TSC Request for Help with Tracking Down Collective Silence Bug

[dRowAudio]

[I'm reposting this in its own thread to avoid it getting lost in an OT one]

Hi everyone,

We need your help:

We are aware of the problem that Collective can go silent after a couple of minutes playing. However, we are unable to reproduce this behaviour on our test machines, even with test songs that we got from our customers producing silence on their computers. This problem must be solved but since we don't know where to start our search, we need your help:

Use a song that exposes the behaviour on your machine and isolate the track with Collective where it happens. Mute (or better delete) all other tracks and see if the problem persists. Save it under a new name so that you can go back to it or reload it after the problem occurred and you must get back sound from Collective.

Then, open the Collective plug-in view and try to remove as many sound layers as possible except for one, so that you have a simple setup to test with. Verify that the problem persists. Save it under a new name again.

Now, in this one Sound layer, deactivate all sound-generating modules except for Oscillator 1. This includes the Filters, Drive, Equalizer, and all 4 Effect slots (remember what was active in the original sound, i.e. if it had only one Effect slot activated, it makes no sense to check the others). Check if the problem happens. If yes, hooray, the bad guy is the oscillator and it's this particular oscillator type (Sine, Sample, you name it). If not, activate one of the Filters and see if Collective goes silent now. If not, activate Drive and so on. When you have found the culprit, please report it to us, ideally with the respective song data or at least with the instrument file saved from Collective.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best wishes,

Wolfram

[magicmusic]

As far i see the problem happen only when have more tracks with collective and more layers. I am also able to get problem with reaper as DAW and more collective. so is collective only

what CPU and RAM your test machines have ?. please look at task manager in windows memory useage. see my screenshot. look as there is a 32 bit to 64 bit problem(signed unsigned or pysical adress too high), because my small testsong i send to you use 2 gb ram. maybe when you find this memory eat problem, the other problem is find too

i install on vmware http://www.osboxes.org/ubuntu/ 17.04 image and try to get collective working. but the instruments are not list. i change the setting of instrument , but do not work. seem the path for instrument is ignore. i install all in the linux dirs prefer in manual.

this is windows taskmanager

[fortklang]

Sorry not your prefered method for trobleshooting. But maybe it helps ...
My collective simply stops audio output when I put the cursor over a knob inside collective.

Specs:
tested version: 1.0.3
linux: Opensuse Leap 42.2 with KDE 4 desktop
audio: focusrite saffire LE (firewire) Driver: FFADO and Jack2
computer: Intel i5 3350P
graphic: Nvidia Gforce GTX650, driver: Nvidia

[magicmusic]

I do look how much memory the song use when i use waveform 32 bit. see screenshot, it use much less

[jabe]

My collective simply stops audio output when I put the cursor over a knob inside collective.

I just tried that and T7 disappeared. I'll see if it's repeatable.

Nope. Weird.

[zzz00m]

I have setup a Waveform test Edit, with 4 instances of Collective, on tracks 1-4.

So far, I have never been able to reproduce the bug with Collective on track 1.

However, on tracks 2-4, the audio can drop out randomly. Some times it happens immediately to one or 2 instances, and other times not at all.

The selected preset seems to make no difference, but I haven't tried reducing the patches to basic settings yet. I did find one preset that is only programmed with one oscillator that did drop out, so may play around with that a bit more (B3 Perc 1 EM). Another one that seems to drop often is the arpeggio preset (3 Notes Fun JH). The main difference between these two presets is that B3 Perc 1 only uses a sample, while 3 Notes Fun uses a Triangle and a Sine wave.

Waveform 8.1.2 (64-bit), Collective 1.0.4 (64-bit)

[zzz00m]

I have setup a Waveform test Edit, with 4 instances of Collective, on tracks 1-4.

So far, I have never been able to reproduce the bug with Collective on track 1.

However, on tracks 2-4, the audio can drop out randomly. Some times it happens immediately to one or 2 instances, and other times not at all.

The selected preset seems to make no difference, but I haven't tried reducing the patches to basic settings yet. I did find one preset that is only programmed with one oscillator that did drop out, so may play around with that a bit more (B3 Perc 1 EM). Another one that seems to drop often is the arpeggio preset (3 Notes Fun JH). The main difference between these two presets is that B3 Perc 1 only uses a sample, while 3 Notes Fun uses a Triangle and a Sine wave.

Well, I just want to add that I have also setup a similar project in Tracktion 5 (64-bit) with 4 instances of Collective 1.0.4 (64-bit), using the same presets. After running this project over and over numerous times, I have been unable to replicate the audio dropout with this setup.

