I'm working with MC6, and loving the Cakewalk Sound Center. I'm looking to buy all 10 expansions in the near future, if you've never played with it, you're simply limiting your own capabilities. But I use it as a synth, along with the SI-drums, to give myself some nice back up to recording guitar... ...However, if the rhythms get complicated, the synth wont freeze correctly. I'll play straight eights slightly off, sometimes too quick, others too slow. And it's killing me. It's all fairly slight, but it's enough to drive me bonkers. It sounds like someone is sight reading the music and doing it poorly. My CPU never peaks above 77% and my Memory stays at about 55%. So... anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this. Bit Depth has no effect when I adjust it. Any help would be supremely appreciated.

Chad..... welcome... glad you're likeing  MC6 and CSC. Cool stuff for sure. 

 
First... you did not mention what soundcard you are using and what driver mode is running it.

I'm guessing it's a factory card and MME.... which would explain the high CPU & memory numbers as well as the out of sync notes. 

Factory cards generally have high latency and the CPU and memory numbers will suffer. 

You might wish to try getting a free copy of ASIO4ALL and load it up and see if that makes any difference. Some tell me it does make a big difference. 

Ultimately, a better USB external music interface running real ASIO drivers is the best option. 

for now...try A4A and see if it works for you.

Agree to that above.
And  MIDI doesn't know if the rhytm is complicated or not :o)

As a non-native english speaker this one confused me a little:


" I'll play straight eights slightly off, sometimes too quick, others too slow. And it's killing me."


But now, writing this, I came to think you probably meant "It'll play..."?


Secondly, if you'r CPU hits 77%, you are already on the red zone. Many systems start severe crackling and dropouts in that kind of readings.


Then again, I'm a little puzzled by the fact the synth gets frozen off time.
It doesn fit in picture IMO. The way I've understood it, Freezing (and bouncing) is a CPU-only-action in which soundcard plays no role.

Did that, the ASIO4ALL works very well. Though I had to increase the latency to about 120 just to get it to stop crackling. But yeah, that solves my issues, now to go rerender every project I've done in the last year.

you've had this a year and you're just now coming here to ask questions?   

shoulda come here sooner.... but you bees here now.... 


it's all good. 

It's never been a serious issue, just one that's slightly irritated me, despite my other musician friends saying that they can't notice. Today I worked on something that I really couldn't take it anymore. It was slow piano eighths and it was really obvious. I used to be able to work around it, or record live instruments to cover. But this fixes it. So hurray. I don't need a new external interface. (Ok, I really do) but I don't need one today. And that's a lot to me. Thank you for your help.

At some point, you might still need that interface, but A4A buys you a little time. 

On a bigger project with lots of plugs, synths and tracks you will appreciate the interface. 

But for now... use A4A and post the songs you are doing over in the songs forum when you finish them so we can hear what you do.

Kalle makes an interesting point though, if I'm freezing the synth, that wouldn't run to an external interface at all, right? So my problem would persist even with one, right? Or am I way off? Could cakewalk use it to record the synths from Sound Center?

The external becomes the sound card. 

On my lappy for example.... I have never been able to get the internal sound card to work with MC even with A4A. 

And when I have MC open and tracks selected for an export.... and do the export.... nothing gets exported. The file is created but it's empty. So I do believe the sound card has to play some sort of role in the export and bouncing of files. 

I can do the same exact sequence with my external sound card connected and everything works exactly like it's supposed to do. 

I have never been able to get that laptop to use it's internal sound card no matter what driver or wrapper I use. Not with MC.... I can get it to work fine with everything else though. 

Perhaps it's time to set down and try again.... one never knows.

My CPU never peaks above 77% and my Memory stays at about 55%.

 
Those are extremely high numbers. I don't recall ever going above ~ 46% CPU, and memory usage is negligible on my modest computer (2.8 processor and 2 GB RAM).
So I tried to stress it today.
I had my keyboard playing through 6 soft synths simultaneously (Triangle II, Square 1, DreamStation DXi, Roland Groove Synth, TTS-1, Proteus VX) while another MIDI track was playing through a 7th (Session Drummer 2).
Never went above 17% and the memory peaked about 2.
Adding Ozone pushed it above 25%.
Could be the sound card.