Audio dropping out...

[RustedMonkey]

Hi there. Hope someone can help.

This only happens once and awhile. Lets say one out of every 12 projects. The projects can be identical with regards to number of tracks, same effects per track, etc. These are rough mix projects so I'm only using the standard Tracktion EQ and compressors. One of them though will start dropping sound. It seems to only occur on ones where there are clips just floating at any given point in the song. What I mean by this is if every track is straight through it does not occur. Only when it incounters a clip sitting somewhere in the middle of the song. Right after these type of "floating clips" end, other tracks will drop out for just a second.

I started thinking it was my PC. During these dropouts the cpu usage would jump up to around 75%. So I purchased a new board, processor, and memory. With the new gear the CPU meter does not even budge. It stays down around 10% but I still get the drops. There is nothing on the system other than XP (up to date patches), MOTU 828MKII, and Tracktion 2.

System Specs:

Asus P4P800-E Deluxe system board.
ATI All in Wonder 9800 pro
P4 3.0 ghz 1 meg cache
1 gig dual channel DDR
MOTU 828MKII
160 gig (80X2 RAID set for performance)

Tracktion setup:

Only Main out and Analog 1 in enabled.
sample rate: 48000 hz
latency: 2048 samples
use ASIO direct mode: On
realtime priority: off

I've played with the settings. Doesn't make a difference.

Projects are identical - 24 tracks straight audio. No loops, no midi.

Any ideas?

[pHz]

sorry ... cant directly help ... but i DO seem to remember something similar coming up quite a while ago ... have you tried a forum search ???

slainte rob

[RustedMonkey]

Indeed I have. Yet to find anything. I'll keep looking. Thanks though.

[Scoops]

sorry ... cant directly help ... but i DO seem to remember something similar coming up quite a while ago ... have you tried a forum search ???

slainte rob

Yeah

I had a problem a while back. It happened when I had version 2.0.2.8.loaded. Unfortunately nobody could replicate the problem I was having. I was able to isolate the problem on my daw. It had to do with the transport buttons. The only solution I found was to go to an earlier version of T2

Scoops

[RustedMonkey]

Thanks for the reply. It was doing the same with previous versions.

[chico.co.uk]

Wouldn't have anything to do with the files being fragmented across the drive? I'd do a defrag, if that doesn't help, try archiving the project and unarchive it to a new folder on the drive. Then see if that copy displays the same behaviour

[RustedMonkey]

They are fresh drives and its a 2 day old build. I'll try the archive bit. Thanks

[chico.co.uk]

Yeah and i guess 24 tracks of pure audio isn't really much stress really ... unless of course there's something up with the drive, bad sectors or something ... hmm. Do all tracks drop out for a second? Like a momentary glitch of silence? Does it do it if you render the song out as
a wav, does the exported track glitch at the same place?

[djsubject]

& do you see a "!" in the end of the CPU meter (this is to show disk overloads)

Subz

PS did you try maxing you catch in the settings page?

[RustedMonkey]

do you see a "!" in the end of the CPU meter (this is to show disk overloads)

Nope.

PS did you try maxing you catch in the settings page?

I'll check that when I get home. Thanks.

Do all tracks drop out for a second? Like a momentary glitch of silence? Does it do it if you render the song out as
a wav, does the exported track glitch at the same place?

Just drops out for a second right after floating clips end. All of the tracks do not drop. Just a few and it seems random. <-- One of those important details that comes out only after talking about something too much.
This only happens when monitoring the mix. It does not happen when I render.

Thanks