Helpful ReplyX3 stopping mid song

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jonnewyork
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2014/11/20 11:16:57 (permalink)

X3 stopping mid song

Playing back a song, Sonar stops just where the 18 tracks of background vocals start. only 2 of the BGV tracks aren't muted, and I plan to delete most of them. But I plan to replace them with a different arrangement that works better. And I think some people work with vastly higher track counts without problems.
 
Those tracks all start in the exact same place; there isn't (or shouldn't be) any reason to go back to the beginning of the song to record BGVs that don't begin until towards the end of the song.
 
What do you suppose is causing this problem and what is the solution?
 
This is at 24 bits, 96kHz
system details are in my sig

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#1
CJaysMusic
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/20 12:37:20 (permalink)
Its either 1 of these 1 things:
1.) Your sound card buffers/sound card settings are to low for that specific project. Just raise your ASIO buffers and maybe try raising your payback buffers also
 
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#2
Anderton
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/20 13:06:52 (permalink)
I'm with CJ, 18 tracks coming in at once could tip things over the edge from enough sample buffers to not enough sample buffers.

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#3
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/20 13:17:05 (permalink)
Try archiving instead of muting the unneeded tracks.
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Jim Roseberry
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/20 13:24:32 (permalink)
scook
Try archiving instead of muting the unneeded tracks.



Muted tracks are still processed.
Archived tracks are not processed... so archiving those unused tracks should help the OP.
 
That said, 18 tracks really isn't that many.
Are you using the USB option for the Lynx?
What's the current ASIO buffer size?

Best Regards,

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#5
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/21 17:15:12 (permalink)
AES16e, not USB
The current buffer size is 2.7 msec or 256 samples.
The slider is all the way to the left, "fast".
The slider is greyed out and won't move. I opened the ASIO panel and changed the sample rate to 1024 but the slider is still all the way in the "fast" position. It shows 2 playback buffers and won't let me change that number.
The song still stops.
I know muted tracks are processed there are probably going to be at least that many tracks unmuted for the mix and I am sending them to a BGV stereo mix bus.

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#6
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 13:05:07 (permalink)
So... you guys are stumped?
 
Sorry if I come here with tricky problems, but the easy stuff I can solve on my own.

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 13:49:22 (permalink)
If raising the latency is not helping, try raising the playback I/O buffer size (in preferences sync and caching | file system).
If its dropping out with 18 simultaneous tracks its likely that your disk is not performing optimally - try defragging it and run a disk test since it could be going bad. Another thing you can experiment with is enabling read caching in the same page.
Also copy the project and its data to another drive and try playing it from there. 
 

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#8
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 14:53:13 (permalink)
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
If raising the latency is not helping, try raising the playback I/O buffer size (in preferences sync and caching | file system).

 
As I mentioned before, I can't do either. AFAIK I can only access the number of buffers in playback queue and buffer size from preferences/ audio/ driver settings, and the slider is stuck on fast and greyed out, the # of buffers set to 2 and not changeable.
 
Anyone know  why that is?
 

If its dropping out with 18 simultaneous tracks its likely that your disk is not performing optimally - try defragging it and run a disk test since it could be going bad.

Thanks, Noel, I'll try that.
Another thing you can experiment with is enabling read caching in the same page.

How do you do that?
Also copy the project and its data to another drive and try playing it from there. 

 
I routinely store projects on two separate external hard drives hooked up via usb3. The same problem happens with both of them.
 
Oddly, although the current tracks are all audio tracks, I can change the MIDI number of buffers and buffer size by going to preferences/ MIDI / Playback and Recording. Too bad this song is only getting maybe 2 MIDI tracks and the rest are audio instead of the other way around.





Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#9
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 14:57:27 (permalink)
jonnewyork
As I mentioned before, I can't do either. AFAIK I can only access the number of buffers in playback queue and buffer size from preferences/ audio/ driver settings, and the slider is stuck on fast and greyed out, the # of buffers set to 2 and not changeable.

The mixing latency slider is disabled when running in ASIO recording mode. Software supplied by the interface vendor must be used to set latency when running in ASIO recording mode.
#10
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:04:32 (permalink)
I dumped several tracks of BGVs I wasn't planning to use, and it plays without stopping now.
But I'm going to have to add more tracks.
 
The only thing I can think of offhand is a bit of an inconvenient workaround, and I'm not sure it will work:
 
Stagger the recording start times, say every three takes/ tracks, so there aren't a large number of tracks starting at precisely the same time.
 
I don't think that should be necessary, though. Kind of interrupts the mojo, you know, Joe?

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#11
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:08:15 (permalink)
Is there a dedicated drive for audio in the PC or is everything running on one drive? Any info about internal storage might be helpful.
#12
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:15:29 (permalink)
scook
jonnewyork
As I mentioned before, I can't do either. AFAIK I can only access the number of buffers in playback queue and buffer size from preferences/ audio/ driver settings, and the slider is stuck on fast and greyed out, the # of buffers set to 2 and not changeable.

The mixing latency slider is disabled when running in ASIO recording mode. Software supplied by the interface vendor must be used to set latency when running in ASIO recording mode.

Thanks, Scook.
 
That raises another question: The ASIO panel allows you to chose buffers that range from 32 samples to 1024.
It was stopping while set to 256. Not particularly fast, is it?

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#13
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:22:37 (permalink)
By itself, 256 is not an extreme setting.
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jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:24:08 (permalink)
scook
Is there a dedicated drive for audio in the PC or is everything running on one drive? Any info about internal storage might be helpful.


I downloaded Sonar X3 to C:
It seems that whenever I start a new project, Sonar initially saves it to the C: drive by default and will only allow it to be subsequently saved to external HDs.
 
