I opened a project I built in 8.5 a few years back which has a full orchestra, all EastWest synth instruments, about 20 in all. I had no problem with it back then. I opened it in X3e and now I get notes sticking, phantom notes playing, essentially chaos. I can hear the real piece playing there, but a whole mess of other wrong stuff is going on as well. Of course, this didn't happen back in the 8.5 version because I finished that project without troubles.
 
So, I decided there must be some artifacts that were in the tracks from 8.5 that are being interpreted wrong in X3. Or else my old project had become somehow corrupted. So I created a brand new X3 project and copy-pasted each track's clips one by one into tracks in the new project. I turned on all the EastWest synths... and the same thing happened! 
 
It sounds like there are random dropouts on instruments, but also random drop INS as well, where notes just play seemingly randomly.
 
Any ideas what's going on?

Check your midi buffer setting.

http://www.cakewalk.com/D...&Req=Dialogs2.060.html

Hi - try going to Edit>Preferences>MIDI>Playback and Recording, and adjust the Prepare Using ____ millisecond Buffers parameter from its default of 250 ms, up to 500 milliseconds.
 
If you are still having notes dropped and such, try bumping that up to 750 milliseconds.
 
Bob Bone
 

make sure you have the latest Play updates

Changed to 500 milliseconds, bad, then 750 milliseconds, still bad. Installed the latest PLAY update (4.0.x to 4.1.x), rebooted machine, still bad. Though at least now rather than complete chaos, at least all I'm hearing is a ton of dropouts. As in, every note, every instrument, plays about an eighth note then gives up.
 
If I try to play the piece a few times, it starts to behave better each time, though eventually it reverts to its bad behavior after 20-30 seconds in each case. I remember it used to do this long ago, but I must have fixed it once along the way because I haven't encountered it in a couple years, since well before I upgraded to X3.

Please list the following info:
 
Audio interface: Sample Rate, ASIO Buffer Size
 
Sonar: Sample Rate, Driver Mode, Total Roundtrip Latency, Record Bit-Depth
 
Also, what effects are loaded into this project?
 
Thanks, 
 
Bob Bone
 

Is this all happening on the same machine that you had 8.5 installed on or is it a new machine ?
If it's the same on do you still have 8.5 installed ? I t might be useful to reinstall it as it can quite hapilly
coexist with X3. Just so you can check that it runs okay in 8.5 and compare all your settings.
 
 
Steve

robert_e_bone
Please list the following info:
 
Audio interface: Sample Rate, ASIO Buffer Size
 
Sonar: Sample Rate, Driver Mode, Total Roundtrip Latency, Record Bit-Depth
 
Also, what effects are loaded into this project?
 
Thanks, 
 
Bob Bone
 

AUDIO:
Sample Rate: 44100
ASIO Buffer Size: 1024
 
SONAR:
Sample Rate: 44100
Driver Mode: ASIO
Total Roundtrip Latency: ?? Don't know where to find that
Record Bit Depth: 16
 
The Master bus has an instance of Voxengo SPAN and Sonitus EQ, no other effects
Project contains 23 EastWest Symphonic Gold instruments, no audio tracks
 
Other noticed behaviors: When mouse hovering over track folders, I'm seeing strange video renderings of the folder summary clips, whether the folder summary thing is open or not. That's a video problem not related to playback, but I've never seen it before. 

twaddle
Is this all happening on the same machine that you had 8.5 installed on or is it a new machine ?
If it's the same on do you still have 8.5 installed ? I t might be useful to reinstall it as it can quite hapilly
coexist with X3. Just so you can check that it runs okay in 8.5 and compare all your settings.
 
 
Steve

8.5 is uninstalled, and I gave it to someone. I can get it back, but would rather not go to all that if not necessary.

Uh - FYI, you are actually not allowed to transfer a product license to another person, per the licensing terms.
 
1.  If the settings you listed are used when you are doing recording, then your ASIO Buffer Size is WAY too high.  The ASIO Buffer Size for recording should be set somewhere around 128, as a reasonable balance.  (you can adjust it, but if it is too high or too low, you can experience dropouts and such - 128 is a good starting point).  
 
Please note that I mention 'during recording' for the setting recommendation of 128, because your latency needs to be low enough to allow tracking (recording) without any 'lag' between when you play a note and when you hear it back.  
 
When you are all finished and move on to mixing and mastering, your ASIO Buffer Size will need to be set much higher (perhaps to that 1024 value), so that mixing/master plugins can be used.  They require a much larger buffer to do things like 'look-ahead' processing, where they scan ahead of what is playing, in order to apply their particular effects.  This holds true for effects such as Perfect Space, LP-64 EQ, and Boost 11.
 
2.  The Sonar-reported Total Roundtrip Latency is displayed in Edit>Preferences>AUdio>Driver Settings, along with some input and output latency values.  You want to try to get things adjusted to where your Total Roundtrip Latency value is down to around 10 milliseconds, or just under that.  The combination of a Sample Rate of either 48 k, an ASIO Buffer Size of 128, and a Record Bit-Depth of 24 bits should get you down around that 10 ms target.  Those settings are what I run, and my Total Roundtrip Latency runs at a little less than 10 ms.  I have ZERO dropouts and no crackles with those settings.
 
You report using a Sample Rate of 44.1 k, which is also fine, ASIO Driver Mode, and a record bit-depth of 16 bits, so if you set your ASIO Buffer Size to 128, you should actually end up with an even lower Total Roundtrip Latency value reported by Sonar, and with that low of a latency, that should go a LONG way to getting rid of noise and dropouts during recording.  You might even be able to drop your ASIO Buffer Size down to 64, but I would suggest leaving it at 128 for recording - it should be smooth sailing.  You might also might be able to increase your record bit-depth to 24-bits and still hit that 10 ms target on latency.
 
I would urge you to try those settings in a new project, and I suggest running lean on effects at first, so that you can just test out the basic recording/playback without complicating things - and make sure you are getting a nice clean sound, with no dropouts or noise.
 
Bob Bone