Audio dropping out......

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Audio dropping out......
Topic Started: Feb 22 2008, 03:39 AM (293 Views)
kiddk8	Feb 22 2008, 03:39 AM Post #1
1am Media [Music] [Hippy Freak] Posts: 1,484 Group: Music Department 4* Member #50 Joined: June 13, 2006	Ok so I have a crappy Creative X-Fi Extreme soundcard and I've been having mad audio drop outs while using two different DAW. I found some info and tried everything. I made sure I had no IRQ conflicts... checked the settings for the soundcard in the DAWs.. I even physically moved which slot my soundcard was in. No luck still crazy audio drop out. Which.. does not make it fun to try to work on a song while the playback glitches or disappears. Now most of the time my CPU is usually spiking also. Would that make the audio drop out on only some tracks? The thing that is confusing is that it seems to have gotten WAY worse recently. Point being, I'm going to drop a pretty decent size chunk of cash to fix this insanely annoying problem this year... so I was hoping I could identify the problem a little better prior to buying something that may not help. Another thing that occurred to me is that all my harddrives are very full. They have at least 10% available but I'm wondering if that could be adding to the problem, too. Any info, thoughts or links on the topic would be appreciated. Put in barbarian terms.. it's really pissing me off. Plus it's almost completely crippled my ability to work on anything. Much less anything complex. THANKS
	WINNER: A Trip 2 Heaven Remix Contest WINNER: Hooverdom Remix Contest WINNER: Sand Dance Remix Contest WINNER: L'Art De Chill Remix Contest MySpace \| www.foxxkitsune.net \| kiddk8 at acidplanet "I would cut off my arms to have the reverb sound you use. That however would make my own recording a little difficult." - Russ Krauch in contest comment to PhoeniX


HyperKondriac	Feb 22 2008, 04:51 AM Post #2
Find the White Whale Posts: 60 Group: Members Member #6,668 Joined: January 7, 2008	Wish I could help, let this spider loose in one of your NICS



dj deception	Feb 22 2008, 06:54 AM Post #3
1amMedia (Music) Posts: 83 Group: Music Department Member #2,103 Joined: August 29, 2007	the cpu spikes are part of your problem, the hard drive being full could cause problems but not usually with 10% available. how much ram you have is a big part, thats what transfers the data to the cpu so if you dont have much or much left after windows programs then its gonna glitch. also the speed of your ram is a big part the speed in mhz is the speed it sends the data to the cpu im runnin at 800mhz with dual channel i almost match my cpu. now the cpu spike with a low amount of ram will make the glitches worse because the ram is constantly trying to catch up with the song. the more complex the song the worst it gets. also the more programs you install will take up more ram at start up things you can try to do is close unneeded programs in your start menu the right side of the start bar and if you know programs that you wont be using while making music you can try ctrl+alt+del go to processes and end processes that you wont be using beware with this though only stop thing you know or you can make the system unstable. once you restart all these thing will reboot too. another thing to try is to record the line and use it as a loop that way it wont hog so much of your cpu. i know in ableton you can record your midi tracks on to a audio track to save your cpu. i hope this helps a little it sounds like you are goin through what i went through but i decided to build a whole new computer from the ground up built for music 3.0ghz dual core intel processor, 3gb ram , windows vista, soundMax HD soundcard with optical outputs and dts decoder, ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus LGA 775 motherboard cost just under $800 with windows vista. so if you know how to build one you can get it a lot cheaper if you need help picking out parts if you decide to pm me



