VIs Kill Audio

This has been mentioned but not sure it was really discussed.
 
When I add too many virtual instruments to a project, all audio dies unless I freeze or delete one.  Note that I have 12GBs of memory and Windows Task Manager shows I am using about half my memory and 10% of CPU.
 
"Too many virtual instruments" can be 10, or 7, or 13—never the same number.
 
When I say audio dies, I mean that the project plays, meters move, but no sound comes out.
 
Any ideas on this?
 
One workaround is to freeze one or more instruments; or I can freeze one, drag the audio to another track, and then delete the instrument.  Of course, either solution greatly restricts editing and arranging.
 
Thanks!

Hey, there.  In the most recent case, I have the following:
 
1-EZ Drummer 2 (5 outputs)
2-Ivory II (Comping)
3-Ivory II (Lead Lines)
4-Kontakt (Scarbee Jay Bass)
5-Session Drummer (1 output for a single sound)
6-Vienna Pro (Dimension Strings 1st Violins)
7-Vienna Pro (Dimension Strings 2nd Violins)
8-Vienna Pro (Dimension Strings Violas)
9-Vienna Pro (Dimension Strings Cellos)
10-SI-Elec Piano (Wurly)
 
Adding Dimension Pro killed audio and I removed it.  Adding Arturia Mini-V killed audio and I removed it.
 
This track also has some hardware synths (JV-1080, Kurzweil PC2R, and Tyros 2).  I have been recording audio from them and then muting and hiding the source tracks.
 
On other tracks, I sometime use East-West Play for either Fab Four (one of my favorites) or Hollywood Strings.
 
Every track I ever cut—*except* this one—has one or two instances of RealGuitar.  I also sometimes use RealStrat or RealLPC.
 
I have quite a few Kontakt Instruments and use various ones.
 
Thanks.
 
PS David, I enjoyed your SoundCloud content!
 
 

Are you saying that once you get to that point, removing the most recently added synth consistently brings the sound back and and re-adding any other synth consistently makes it go away again? Have you tried toggling the audio engine on and off via the button in the transport module?
 
If audio meters are active everywhere, including on the Main Out hardware bus, and no sound is heard then it would seem your interface driver is getting into a bad state. It would be pretty unusual for the synth count itself to cause that. I'm think it might have more to do with SONAR resetting the driver as new audio tracks are added for new synths, and failing to successfully reopen the port at some point.
 
I had a similar problem with my E-MU 1820m where rewinding the transport would kill input-monitored sound though the meters would remain active. The problem went away when I changed interfaces.
 
 

Konradh, your system has a wall, similar to mine, and that wall varies in different projects, depending on the virtual instruments / effects being used, but there's always a wall. Not sure why you don't like the freezing workaround ?
When I unfreeze VSTis, it only takes a few seconds, then you can edit midi, and to re-freeze is still less than a minute for most tracks. (I have 1 Kontakt sample set that takes about 5 minutes to load, and therefore 5 minutes to unfreeze)
You've mentioned "hiding and muting" your hardware synth's recorded audio, but do you also "archive" these tracks ?
My understanding has always been that archiving tracks, frees up more system resources.
 
When my system hits the wall, the symptoms are more like the timeline cursor starts hanging, and crackling sounds occur, unlike your experience where "project plays, meters move, but no sound comes out" . . . so I'm thinking brundlefly's post about soundcard and driver issues may be key.
 
I know from your previous posts that you use Music Lab Real Guitar etc . . a lot. I use this a lot also (64 bit version), and have found it has a very light "hit" on my system . . . I seldom have to freeze these tracks.
 
Finally, where are your VSTi samples located ? On the system drive, on another drive ?
You've mentioned adding Dimension Pro is an issue . . . have you moved the DimPro multisamples to another location or are they still on your system drive ?
 
 
 

I habitually freeze every synth, because I grew up on tape where everything is audio and early computers could barely handle one VSTi.  If you do it at the time, it takes virtually no time.  I've slacked off a little with newer computers, but I still prefer fine-tuning an audio track, not midi.
 
20 VSTis sound like a lot of real time processing for any computer.  Even a 486 could run that many audio tracks if you had a second drive.  Just don't try to use a convolution reverb.  ;-)
 
@

Audio drivers don't get involved in offline rendering, but it possible that tthe isue is relate to the audio engine beign reset on freeze/unfreeze and related opening.closing of audio ports.
 
Other than that, the only bearing ASIO settings have on freezing is that SONAR uses the realtime ASIO buffer size as the default "chunk" size for rendering audio. Some soft synths may not play nice with offline rendering with a very small buffer size, but it shouldn't result in a crash. You can try increasing your buffer to something on the order of 256 samples which should avoid problems with most synths. If that takes care of it, you can set a higher buffer size for offline rendering using the BounceBuffSizeMsec parameter in AUD.INI. The default value of 0 tells SONAR to use the ASIO buffer size. I raised mine to 20 after having a particular issue with Rapture at 2ms.
 
But it sounds to me like there might be a more general problem with your hardware or O/S.