SOLVED: Short fast audio drop outs

[Screaming For Attention]

I just got a new recording computer build just for recording, windows 10 home with an apollo 8x interface,  and have updated versions of everything. As I am adding more plugins I am getting one second audio drop out more and more but it doesn't appear to be the CPU. Even when nothing is playing it still does it as you can hear the static of hiss from the signals drop in and out. If I shut Cakewalk down the hiss coming over ht the monitors long longer drops in and out. I will paypal anyone who solves this problem $100. Here is a fast video I made to show the  issue. I cannot do screen grab recording on Cakewalk so I had to use a video camera, apologies.

 

SOLVED. It was the Arturia Analog Lab V plugin, as well as other Waves synth plugins causing this issue.

SOLUTION from Sock Monkey: Options are Freezing which then the synth is now an audio track and the synth is off line. The beauty of this is that you can still edit the midi by unfreezing and re freezing when done. 
Option 2 is Export the audio as Wave 48/ 32 which is what Cakewalk uses. To export the track as audio select the track then open the export advance dialogue and choose tracks 

 

 

Thank you,

James

Edited December 28, 2024 by Screaming For Attention
Solution found

[reginaldStjohn]

Are you sure it is not a plug in in demo mode that needs to be authorized?  Those will make short noises occasionally.,

[Screaming For Attention]

2 hours ago, reginaldStjohn said:

Are you sure it is not a plug in in demo mode that needs to be authorized?  Those will make short noises occasionally.,

Yes, that is Waves, they will have that for sure in demo mode, but no it is not Waves, and it happens when the DAW is on but not playing anything.

[Sock Monkey]

Trouble shooting 101. 
The process of elimination. 
You don’t mention if you  get that cut out if you open a blank project? 
When at the end you say you shut Cakewalk down what do you mean? I can still see it in the background! Are you disabling the audio engine? 

What happens if you bypass all effects? 
That’s a pretty bad noise floor! 
Did you optimize the new computer for audio, Run the Resplendence Latency monitor and Why So Slow? 
 

[Sock Monkey]

Thinking about this because it seems to be cutting out all the sound then this would have to be an effect on the master bus. Or something shutting down the audio engine. 
Your video is not clear enough to see if the audio engine is cut out. 
 

You can use OBS free screen recording software to capture this clearly. 

[Screaming For Attention]

3 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

Trouble shooting 101. 
The process of elimination. 
You don’t mention if you  get that cut out if you open a blank project? 
When at the end you say you shut Cakewalk down what do you mean? I can still see it in the background! Are you disabling the audio engine? 

What happens if you bypass all effects? 
That’s a pretty bad noise floor! 
Did you optimize the new computer for audio, Run the Resplendence Latency monitor and Why So Slow? 
 

Hey Sock, thank you for helping. Sorry for not clarifying, I mean that I have Cakewalk open, but not playing any tracks. The static is from some of the tape plugins that give off that old hiss sound. That is the Arturia Tape J-37, and one of the presets screams with static hiss.  I also cranked the monitors up so it could be heard better for the cutting in and out.

That is a great idea to start out with a fresh track and see. I have a new track open right now with just the J-37 on the fuzzy preset and it has not done it at all in the 5 minute since i opened it. I am going to keep adding the same plugins that i have been using to see if it is one of them. I think it might be a combination of a lot of plugins and the audio, but I don't know yet.

If i bypass the effects it does not seem to stop it. I have hit the freeze on some of the tracks to see if that would work and it has not.

I did what i knew to do from videos and the forum to optimize for audio and i downloaded LatencyMon to scan and it says it is fine. It says system should be running fine with no audio dropouts.

 

I don't know if the audio engine has been disabled, i am checking now. I do get audio dropout messages and they have a 13 after them.  Here is what it says.

 

 

buffer set at 512

[Screaming For Attention]

8 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

Thinking about this because it seems to be cutting out all the sound then this would have to be an effect on the master bus. Or something shutting down the audio engine. 
Your video is not clear enough to see if the audio engine is cut out. 
 

You can use OBS free screen recording software to capture this clearly. 

Awesome, yes, it sucked that I could not use the xbox recorder on windows for cakewalk. I just downloaded the OBS and i am watching a video on how to set it up to record. Thank you.

[Sock Monkey]

That message seems to be implying that while you are running Cakewalk another app is accessing the Audio driver. This is normally fine for me unless that app is using 44.1. I only use 48 because Video is 48.  But defiantly when your interface changes Sample rate it will shut off the audio engine.  

Make sure you didn't have any other audio apps running. 

I because I do use OBS and screencapture I only use 48 as well as everything is set to not have exclusive access to the driver. I can run Sonar/Cakewalk or any Daw while recording in OSB as well as playing music on Media player. The music is 48 too. I can also run You Tubes with Sonar running. But if I accidentally play a 44.1 music file the audio engine will cut out.  But your cut out sounds like a plug in to me. The audio engine makes a loud/ quiet pop normally. 

May I ask why you would want to add tape hiss to a recording?? seems counterproductive? I've spent a lot of money over the years to get rid of stuff like that! 

Edited December 27, 2024 by Sock Monkey

[Mr No Name]

if you are going to add tape hiss make sure the hiss the the very last thing on the master bus, like as if you were recording to tape, if you are using any compressors or limiters after tape hiss it will amplify the hiss,  a tape machine was always very last thing in the chain of recording.

[Max Arwood]

A plugin on the main bus has not been authorized. You do not have to to be playing a song for the Plugin to silence.  

