Nothing but dropouts

[Mark Oakley]

I'm about ready to pack it in with Cakewalk.

I've been working with Cakewalk for 2 1/2 months now, and there are still days (like today) where the program won't run for more than 2-3 seconds without dropping out. I’ve been through the optimization process outlined the Cakewalk manual several times now. All Dell Update services (that came with the computer) have been disabled or removed. Windows Update has been shut down. Whether I'm on the Internet or on Airplane mode doesn't seem to make a difference. Waves Soundgrid driver Latency is set to max: 1024. 

I occasionally have a problem with latency spiking in the Soundgrid drivers, and I'm working with Waves on that (see pictures 1-2). Other times Latency Mon says there is no problem, and dropouts still happen, sometimes with less than a second of run-time (see pictures 3-4).

The interesting thing is that Waves Tracks Live will run fine on the same setup. Some of my work includes recording live bands (24-36 tracks for 3-4 hours) and Tracks Live never experiences dropouts. I can’t use Cakewalk for this-it may run fine for 2 hours or it may dropout in 5 seconds.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

-thanks, Mark

 

     

Edited March 18, 2019 by Mark Oakley

[Gswitz]

Good start with latency monitor. So, it always shows green now? Or sometimes is red.

If sometimes red, look at the dll tab for why.

Sort descending.

If yes, always green now, then make sure your virus scanner isn't scanning wav files. If not an ssd drive you could be pushing io constraints, especially if files just saved on stop start being scanned. If first shot always works and second is iffy, doubt your virus scanner that might be scanning your new waves while you also record. 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Gswitz

[Mark Oakley]

Hi Gswitz:

 Thanks for the reply. When you say "the dll tab" are you referring to the first column in the Latency Mon Drivers page: Driver file?  The only virus scanner I have running is Windows Defender.  I have a 256 SSD as my C drive and a 1 Tb 7200 SATA for data.  Indexing is turned off for both drives. The problem is that I get dropouts even when Latency Mon says everything is normal, red or green.

-Mark

Edited March 18, 2019 by Mark Oakley

[scook]

This does not link to an optimization process

2 hours ago, Mark Oakley said:

optimization process

 

[Noel Borthwick]

What audio driver mode are you using? 
If you are recording 36 tracks of audio you will want to ensure that your drive performance is good since you may be dropping out due to disk issues.

[John Vere]

forget it.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Cactus Music

[Mark Oakley]

2 hours ago, scook said:

This does not link to an optimization process

 

Hi scook:

Thanks-I should have checked the link before posting. Fixed now.

-Mark

[Noel Borthwick]

I assume that you have already tried playing with the playback and record buffer sizes in  Audio - Sync and Caching?
Googling that laptop shows some people had thermal issues with it. Is it possible you are overheating that that it is going into some sort of thermal throttling?

 

[Mark Oakley]

4 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

What audio driver mode are you using? 
If you are recording 36 tracks of audio you will want to ensure that your drive performance is good since you may be dropping out due to disk issues.

Hi Noel:

Wow-thanks for replying. I should first mention that I've been recording for the last 18 years on a Roland VS-2480. Great machine, really reliable, done tons of projects on it but I wanted to upgrade and have never had to optimize a PC for audio before.

I'm using AISO mode, with Waves Soundgrid AISO drivers. Latency is set to 1024. Cakewalk lives on the 256Gb SSD drive, and all audio goes to the 1 Tb 7200 SATA drive. Latency Mon says that problem is either SoundgridProtocol.sys or (the dreaded) ndis.sys. Audio comes in through the Ethernet port, so I can't shut down either of these drivers. Do you have any links you can point me towards for tuning drive performance?

In terms of overheating, Cakewalk will drop out as soon as the computer is up and running (ie: cold). I don't have any kind of overclocking enabled on this unit. If anything it will slightly stabilize after being on for 30-60 minutes or (for example-today) not.

I'll say it again: I find it strange that Tracks Live works fine but Cakewalk drops out constantly.

-thanks, Mark

Edited March 19, 2019 by Mark Oakley

[Noel Borthwick]

Laptops are always tricky to configure and doing 32 tracks live requires stable performance. On a factory laptop like that I'm not sure there is much you can do to fine tune. Based on the specs it seems like recording 32 tracks of 24 bit audio shouldn't tax the CPU much at all. If its dropping out chances are high its something else besides CPU use leading to the dropout. Would be hard for me to say without running an instrumented build.

