I need help before I pull all my hair out.

[rogerdee]

Hi guys and galls,
Firstly, I am pretty tech savvy so this is a last resort to ask for help with this.
I use Cakewalk DAW and have done so for quite some time. This morning, I went to my bedroom studio to carry on with an ongoing project and for some reason I had excessive 'output' latency.
I say out latency as I have put a 1st VU meter into the project and the input is fine but there is about 750ms of latency on the output.
I have played around withe buffer size and the sample rate but to no avail.
I have also played around with the sound settings within the computer but I am pretty sure it's not that.
What I can't get my head around is that it was fine yesterday but overnight I now have this issue.

Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.

warmest

Roger

[garystrat]

Hi Roger

It sounds as though you may have a plugin or FX within a track causing it, this why some system intensive plugins can be frozen once the settings are made (this reduces the load on the system). If you were close to the CPU or system memory/resource threshold it could be that when the PC was rebooted something in the startup triggered it.

There is any easy way of testing for this, put all your system settings back to where they were and backup your file, then remove and re-instate each plugin one by one to try to establish if this is causing it. If it proves to be the case then firstly you need to try and establish if it’s processor load (most DAWs have a CPU meter somewhere) or memory, with the latter the options are to find an alternative plugin or increase system resources, this assumes that you can’t freeze settings within the plugin to reduce load.

Regards

Gary

[rogerdee]

Hi Gary,
Thanks, I will try it later and let you know how I get on.

[rogerdee]

Hi Gary,
You were right, I had laid down 10 tracks of backing and all tracks had either plugins or fx's in them. 
There was no issue until I inserted another track to record the guitar melody into it. I inserted the 'outer space' plugin into that track and that seems when the trouble started.
I kept on deleing and re-inputting the plug in but I still had the extreme latency
From what you had said, I deleted all the plugins and fx's from the backing tracks and problem solved.
From now on I suppose the best route is to mix the tracks at the end and not as I record each track. So lesson learnt.

Thanks for your help 
kind regards

Roger

 

[garystrat]

Hi Roger

There are some possible options, i.e. if you have common EQ on several of your tracks you can use a "Bus" which is then then routed into each common track that uses it, this can be pre or post EQ of those remaining plugins on the track, this can reduce resource usage quite a bit (as well as being quite convenient, there are quite a few interesting concepts that this introduces) !

Secondly, if you are using oversample in Outer Space this can increase resource usage a fair amount depending where it's set.

This is just a starter to give you some idea, I may be able to help more if needed.

Regards

Gary

[rogerdee]

Hi Gary,
Thank you for your help and advice.
I have only just started using 'Outer Space' an think I love it.
I am still fiddling with it so may come back to you for more advice.

Thanks again
Roger

[garystrat]

Hi Roger,

This video may be of help to you if you are just starting out with "Outer Space"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPzcrYQbFI

You need to use the screen settings as for some reason there is sometimes a different tune being played to that shown.

Regards

Gary