Drive used for Cakewalk Projects

[sdwest]

Any of you have opinions about drive types/speeds to be used for the "Cakewalk Project" *.cwp and *.wav files used within the Program.  I feel the best type of drive for the program itself is to install and run it on a good reliable SSD, but wonder if the type of drive used to record the data and hold the files makes any difference in the process.  At the moment I'm using a  Samsung 860 Pro SSD for the program install and a 1TB Western Digital "Black" series HDD for Cakewalk Projects

Wade C.

[slartabartfast]

The only generally recognized indication for an SSD is when you have a plugin that you are streaming large numbers of samples in real time from disk.  In that case it may show clear superiority in loading the samples compared to a reasonably fast ( 7200 rpm) mechanical hard drive. Many sample players load samples into memory and play them from RAM, which is much faster than an SSD, so once loaded into DRAM from whatever storage, there is no benefit. Are you finding problems with the storage you are currently using or do you just want to buy a Ferrari to commute to work?
 

btw If you are a speed fetishist then you will want, not just an SSD (typically connected by SATA) and go with something that connects directly to the PCIe bus. 

[sdwest]

slartabartfast, thank you for that response!  I don't consider myself a speed fetishist, I do have some problems with dropouts when playing 10 or more tracks with some plugins attached.  I'm on an i7 with 16GB of ram, so I guess I expected better.  My system is a Win7 system that has been used for many purposes over several years now, so there are many "services" and "processes" running that I have no clue what they do or if it is safe to terminate their little behinds.  So, there may be more to it than I think.

You mention the new SSD cards connected directly to the PCI bus, I have considered those.  My motherboard is such that I would have to use a PCI to M2 adapter to be able to do that, do you know if that would still be a faster way to go than SATA?

Now that you mention it, a Ferrari would make the commute better, I think.  ?

Thanks again!

Wade

 

 

 

 

[Robert Bone]

Yes - the M.2 2280 NVME PCIe drives are allowed to transfer data up to the limits of their technology, so these drives an perform reads and writes up to about 3,500 MB a second, versus about 500 MB for regular SATA III drive.

The M.2 drives are still solid-state - just not bound by the SATA III transfer protocols, so they are without a doubt, WAY faster than SATA III drives.

I happen to use a combination of all 3 kinds of drives,

1) I use an M.2 2280 NVME PCIe drive for my boot drive, AND another one to store sample libraries.

2) I use a couple of SATA III solid-state drives, to store additional sample libraries, and Cakewalk Content.

3) I use SATA III 7,200 rpm HDD's to store Cakewalk Projects folder, and another couple to hold my user library folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Videos, Pictures).

My desktop has a whole bunch of main memory, so regardless of the drive type that content comes from, once it is read, it pretty much stays in memory.  (I have 128 GB of memory in my main desktop).

I could have chosen to store the Cakewalk Projects on a solid-state drive or an M.2 drive, but they load just fine from the nice cheap regular HDD's running at 7,200 rpm.

Bob Bone

[Robert Bone]

2 hours ago, sdwest said:

slartabartfast, thank you for that response!  I don't consider myself a speed fetishist, I do have some problems with dropouts when playing 10 or more tracks with some plugins attached.  I'm on an i7 with 16GB of ram, so I guess I expected better.  My system is a Win7 system that has been used for many purposes over several years now, so there are many "services" and "processes" running that I have no clue what they do or if it is safe to terminate their little behinds.  So, there may be more to it than I think.

You mention the new SSD cards connected directly to the PCI bus, I have considered those.  My motherboard is such that I would have to use a PCI to M2 adapter to be able to do that, do you know if that would still be a faster way to go than SATA?

Now that you mention it, a Ferrari would make the commute better, I think.  ?

Thanks again!

Wade

 

 

 

 

By the way - if you are having dropouts playing projects back, it may be because of having plugin effects that are designed for use in the Mixing/Mastering phase of a project, and not meant to be used during tracking (recording).

SO - generally, when recording, 1) Avoid loading plugin effects, when recording, that use look-ahead processing or linear phase processing - those kinds of effects are meant for mixing/mastering, and 2) Keep your ASIO Buffer Size down to about 128 samples or less (but not too low), for a reasonable balance between latency and CPU workload, and when MIXING, jack up the ASIO Buffer Size to either 1024 or 2048 samples, and then feel free to load the more resource-hungry effects that use Look-Ahead  or linear-phase processing.  (Effects that use look-ahead processing include things like convolution reverb effects, and linear-phase type effects often use LP in their names).

If your dropouts go away when you temporarily 'Bypass All Effects', by hitting the letter 'E' on your computer keyboard before hitting Play, then that does point to one or more effects causing the dropouts - (look-ahead or linear-phase), and then you can either swap those out until you move on to mixing, and adjust the ASIO Buffer Size way high (1024/2048 samples), OR you can finish recording with the effects bypassed, and then Hit 'E' again when done recording, to toggle the effects back on.  You could also turn off any of those kinds of effects while recording, and turn them individually back on when moving on to mixing.

