM.

On 2/21/2023 at 4:48 AM, Dagg M. said:

My main concern is audio engine quality compared to the one inside PT. I would love to hear some opinions about it.

As far as sound quality, there are actually at least two things in play (so to speak). Every DAW has playback code, recording code, and rendering code. IME, the recordings and renders that come out of different DAW's are so similar as to be insignificant. Unlike many people who hold this to be true, I have actually done the experiment with recording and rendering, and while there was a small difference when null-testing, it was just a difference in amplitude and phase, nothing like you hear when you try to null a WAV file vs. an MP3.

Playback engines, on the other hand....I suppose I could test it with my Saffire's loopback, but I haven't. I assume that there may be compromises to allow smooth playback for mixing. The difference in playback sound quality between Mixcraft 8 and the first release of CbB was a shock. Cakewalk sounded "smooth" and "sensuous" while Mixcraft sounded "harder" and "sharp." But at the time, CbB's engine stalled more than a 50-year-old lawnmower on similar tasks. Cakewalk has since caught up. Which one of them has more faithful representation....I dunno. As with your experience, Cakewalk seduced me, even as buggy as it was at the time (so so much better now after 5 years of nose to the grindstone bugslaughter). I put my faith in the new development team and I was right in doing so.

I believe that when people speak of one DAW "sounding better" than another, there may actually be a difference in what they're hearing, but it's during playback (and mixing), not during rendering. I've auditioned enough Windows "bit-perfect" audio players to know that even they don't sound alike. Yes, I notice a difference between MusicBee and AIMP, even with both set to use the WASAPI Exclusive or ASIO driver.

So go with your ears on this one. You're a mix engineer, a trained listener, so put on your best cans and focus your attention on detail and transients. Both playing back a rendered project in your favorite player (VLC is decent) and with a mixing session.

Whatever your findings, you can still, say, record, edit and comp your tracks in PT (if you prefer PT's comping tools, you don't have to give them up), then bounce them to WAV's and import them to Cakewalk for mixing and rendering.

[Lord Tim]

5 hours ago, John Vere said:

Exactly why I use gain so that the track is at a solid pre determined  level. 

The gain control is the most important part of your track. If set wrong your either starving or overfeeding all those effects. Take the time to get this right!  Example- No point trying to use a compressor when the input gain is @ -20db.    I generally set certain peak levels for each instrument.  I have learned what those peak levels might be and how they will react with effects like compressors.  

Yep, this is great advice

I think what I was getting at is sometimes you may want something fairly low in the mix (say a glockenspiel sound to go along with a guitar arpeggio, just to add that little bit of high end sparkle). You'd ideally want to mix that pretty quiet so it's not really a sound unto itself, but more there as enhancement. Swap this out for click on kick drums, low polysynth with a cello, etc. etc.  Yes, you could absolutely turn down the input gain and leave your volume fader at unity if that suits your workflow - and like I said, this is a valid way to work, having a visual representation of the faders together in the same place is a good way to get the mix straight in your head - but the moment you start adding anything that deals with dynamics into the FX Bin... it all starts getting a bit complicated.

This is where Bill's idea of using the last effect in the bin's output gain is a good alternative to using the track gain controls - it's coming after any processes are done.

I think we're all more or less on the same page with this, though. Get your gain right into your effects, then it's all really personal preference as to how you want to approach the actual mixing part of it next.  

[Noel Borthwick]

On 2/21/2023 at 7:48 AM, Dagg M. said:

Another thing that slightly bothers me is a 'christmas tree' busy look of the DAW that doesn't look very professional,

You definitely want to check out workspaces since this allows you to hide as much of the user interface as necessary. This is a unique customization feature in cakewalk that other daws do not have.

You likely have the default set to the advanced workspace, that literally shows all of the UI. Try setting it to basic or mixing, or create your own workspace to your taste to show just what you need.

[Starship Krupa]

11 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

You definitely want to check out workspaces since this allows you to hide as much of the user interface as necessary.

This.

Also, the Skylight (Cakewalk's term for the system of various expandable and dockable panels and views) interface is a feature that rewards spending time to maximize its potential. As Noel said, the stock Advanced workspace throws it all up there, and in an opened state no less. This isn't how experienced users run it.

