Greetings All,
Is anyone experiencing more drop-outs with X3d?
 
I opened an X1/X2 project and it started, now the project in X3d is doing it.
 
I get the tiny black box inside the Now Time box that says "Drop Out" and the project stops playing.
 
This same project played fine before I opened the older project.
 
I've rebooted (both soft and hard boot) numerous times, and it doesn't help.
Also tried disabling the network connection and AV (Windows Defender). Both of which were fine before...
 
Nothing unnecessary in msconfig/start-up...
 
Any suggestions?
 
Thanks,
MG

The first thing I would check with drop-out is ASIO/IO buffers. Have you verified they are what you had in X2 (or maybe one step higher)?
 
When I open older projects, the first thing I will do is save it and add an X3 in the name. I have seen posts off and on about older projects in newer versions but not experienced this first-hand yet. Have you tried that?
 
[below may not be applicable to your situation at all, is more me babbling at work arounds]
Many suggest opening projects in safe mode (shft-double click in Windows Explorer) to find a potential problematic plug-in. Depending how far along that project is, continuing it in X2 may be warranted if it functions fine there. Another (last) option is to open it and copy tracks from it into a new project created in X3.

Thank you for the suggestions mettelus.
 
The ASIO buffers for the Lynx Aurora have to run maxed out at 1024 to run all the plugins, so yes, I already had it up there. (X2 had the same requirements.)
 
I really like the idea of adding "X3" to older project names - I will do that in the future, thank you!
 
The "safe mode" start up is also a good idea, and I may try that one. That one is new to me - I did not know you could do that. (I usually disable or bypass plugins, save the project, then save and re-open the project, enabling plugins one by one.)
 
Which - I had a couple of heavy hitters in the master bus, so things eased up when they were disabled, but the static
eventually came back. (This was a by-product of the drop-out. Concurrent restarts of the project exhibited bad digital static...)
 
What I cannot figure out is in watching the CPU monitor of all the cores, the first one is running hotter than the rest (typical for Windows 7 x64), but it is only at 50-60%... no indication of a CPU overload condition.
 
Again - everything was fine with the newer "All-X3" project before, and now I have issues...
 
I'll keep looking - and try your safe mode suggestion.
 
Thanks again,
MG

As much frustration as I have had with SONAR X series, DROPOUTS are not one of them.
 
Yes, safe mode will let you see if there is a plugin/synth issue taking your CPU. I also see my primary core with about 60% more processing compared to the others. I also see that it looks like there is more crunching going on with X3 than my use of X2. I don't know if that is because of the VST3 support or not. That is primarily the only usage difference in my workflow compared to X2, which wasn't stellar in my thoughts.

1024 buffer size should perform without any issues. Also, if your computer is tethered to the INET, disable the AV program and possibly INET access and see if that makes a difference or not.  There are alos some extra buffer settings you can change in the initialization file. That may help too.
 

I had dropouts due to my wireless NIC card on my laptop.  I noted the dropouts to be rather regular - as in every few minutes.  So I tracked it down to the wireless card.  Now when I use Cakewalk I shut off the wireless card (its a slider switch on my Lenovo T61).  No more dropouts. 
 
Maybe your wireless card is causing a similar problem?
 
On another computer, I also saw dropouts because of the Asus Suite AI program that was running.  Its the program for my motherboard that helps with overclocking and system status (fan speed, CPU speed, etc).  I disabled that on startup and my dropout stopped.  Off topic, but the AI Suite was also causing Microsoft Flight Simulator to run strangely and have funky graphics.  Once I disabled the AI Suite, Flight Simulator returned to normal.  Strange..

Gobbler causes me drops is outs . I have to pause or close Gobbler to be able to work. Gobbler pegs my Hard drives.

It is easy to work around once you know what is causing the problem.

I'm turning out to be a big Gobbler fan.

Musicians are now checking out high quality bounces. Engineers are checking out my projects. It is really cool!

Thank you all for your help.
 
gswitz - I'm digging the Gobbler integration too. Though, early on I dialed up the throttle, and it clashed with X3, so I dialed it back and all is well.
 
I'm still not sure what was going on in X3 to make it drop out and give me the digital static,
but the issue settled down long enough to export a client's project without artifacts.
 
I'm starting to think it's either the VST3 plugins, or the iLok (which gave me an occasional pop-up window stating something about moving it to other PC's, even though it's been here the whole time - in the same USB slot).
 
The issue has subsided for now, though I really have no idea why...
 
Cheers,
MG

The first thing I do when I have this type of issue is exit Gobbler. I've been stable on my computers for years, and I can open task manager and see my audio drive pegged. This is probably exaggerated for me because my projects are often extremely long. Anyway, like even burning CDs can be an issue. I'll be burning a disc and what usually takes a couple of minutes is taking ten and I notice Gobbler pegging my drive.
 
I've tried adjusting the settings in Gobbler, but for me I keep having to pause it. There's a setting that keeps it from using too much CPU, but I have tons of CPU. It's my drive the bottlenecks.
 
I want to add that I'm a pretty huge Gobbler fan. I've been sending entire 20 GB projects to people. I've sent oodles of mixes (24 bit and 16). I'm really having a wonderful time sharing using Gobbler.
 
I find the biggest drag is getting my friends to reduce their paranoia enough to create Gobbler accts. They only reason they need to create them is so that Gobbler can know who they are when they download them. It makes it so the links aren't forwardable (which I LOVE).

gswitzI've tried adjusting the settings in Gobbler, but for me I keep having to pause it. There's a setting that keeps it from using too much CPU, but I have tons of CPU. It's my drive the bottlenecks.

This is it exactly. The "throttle" Gobbler uses is only for CPU.  The hard drive access is the one that I found creates problems for me with even the lowest setting in Gobbler and projects with 40+ tracks.  They need a throttle that includes HD access, or some way to easily pause or schedule backups for only user-defined off hours.  I plan to contact Gobbler about this.  Hopefully others will do the same to lend some weight to the request.

Thanks for the info on Gobbler guys, but I had it off.
 
Not only off - totally disabled so it did not start on Windows start up...
 
I'm thinking VST3 issue, but since disabling all of the plugins, saving, closing and then restarting the project, then re-enabling the plugins FX bin by FX bin, the issue hasn't returned...
 
It's classified as "unknown" for now as I continue on with client's projects.
 
Thank you for your input,
MG