Reference Guide

1204 Improving audio performance
Improving performance with digital audio
Your project may simply be too "complex" for your computer
Your computer may not have enough processing power to deal with all of the tracks, clips, and real-
time effects used in your project. You can upgrade your computer hardware (see “Upgrade your
computer hardware: more RAM, a faster CPU, and a faster disk drive” on page 1204) or you can
simplify your project’s content so it demands less processing power.
If possible, try reducing the complexity of your project in any of the following ways:
• Reduce the number of real-time effects used in your project. Instead of generating the effects in
real-time (nondestructively) during playback, consider applying the effects offline (destructively),
before beginning playback.
• Reduce the number of distinct tracks being played back simultaneously. Consider “sub-mixing”
several of your audio tracks into one track (using the Track view Tracks > Bounce to Track(s)
command), and then archiving the individual tracks which were combined in the sub-mix.
(Archived tracks don’t use up any CPU resources during playback, leaving more CPU resources
available to properly play the non-archived tracks.)
• Where possible, record audio using a mono source, rather than a stereo source. Mono clips
require less processing power than stereo clips.
• Avoid using overlapping audio clips. Where possible, combine/blend overlapping clips into a
single clip, which uses less processing power.
• Thin the amount of MIDI controller data and the number of SysEx messages in your tracks.
• If you can't reduce your project's complexity, or if problems persist even after the complexity has
been reduced, proceed to the next step.
Upgrade your computer hardware: more RAM, a faster CPU, and a faster
disk drive
If your project makes extensive use of real-time effects (plug-ins), you should consider upgrading to
a faster CPU. If your primary concern is playing or recording a large number of tracks, a faster CPU
will help, but you may find that adding more RAM, a faster hard disk, and/or an improved hard disk
controller may help even more.
The following are some tips on upgrading your hardware:
Audio problems are often caused by a hard disk which is transferring data too slowly. The disk could
simply be physically incapable of reading and writing data fast enough, or the disk controller could
be causing too much CPU time to be consumed when transferring audio data to/from the disk.
Consider upgrading your equipment as follows:
• Ensure that your hard drive controller is NOT configured to operate in “compatibility mode” which
can greatly slow data transfer to/from your hard disk and make it almost impossible to record/play
audio in Cakewalk reliably. To do this, go to the Control Panel and double-click on the System
icon. Click the Performance tab. At the top of the Performance screen read the entries across
from File Systems and Virtual Memory. They both need to say 32-bit. If they mention MS-DOS
Compatibility Mode, then your computer has a serious problem, beyond the scope of what a
Cakewalk technician can fix. Your computer is processing the audio data very slowly and
Cakewalk will not work properly until the MS-DOS Compatibility Mode problem is eliminated.