[magicmusic]

if it with tracktion seem work ok, then the fail can early see when quit and start tracktion again and load the song and play. it happen when i in the testsong reload in collective the drums rock kit WMF and have set it to single play this tracks. then all work ok. i can also later enable the other tracks it work ok.

only when save the song and reload it again(all tracks should play), after 2-3 sec drums stop playing. only from time to time highhat is play. i disable all effects but no chance to get sound again.i also try use osc 1 instead of sample sine. this too have no effect

EDIT: it happen also that after add a plugin for example master mix when the song work before, that drums fail to work

[chico.co.uk]

If somebody can make it happen on their machine, what happens when you complete the steps requested by the devs?

[magicmusic]

@chico.co.uk such simple test situation work. only when there are 3 collective in 3 tracks, then problem happen often.2 collective 2 tracks is mostly ok too. just use a drum pattern, add collective percussion->rock, then a pad track from pattern generator with pad-> purple Pad and a melody track with collective lead->baroque style. give sound stop soon after save the song and restart waveform and load it in

I have now test with only 1 collective and it play the loop over 20 min (when i was eating and come later). when come back, i add 2 mastermix and load ogg in, then delete ogg. it play ok. then i open the collective and want select another sound, then it crash. there is dmp file here.

as i told in other thread, it seem a problem with more instances and as you can see in screenshots go much wrong in memory allocation. than on 64 bit over 1 GB memory more is use than 32 bit version, show really there is something wrong on all PC

[zzz00m]

As I said earlier, I cannot make Collective audio drop out in Tracktion 5.

I also set up similar projects in Reaper and Sonar. Cannot seem to make it happen there either.

So now I am maybe leaning towards this being a Waveform 8 issue in the audio engine?

In the original Waveform test project I created for Collective, I used 4 instances of Collective on tracks 1-4, respectively. Then I inserted a MIDI clip into each and looped the region. Using the Pattern Generator I created a chord progression for each clip, using chords for track 1, and bass lines for tracks 2-4.

In a new test I exported the tracks as separate MIDI files, and inserted them into a fresh clean project, as tracks 1-4. Then I inserted an instance of Collective into each track, leaving them all at the default preset. No pattern generator or FX active on these clips this time either.

When I hit play the first time after saving, 3 out of 4 tracks dropped audio completely within a few loops. Track 2 was the only one continuing to play.

Saved the project again, restarted, and everything played fine now for over an hour. So no opportunity to reduce the patches as requested. This thing just won't fail on command. Very frustrating!

[magicmusic]

i do a song in traktion 5 now with 3 tracks. it is not so easy to see that the collective fail in tracktion 5 or other. the song need in tracktion 5 (in windows taskmanager can see) 384 MB and in waveforms 2,5 gigabyte both 64 bit versions. My PC have 12 GB ram btw. so there is enough ram possible. it seem a memory adressing problem. when use tracktion 5 make sure you add enough collective or other VSTi so ram usage is over 2.1 GB. sample tank free let you easy fill memory. best add tracks with sample tank 3 before other tracks with collective. so they load earlier

[magicmusic]

here i have do a video that show tracktion 5 fail too, that pad track collective does not play anything. problem occur only after longer use test and edit many sounds. i have sample tank add to test if it happen under 2.1 gb ram usage too.

collective output full level at sec 54 and later. sound is not play when change sounds. only delete and add a new collective at 2 min 5 in video let it work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H272P6h ... e=youtu.be

[zzz00m]

Well I finally had the opportunity today to strip down a couple of patches that were dropping audio in Waveform.

Following up on my post from yesterday, I used the new bare bones project I created with Collective on tracks 1-4, and using the default patch "12 String Strings WMF" on all four instances. I turned off everything in each patch except for Oscillator #1. No filters, effects, EQ, arp, etc.

Shortly after hitting play one of them dropped out. I noticed this particular patch uses the "Sample" type, so I changed all four instances of Collective each to either Sine, Triangle, Pulse, or Saw, respectively (for variety, the sound was getting boring ).

Saved and restarted Waveform. Soon after playing project again, one instance of Collective using only "Sine" dropped out.

Just a quick note on memory usage for this project, Windows Task Manager shows 527MB is used by Waveform with only this project edit open.

[magicmusic]

the project without any sample need 527 MB right ?. so seem that sample data is convert to 64 bit so it need so much more RAM on 64 bit compare to 32 bit