CbB Low latency performance

[Noel Borthwick]

We've been working hard on improving the audio engine performance over the last year. Low latency ASIO performance is greatly improved compared to SONAR.  Please check out this post to see it in action.

[powerprorecords]

Does this come with Cakewalk or is it a plug-in?

[John Nelson]

Now THIS is good stuff!  Bravo, Noel.

[Noel Borthwick]

That's the focusrite 6i6 audio interface not a plugin.

[MediaGary]

This is excellent news!

[InstrEd]

Wow this is great news. 

[mettelus]

Very nice, thank you for posting! I didn't even know the newer interfaces can go down to 16 sample buffers... that alone is pretty nutty.

[bitflipper]

I am not in the habit of playing virtual instruments while recording, having long ago established a methodology wherein I play and monitor hardware synths, record their outputs as MIDI and only apply soft synths after all performances have been recorded. That way I can keep buffers at max all the time while ignoring latency entirely.

The only time I'd ever lower the buffers would be when experimenting with a new VI in real time. A couple weeks ago I was doing just that and had set my buffers to 64 samples, IMO the practical maximum for realtime playing at 44.1 KHz. Then I simply forgot to set them back to their normal values. By the time I noticed my mistake, I had a full project going with multiple heavy-duty samplers (Trilian, Kontakt, Superior Drummer) and fx, including Ozone. 

Sorry, Noel, but it didn't occur to me at the time that I owed all that to improved DAW efficiency. 

Knowing that it's now practical to track with smaller buffers will likely change the way I do things in the future. Way to go, Team Cakewalk!

[InstrEd]

@bitflipper I would do as you do to with MIDI.  Now we are getting spoiled

[Colin Nicholls]

Looking forward to comparing results on my system, on which I also have a 6i6 available as an alternative. Nice!

[Christian Jones]

Great news for amp sim users, especially those who play through two or more amps simultaneously (this guy) 

[Noel Borthwick]

3 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I am not in the habit of playing virtual instruments while recording, having long ago established a methodology wherein I play and monitor hardware synths, record their outputs as MIDI and only apply soft synths after all performances have been recorded. That way I can keep buffers at max all the time while ignoring latency entirely.

The only time I'd ever lower the buffers would be when experimenting with a new VI in real time. A couple weeks ago I was doing just that and had set my buffers to 64 samples, IMO the practical maximum for realtime playing at 44.1 KHz. Then I simply forgot to set them back to their normal values. By the time I noticed my mistake, I had a full project going with multiple heavy-duty samplers (Trilian, Kontakt, Superior Drummer) and fx, including Ozone. 

Sorry, Noel, but it didn't occur to me at the time that I owed all that to improved DAW efficiency. 

Knowing that it's now practical to track with smaller buffers will likely change the way I do things in the future. Way to go, Team Cakewalk!

I wouldn't track a big project at 16 samples. It would be ahem a bit fragile
There are also improvements to MIDI buffer performance in the engine coming for the next release as well as an overhaul to ASIO buffer management.
I guess nobody noticed a subtle giveaway of some changes in the video lol.

[Colin Nicholls]

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

I guess nobody noticed a subtle giveaway of some changes in the video lol.

It must be pretty subtle... unless it has to do with the Ozone 9 rectangle in the FX bin being blue, but that might be related to a feature I've never used. I'm really not familiar with half of what's included in the product *sigh*

[InstrEd]

1 hour ago, Colin Nicholls said:

It must be pretty subtle...

Or we are dense. Which is okay.  I didn't get the hint either ?

[scook]

Given the improvements in the audio engine, does this mean it should be possible to lower the MinPluginLoadBalancingBufferSamples value?

Are there any other ini parameters that need to be reviewed?

[Noel Borthwick]

@scook I suppose I could drop that size to 32 samples. The thing is that the smaller the buffer size is the higher the CPU load is, so if someone is turning on load balancing to primarily save CPU this could not be useful. Give it a try with 32 or 16 samples and check if you see benefits when running your audio interface at 48 or 64 samples. (Load balancing only kicks in if the actual buffer size is a multiple of MinPlubnginLoadBalancingBufferSamples)

I'll also give it another look next week. I can't think of any other settings that would be candidates for changing.