"audio dropouts" when playing back at 88.2/24

[r3writed]

Hello, as the title say i have some problem with playing back recorded signals at 88.2/24 . Few day ago i had this band i was recording, and the when recording there was no problem, (was 16 track at once) but when we wanted to hear the first take there was this "audio dropouts" with 1-2 sec dealy sound-no sound-sound-no sound...

Is this a firewire problem? or a pc problem?
I dont have cpu problems thats a sure thing.
Yesterday i called my pc guy to come check but i couldnt redo this, we was listening at the project for 30 min without any problems(dropouts) so he couldnt find a problem.

My pc have 2 g ram and is clocked at 4.1 Ghz .All i know about it.

He said i could change my c disk with a ssd 128g, cause my c disk is a bit small, i have 8 g left, and 50g on my storage disk left...

What u think? what is making this problem?

 

[r3writed]

btw, it came to my mind i could increase the latency, maybe that was cousing the problem...

the buffer sise is at 502 i think, that the max until my pc get some kind of crash, i have around 8+ ms output dealy..what is ur setup on latency?

 

[TascMan]

This could be SO MANY things. 2GB on a 4.1Ghz should be fine. Tha's all Ive been running and my last project had a song with at least 35 tracks with VSTs on everything. Your pc guy was probably thinking that your Hard drive transfer speed might be in the older range. A good SATA based hard drive should be fine. The SSDs really are really great, but expensive, at least as compared to a 500GB 7200RPM Hard drive with a SATA connection, running into a decent motherboard.
The fact that your guy came later, and you had no problems, tells me that you probably shutdown the pc and restarted it before he came. The would clear out the RAM and anything else that might be hanging out, causing a bottleneck somewhere in the wings.
I would probably first try to do an "msconfig" to see what little mini programs are running in the background at startup that might be causing your computer to stumble. Just google "msconfig procedure windows (whatever you have)" and read it and follow directions. Get rid of any crap that might be running that you don't recognise. Now go to your "control panel", and click on "program"s to bring up a list of installed programs. Look it over carefully. If your see anything you don't reconize, double click it to uninstall.
Then, go to "prograns", "accessories", "system tools" and run "disc cleanup". This will clear out a lot of stuff that you very likely don't need. Unless you have something in your trash that you want to keep, go ahead and check everything to be deleted. Next, run "Malwarebytes". If you don't have it, it's a free program to download from malwarebytes.org. When that's done, run a disk defrag.......Open "My computer", right click on your main drive, go down to "properties" and click on it. Now find the "tools" tab, go down to "defragmentation", select your main drive from the list and do a defrag. When this is done, if you are still having problems, look into buffer sizer issues. But at least you will have a clean computer!

 

[r3writed]

thnx for the quick and large answer, i will surely do all u mentioned, didnt do any of that for a long time. What a obout my buffer sise? is it ok? i get around 5 audio drop outs at 572 buffer sise if i remember correctly. what would be the right amount ?

 

[TascMan]

I am away from home right now, but I think I remember my tascam driver showing 256 maybe? I think it was set to safe setting 1, or something like that. But it is different from one computer to the next.
If it helps you get an idea where I am on the PC side of things, I am running windows 7, 32bit, 4gigs of ram (which only shows up as three gigs due to windows limitation in 32bit) on an asus MB, a Core 2 quad core (Q6600 I think) and, maybe most important, three 500GB 7200RPM hard drives, all SATA III (Western Digital). I have windows and my program files on one of them, all of my audio projects and music files on the second one, and backups, as well as my VSTs on the third. I also use a different HD for my working mixes, (primary and secondary) so that the files can move back and forth without bothering the hard drive with my DAW on it, should it need to access something else at the same time. Everything is backuped up (projects mainly) to an external 1TB drive on my network, via USB2. This setup is getting older, but still has been great.
Nevertheless, I would start with a cleanout. Changing your buffer size or replacing your hard drives now because of a slow computer filled with trash is like replacing your compact sedan with a pickup truck because of all the left over McDonald wrappers and garbage in it. Get rid of the trash first, defragment your drive, (similar to reorganizing your files in an office) then decide if you need to change buffer sizes.
Go from there. Try reorganizing where your DAW program is vs were your working mix files and VSTs go. Also, Malwarebytes does some pretty amazing stuff to these crappy little programs you can pick up unintentionally from the internet.

 

[captdan]

Excellent advice, TascMan. A 'dirty' PC is an unstable PC. Along with all those important fixes, I'd also suggest performing every single optimization routine the DAW manufacturers suggest. Steinberg and Avid provide details for setting up an audio-only Win7PC, and I"m sure so do all the other companies.

Personal experience: with my older Intel6300 Core Duo, SATAII drive, etc. running Protools 10, I have to set my buffer at 1024 and the Firewire system in Safe Mode1. Even still - occasionally - I'll get playback dropouts at 96kz. However, those usually occur when too many plugins are incorporated into too many transport repeat plays. Sooner or later, something mucks up the works.

That said, I need to go back into my MsConfig file and see if something's creeped in. Even though I keep all my network/Internet hardware disabled, you never know what's lurking in the background until you look.

CaptDan