Hello all,

I´m having an odd problem with my RME Babyface and Sonar. Quite often when I play a project, there´s a loud CLICK and then silence. The project keeps on playing and the CPU meters look normal but no sound is being output. However, when this occurs, the VU meters on the master bus of Sonar is constantly peaking and the relevant meters i TotalFX do the same.

If I click "stop" and try to play the project again, the problem sometimes goes away. However, sometimes stopping does not help and I have to restart Sonar or do something hardware-related such as changing ASIO buffer in order to get the sound working again but these fixes are always temporarly.

Some observations:

* The problem is very random and some days are a lot worse than others.
* It seems to happen regardless of which project I´m working on.
* I have had it on two different computers, Win 7 AMD 965 BE and Win 10 XeonE3-1270 (both clean installed).
* I first saw this problem several years ago on Sonar X-series when I got my Babyface. Before then, I was using a M-Audio Audiophile (PCI) and didn´t have any similar issues.
* ASIO / WDM / WASAPI does not make a difference
* The problem does not seem to be accected by latency nor cpu-load
* If I export audio during this condition, the exported mp3 will be silent except for some clicks.


Screenshot (note Digicheck bits and TotalFX VU meter being peaked despite fader position):


Since I´ve had this problem ever after I got the Babyface, it´s easy to think that it´s to blame. On the other hand, it seems everybody but me are happy with their RME´s so I´m beginning to suspect my unit being broken. I don´t suspect the computer since I´ve seen the problem on two different platforms.

So, any suggestions? Are there any other Babyface users suffering from something similar? Could the Babyface be broken?

I'm using an UCX but never saw this. Do you have the latest firmware and drivers for your BabyFace? Does this also happen in projects with very few plugins or synths? Have you tried a higher buffer size?

Yes, drivers & firmware are updated to the latest version.
 
Changing the buffer size (tried anything between 64 and 2048 bytes) does not make a difference.
 
However, the problem does seem to be more prone to happen on heavier projectsbut I´m not sure, most of the projects I´m working on right now are quite complex.

Check your advanced power saving settings, especially if you're on a laptop. USB power should be on at all times and CPU power/speed always at 100% when working with Sonar.

Good point! USB power is always on though the CPU is allowed to throttle, I changed it to 100% so with a bit of luck, the problem might be gone :) !
 

Sanderxpander
Check your advanced power saving settings, especially if you're on a laptop. USB power should be on at all times and CPU power/speed always at 100% when working with Sonar.

I used to see this but not any more. Are you running the latest version of Sonar? Because there were a couple of plugins which caused this issue which have since been updated. I think it was the concrete limiter and channel tools. In fact channel tools used to do this to me all the time. 

I would go here, they have excellent support: http://www.synthax.com/index.php/contact.html

I disabled CPU throttling in the Z210 BIOS as well, Ihave now been busy trying to get the clicks back. So far nothing which is a very good sign. It seems that there are less clicks in general, there use to be a click when changing ASIO buffer size or starting/stopping the engine but now it´s dead quiet.
 
We might be onto something here! It would be very nice to be able to solve this issue just be disabling throttling. I will keep you posted...
 
 

Sanderxpander
Check your advanced power saving settings, especially if you're on a laptop. USB power should be on at all times and CPU power/speed always at 100% when working with Sonar.

Latest version & all updates. But I used to see this more often with certain plugins, channel tools included. However now it seems more random.
 

sharke
I used to see this but not any more. Are you running the latest version of Sonar? Because there were a couple of plugins which caused this issue which have since been updated. I think it was the concrete limiter and channel tools. In fact channel tools used to do this to me all the time. 

Do a total reset in TotalMix. Make sure nothing is set to loopback.

Try a different USB port.

Have you posted to the RME forum?