Start with the Control Bar. I guarantee that there are modules on display that you don't need (maybe ACT and Sync, unless you're working with control surfaces and timecode). They can also be resized into larger or more compact form, and rearranged horizontally.

The Browser (the long panel on the right side) and Inspector are easily closed and opened as need be ("B" key and "I" key). The Multidock (which is the panel where the Console and Piano Roll views open by default) can be opened and closed with the "D" key. If you're on a multiple monitor system, you can put the Multidock on a separate monitor, and even drag the panels from it to float on their own.

Cakewalk is flexible, but with great flexibility comes many "OMG, I didn't know I could do that" moments. When @David Baay suggested I try holding shift when using the "D" key....yikes. Working on my laptop became much easier.

Lastly, try some custom themes (see my sig). @Brian Walton  is fond of modding his to omit what he sees as labels that experienced users don't need (maybe not great for a new user). My "Flat Dark" ones have flat Ableton/Studio One style transport buttons. An issue with custom themes for new users is that the button images and colors won't precisely match what the documentation shows.

[Max Arwood]

I used to use gain and volume for track volume. After I got close on the mix, I would, I put a track volume envelopes in. After that it was just easier to use gain for volume.  Now, if I had to, I would use a simple gain plugin in a few places. This is a BAD habit I had. I didn't know any better. Gain is 95% of the time used for the input of the effects bin, not a volume control. The gain level of many FX like compressors/saturators/tube emulations is very important. Some respond best only within a few DB + -. Turning it down at the end is not a good idea either. I don't always do it, but you should be able to turn off any plugin and not change the volume of the track (Exception possible Limiter and final gain staging stuff). Each FX in the bin works best at an input gain that the plugin expects. Hope this helps. And yes, it is ok to cheat if you have no effects in the FX bin, and don't plant to use any later.

[Craig Anderton]

On 2/21/2023 at 6:48 AM, Dagg M. said:

The surprise was so big that I have started thinking of using Cakewalk permanently which I have never planned to be honest. My main concern is audio engine quality compared to the one inside PT. I would love to hear some opinions about it. And there is one thing that bothers me in Cakewalk, not large enough faders for smooth moving with the mouse, like PT has. Another thing that slightly bothers me is a 'christmas tree' busy look of the DAW that doesn't look very professional, where PT does look way better (in my subjective opinion).

A few comments, from someone who has engineered many Pro Tools sessions...

Efficiency: Pro Tools started life on the Mac, Cakewalk on Windows. Because Cakewalk didn't have to go cross-platform, it could optimize performance with Windows. 

Audio engine: IIRC Cakewalk was the first to employ a 64-bit audio engine. The days of DAWs using 16- or 24-bit engines are (thankfully) well behind us. AFAIC, audio engines have more or less reached parity; any differences will likely be due to plugins in use, pan laws, etc.  Hardware I/O is where the variables occur. But also, Cakewalk has an upsampling feature. Although not quite as relevant as when it first introduced due to computers getting faster and many plugins including internal oversampling, it can still make a significant improvement in sound quality under some conditions.

Fader size: Hold shift to move the fader with more resolution. The mouse scroll wheel, with shift held, is also good for fine adjustments. For a control service, nothing has the same tight integration as the late, great V-Studio, but Mackie Control-compatible devices do all the important stuff (faders, mute, record, transport, etc.). I use the PreSonus Faderport 8, whose dedicated Sonar mode is compatible with Cakewalk by BandLab (however, the Faderport must have at least the 3.51 firmware).

"Christmas Tree" Look: +1000 to Lord Tim's and Noel's comments. Cakewalk's user interface is highly customizable. In addition to Themes,  Workspace Manager can not only simplify the "look and feel," but optimize the user interface for specific DAW-related tasks. Compared to Pro Tools, Cakewalk's show/hide and docking functionality is more developed.

PT does have multi-mono mode for plugins, which is great for mid-side processing or independent processing of left and right channels. However, it's easy enough to do the same functionality in Cakewalk by splitting into buses. FWIW also check out Patch Points, which allow for highly useful routing possibilities.  

Hope this helps!

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

AFAIC, audio engines have more or less reached parity; any differences will likely be due to plugins in use, pan laws, etc.  Hardware I/O is where the variables occur. 

Curious, Craig: what do you think of my hunch that while that's true for recording and rendering, it may not be true for playback?