Bob Bone

[sdwest]

Bob, thanks for a lot of good information about the M.2 drives, I think I'm going to try a 512GB with an adapter card for PCIe as boot drive and see what it does.  I've been looking at a Samsung 970 Pro 512GB for that purpose, but others rank pretty high too.  I'm using a WD 1TB Black HDD for Project files, so I'll just stay with that for now. 

I have my dropout issues in mixing, I do as you do for recording: I don't use any plugins and have had pretty good luck in that mode.  I'm hopeful that the new version of CbB will offer more insight into the causes of these things.  IMO, they don't seem to be caused by CPU loading.

Cheers,

Wade

 

 

[slartabartfast]

M2 is a connection protocol not a transfer protocol. That is the M2 means that the device connects with a different "socket" than a standard PCIe slot. Most, but not necessarily, all devices that connect using  M2 will have direct access to the PCIe bus. The M2 connection can also serve devices that use SATA III and USB 3 as a transfer protocol, and those devices will be limited by those protocols transfer speeds. If your motherboard has open PCIe slots there are SSD's that will plug into those without the need for any adapter.

[sdwest]

slartabartfast, that's good information, and SSD with direct PCIe connection was news to me.  I did a little checking on ebay and, sure enough, I find several brands that I could try for a fairly reasonable amount.  I have already jumped into the shark-infested waters for a Samsung 970 Pro 512GB and an adapter card, so I'll give that a go first.  I'm not too sure yet how I'm going to get this motherboard to recognize an operating system on PCIe, let alone creating a bootable SSD.  It's a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4, BIOS version F6.  The documentation at Gigabyte mentions that version F4 was "Improve OCZ PCIe SSD compatibility", so I'm hopeful.  PCIe is not listed as a bootup choice in the BIOS.  If it won't work, I'll have some stuff for sale!

Thanks for your time, you've helped me a lot!

Regards,

Wade

 

 

 

[Robert Bone]

4 hours ago, sdwest said:

slartabartfast, that's good information, and SSD with direct PCIe connection was news to me.  I did a little checking on ebay and, sure enough, I find several brands that I could try for a fairly reasonable amount.  I have already jumped into the shark-infested waters for a Samsung 970 Pro 512GB and an adapter card, so I'll give that a go first.  I'm not too sure yet how I'm going to get this motherboard to recognize an operating system on PCIe, let alone creating a bootable SSD.  It's a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4, BIOS version F6.  The documentation at Gigabyte mentions that version F4 was "Improve OCZ PCIe SSD compatibility", so I'm hopeful.  PCIe is not listed as a bootup choice in the BIOS.  If it won't work, I'll have some stuff for sale!

Thanks for your time, you've helped me a lot!

Regards,

Wade

 

 

 

My motherboards have the built-in support for multiple M.2 drives (both NVME and SATA III), but in any, those drives show up like any other drives, under the control of Disk Management.  Cloning software - which I believe Samsung supplies on their web site (lots of companies make it), would clone your current boot drive to the new NVME drive, and it would show up in the BIOS, to boot from.

Bob Bone

[sdwest]

Bob Bone, that's music to my ears.  I've used Samsung's cloning software before when replacing a SATA drive with another SATA drive, but I'll be trying what you suggest, thanks!

Wade

 

[Starship Krupa]

Since Cakewalk streams project audio from the disk as it's playing it back, I keep my project (including audio) files on my SSD.

There's actually a lot of disk reading overhead with Cakewalk's normal operation if one keeps a bunch of unused takes around, because Cakewalk streams everything, even if it's muted. There's no way (yet) to archive takes except to move them to another track and then archive the track.

[mettelus]

On 11/15/2019 at 4:49 PM, sdwest said:

At the moment I'm using a  Samsung 860 Pro SSD for the program install and a 1TB Western Digital "Black" series HDD for Cakewalk Projects

 

On 11/15/2019 at 7:40 PM, sdwest said:

I do have some problems with dropouts when playing 10 or more tracks with some plugins attached. 

A quick check before you get too far is to take one of your troublesome projects and "Save As..." to your SSD. Be sure to also check the box that says "Copy all audio with project." I would even close out CbB afterwards, reopen CbB, and load the project you just saved. That will let you see the difference the disc drive makes. Try that first before predetermining a solution.

The reason I say this is that there are a number of reasons that a computer will drop out (buffer to small and taxing the CPU for FX, background processes, etc.). Windows "Auto Network Discovery" is one background process that is a menace (#1 offender in my experience), so there are more possible issues than simply the drive speed. As mentioned above, heavy streaming from a drive would be of concern, but I am not sure if that really applies to you. What instruments and effects are you running? Have you checked your system running a project with LatencyMon yet?

[sdwest]

14 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

There's actually a lot of disk reading overhead with Cakewalk's normal operation if one keeps a bunch of unused takes around, because Cakewalk streams everything, even if it's muted. There's no way (yet) to archive takes except to move them to another track and then archive the track.

