TSC Request for Help with Tracking Down Collective Silence Bug

[Silweri]

Hi !

I've read with a lot of attention your problems with the Collective plugin, because here, on my machine (MacBook Pro / sierra) I've never had any of your mentioned problems.

I've also seen with attention your related KVR video.
On this video, the related Collective plugin seems to be an unregistered or demo plugin (red rectangle in the up right of the Collective GUI).
Will this be a possibility to cause the "stop output problem" of Collective ?
Other users with the registered version have the same problems ?
--> this specific version should be one of the possible explanations of why the TSC team aren't able to reproduce the problem on their machines ?

Just an idea... an observation...
Good luck guys !

My 2 cents,
Cheers.

can you tell what mac CPU Type and RAM size you have, if you use 32bit or 64 bit waveform and collective version ?. maybe with the type of RAM size and CPu type can see with what cpu or Ram size it fail. I have i5 760 with 12 GB RAM. the fail have nothing to do with audio card, because i start windows in security mode where it load only most important drivers and no autostart programs. normaly a audio program fail because no hardware. but it is possible to use asio for all and the direct x low latency asio driver. there come no soundoutput but waveform is happy and play. that sound is stop can see in levelmeter of the collective tracks. my testsong fail in this security mode, as soon as in normal mode, so i am sure, there is no bad autostart program or sounddriver that let collective fail
if you please can test this song i mail to waveform support is nice too. when restart waveform 3* , start 3* the song and if it play 30 sec correct then your system really works. https://tracktion.zendesk.com/attachmen ... stsong.zip

I tested your song.

Collective crashes on track 4 on second time looping on both 32bit and 64bit waveform +collective versions.

Sound can be brought back to life by disabling all effects on Collective, but goes silent again in little while and can't be brought back again.

[zzz00m]

OK, after poking around with this thing for a couple of weeks, here are my conclusions ...

I can only reproduce this bug on Waveform 8.1.2 (64-bit). I have tried it on several versions of Windows 10 on two different computers, including Windows 10 Pro version 1607 x64, Windows 10 Home version 1511 x64, and Windows 10 Home version 1607 x64. Dropouts occur regularly on my Collective test projects. Same results in all.

I cannot reproduce this Collective bug on Waveform 8.1.2 (32-bit). Same for Sonar Platinum 2017.05 (64-bit), Reaper 5.40 (64-bit), and Tracktion 5.44 (64-bit),

Off-topic, but observed this as well. The CPU meter in Waveform (64-bit) seems to be way off (high), while in the 32-bit version it seems to report the same as Windows Task Manager. Was only trying to judge relative CPU use between versions when this was observed. I generally only rely on the OS performance meter in most situations, so this is minor, but should be looked into.

[zzz00m]

OK, after poking around with this thing for a couple of weeks, here are my conclusions ...

I can only reproduce this bug on Waveform 8.1.2 (64-bit). I have tried it on several versions of Windows 10 on two different computers, including Windows 10 Pro version 1607 x64, Windows 10 Home version 1511 x64, and Windows 10 Home version 1607 x64. Dropouts occur regularly on my Collective test projects. Same results in all.

I cannot reproduce this Collective bug on Waveform 8.1.2 (32-bit). Same for Sonar Platinum 2017.05 (64-bit), Reaper 5.40 (64-bit), and Tracktion 5.44 (64-bit),

Off-topic, but observed this as well. The CPU meter in Waveform (64-bit) seems to be way off (high), while in the 32-bit version it seems to report the same as Windows Task Manager. Was only trying to judge relative CPU use between versions when this was observed. I generally only rely on the OS performance meter in most situations, so this is minor, but should be looked into.

As a follow-up to my previous post, I wanted to add an observation about Collective when the audio output goes silent. This seems very directly related to the onboard effects in Collective.

In nearly every case, turning off all 4 effects slots during playback caused the audio to resume in the affected instance of Collective. Sometimes ticking one or two effects back on caused the silence to occur again. FX on/off, like a switch, no audio/audio...

This did not seem to affect just any one particular effect type, or slot 1-4. It could happen to any one, just depending on the preset.

If I saved an edit with the effects all turned off, then restarted the project, I could not replicate the silent audio bug in Collective.

