I have been working well on a newly configured laptop and am waiting for the RAM to arrive to upgrade to 8gig.
I just turned on my laptop after the weekend and I'm getting a ridiculous lag between hitting a key on the keyboard and the note sounding. This is the first problem of this kind which I have encountered.
The last thing I did was added a few effects to some busses, so I wasn't using the keyboard at the time. Is the memory the problem? If not, how do I solve it? I am trying to play over the top of a few loops and just 2 midi tracks. I even tried freezing which solved the problem until I hit play and then i had the lag again. Thanks for any input or advice.

Doubt it's the RAM. It might be the effects you've been adding, certain peak limiters in particular have a look ahead feature that can add latency. When I have a project and I add the Waves L1 or L2 I start getting latency.

Update: When I load the song, I select the track and the keyboard plays fine. As soon as I hit play I get lag, even when I stop it again. CPU is only at 23% and Physical Memory at 50% in Task Manager so it looks like i have enough resources. I recorded some send automation, could it be this?

Any software updates to your computer?
 
ASIO or MME drivers?
 
Have you checked your soundcard drivers for any change?
 
Anything running in the background?
 
These are just some questions that came to mind.
 
I hope they help and good luck.

Update: Thanks Mario, but I checked all those things before posting.

I think I found the problem.
I just disabled all the plug-ins (only 6) on the busses and it worked.
Then did a one-by-one and found it to be the TS-64 Transient shaper!
I just mute this and the latency goes away.
Does anyone have any idea why?
Not really much point in having great plug-ins if you can't use them!

Update:
Sorry, just wanted to be clear in case anyone else was having the same/similar issue!
It doesn't work just by muting the effect. I have to mute it and then reset the MIDI and Audio with the button in the Nowtime bar.
Then it works as long as I leave it muted. As soon as I unmute it again, I get unacceptable latency when play the keyboard.
It's not a very efficient way of working is it?

Yep the TS-64 will introduce latency, it has that look ahead feature I mentioned up thread like a limiter. Not much you can do about it, it;s how that plug-in works since it was introduced.

See this thread .... http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2668712

Bub


See this thread .... http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2668712

i had no idea about this and i even posted on that thread...lol
good to know,thanks bub.
 

In a perfect world, no plugs should be added until tracking has finished - which would solve your problem instantly.

Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world and many of us like to mix as we go to get a feel for how the project is building up and whether any additional tracks could augment the production.

In which case, it's easy enough to simply bypass all plugins ('E') when you want to overdub and toggle them back on again when you've done.