 

Starship Krupa, I'll try that, I do keep a lot of unused vocal tracks and de-selected plugins in the final cwp file.  I usually have 4 or 5 cwp project files for every project, depending on the state of the final product.  I'll try deleting all muted and unused tracks from the final mixdown cwp  then renaming it, so that the one I'm working with only contains "live" tracks and plugins.  Good advice, and thank you.

Wade C.

[sdwest]

14 hours ago, mettelus said:

Windows "Auto Network Discovery" is one background process that is a menace (#1 offender in my experience), so there are more possible issues than simply the drive speed. As mentioned above, heavy streaming from a drive would be of concern, but I am not sure if that really applies to you. What instruments and effects are you running? Have you checked your system running a project with LatencyMon yet?

mettelus, I did not know about LatencyMon until I read your post.  I have downloaded it and have been getting familiar with it and it should be a big help to me.  Most of the background processes are abbreviations that are unfamiliar to me, but a Google search helps with that.  One big user and abuser of my system resources was the NVIDIA video card extraneous processes, and I've already trashed most of that.  Good stuff, thank you. 

[sdwest]

Running LatencyMon I discovered a lot of USB 3.0 activity, then realized that I had transferred the licenses from several of my favorite plugins to a USB flash drive.  I eliminated this problem by transferring the licenses back to the cloud and removing the flash drive from the USB port.  It won't be as convenient transferring licenses between computers, but it's not that bad either. 

Wade C. 

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, sdwest said:

I'll try deleting all muted and unused tracks from the final mixdown cwp  then renaming it, so that the one I'm working with only contains "live" tracks and plugins.  Good advice, and thank you.

This is what I do once I've settled on a "keeper" track. Either that or as I said, move the unused takes to another track and then archive the track, which stops them from being streamed.

Sometimes I like to keep alternate takes around for archival purposes in case it starts to nag at me that maaayyyyybeeee the other vocal take was better or I liked the other guitar track or something and that's one way to do it, but I have also used your method of renaming the project "XXXArchive" or whatever and then start deleting the leftovers. It can perk things up. Sometimes it has little effect, but I have a friend who likes to record drum take after drum take until he finds his groove, and I mean this guy will get up to like 20 takes, so even with my minimal mic'ing, that's 80 lanes!

[mettelus]

6 hours ago, sdwest said:

NVIDIA video card extraneous processes

I just downloaded the most recent NVIDIA driver to check the install screen and was pleasantly surprised that they split the install options into "Experience" and "Drivers only." The quickest way to clean that garbage is to do a fresh install, select Custom, and only choose the "Graphics Driver" and "PhysX Software." Also check the "Clean Installation" box at the bottom. Do not install anything else (HD Audio Driver, Experience Stuff, Shadow Play, etc.).

Another thing to check on a system is "Services" (type in the search menu) and see which load automatically on boot. Many "automatic start/update" services can be set to "Manual" under properties. All this does is restricts them from launching until you load an app rather than them loading on boot. More and more apps have intrusive phone home and auto update services that load into memory on boot that are unnecessary. You can also disable network connections when doing DAW work to achieve similar, but the Services route will let a machine stay connected without issues.

[sdwest]

mettelus, I did all that with the NVIDIA drivers, but there is still a pesky little "nvlddmkm.sys" that is very active called "NVIDIA Windows kernel mode driver", which I assume is the driver.  Are there accepted benchmarks/numbers with LatencyMon below which a person can feel confident about the system for DAW use?

[mettelus]

The main screen in LatencyMon will give you a comment after the program has run for a couple minutes. The other pages/tabs in the program allow you to sort through specifics of the capture and let you sort results by column to better find the outliers, but the main screen will present a message of "Your system is adequate for audio processing" in green text or "Your system may have difficulty processing audio" in red text. I forget the exact verbiage, but it is similar to those. That main page also shows you what items have gone into the red, which will point you at the tabs to look at (the main screen is the go/no go indicator).

If any of the top 4 bars on the main screen go into the red, start looking at the processes on those sub-pages. Google will help figure out what they are, and those that are services, can be set to manual if not a core function.

Another item to check is to open the windows task manager (this will also up latency while doing so) and watch the CPU/Disk/Network Usage while playing back a project. You may also get some insight there. If your disk or CPU usage is truly spiking, you will also catch that there. If the network is doing things, you can disable BT, Wi-Fi and unplug ethernet cables and try again.

[sdwest]

Mettelus, thank you.  LatencyMon is still in the green on all 4 bars after 2 minutes.  This program will help me resolve my dropout problem, I think.

In other news, I tried my Samsung 970 Pro 512GB NVMe card in a PCIe X4 slot with an adapter card, and using Samsung's migration software, It was able to recognize and clone my current 850 Pro SSD to the NVMe.   However, my motherboard does not give me a choice of a PCIe card boot, so I get a boot failure every time.  So, back to the drawing board, but it was fun getting as far as this, in any event.