[magicmusic]

can you tell what cpu type you have ?. you write intel i3 3.4 GHZ. this can be i3-2130, i3-3240,-i3-4130. and what cpu type other PC you test have. in windows settings device manager cpu you can see what type it is
In my testsong link is in this thread, the drums resume after some seconds of silence, and effects are on, when i disable all effects in drum layers and the other tracks collective and save the song, restart waveform and load song with all effects disable in it happen that without effects pad and bass go silence some time and resume. with effects this happen only with drums

[dRowAudio]

Hi guys, we've released a new version of Collection which may have improved things here. Can you grab it and let us know the results please? viewtopic.php?f=22&t=486823

[magicmusic]

now sound stop is more often as before(all tracks in my demo song, before was only drums). i use 1.0.8 collective beta(version number is see when open collective) and see very high memory usage in compare to 32 bit version too. cpu load display in collective jump alot between 5% and 41%. maybe there are 64 bit FPU denormalisation exceptions. if tell what CPU number users have with working collective and not working CPU number then can see if it is a CPU problem.

[tatanka]

Can confirm the sounddropouts, just wrote it in the other post about new 1.06 then found this one, no, it is no fun at all at the moment, I will just kill that testing track and go on making music with something that works and makes fun to use.

Maybe collective 2.0 will be able to do that too.......

[zzz00m]

Hi guys, we've released a new version of Collection which may have improved things here. Can you grab it and let us know the results please? viewtopic.php?f=22&t=486823

Just tested v1.06 (x64) and no fix to the silence bug for me. I have a small test project with 2 tracks. Both of them have Collective, but no other FX or plugins, besides those internal to Collective.

Tracks / Preset:
1. Collective / Mouse Chords JH
2. Collective / Aboutaround

When the project starts playing back, at some point the Collective on track #1 drops audio output. No signal on the output meter on the track, or at the top of the plugin. The only change I see with 1.06, is now all tracks go silent when this happens, even though the track output meters for the other track(s) still indicate audio output. I have tested this with 4 tracks playing and all output from Waveform goes silent now. In v1.04, this only affected one track at a time.

The strangest thing about this bug is that by opening the effects tab on the "Mouse Chords JH" preset on track #1, and toggling Effect 4 "Reverb Natural" off/on, I can switch all of the Waveform audio on/off consistently, like a switch.

[magicmusic]

I test with reaper newest collective (3 tracks) and now sound dropout happen much earlier as before with reaper. in time i test i notice now a enhancement. the sound dropout do not stay forever, always after 30 sec sound come back.

[Walli]

for me the result is very similar - instead of single tracks going silent (often one after the other over the course of several minutes), now all tracks go silent at the same time.
I simplified an EDIT, where this happens almost every time at exact the same time - here it seems to be caused by the Thunder preset.

[magicmusic]

maybe the developer can run waveform and try to record with a screen record tool in mp4. i use xvid mp4 and free screen recorder . other plugins do no sounddropout. but collective do near no sound produce. see video

[dRowAudio]

maybe the developer can run waveform and try to record with a screen record tool in mp4. i use xvid mp4 and free screen recorder . other plugins do no sounddropout. but collective do near no sound produce. see video

Thanks for the video. Where is the hissing sound coming from? That would be useful to know to determine what track it's coming from.

Would it be possible to upload that ".tracktionedit" file here so I can run the same test? Cheers, Dave

[magicmusic]

the hissing sound is because my demo time is over. the song file i use i have send to tracktion support and i post earlier in this thread. when run free screen recorder or other screen recording tool, the problem happen very often. ah and i forget to say with new 1.0.8 32 bit have now same problem with sound dropout. maybe you try with a unregister version and dropout happen more often. this is testsong
https://tracktion.zendesk.com/attachmen ... stsong.zip

[zzz00m]

Last night I had the opportunity to test Collective v1.06 with 3 DAWs other than Waveform, including Reaper and T5, all 64-bit. No silence could be reproduced in these tests. It has only happened in my tests with Waveform 8.1.2 64-bit. It does not happen every time, so it's a bit random, but usually happens early, if at all.

I do not experience any high CPU or other performance issues on Windows, using Collective in any DAW. I have plenty of RAM and CPU cycles to spare. My FireWire audio interface is running at 44100hz with audio buffer size of 256 samples (5.8ms). Plus my system easily passes the LatencyMon test for DPC Latency for real-time audio. http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

I will try the Waveform 8.1.12-beta to see if Collective still drops out in that version.

[magicmusic]

attach is my reaper testsong with collective. need test on 64 bit reaper. it happen sound dropout 1 time in 2 minutes play in loop always. the old collective have not so often produce dropouts as the 1.0.8 but with 1.0.8 the sound come back. in older version mostly silence forver after dropout

I test newest waveform that is today release too, no diffrence