The tracks Live app doesn't do much more than recording and is likely optimized for recording with the waves grid so it doesn't surprise me that its more fault tolerant with their system. Since networking drivers are at play as well there are more moving parts. Have you tried any other full blown DAW's on that system yet?

I don't know much about WavesGrid. Is there any way to test recording the system without using it networked?

 

[Gswitz]

Does Latency monitor say you're good for real-time audio when you leave it running for 4 hours?

 

 

[Starship Krupa]

Couple of suggestions:

I quieted NDIS.SYS way down on my Dell tower by rolling back to the previous network driver. It was spiking all over the place according to Latency Monitor, then I rolled it back one revision and poof!

Also, for troubleshooting, Resource Monitor is a great tool for figuring out what is going on with your system. You can start it up by running Task Manager, then clicking on the Performance tab, then down at the bottom there will be a button for starting Resource Monitor.

It will allow you to see what process is doing what to each disk and each file, what is using memory, network activity, etc. I used it to find out that Windows Defender was scanning my audio files as they were being streamed from the disk, which prompted me to figure out how to put a stop to that silliness.

[Noel Borthwick]

@Daniel Vrangsinn and @Bartosz Gajdarskican you please send me a link to a project including the audio folder that we can use to repro this? Zip the folder and upload it to something like Google drive or Dropbox.

Also the dump file from the crash if possible. Most likely there is something corrupt in one of the clips but we should be able to handle the issue once we know what causing it.

[Bartosz Gajdarski]

Hi @Noel Borthwick,

Project itself has nothing do with that, cause it happens with ALL projects that were recorded in different stretching mode and it was changed afterwards in menu. Even when you come back the original stretching method it crashes as if it has some parameter in a project that doesn't fit. I even made a clear project with new stretching mode set and it worked with all new and fresh clips, until I changed stretching mode again. I also noticed, that even changing stretching method in menu, and clicking "Apply", crashes Cakewalk immediately.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Bartosz Gajdarski

[Jim Roseberry]

FWIW, That DPC Latency (although in the Green) isn't particularly low.

You won't be able to work at smaller ASIO buffer sizes with DPC Latency near 300uSec.

 

I'd test the laptop with a different audio interface.

 

You may be encountering an issue with performance-throttling (common with laptops).

CPU load for just recording is relatively low (as Noel mentioned)... so the system may be reducing clock-speed of the CPU (to conserve power and keep temps lower).

Tracks Live may be a more substantial CPU load... thus not triggering performance-throttling.

 

Many laptops (especially off-the-shelf models) don't expose BIOS parameters necessary to prevent performance-throttling.

In this case, there are 3rd-party utilities that you can try (Throttle Stop)... but they may not fully solve the issue.

 

The issue with laptops (especially off-the-shelf) is that they're designed for a MUCH different purpose than being a high-performance workstation.

The typical user (Facebook, Email, light photo editing, etc) won't notice a 4ms hiccup in data flow (high DPC Latency)... whereas for DAW purpose that means an audio dropout.

The typical user is much more concerned with long batter-life vs. maximum performance.

Any type of power-management or performance throttling (necessary for long battery-life and to keep temps down in a tight enclosure) runs contrary to what you're trying to configure in a DAW.

 

That laptop will never be able to effectively work at smaller ASIO buffer sizes... but should function alright at higher ASIO buffer sizes.

I'd borrow/rent an audio interface that's known to be rock-solid (RME would be a great choice)... and check performance.

 

[Craig Anderton]

6 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said:

The typical user is much more concerned with long batter-life vs. maximum performance.

Any type of power-management or performance throttling (necessary for long battery-life and to keep temps down in a tight enclosure) runs contrary to what you're trying to configure in a DAW.

In my experience, the newer the laptop, the more likely the emphasis on battery life. I use an old laptop for my workshops. It's big and generates heat, but it doesn't screw up. OTOH I can't get more than 60 minutes from the battery, even with throttling down the CPU max % when not plugged in, and a dim screen.

[Robert Bone]

Any chance the WiFi transmitter needs to be functionally turned off, or the device disabled?

Also, several years back, I had a laptop that started REALLY spiking latency, and it turned out to have been caused, somehow, by the battery itself going bad.  I literally removed the battery from the laptop, and POOF, instant fix.  I just had to be SUPER careful not to jiggle the power cord, or it would instantly shut off.

Bob Bone