Edited December 27, 2024 by Max Arwood

[Max Arwood]

You should also push the audio extremely high into the tape input. This will reduce the noise. This is also the way an engineer would have used it back in the day.  

Edited December 27, 2024 by Max Arwood
Took out some beee 😝

[Mr No Name]

I think we both solved it there Max, $50 each.

[Max Arwood]

15 minutes ago, Mr No Name said:

I think we both solved it there Max, $50 each.

I’m always curious type. I just wanna know what the plug-in was that caused the silence??

[Mr No Name]

I should have watched the video first. I think he's having us on 😄

[Screaming For Attention]

9 hours ago, Sock Monkey said:

That message seems to be implying that while you are running Cakewalk another app is accessing the Audio driver. This is normally fine for me unless that app is using 44.1. I only use 48 because Video is 48.  But defiantly when your interface changes Sample rate it will shut off the audio engine.  

Make sure you didn't have any other audio apps running. 

I because I do use OBS and screencapture I only use 48 as well as everything is set to not have exclusive access to the driver. I can run Sonar/Cakewalk or any Daw while recording in OSB as well as playing music on Media player. The music is 48 too. I can also run You Tubes with Sonar running. But if I accidentally play a 44.1 music file the audio engine will cut out.  But your cut out sounds like a plug in to me. The audio engine makes a loud/ quiet pop normally. 

May I ask why you would want to add tape hiss to a recording?? seems counterproductive? I've spent a lot of money over the years to get rid of stuff like that! 

This is all good stuff, thank you for putting the time in to help.

I don't use the tape his preset with the hiss in any songs, and I am not sure why the plugin comes with a preset that is so fuzzy. In fact, I am getting ready to spend a lot of money to make it stop.😄  I just chose the tape his preset to increase the hiss to the fullest amount so that it could be heard on my video. I needed the loud hiss so that you could tell more clearly when the drop outs came along.

I am not a techy so I have to read the comments here and then search online to see what that all means. I do understand something else running would also use the audio driver, I just don't know what that would be. I only have cakewalk open when i record as i am in the habit of turning everything off to save CPU. Those quick silent clips happen at irregular intervals and not on a specific timing, but always around 5 to 10 seconds apart, sometimes the song will play for 20 or 30 seconds with nothing but then it starts again.

I think it is either one of the plugins, or it is the sample rate somewhere that is not in sync with something else. The 44.1 vs 48 sounds like something that is effecting my computer. I will have to check that out. It's looks like it is an audio engine thing going on.

[Screaming For Attention]

6 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

I’m always curious type. I just wanna know what the plug-in was that caused the silence??

Thank you both for jumping in on this. I am going to save this song as in a file called "test" and I am going to start deleting the plugins one at a time and then closing out and restarting to see if i can figure out which one it is. I also am then going to see what Sock was saying about the other audio running somewhere is not an issue. I feel like I have to figure out if it is something going on INSIDE cakewalk that is causing it, or something outside cakewalk that is causing it, but only happens when cakwalk is on. The other question I have is would a plugin cause this silence spots to happen, even with no tracks playing?

for the $100, i think it goes to whomever finds what it is or sugguests what lead to it being solved. and if two people at the same time post the same thing that fixes it, you both get a $100. 😄

[Screaming For Attention]

As a bonus, and because it is the holidays, I will give an extra $50 to anyone who guesses which plugin it is that causes the trouble, if it is indeed the case. Now I know you can't see the full name of the plugin, you will just have to guess which one based on what you can see. I looked to see if there was a way to have the list of all the plugins being used on a project but i cant find where to make that list. Here is every plugin used on every track, and yes so are used twice on several tracks.

[Sock Monkey]

You’re really the only one who can troubleshoot the problem because we would need the project and all of those weird plug ins you are using. I have over 400 plug ins and I don’t recognize anything there.😬

So first thing you try is you bypass all Effect in the Control bar module. 
If the cutting out stops it is a plug in. 
Now start turning them on / off until you find the offending plug in. 
 

From what you’ve said now  I doubt it s outside of Cakewalk. Those tips are just to rule out other factors that are known to cause drop outs. A drop out is much more obvious. 

[Screaming For Attention]

11 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

You’re really the only one who can troubleshoot the problem because we would need the project and all of those weird plug ins you are using. I have over 400 plug ins and I don’t recognize anything there.😬

So first thing you try is you bypass all Effect in the Control bar module. 
If the cutting out stops it is a plug in. 
Now start turning them on / off until you find the offending plug in. 
 

From what you’ve said now  I doubt it s outside of Cakewalk. Those tips are just to rule out other factors that are known to cause drop outs. A drop out is much more obvious. 

Yes, I was more just thinking of someone just guessing at one of the plugins, just to make it a little more interesting. I didn't think to send the file to someone to figure it out. Just a random pick to see if the guess was right. I think I am going to delete the plugin one at a time off the project in each of the areas where it is used on a track and then restart the program and play to see if the silent spots stop entirely. I hope it is as easy and this process of elimination but from my 20 years of cakewalk (my first program was Pro Tracks Plus that came with the Digitech GNX4 guitar pedal) I have this feeling that it is going to be a case where it is a plug in, or the brand of plugins, that cause something  to happen, but only under certain conditions, such as if you use to plugins together with say a synth plugin, so combination of things.

[pwalpwal]

2 hours ago, Screaming For Attention said:

I will give an extra $50 to anyone who guesses which plugin it is that causes the trouble

all-tec eqs 2