After work has been done I routinely save any changes to E: and F:

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#15
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:26:08 (permalink)
scook
By itself, 256 is not an extreme setting.


That's what I'm thinking, and it really shouldn't be too fast, should it?

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#16
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 15:28:12 (permalink)
I suspect the problem is related to working on the system hard drive. Is the system drive a spinning hard drive or an SSD?
 
It sounds like there is one internal drive and external drives are used for backup. Is this the case?
#17
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 16:04:46 (permalink)
Yes, except I'm always loading the project from one of the external HDs.
HDD, not SDD
I'll try defragging and disc test it. I have an older iteration of the song with all the vox still on it that I can use to see if that makes any difference. 
 

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#18
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 16:21:48 (permalink)
I have got to believe the problem is related to 96K audio I/O on an external drive. How is the external drive attached, USB2, USB3, firewire...? What is the rotation speed of the external drive? Really ought to consider adding a dedicated internal drive (either a 7200RPM or SSD) for audio projects or reduce the sample rate. Even at a lower sample rate an external drive can significantly reduce the number a audio tracks a project can support.
WRT
jonnewyork
Sonar initially saves it to the C: drive by default

This can be altered in Preferences and/or by using per-project audio folders and specifying the project folder at project creation. The problem with specifying an external drive as the default audio drive in SONAR is should the drive be unreachable when SONAR starts, the config will default to the C: drive.
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jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 17:12:59 (permalink)
Discs are 0% fragmented and status Healthy. I forgot I set it to automatically defrag once a week.
 
scook
I have got to believe the problem is related to 96K audio I/O on an external drive. How is the external drive attached, USB2, USB3, firewire...?

USB3

What is the rotation speed of the external drive?

 
One is 7200, the other is 5400

Really ought to consider adding a dedicated internal drive (either a 7200RPM or SSD) for audio projects or reduce the sample rate. Even at a lower sample rate an external drive can significantly reduce the number a audio tracks a project can support.

I may have to do that. I really don't want to abandon using 96K on new projects. As it is, this project is using a grand total of 7 plugins, two tracks with automated mutes and one external insert. It doesn't seem like a lot to bog down the system, but maybe it's enough.

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#20
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 17:24:25 (permalink)
I expect 2 tracks would not be a problem. I thought in post 11 the two track project worked. The original post mentioned 18 tracks. Muted tracks still have to be read, so from a disk I/O perspective there is no difference between muted and un-muted tracks. Archived tracks, on the other hand, are completely ignored by the DAW and are not read from disk. I would still recommend installing another internal drive. So much has been invested in an interface, seems a shame to waste it by saving the $100 the real fix would cost.
#21
jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 18:34:44 (permalink)
Thanks, Scook. That sounds like good advice.
Again, I won't be able to archive tracks that I want to use and I guess freezing tracks probably wouldn't really help since most of the fx processing is done on sub-groups rather than individual tracks.

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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#22
scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/26 18:56:23 (permalink)
Freezing a synth would make the problem worse because it will increase disk load. Freezing an audio track may reduce CPU load because plug-ins on the track will no longer be loaded and processed but the frozen track will still need to be read from disk.
#23
IfItMovesFunkIt
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/27 04:50:09 (permalink)
After having had a similar play back issue my problem was driver/service pack related although this is probably not the same issue you are having.
 
I have noticed that playback may 'stutter' when it reaches the chorus as additional tracks/instruments come into play however it only happens the first time it reaches the chorus... after that if the track is played from the beginning then no stuttering occurs
 
Computers eh !!!!
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Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/27 18:39:30 (permalink)
jonnewyork
As I mentioned before, I can't do either. AFAIK I can only access the number of buffers in playback queue and buffer size from preferences/ audio/ driver settings, and the slider is stuck on fast and greyed out, the # of buffers set to 2 and not changeable.
 
Anyone know  why that is?
 
Another thing you can experiment with is enabling read caching in the same page.

How do you do that?
 

 
You are misunderstanding my post. I asked you to change the Playback I/O buffer size which is completely different from audio latency. The latency slider is grayed out in ASIO mode since that is set from the ASIO control panel. The one I want you to change is the I/O buffer size settings which affects how sonar reads audio data from the disk. These settings are in the Sync and Caching page. Make sure you have selected Advanced at the bottom of the dialog or you wont see it. Read caching setting is also in that same page.

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mettelus
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/27 22:39:37 (permalink)
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X3&language=3&help=Dialogs2.056.html
 
As Noel mentioned, be sure that "Advanced" is checked at the very bottom of that window or "Sync and Caching" will not be visible on the left edge.
 
However, the suggestion of an internal drive is highly recommended (7200rpm or better), since many USB3 external drives I tested (especially early on) did not come anywhere near USB3 speeds. And if you are plugging a USB3 drive into a USB2 port, you are only going to see USB2 speeds from it.

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jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/29 16:57:14 (permalink)
Thanks for the help, people!
You've sold me on the idea of a dedicated internal drive.
 
For right now, the playback I/O buffer was set at 256 KB. I set it to 512 and playback no longer stops.

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/29 17:07:48 (permalink)
If playback I/O buffer fixes the problem, you are done. I would expect an internal drive would use a similar setting.
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jonnewyork
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/29 18:34:53 (permalink)

 
 
I'm not sure if this is related -- you can point me to another thread if it isn't.
I just recorded the first MIDI/ soft synth track and on playback, it's way in front of the rest of the music, timing wise, like maybe a third of a second. What should I be looking at?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cheers,
 Jon
 
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scook
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Re: X3 stopping mid song 2014/11/29 18:44:15 (permalink)
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