For sure about the I/O,and not just the analog components. I was gobsmacked by how much better my Presonus Studio 2|4 sounded than my Presonus Firepod, and I had to learn why. How could it be possible that two interfaces from the same company sounded so different when their published specs were so similar? I did some research and found out about how jitter degrades the listening experience. According to that paper, even a mathematically small amount of jitter can be perceptible. The Firepod was made before prosumer companies like Presonus started using DAC's with JetPLL, a technology that drastically reduced jitter. So once I learned this, it made me wonder what other less commonly understood or cited phenomena might affect the listening experience.

The marketing hype around the introduction of the compact disc said that it was like the end of hi fi history, that digital audio was now a "perfect" representation.

It's kinda funny how many improvements have been made to "perfection," even fairly recently. I can name three DAW's, Samplitude, Mixcraft and Ableton Live, all of which advertised that they had "improved" the sound quality of their audio engines within the past 3 or so revisions. This raised a question for me: if their engines already did the same thing as every other DAW's audio engines, how was it possible for them to "improve?" ?

[Lord Tim]

My answer to that is: does the exported WAV null?

Taking effects and pan law out of it, if the resulting WAV nulls or is very very quiet, so much that it'd be pretty much imperceptible in a blind test, that pretty much eliminates the audio engine as being the difference.

To take that one step further, set up 2 computers and have one recording the output of your audio interface while the song plays back in realtime from the DAW. That will definitely introduce more differences, but so long as you're sample accurate, with a decent interface I'd wager the difference would be tiny.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Craig Anderton]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Curious, Craig: what do you think of my hunch that while that's true for recording and rendering, it may not be true for playback?

I haven't done any testing, so I wouldn't know. There is a project I use for testing out different DAWs that consists of exported WAV files. I haven't noticed any significant difference when playing them back on different DAWs, but I haven't been looking for differences and doing deep tests, either. However, I did notice a significant difference after upgrading my monitoring to a Dangerous Music Source, which has really good DACs. 

I'm sure there are plenty of phenomena with digital audio that haven't been identified yet. For example, sometimes it seems there are "rogue frequencies" in a final mix that I don't recall getting with analog recording. Maybe it's interaction of harmonics? Running signals too hot? Not a high enough sampling rate? The phase of the moon? 

[Lord Tim]

Check out Dan Worrall's YouTube channel, he does a lot of plugin testing that includes antialiasing and phase shift tests - despite knowing about both of those things, it was still a real eye opener seeing exactly how much this affected the audible frequency range!

I don't believe this is something we'd run into on a modern floating point DAW engine, but there's definitely a lot of variables out there in an actual real-world mix that could add up, depending on what plugins and processing you'd use.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, Craig Anderton said:

sometimes it seems there are "rogue frequencies" in a final mix that I don't recall getting with analog recording

Digital wolf tones.

5 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

does the exported WAV null?

? An exported WAV would be a product of offline rendering, though, which I'm positing could be different from playback in the same DAW. People try the null test; I tried the null test with Cakewalk and Mixcraft (they didn't null completely, but they weren't off by that much, either). But the null test is done on rendered files, not the output of the DAW's playback.

There's nothing requiring the programmers of a DAW to use the exact same algorithms at playback time (when resources are more scarce) as they do at render time. If they were completely equivalent, why doesn't it take exactly the same time to render a track as it does to play it back? If you leave Task Manager running, you see CPU usage is way higher during render than during playback. Is it possible that something might be handled differently for the sake of less chance of dropouts during playback?

I listen at a slightly lower fidelity while mixing, by my own choice. I use plug-in oversampling, but only turn it on for rendering.

20 years ago you did NOT want to let anything convert your tracks' rates up or down. The trip from 44.1 to 48 would mess things up (phase shifting, aliasing). Then at some point the algorithms got good enough at it that nobody's concerned about it any more.

I've done enough testing with Resource Monitor of both Mixcraft and Cakewalk to know that on similar projects, Cakewalk does a lot more disk reads than Mixcraft during playback. As far as I could tell, Mixcraft was loading the audio files completely into memory (which would help explain their bullet-resistant playback engine) while Cakewalk was streaming them from the disk (supposedly not an expensive operation in terms of I/O).

Edited February 25, 2023 by Starship Krupa