RME Recording Goes South
I ran sound for this band through my RME at a party Saturday night recording with RME DigiCheck and mixing with RME TotalMix. The recording is 4.5 hours long. This song is about 1 hour into the recording. I had forgotten to set the computer into presentation mode and this may have been a problem.
http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20141115_AT_04_JackARoe.mp3 In this recording, there are skips and all kinds of goofiness.
At 19 seconds into the song, audio is omitted.
1:18 audio repeats
1:30 repeated skipping
1:40 it gets really bad
I'm guessing there must have been hard drive contention from something.
There was no indication of a problem in RME DigiCheck (latest version) or RME TotalMix. There was no audible problem in the room with the monitors or the Mains.
I'm grateful DigiCheck didn't drop out. Latency was at the max. It was a 24 bit 48 recording of all 8 analog inputs. the 8 digital outputs were looped back into the 8 digital inputs for effect stacking then routing to analog outs 3+4 and 5+6 monitors and mains respectively.
I'm curious for thoughts.
I'm still listening to the rest of the recording, but this song seems the only one with problems.
At some point in the evening I did notice that the drive load climbed to around 15% (there is a drive load meter in RME DigiCheck) and I thought it was very unusual, but I couldn't explain it. The increased drive activity may have occurred during this song. I don't know.
Normally, I do the Windows button+X then B, and set the computer into presentation mode (laptop only). At one hour into the show, I may have stopped messing with the computer as much and perhaps it started building an index or something? I don't know. At some point, I remembered to set it presentation mode.
All 8 recorded tracks skip and glitch in unison.
It occurs to me that it would be cool if Sonar had a "Continue at all costs" setting. DigiCheck always continues despite failures. Sonar never does. There are times when either is appropriate. I wonder if I would forgo DigiCheck for Sonar if it had such a setting. It would be nice to see the wave forms scrolling across track-view during long sessions.
DigiCheck writes all audio to a single file (reducing drive load) and loses only seconds on power failure. Sonar would have to be as good for me to switch.
This is a description of the Presentation Mode I'm talking about...
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/adjust-settings-before-giving-a-presentation
post edited by gswitz - 2014/11/17 20:23:18