jsg
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Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
Hi, I am running Kontakt 4 in Sonar 7. I just completed a piece with an instance of Kontakt, 3 instances of other software synths and a few midi tracks. Everything went fine. Now I am working on a piece with 1 instance (2 midi channels this time, not one) controlled by two midi tracks and 4 other midi tracks. I get these very quick dropouts, usually while editing and playback frequently. They last less than a second and I can restart without a problem. I have a win 7 64 bit machine with an i7 chip and 16 GB of RAM, fast Seagate hard drives, OS configured for audio (priority to background processing, OS set for performance, not looks, 1024 samples in my MOTU ASIO driver for a safe latency. Sonar is also working as a 64 bit application. I don't know what else to try. I turned off multithread processing in Kontakt since I am running it as a plug in, but this didn't stop the behavior. I believe the problem is related to Kontakt because its the only VST plug-in at the moment in this piece. But it could be something else. Audio wave files play back fine, no problem, both in Sonar and Sound Forge. If anyone has run into something similar and resolved it, please share your knowledge with me. Thanks! Jerry www.jerrygerber.com/fivepiecesforvi.htm
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bbent91745
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/09/29 01:24:19
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jsg,
I don't understand how you can have dropouts in editing, but not in playback (what kind of editing allows you to hear dropouts?). But, putting that aside, do you notice a jump in cpu usage when the dropouts occur? If so, it might indicate some other application that is stealing too many cpu cycles. Try monitoring cpu usage in Task Manager "Processes", sorted by descending cpu usage while you are getting the dropouts and note what process is spiking cpu usage when the dropouts occur.
Good luck.
Regards, bbent  HW: GA-X58A-UD3R, i7-930, 6GB & 2ea WD2002FAEX 2TB, 1ea WD1001FALS 1TB, UA1000, FP-7F, Yamaha 2.1 HS80M/HS10W SW: Win7 Pro x64, SPE 8.5.3, NI Komplete 8 Ult., Ivory Grand Pianos II
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CJaysMusic
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/09/29 11:06:22
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I think he mean and during playback, while editing?? Not just playback alone.
This is definitely a buffer issue. Try 1 or both of these or all 4 or 3 of 4 or none of the above:
1. In preferences - audio - Sync and caching, Try raising your playback buffer I/O to 512 or 1024
2. In preferences - audio - playback and recording, try raising your ASIO sound card buffer or raising the WDM slider
3. In preferences - MIDI - playback and recording, raise your MIDI buffers from 64 to 128 and raise the prepare Using to 500 or 750
4. Maybe there is some kind of buffer setting in Kontakt itself that needs adjusted. Refer to its pdf file.
CJ
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bitflipper
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/09/29 11:46:28
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Given your specs and settings, I'd be inclined to suspect some other process on your computer as the culprit, not Kontakt. Problems often show up when Kontakt is in play simply because Kontakt is a very resource-intensive application. (Still, it's only prudent to start by optimizing Kontakt. Check the preload buffer size setting (Options -> Memory). This determines how much of a sample gets loaded into RAM ahead of disk streaming. You've got a lot of RAM, might as well use it and take some load off your disk drive, controller and I/O bus.) Since your system is optimized for audio, I take it that implies no network, firewall or anti-virus software, right? If it does have a network interface, try disabling it. To see if some hardware component is stealing your CPU cycles, use the DPC Latency Checker. If you see periodic spikes of DPC latency, it could be an indication that hardware interrupts are interrupting your audio data stream. Another possibility is some background process is interfering. Even if your system is optimized for audio, sometimes things get turned on by accident. I'd conduct a thorough review of all running services just to make sure it's still as lean and mean as it started out being. One other thought: Kontakt libraries are not equal when it comes to the load they place on your system. Were you using the same libraries in the previous project that didn't exhibit dropouts?
 All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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jsg
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/09/29 14:18:34
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bbent91745
jsg,
I don't understand how you can have dropouts in editing, but not in playback (what kind of editing allows you to hear dropouts?). But, putting that aside, do you notice a jump in cpu usage when the dropouts occur? If so, it might indicate some other application that is stealing too many cpu cycles. Try monitoring cpu usage in Task Manager "Processes", sorted by descending cpu usage while you are getting the dropouts and note what process is spiking cpu usage when the dropouts occur.
Good luck.
the drop outs are while playing back short passages I am editing. I think the problem is resolved, I changed the disc buffer playback to 512, so far so good... Jerry www.jerrygerber.com
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jsg
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/09/29 14:20:14
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CJaysMusic
I think he mean and during playback, while editing?? Not just playback alone.
This is definitely a buffer issue. Try 1 or both of these or all 4 or 3 of 4 or none of the above:
1. In preferences - audio - Sync and caching, Try raising your playback buffer I/O to 512 or 1024
2. In preferences - audio - playback and recording, try raising your ASIO sound card buffer or raising the WDM slider
3. In preferences - MIDI - playback and recording, raise your MIDI buffers from 64 to 128 and raise the prepare Using to 500 or 750
4. Maybe there is some kind of buffer setting in Kontakt itself that needs adjusted. Refer to its pdf file.
CJ
Yep, that's what I figured out last night, I moved the playback disc buffers to 512 from 256 and that seems to have fixed the issue. I already have my latency buffers at 1024 and the MIDI buffer isn't related to audio dropouts... Jerry www.jerrygerber.com
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jsg
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/10/01 21:58:43
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I am still having occasional, brief audio dropouts. They tend to occur when I am editing, and playing the same 2-3 measures over and over. I assume the red "dropout" notice at bottom of screen is for audio only, not MIDI, but maybe I am wrong. In any event I increased MIDI buffers to 3000 and that did not stop dropouts. I've tried changing playback disc buffers from 128 up to 1024. My latency on my audio card (MOTU 2408 mk3) is 1024. 16 GB RAM Separate hard drive for audio i7-950 chip 1gb video memory I've turned off unnecessary services, changed from program to background services (Win 7, advanced system options) and run the OS in best performance mode. No internet, computer dedicated DAW. Sonar 7.0.2 64-bit. Any suggestions in case I haven't tried something pertinent is appreciated! Jerry www.jerrygerber.com
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bitflipper
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/10/02 19:00:37
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I was going to suggest hitting the global bypass when looping on a phrase for editing purposes, but that feature wasn't in SONAR 7. Next-best thing is to bypass the fx bin on the track you're editing and see if the dropouts subside.
All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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Kev999
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/10/02 19:05:07
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bitflipper
I was going to suggest hitting the global bypass when looping on a phrase for editing purposes, but that feature wasn't in SONAR 7.
That seems like a useful feature. I should have upgraded to 8.5 when I had the chance.
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jsg
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Re:Dropouts, very short, sporadic, not in playback, but in editing
2011/10/02 20:08:56
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bitflipper
(Still, it's only prudent to start by optimizing Kontakt. Check the preload buffer size setting (Options -> Memory). This determines how much of a sample gets loaded into RAM ahead of disk streaming. You've got a lot of RAM, might as well use it and take some load off your disk drive, controller and I/O bus.)
One other thought: Kontakt libraries are not equal when it comes to the load they place on your system. Were you using the same libraries in the previous project that didn't exhibit dropouts?
No, mostly different. The world drums are the ones I am using now, and I just realized they are DFD instrument sets. I think (I hope) its resolved. Since I am new to Kontakt, I appreciate the tip about increasing the preload buffer setting. I did, and I've had no dropouts during this afternoon's session. The instruments I am loading are DFD, so this makes sense. We'll see if this does the trick. Thanks everyone for trying to help me with this... Jerry www.jerrygerber.com/fivepiecesforvi.htm
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