PhoeniX	Feb 22 2008, 08:43 AM Post #4
is giving very serious thought to eating Hannibal Lecter's wife Posts: 3,779 Group: Administrator Member #1 Joined: February 1, 2006	The CPU spikes are usually the reason why the audio drops out. I've had this problem even on my 2 gig rig, while running multiple instances of Guitar Rig 2 and Slayer 2 and ofcourse other things. Sometimes the problem occurs even while rendering. The render will miss out on a complete guitar section or another track. Better processor + more RAM is the only solution for these things. Also, people usually tend to hold the notion that more RAM will enhance speed. It's untrue. RAM is only a scratch pad. It's when it gets full that it gives a problem. You need a faster processor too to utilize the max power of your RAM in the first place. The low hard disk space SHOULD NOT give a problem unless and until you initially mentioned a Windows Paging File size greater than what you have available now. In that case, yes, the lower the available space on the HDD, the lower the performance. This will sound utterly obvious, but have you tried increasing the audio buffer size in your DAW to somewhere around let's say... 150-200 ms?
	Personal Channels: Portfolio \| Blog \| Music Friends' Channels: AxEast and his funky MySpace \| Pero


CJV	Feb 22 2008, 11:48 AM Post #5
Psyhead/Tech head Posts: 2,117 Group: Music Department * Member #26 Joined: March 28, 2006	PhoeniX This will sound utterly obvious, but have you tried increasing the audio buffer size in your DAW to somewhere around let's say... 150-200 ms? Who can work with it under 100 in the first place?
	WINNER: Hooverdom Remix Contest AcidPlanet \| deviantArt \| Myspace


kiddk8	Feb 23 2008, 04:20 AM Post #6
1am Media [Music] [Hippy Freak] Posts: 1,484 Group: Music Department 4* Member #50 Joined: June 13, 2006	Very educational and helpful thoughts - THANKS. The spider in the pants was brilliant (didn't help the problem but it was fun). I have 1 gig of RAM and the meters for RAM in the various DAW's rarely reports that I'm using more than 150 or 200 out of 1000. The speed of the RAM though I hadn't considered. Probably slow because it's that cheap Best Buy discontinued crap lol. On the programs.. I checked through and I have about 252 programs installed on this machine not counting things that aren't standalone but required installation like some VST's, plugins, etc. So.. judging from you guys' helpful comments... I think it's a wonder that I haven't had problems sooner I see a barebones kit in my future. It's almost a certainty since a big *** heatsink that seemed like it was glued to the motherboard just fell off while I was moving the soundcard haha And yeah DJD I will probably be taking you up on the offer to make suggestions. I'm going to save the money first though. I may just leave this one together to act as a server for all these harddrives I've got all over the place Also I raised the audio buffer, but I will probably experiment around with that some more to try to commence work until I can afford to put together a different system. Thanks again for the helpful comments.
	WINNER: A Trip 2 Heaven Remix Contest WINNER: Hooverdom Remix Contest WINNER: Sand Dance Remix Contest WINNER: L'Art De Chill Remix Contest MySpace \| www.foxxkitsune.net \| kiddk8 at acidplanet "I would cut off my arms to have the reverb sound you use. That however would make my own recording a little difficult." - Russ Krauch in contest comment to PhoeniX


dj deception	Feb 23 2008, 06:18 AM Post #7
1amMedia (Music) Posts: 83 Group: Music Department Member #2,103 Joined: August 29, 2007	the daw showing that it is using no more then 150 to 200 out of 1000 is just what that is using not including what windows is using and any other programs you have open. windows is kind of a memory hog and if you have fl studio open or ableton or whatever that is also saved in your ram. also anything you have open since your last reboot is saved in the cache of the ram and wont be cleared until your next reboot which can lag down your system i dont know what your running so its kinda hard to judge.



PhoeniX	Feb 23 2008, 07:03 AM Post #8
is giving very serious thought to eating Hannibal Lecter's wife Posts: 3,779 Group: Administrator Member #1 Joined: February 1, 2006	kiddk8 Also I raised the audio buffer, but I will probably experiment around with that some more to try to commence work until I can afford to put together a different system. One thing about increasing the buffer length - The monitor's dB readings will be inaccurate and not in realtime. So it's just you and your ears after that.
	Personal Channels: Portfolio \| Blog \| Music Friends' Channels: AxEast and his funky MySpace \| Pero


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